For a moment Scragger thought, Okay, why not? Then he noticed the sweat dripping off the man’s face, his sweat- soaked overalls, and seemed to smell his fear. “Out!” he said, studying him very carefully.
Saiid paid no attention to him. Above them the blade was turning slowly, gaining speed.
“Let him stay,” de Plessey called out over. “We’d better hurry.” Abruptly Scragger aborted the engine start, and with very great strength for such a small man, had Saiid’s belt unbuckled and the man out on the deck, half unconscious, before anyone knew what was happening. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted up at the bridge. “Hey there, aloft! Kasigi! This joker’s too bloody anxious to go ashore - wasn’t he belowdecks?” Without waiting for an answer, he jumped back into the cockpit and jabbed Engine Start.
De Plessey watched him silently. “What did you see in that man?” Scragger shrugged. Long before the engine came to full power, seamen had grabbed the man and the other two and were herding them up to the bridge. The 206 went like an arrow for the shore. The two injured men were already on stretchers. Rapidly a spare stretcher was lashed in place across the backseat and the first stretcher lashed to this. Scragger helped the injured Frenchman, arms and hands bandaged, into the front seat alongside him, and trying to close his nostrils to the stench, eased her airborne and flew back, landing like gossamer. Medics and the doctor were waiting, plasma ready, morphine hypodermic ready.
In seconds Scragger darted shoreward again. In more seconds the last stretcher was in place and he was away, again to land delicately. Once more the doctor was waiting, needle ready, and again he ducked down and ran for the stretcher under the whirling blades. This time he did not use the needle. “Ah so sorry,” he said in halting English. “This man dead.” Then, keeping his head low, he scurried for his surgery. Medics took the body away.
When Scragger had shut down and had everything locked and safe, he went to the side of the ship and was violently sick. Ever since he had seen and heard and smelled a pilot in a crashed, burning biplane, years upon years ago, it had been an abiding horror of his to be caught in the same way. He had never been able to stomach the smell of burned human hair and skin. After a while he wiped his mouth, breathing the good air, and blessed his luck. Three times he had been shot down, twice in flames, but each time he had got out safely. Four times he had had to autorotate to save himself and his passengers, twice over jungle and into the trees, once with an engine on fire. “But my name wasn’t on the list,” he muttered. “Not those times.” Footsteps were approaching. He turned to see Kasigi walking across the deck, an ice-cold bottle of Kirin beer in each hand.
“Please excuse me, but here,” Kasigi said gravely, offering the beer. “Burns do the same for me. I was sick too. I… I went down to the surgery to see how the injured were and… I was very sick.” Scragger drank gratefully. The cool, hop-flavored liquid, bubbles tingling as he swallowed, rebirthed him. “Christ Jesus that was good. Thanks, cobber.” And having said it once it became easier to say it the second time. “Thanks, cobber.” Kasigi heard it both times and considered it a major victory. Both of them looked at the seaman hurrying up to them with a teleprinter message in his hand. He gave it to Kasigi who went to the nearest light, put on his glasses, and peered at it. Scragger heard him suck in his breath and saw him become even more ashen.
“Bad news?”
After a pause Kasigi said, “No - just, just problems.”
“Anything I can do?”
Kasigi did not answer him. Scragger waited. He could see the turmoil written in the man’s eyes though not his face, and he was sure Kasigi was trying to decide whether to tell him. Then Kasigi said, “I don’t think so. It’s… it’s about our petrochemical plant at Bandar Delam.”
“The one Japan’s building?” Along with most everyone else in the Gulf, Scragger knew about the enormous $3.5 billion endeavor that, when completed, would easily be the biggest petrochemical complex in Asia Minor and the Middle East, with a 300,000-ton ethylene plant as its heart. It had been building since ‘71 and was almost finished, 85 percent complete. “That’s some plant!”
“Yes. But it’s being built by Japanese private industry, not by the Japanese government,” Kasigi said. “The Iran-Toda plant’s privately financed.” “Ah,” Scragger said, the connection falling into place. “Toda Shipping - Iran- Toda! You’re the same company?”
“Yes, but we’re only part of the Japanese syndicate that put up the money and technical advice for the Shah… for Iran,” Kasigi corrected himself. All gods great and small curse this land, curse everyone in it, curse the Shah for creating all the oil crises, curse OPEC, curse all the misbegotten fanatics and liars who live here. He glanced at the message again and was pleased to see his fingers were not shaking. It was in private code from his chairman, Hiro Toda.
It read: “URGENT. Due to absolute and continuous Iranian intransigence, I have finally had to order all construction at Bandar Delam to cease. Present cost overruns total $500 million and would probably go to 1 billion before we could begin production.
Present interest payments are $495,000 daily. Due to infamous secret pressure by ‘Broken Sword,’ our Contingency Plan 4 has been rejected. Go to Bandar Delam urgently and give me a personal report. Chief Engineer Director Watanabe is expecting you. Please acknowledge.”
It’s impossible to get there, Kasigi thought crestfallen. And if Plan 4 is rejected, we’re ruined.
Contingency Plan 4 called for Hiro Toda to approach the Japanese government for low-interest loans to take up the shortfall, and at the same time, discreetly, to petition the prime minister to declare the Iran-Toda complex at Bandar Delam a “National Project.” “National Project” meant that the government formally accepted the vital nature of the endeavor and would see it through to completion. “Broken Sword” was their code name for Hiro Toda’s personal enemy and chief rival, Hideyoshi Ishida, who headed the enormously powerful group of trading companies under the general name of Mitsuwari. All gods curse that jealous, lying son of vermin, Ishida, Kasigi was thinking, as he said, “My company is only one of many in the Syndicate.” “I flew over your plant once,” Scragger said, “going from our base to Abadan. I was on a ferry, ferrying a 212. You’ve trouble there?” “Some temporary…” Kasigi stopped and stared at him. Pieces of a plan fell into place. “Some temporary problems… important but temporary. As you know we’ve had more than our fair share of problems since the beginning, none of them our fault.” First there was February ‘71 when twenty-three oil producers signed the OPEC price agreement, formed their cartel, and doubled the price to $2.16… then the Yom Kippur War of ‘73 when OPEC cut shipments to the United States and raised the price to $5.12. Then the catastrophe of ‘74 when OPEC shipments were resumed but again at over double the price, $10.95, and the world recession began. “Why the U.S. allowed OPEC to wreck the economy of the world when they alone had the power to smash it, we’ll never know. Baka! And now we’re all in a perpetual pawn to OPEC, now our major supplier Iran is in revolution, oil’s almost $20 a barrel and we have to pay it, have to.” He bunched his fist to smash it on the gunnel, then unclenched, disgusted with his lack of control. “As to Iran-Toda,” he said, forcing outward calm, “like everyone else we found Iranians very… very difficult to deal with in recent years.” He motioned at the message. “My chairman asked me to go to Bandar Delam.”
Scragger whistled. “That’s going to be dicey - difficult.” “Yes.”
“Is it important?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” Kasigi left that hanging in the air, sure that Scragger would suggest the solution. Ashore the oil-soaked earth around the sabotaged valve complex still burned brightly. The fire truck was spreading foam now. They could see de Plessey nearby, talking to Legrande.
Scragger said, “Listen, old sport, you’re an important client of de Plessey, eh? He could fix a charter for you. We’ve a spare 206. If he agreed, all our aircraft are contracted to IranOil but to him in truth, perhaps we could get permission from air traffic control to fly you up the coast - or if you could clear Immigration and Customs at Lengeh, maybe we could nip you across the Gulf to Dubai or Al Shargaz. From there perhaps you could get a flight into Abadan or Bandar Delam. Whichever, old sport, he could let us get you started.”
“Do you think he would?”
“Why not? You’re important to him.”
Kasigi was thinking, Of course we’re very important to him and he knows it. But I’ll never forget that iniquitous $2-a-barrel premium. “Sorry? What did you say?”
“I said, wot made you start the project anyway? It’s a long way from home and had to be nothing but trouble. Wot started you?”
“A dream.” Kasigi would like to have lit a cigarette but smoking was only allowed in certain fireproofed areas. “Eleven years ago, in ‘68, a man called Banjiro Kayama, a senior engineer working for my company and kinsman of our president, Hiro Toda, was driving through the oil fields around Abadan. It was his first visit to Iran and everywhere he went he saw jets of natural gas being flared off. He had a sudden thought: why can’t we turn that wasted gas into petrochemicals? We’ve the technology and the expertise and a long-range-planning attitude.
