the village, Excellency?” The engineer was a nervous, middle-aged Iranian who watched the mullah uneasily. ‘ “Evacuate the villagers - tell them to leave until it’s safe.” “And if the village catches fire?” Rudi asked. “It catches fire. The Will of God.” “Yes,” Hussain said. “How will you burn it off?” “One match would do most of it. Of course you’d burn up too.” Kyabi thought a moment. “Rudi, you’ve your Very pistol aboard?”
“Yes.” Rudi had insisted on taking the pistol, saying it was essential equipment in case of an emergency. All the pilots had backed him though all knew it was not essential. “With four signal flares. Do yo - ” They all looked into the sky at the scream of approaching jets. Two fighters, low and very fast, slashed over the terrain heading out into the Gulf. Rudi judged their path as leading directly to Kharg. They were attack fighters and he had seen the air-to-ground missiles in their racks. Are the missiles for Kharg Island? he asked himself, a new tightness in his throat. Has the revolution hit there too? Or is it just a routine flight? “What do you think, Rudi? Kharg?” Kyabi asked.
“Kharg’s that way, Boss,” Rudi said, not wanting to be involved. “If so it’d be a routine flight. We’d have dozens of takeoffs and landings a day when we were there. You want to use flares to set the fire?”
Kyabi hardly heard him. His clothes were stained with sweat, his desert boots black with the oil ooze. He was thinking about the air force revolt at Doshan Tappeh. If those two pilots are also in revolt and attack Kharg and sabotage our facilities there, he thought, almost choked with rage and frustration, Iran will go back twenty years.
When Rudi had come to collect him early this morning, Kyabi had been astonished to see the mullah. He had demanded an explanation. When the mullah angrily said that Kyabi should close down all facilities and declare for Khomeini at once, he was almost speechless. “But that’s revolution. That means civil war!”
Hussain had said, “It is the Will of God. You’re Iranian, not a foreign lackey. The Imam has ordered confrontation with the armed forces to subdue them. With God’s help, the first true Islamic republic on earth since the days of the Prophet, the Blessings of God be upon him, begins in a few days.”
Kyabi had wanted to say what he had said privately many times: “It’s a madman’s dream, and your Khomeini’s an evil, senile old man, driven by a personal vendetta against the Pahlavis - Reza Shah whose police he believes murdered his father, and Mohammed Shah whose SAVAK he believes murdered his son in Iraq a few years ago; he’s nothing but a narrow-minded fanatic who wants to put us, the people, and particularly women, back into the Dark Ages….”
But he had said none of this today to this mullah. Instead, he put his mind back onto the problem of the village. “If the village catches fire, they can easily rebuild it. Their possessions are the important things.” He hid his hatred. “You can help, if you want, Excellency. I would appreciate your help. You can talk to them.”
The villagers refused to go. For the third time Kyabi explained that fire was the only way to save their water and to save the other villages. Then Hussain talked to them, but still they would not go. By now it was time for the midday prayer and the mullah led them in prayer and again told them to leave the banks of the river. The elders consulted with one another and said, “It is the Will of God. We will not leave.”
“It is the Will of God,” Hussain agreed. He turned on his heel and led the way back to the helicopter.
Once more they landed near the culvert. Now oil just seeped out of the pipe, no more than a trickle. “Rudi,” Kyabi said, “go upwind, far as you can, and put a flare into the culvert. Then put one smack in the middle of the stream. Can you do that?”
“I can try. I’ve never fired a Very pistol before.” Rudi plodded out into the scrub desert. The others went back to the chopper which he had parked safely away. When he was in position he put the large cartridge into the pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked, more than he expected. The burning phosphorus signal flare arced low over the ground, bounced as it came down short, then skipped into the air again and fell into the culvert. For a moment nothing happened, then the earth exploded and fire gushed upward and outward, making the overturned car into a funeral pyre. The superheated shock wave enveloped him but passed by safely. Acrid black smoke billowed skyward. Fire began spreading, racing toward the stream. The second red flare arced high and then went into the river. The river caught fire. They knew it more from the sound than sight, but when they were airborne once more, skirting the river upwind, they saw the fire spreading rapidly downstream. Vast clouds of black smoke marked its path. Near the village they circled. Men, women, and children were fleeing with what they could carry. As they watched, the village was consumed.
The four men flew home.
Home for Kyabi was the area HQ of IranOil just outside Ahwaz, a neat complex of white concrete buildings with well-watered lawns and a helipad, enclosed by a tall fence.
“Thanks, Rudi,” he said, sick at heart. Around the chopper was a ring of armed men who had rushed out of hiding the moment they had landed, shouting and pointing their guns. Behind Kyabi the mullah toyed with his string of prayer beads.
Kyabi unbuckled his seat belt. The Will of God, he thought. I’ve done what I could, prayed correctly, and know that there is no other God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God. When I die I will die cursing the enemies of God, chief among them, Khomeini, False Prophet, murderer, and all those who follow him.
He turned around. His engineer was gray-faced and rigid in his seat beside Hussain. “Mullah, I commend you to God’s vengeance.” Kyabi got out. They shot Kyabi and dragged the engineer away. Then, because the mullah asked it, they allowed the chopper to leave.
Chapter 10
AT KOWISS AIR BASE: 5:09 P.M. Manuela was hurrying across the S-G compound toward the one-story office building that was tidy under the afternoon sun, the radio tower jutting above as a second floor. She wore flight overalls with the S-G emblem on the back and her auburn hair was bundled into a long peaked flight cap, but her walk shouted her femininity.
In the outer office were three of their Iranian staff. Politely they got up and smiled, watching her under heavy-lidded eyes.
“Good afternoon, Excellency Pavoud,” she said in Farsi with a smile. “Captain Ayre wanted to see me?”
“Yes, Madam Lady. His Excellency’s in the tower,” the chief clerk replied. “May I have the honor of escorting you?” She declined with thanks, and when she had gone along the corridor and up the spiral staircase, Pavoud said contemptuously, “Scandalous the way she flaunts herself at us - she does it just to taunt us.”
“Worse than a public woman from the Old Quarter, Excellency,” another said, equally disgusted. “By God, of all Infidels, Americans are the worst and their women the worst. And that one, that one’s asking, that one’s begging for trouble….”
“She’s begging for a good Iranian cock,” a small man said, scratching himself.
Pavoud said, “She should wear a chador and cover herself and walk modestly. We are all men here. We’ve all sired children. Does she think we’re eunuchs?”
“She should be whipped for taunting us.”
Pavoud picked his nose delicately. “With God’s help, soon she will be - publicly. Everyone will be subject to Islamic law, and punishments.” “They say that American women have no pubics.”
“No, it’s just that they shave those parts.”
“Pubics or no, Excellency Chief Clerk, I’d like to thrust it into her, until she squealed - with joy,” the small man said, and they laughed together. “That great oaf of her husband has every night since she’s been here.” The chief clerk’s eyes glittered. “I’ve heard them moaning in the night.” He lit a cigarette from the butt of the last, then got up and looked out of the window. He wore glasses and peered into the sky until he saw the distant chopper turn on to final. Death to all foreigners, he thought, then added in his most secret heart: And death to Khomeini and his parasites! Long live the Tudeh and the revolution of the Masses!
The tower was small with glass windows on all sides and well equipped. This had been their permanent base for many years, so S-G had had time to fit it out with some modern air safety and all-weather landing aids. Freddy Ayre, senior pilot in Starke’s absence, was waiting for Manuela. “HXB’s on final,” he said as she came up the stairs. “He - ” “Oh, wonderful,” she interrupted happily. They had been trying to contact Starke all day without success: “Not to worry,” Ayre had told her, “their HF often goes out, same’s ours.” Since last night, just after dark, the only communication had been Starke’s terse report that he was overnighting at Bandar Delam and would contact them today.
“Sorry, Manuela, but Duke’s not aboard. Marc Dubois’s flying her.” “There’s been an accident?” she burst out, her world tumbling. “He’s hurt?” “Oh, no, nothing like that. When Marc reported in a few minutes ago, he said Duke had stayed behind at Bandar Delam and he’d been told to fly the mullah and his team on the return trip.”
