Lochart’s heart quickened. “Sunday, if it doesn’t snow. I’ve a report for McIver and mail for them there. I’ll take a 206; it’ll take all tomorrow to check everything. Scot said we’re to stand by to start up full operations.” JeanLuc stared at him. “Nasiri said full ops?”
“Yes.” Nasiri was their Iranian liaison and base manager, an employee of IranOil - the government monopoly that owned all oil above and below the ground - that channeled and authorized all their flights. S-G worked under contract to this company, surveying, supplying personnel, supplies, and equipment to the oil rigs that were scattered over the mountain range, and dealing with the inevitable CASEVACs - casualty evacuations - accidents and emergencies. “I doubt if we’ll be doing much flying over the next week because of the weather, but I should be able to get out in the 206.” “Yes. You will need a guide. I will come too.”
Lochart laughed. “No way, old friend. You’re next in command and on duty for the next two weeks.”
“But I will not be needed. For three days, eh? Look at the sky, Tom. I must see that our apartment is all right.” In normal times Tehran was where all pilots with families would be based, who would fly two weeks on, one week off. Many pilots opted for two months on and one month off on leave at home, particularly the English. “It’s very important I get to Tehran.” “I’ll check out your apartment if you like, and if you promise to cook three nights a week, I’ll sneak you two days when I get back. You’ve just had a month’s leave.”
“Ah, but that was at home. Now I must think of mon amie. Of course she is desolate without me in Tehran, it’s been a whole month for her without me. Of course.” JeanLuc was watching Rodrigues. Then again he looked at the sky. “We can wait ten minutes more, Tom, then we should prepare a camp while there is light.”
“Yes.”
“But back to more important things. Tom, w - ”
“No.”
“Madonna, be French and not Anglo-Saxon. A whole month, consider her feelings!”
Rodrigues clipped the panel back in place and wiped his hands. “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he called out and climbed aboard. They followed quickly. He was still fastening his seat belt, his back and head and neck aching, when they were airborne and scudding for their base over the next range. Then he saw Jordon staring at him. “What’s with you, Effer?” “How’d you fix that effing pipe, sport? She was effing holed to bust.” “Gum.”
“Wot?”
“Chewing gum. Sure, goddamnit. It worked in goddamn Vietnam, so it’ll goddamn work here. Maybe. Because it was only a goddamn little bit but it was all I got so start goddamn praying. Can’t you stop cursing for crissake?”
They landed safely at their base, snow just beginning. The ground staff had switched on the landing lights, just in case.
Their base consisted of four trailer huts, a cookhouse, hangar for the 212 - a fourteen-place passenger transport, or freight helicopter - and two 206s and landing pads. Storage sheds for oil-drilling spares, sacks of cement, pumps, generators, and all manner of support equipment for the rigs, along with drilling pipe. It was on a small plateau at seventy-five hundred feet, wooded and very picturesque, in a bowl half surrounded by snowcapped peaks that soared to twelve thousand feet and more. Half a mile away was the village of Yazdek. The villagers were from a minor tribe of nomad Kash’kai who had settled here a century ago around this crossroads of two of the minor caravan routes that had crisscrossed Iran for three, perhaps four thousand years.
S-G had had a base here for seven years under contract to IranOil, first to survey a pipeline and make topographical maps of the area, then to help build and service the rigs of the rich oil fields nearby. It was a lonely, wild, and beautiful place, the flying interesting and good, the hours easy - throughout Iran only daylight flying allowed by Iranian regulations. Summers were wonderful. Most of the winter they were snowed in. Close by were crystal lakes with good fishing, and in the forests game was plentiful. Their relations with the villagers of Yazdek were excellent. Apart from mail they were well supplied, usually, and wanted for nothing. And, important for all of them, they were well away from HQ in Tehran, out of radio contact most of the time, and left happily to their own devices.
The moment the rotors had stopped and the airplane shut down, Rodrigues and Jordon undipped the panel again. They were aghast. The floor of the compartment was awash with oil. With it was the heavy smell of gasoline. Shakily Rodrigues searched, then pointed the flash. In one of the seams at the edge of a gasoline tank was a tiny rupture they could not possibly have detected on the mountainside. A thin stream of fuel came out to mix with the oil below.
“Jesus, Effer! Lookit, she’s a goddamn time bomb,” he croaked. Behind him, Jordon almost fainted. “One spark and… Effer, get me a hose for crissake, I’ll flood her out now before we go sky-high….”
“I’ll get it,” Scot said, then added queasily. “Well, I guess that’s one of our lives gone. Eight more to go.”
“You musta been born lucky, Captain,” Rodrigues said, feeling very sick. “Yeah, you must’ve been born lucky. This baby…” He stopped abruptly, listening. So did everyone nearby - Lochart and JeanLuc, near the HQ hut with Nasiri, the half-dozen Iranian ground staff, cooks, and laborers. It was very quiet. Then again came a burst of machine-gun fire from the direction of the village.
“Goddamn!” Rodrigues muttered. “What the hell’d we come back to this lousy dump for?”
Chapter 2
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND - McCLOUD HELIPORT: 5:15 P.M. The great helicopter came down out of the gloaming, blades thrashing, and landed near the Rolls that was parked near one of the rainswept helipads - the whole heliport busy, other helicopters arriving or leaving with shifts of oil riggers, personnel, and supplies, all airplanes and hangars proudly displaying the S-G symbol. The cabin door opened and two men wearing flight overalls and Mae Wests came down the hydraulic steps, leaning against the wind and the rain. Before they reached the car the uniformed chauffeur had opened the door for them. “Smashing ride, wasn’t it?” Andrew Gavallan said happily, a tall man, strong and very trim for his sixty-four years. He slipped out of his Mae West easily, shook the rain from his collar and got in beside the other man. “She’s marvelous, everything the makers claim. Did I tell you we’re the first outsiders to test-fly her?”
“First or last, makes no difference to me. I thought it was bloody bumpy and bloody noisy,” Linbar Struan said irritably, fighting off the Mae West. He was fifty, sandy-haired, and blue-eyed, head of Struan’s, the vast conglomerate based in Hong Kong, nicknamed the Noble House, that secretly owned the controlling interest in S-G Helicopters. “I still think the investment is too much per aircraft. Much too much.”
“The X63’s as good a bet economically as you can get; she’ll be perfect for the North Sea, Iran, and anywhere we have heavy loads, particularly Iran,” Gavallan said patiently, not wanting his hatred of Linbar to spoil what had been a perfect test ride. “I’ve ordered six.”
“I haven’t approved the buy yet!” Linbar flared at him.
“Your approval isn’t necessary,” Gavallan said and his brown eyes hardened. “I’m a member of Struan’s Inner Office; you and the Inner Office approved the buy last year, subject to the test ride, if I recommended it an - ” “You haven’t recommended it yet!”
“I am now so that’s the end to it!” Gavallan smiled sweetly and settled back in the seat. “You’ll have contracts at the board meeting in three weeks.” “There’s never an end to it, Andrew, you and your bloody ambition, is there?”
“I’m not a threat to you, Linbar, let’s l - ”
“I agree!” Angrily Linbar picked up the intercom to speak to the driver on the other side of the soundproofed glass partition. “John, drop Mr. Gavallan at the office, then head for Castle Avisyard.” At once the car moved off for the three-story office block the other side of a group of hangars. “How is Avisyard?” Gavallan asked strangely.
“Better than in your day - so sorry you and Maureen weren’t invited for Christmas, perhaps next year.” Linbar’s lips curled. “Yes, Avisyard is much better.” He glanced out the window and jerked a thumb at the jumbo helicopter. “And better you don’t fail with that. Or anything else.” Gavallan’s face tightened; the jibe about his wife had slipped under his constant guard. “Talking about failure, what about your disastrous South American investments, your stupid fracas with Toda Shipping over their tanker fleet, what about losing the Hong Kong tunnel contract to Par-Con/Toda, what about betraying our old friends in Hong Kong with your stock manipul - ”
“Betray, bullshit! ‘Old friends,’ bullshit! They’re all over twenty-one and what’ve they done for us recently? Shanghainese are supposed to be smarter than us - Cantonese, mainlanders, all of them, you’ve said it a million times! Not my fault there’s an oil crisis or the world’s in turmoil or Iran’s up the spout or the Arabs are nailing us to the cross along with the Japs, Koreans, and Taiwanese!” Linbar was suddenly choked with rage. “You forget we’re
