contained revolutionaries fleeing their roadblock for Tehran.
Chapter 17
AT ZAGROS THREE: 3:18 P.M. The four men were lying on toboggans, racing down the slope behind the base, Scot Gavallan slightly in the lead of JeanLuc Sessonne who was neck and neck with Nasiri, their base manager, with Nitchak Khan trailing some twenty yards. This was a challenge match arranged by JeanLuc, Iran against the World, and all four men were excitedly trying to maximize their speed. The snow was virgin powder - very light snow on top of hard pack - and trackless. They had all climbed to the crest behind the base with Rodrigues and a villager as starting marshals. The winner’s prize was 5,000 rials - about $60 - and one of Lochart’s bottles of whisky: “Tom won’t mind,” JeanLuc had said grandly. “He’s having extra leave, enjoying the fleshpots of Tehran while we have to stay on base! Me, am I not in command? Of course. This commander is commandeering the bottle for the glory of France, the good of my troops, and our glorious overlords, the Yazdek Kash’kai,” he had added to general cheers.
It was a wonderful, sunny afternoon, here at seventy-five hundred feet, the sky cloudless and deep blue, air crisp. In the night the snow had stopped. Ever since Lochart had left to go to Tehran three days before, it had been snowing. Now the base and the bowl of mountains were a fairyland of pine and snow and crests soaring to thirteen thousand feet - with about twenty-four inches of fresh powder.
As the racers came lower, the slope steepened even more, a few unseen moguls bouncing them from time to time. They picked up speed, sometimes almost disappearing under the spray of snowflakes, all exhilarated, flat-out, and determined to win.
Ahead now were clumps of pine trees. Scot braked neatly with the toes of his ski boots, his mittened hands gripping the curved front supports, and arced gracefully around the trees, banked again, and began to swoop down the last great slope toward the finish line far below where the rest of the base and villagers were cheering them on. Nasiri and JeanLuc braked a fraction later, came around the trees just a fraction faster, banked in a cascade of snow and gained on him, now only inches between the three of them. Nitchak Khan did not brake at all, or make the diversion. He commended himself to God for the hundredth time, closed his eyes and went barreling into the pines. “Insha’Allahhhh!”
He passed the first tree safely by a foot, the next by half a foot, opened his eyes just in time to avoid a head-on collision by an inch, plowed through a dozen saplings gaining speed, abruptly soared into the air over a bump to clear miraculously a fallen tree, and slam back to earth once more in a chest-aching mump that almost crushed the air out of him. But he hung on, rearing up, heeled over on one runner for a second, got his balance back and now he burst out of the forest faster than the others, straighter than the others, ten yards ahead of the others to a roar from all the villagers. The four racers were converging now, hugging their toboggans for just that extra little speed, Scot, Nasiri, and JeanLuc gaining on Nitchak Khan, closer and closer. Here the snow was not so good and some small moguls bounced them, making them hold on tighter. Two hundred yards to go, one hundred - the men from the base and the villagers cheering and begging God for victory - now eighty, seventy, sixty, fifty, and then… The great mogul was well hidden. In the lead Nitchak Khan was the first to sail up out of control and come down broadside, the wind knocked out of him, then Scot and JeanLuc both whirled into the air to sprawl equally helpless, their toboggans upended in clouds of spray. Nasiri desperately tried to avoid mem and the mogul and wrenched his craft into a violent skidding turn but lost it and went tumbling down the mountainside to end up a little ahead of the others, gasping for breath.
Nitchak Khan sat up and wiped the snow out of his face and beard. “Praise be to God,” he muttered, astonished that no limbs were broken, and he looked around at the others. They were also picking themselves up, Scot helpless with laughter at JeanLuc who was also unhurt but still lying on his back letting out a paroxysm of French invective. Nasiri had ended up almost headfirst into a snowdrift and Scot, still laughing, went to help him. He, too, was just a little battered but no damage.
“Hey, you lot up there,” someone was shouting from the crowd below. It was Effer Jordon. “What about the bleeding race? It’s not over yet!” “Come on, Scot - come on, JeanLuc, for crissake!”
Scot forgot Nasiri and started to run for the winning post fifty yards away but he slipped and fell in the heavy snow, lurched up and slipped again, feet leaden. JeanLuc reeled up and charged in pursuit, closely followed by Nasiri and Nitchak Khan. The cheers of the crowd redoubled as the men fought through the snow, falling, scrambling, getting up and falling again, the going very rough, aches forgotten. Scot was still slightly in the lead, now Nitkchak Khan, now JeanLuc, now Nasiri - mechanic Fowler Joines, red in the face, urging them on, the villagers as excited.
Ten yards to go. The old Khan was three feet in the lead when he tripped and sprawled face forward. Scot took the lead, Nasiri almost beside him, JeanLuc just inches behind. They were all at a laboring, faltering, stumbling walk, dragging their boots up out of the heavy snow, then there was a mighty cheer as Nitchak Khan began to scuttle forward on all fours the last few yards, JeanLuc and Scot made one last desperate headlong dive for the line, and they all collapsed in a heap amid cheers and counter-cheers. “Scot won…”
“No, it was JeanLuc …”
“No, it was old Nitchak …”
When he had collected his breath, JeanLuc said, “As there is no clear opinion and even our revered mullah is not sure, I, JeanLuc, declare Nitchak Khan the winner by a nostril.” There were cheers and even more as he added, “And as the losers lost so
bravely, I award them with another of Tom’s bottles of whisky which I will commandeer to be shared by all expats at sundown!”
Everyone shook hands with everyone. Nitchak Khan agreed to another challenge match next month and, as he honored the law and did not drink, he haggled voraciously but sold the whisky he had won to JeanLuc at half its value. Everyone cheered again, then someone shouted a warning.
Northward, far up in the mountains, a red signal flare was falling into the valley. The silence was sudden. The flare vanished. Then another arced up and outward to fall again: SOS Urgent.
“CASEVAC,” JeanLuc said, squinting into the distance. “Must be Rig Rosa or Rig Bellissima.”
“I’m on my way.” Scot Gavallan hurried off.
“I’ll come with you,” JeanLuc said. “We’ll take a 212 and make it a check ride for you.”
In minutes they were airborne. Rig Rosa was one of the rigs they had acquired from the old Guerney contract, Bellissima one of their regulars. All eleven rigs in this area had been developed by an Italian company for IranOil, and though all were radio linked with Zagros Three, the connection was not always solid because of the mountains and scatter effect. Flares were a substitute.
The 212 climbed steadily, passing through ten thousand feet, snow-locked valleys sparkled in the sunshine, their operational ceiling seventeen thousand, depending on their load. Now Rig Rosa was ahead in a clearing on a small plateau at eleven thousand four hundred seventy. Just a few trailers for housing, and sheds scattered haphazardly around the tall derrick. And a helipad.
“Rig Rosa, this is JeanLuc. Do you read?” He waited patiently. “Loud and clear, JeanLuc!” It was the happy voice of Mimmo Sera, the “company man” - the highest rank on the site, an engineer in charge of all operations. “What you got for us, eh?”
“Niente, Mimmo! We saw a red flare and we’re just checking.” “Madonna, CASEVAC? It wasn’t us.” At once Scot broke off his approach, banked, and went on to the new heading, climbing farther into the mountain range. “Bellissima?”
“We’re going to check.”
“Let us know, eh? We haven’t been in contact since the storm came. What’s the latest news?”
“The last we heard was two days ago: the BBC said the Immortals at Doshan Tappeh had put down a rebellion of air force cadets and civilians. We haven’t heard from our Tehran HQ or anyone. If we do I’ll radio you.” “Eh, radio! JeanLuc, we’ll need another dozen loads of six-inch pipe and the usual of cement starting tomorrow. Okay?”
“Bien sur!” JeanLuc was delighted with the extra business and the opportunity to prove they were better than Guerney. “How’s it going?” “We’ve drilled to eight thousand feet and everything looks like another bonanza. I want to run the well next Monday, if possible. Can you order up Schlumberger for me?” Schlumberger was the worldwide firm that manufactured and supplied down-hole tools that sampled and electronically measured, with vast accuracy, oil-bearing capabilities and qualities of the various strata, tools to guide the drilling bits, tools to fish up broken bits, tools to perforate, by explosion, the steel casings of the hole to allow oil to flow into the pipe - along with the
