as was ordained and have served him loyally for the greater glory of Japan. From the ruins of Yokohama I helped rebuild Toda Snipping Industries into one of Japan’s greatest firms, constructing great ships, inventing the supertankers, bigger every year - soon the keel of the first million-tonner to be laid. Now our ships are everywhere, carrying bulk raw materials into Japan and finished goods out. We Japanese are rightly the wonder of the world. But, oh, so vulnerable - we must have oil or we perish. Out of one of the windows he noticed a tanker steaming up the Gulf, another going toward Hormuz. The bridge continues, he thought. At least one tanker every hundred miles all the way from here to Japan, day in day out, to feed our factories without which we starve. All OPEC knows it, they’re gouging us and gloating. Like today. Today it took all my willpower to pretend outward calm dealing with that… that odious Frenchman, stinking of garlic and that revolting, stinking, oozing vomit mess called Brie, blatantly demanding $2.80 over and above the already outrageous $14.80, and me, of ancient samurai lineage, having to haggle with him like a Hong Kong Chinese. “But, M’sieur de Plessey, surely you must see that at that price, plus freight an - ”
“So sorry, m’sieur, but I have my instructions. As agreed the 3 million barrels of Siri oil are on offer to you first. ExTex have asked for a quote and so have four other majors. If you wish to change your mind…” “No, but the contract specifies ‘the current OPEC price’ and w - ” “Yes, but you surely know that all OPEC suppliers are charging a premium. Don’t forget the Saudis plan to cut back production this month, that last week all the majors ordered another sweeping wave of force majeure cutbacks, that Libya’s cutting her production too. BP’s increased its cutback to 45 percent….”
Kasigi wanted to bellow with rage as he remembered that when at length he had agreed, provided he could have all 3 million barrels at the same price, the Frenchman had smiled sweetly and said, “Certainly, provided you load within seven days,” both of them knowing it was impossible. Knowing too that a Romanian state delegation was presently in Kuwait seeking 3 million tons of crude, let alone 3 million barrels, to compensate for the cutoff of their own Iranian supplies that came to them through the Iran-Soviet pipelines. And that there were other buyers, dozens of them, waiting to take over his Siri option and all his other options - for oil, liquid natural gas, naphtha, and other petrochemicals.
“Very well, $17.60 a barrel,” Kasigi had said agreeably. But inside he swore to even the score somehow.
“For this one tanker, m’sieur.”
“Of course for this tanker,” he had said even more agreeably. And now this Australian pilot whispers to me that even this one tanker may not be safe. This strange old man, far too old to be flying yet so skilled, so knowledgeable, so open, and so foolish - foolish to be so open, for then you put yourself into another’s power.
He looked back at Scragger. “You said we could make a peace maybe in time. We both ran out of time today - but for your skill, and luck, though we call that karma. I truly don’t know how much time we have. Perhaps my ship is blown up tomorrow. I will be aboard her.” He shrugged. “Karma. But let us be friends, just you and I - I don’t think we betray our war comrades, yours and mine.” He put out his hand. “Please.”
Scragger looked at the hand. Kasigi willed himself to wait. Then Scragger conceded, half nodded and shook the hand firmly. “Okay, sport, let’s give it a go.”
At that moment he saw Vossi turn and beckon him. At once Scragger went forward to the cockpit. “Yes, Ed?”
“There’s a CASEVAC, Scrag, from Siri Three. One of the deck crew’s fallen overboard….”
They went at once. The body was floating near the legs of the rig. They winched it aboard. Sharks had already fed on the lower limbs and one arm was missing. The head and face were badly bruised and curiously disfigured. It had been Abdollah Turik.
Chapter 6
NEAR BANDAR DELAM: 4:52 P.M. Shadows were lengthening. Beyond the road the land was scrubby, and beyond that stony foothills rose to snowcapped mountains - the northern end of the Zagros. This side, beside the stream and marshes that led at length to the port a few miles away, was one of the numerous oil pipelines that crisscrossed this whole area. The pipeline was steel, twenty inches in diameter, and set on a concrete trestle that led down into a culvert under the road, then went underground. A mile or so to the east was a village - lowlying, dust-covered, earth-colored, made from mud bricks - and coming from that direction was a small car. It was old and battered and traveled slowly, the engine sounding good, too good for the body.
In the car were four Iranians. They were young and cleanshaven and better dressed than usual, though all were sweat stained and very nervous. Near the culvert the car stopped. One young man wearing glasses got out from the front seat and pretended to urinate on the side of the road, his eyes searching all around.
“It’s all clear,” he said.
At once the two youths in the back came out swiftly, a rough, heavy bag between them, and ducked down the dirt embankment into the culvert. The young man with glasses fastened his buttons, then casually went to the trunk of the car and opened it. Under a piece of torn canvas he saw the snub nose of the Czech-made machine pistol. A little of his nervousness left him. The driver got out and urinated into the ditch, his stream strong. “I wanted to, Mashoud, but couldn’t,” the youth with glasses said, envying him. He wiped the sweat off his face and pushed at his glasses. “I can never do it before an exam,” Mashoud said and laughed. “God grant university will open again soon.”
“God! God’s the opiate of the masses,” the youth with glasses said witheringly, then turned his attention to the road. It was still empty as far as they could see in both directions. South a few miles away, the sun reflected off the waters of the Gulf. He lit a cigarette. His fingers trembled. Time passed very slowly. Flies swarmed, making the silence seem more silent. Then he noticed a dust cloud on the road, the other side of the village. “Look!”
Together they squinted into the distance. “Are they lorries - or trucks, army trucks?” Mashoud said anxiously, then ran to the side of the culvert and shouted, “Hurry up, you two. There’s something coming!” “All right,” a voice called from below.
“We’re almost done,” another voice said.
The two youths in the culvert had the sack open and were already packing the flat bags of explosive haphazardly against the welded steel pipe and along its length. The pipe was covered with a sheath of canvas and pitch to protect it from erosion. “Give me the detonator and fuse, Ali,” the older one said throatily. Both of them were filthy now, the dirt streaked with sweat.
“Here.” Ali handed it to him carefully, his shirt clinging to his skin. “Are you sure you know how to do it, Bijan?”
“We’ve studied the pamphlet for hours. Didn’t we practice doing it with our eyes closed?” Bijan forced a smile. “We’re like Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Just like him.” The other shivered. “I hope the bell’s not tolling for us.” “Even if it does, what does that matter? The party will conquer, and the Masses will have victory.” Bijan’s inexperienced fingers awkwardly jammed the highly volatile, nitroglycerin detonator against one of the explosives, connected one end of the fuse beside it, and piled the last of the bags on top to hold it in place.
Mashoud’s voice called out even more urgently, “Hurry, they’re … we think they’re army trucks with soldiers!”
For a moment both young men were paralyzed, then they unreeled the length of fuse, tripping over each other in their nervousness. Unnoticed, the fuse end near the detonator came away. They laid the ten-foot length along the ground, lit the far end, and took to their heels. Bijan glanced back to check everything, saw that one end was spluttering nicely, and was aghast to notice the other end dangling free. He rushed back, shakily stuffed it near the detonator, slipped, and slammed the detonator against the concrete. The nitroglycerin exploded and blew the bag of explosives next to it and that blew the next and the next and they all went and tore Bijan to pieces with twenty feet of the pipe, blowing off the culvert roof and overturning the car, killing two of the other youths and ripping a leg off the last. Oil began gushing from the pipe. Hundreds of barrels a minute. The oil should have ignited but it did not - the explosives had been wrongly placed and detonated - and by the time the two army trucks had stopped cautiously a hundred yards away, the oil slick had already reached the stream. The lighter oils, gaseous, volatile, floated on the surface, and the heavier crude began to seep into the banks and marshes and soil, making the whole area highly dangerous.
In the two commandeered trucks were some twenty of Khomeini’s Green Bands, most of them bearded, the rest unshaven, all wearing their characteristic armbands - peasants, a few oilfield workers, a PLO-trained leader, and a mullah - all armed, all battle-stained, a few wounded, the uniformed police captain bound and gagged and still alive lying on the floor. They had just attacked and overwhelmed a police station to the north and were now heading into Bandar Delam to continue the war. Their assignment was to help others subdue the civilian airport
