across at Rakoczy and shrugged, then went back to monitoring his instruments and the ground below. Over Qazvin he banked southeast following the Tehran road, once more retreating into himself. Be patient, he told himself, then saw Rakoczy tense and put his face closer to the window, looking downward.
“Bank left… a little left,” Rakoczy ordered urgently, his concentration totally on the ground. Pettikin put the chopper into a gentle bank - Rakoczy on the low side. “No, more! Make a 180.”
“What is it?” Pettikin asked. He steepened the bank, suddenly aware the man had forgotten the machine gun in his lap. His heart picked up a beat. “There, below on the road. That truck.”
Pettikin paid no attention to the ground below. He kept his eyes on the gun, gauging the distance carefully, his heart racing. “Where? I can’t see anything…” He steepened the bank even more to come around quickly onto the new heading. “What truck? You mean…”
His left hand darted out and grabbed the gun by the barrel and awkwardly jerked it through the sliding window into the cabin behind them. At the same time his right hand on the stick went harder left then quickly right and left-right again, rocking the chopper viciously. Rakoczy was taken completely unaware and his head slammed against the side, momentarily stunning him. At once Pettikin clenched his left fist and inexpertly slashed at the man’s jaw to put him unconscious. But Rakoczy, karate-trained, his reflexes good, managed to stop the blow with his forearm. Groggily he held on to Pettikin’s wrist, gaining strength every second as the two men fought for supremacy, the chopper dangerously heeled over, Rakoczy still on the downside. They grappled with each other, cursing, seat belts inhibiting them. Both became more frenzied, Rakoczy with two hands free beginning to dominate.
Abruptly Pettikin gripped the stick with his knees, took his right hand off it, and smashed again at Rakoczy’s face. The blow was not quite true but the strength of it shifted him off balance, destroyed the grip of his knees shoving the stick left, and overrode the delicate balance of his feet on the rudder pedals. At once the chopper reeled onto its side, lost all lift - no chopper can fly itself even for a second - the centrifugal force further throwing his weight askew and in the melee the collective lever was shoved down. The chopper fell out of the sky, out of control.
In panic, Pettikin abandoned the fight. Blindly he struggled to regain control, engines screaming and instruments gone mad. Hands and feet and training against panic, overcorrecting, then overcorrecting again. They dropped nine hundred feet before he got her straight and level, his heart unbearable, the snow-covered ground fifty feet below.
His hands were trembling. It was difficult to breathe. Then he felt something hard shoved in his side and heard Rakoczy cursing. Dully he realized the language was not Iranian but did not recognize it. He looked across at him and saw the face twisted with anger and the gray metal of the automatic and cursed himself for not thinking of that. Angrily he tried to shove the gun away but Rakoczy stuck it hard into the side of his neck. “Stop or I’ll blow your head off, you matyeryebyets!”
At once Pettikin put the plane into a violent bank, but the gun pressed harder, hurting him. He felt the safety catch go off and the gun cock. “Your last chance!”
The ground was very near, rushing past sickeningly. Pettikin knew he could not shake him off. “All right - all right,” he said, conceding, and straightened her and began to climb. The pressure from the gun increased and with it, the pain. “You’re hurting me for God’s sake and shoving me off balance! How can I fly if y - ”
Rakoczy just jabbed the gun harder, shouting at him, cursing him, jamming his head against the doorframe.
“For Christ’s sake!” Pettikin shouted back in desperation, trying to adjust his headset that had been torn off in the struggle.
“How the hell can I fly with your gun in my neck?” The pressure eased off a fraction and he righted the plane. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” “Smith!” Rakoczy was equally unnerved. A split second later, he thought, and we would have been splattered like a pat of fresh cow dung. “You think you deal with a matyeryebyets amateur?” Before he could stop himself his reflexes took his hand and backhanded Pettikin across the mouth. Pettikin was rocked by the blow, and the chopper twisted but came back into control. He felt the burn spreading over his face. “You do that again and I’ll put her on her back,” he said with a great finality. “I agree,” Rakoczy said at once. “I apologize for… for that … for that stupidity, Captain.” Carefully he eased back against his door but kept the gun cocked and pointed. “Yes, there was no need. I’m sorry.” Pettikin stared at him blankly. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes. Please excuse me. It was unnecessary. I am not a barbarian.” Rakoczy gathered himself. “If you give me your word you’ll stop trying to attack me, I’ll put my gun away. I swear you’re in no danger.”
Pettikin thought a moment. “All right,” he said. “If you tell me who you are and what you are.”
“Your word?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, I accept your word, Captain.” Rakoczy put the safety on and the gun in his far pocket. “My name is Ali bin Hassan Karakose and I’m a Kurd. My home - my village - is on the slopes of Mount Ararat on the Iranian- Soviet border. Through the Blessings of God I’m a Freedom Fighter against the Shah, and anyone else who wishes to enslave us. Does that satisfy you?” “Yes - yes it does. Then if y - ”
“Please, later. First go there - quickly.” Rakoczy pointed below. “Level off and go closer.”
They were at eight hundred feet to the right of the Qazvin-Tehran road. A village straddled the road a mile back and he could see the smoke whirled away by a stiff breeze “Where?”
“There, beside the road.”
At first Pettikin could not see what the man pointed at - his mind jumbled with questions about the Kurds and their historic centuries of wars against the Persian Shahs. Then he saw the collection of cars and trucks pulled up to one side, and men surrounding a modern truck with a blue cross on a rectangular white background on the roof, other traffic grinding past slowly. “You mean there? You want to go over those trucks and cars?” he asked, his face still smarting and his neck aching. “The bunch of trucks near the one with the blue cross on its roof?”
“Yes.”
Obediently Pettikin went into a descending bank. “What’s so important about them, eh?” he asked, then glanced up. He saw the man staring at him suspiciously. “What? What the hell’s the matter now?”
“You really don’t know what a blue cross on a white background signifies?” “No. What about it? What is it?” Pettikin had his eyes on the truck that was much closer now, close enough to see it was a red Range Rover, an angry crowd surrounding it, one of the men smashing at the back windows with the butt of a rifle. “It’s the flag of Finland” came through his earphones and “Erikki” leaped into Pettikin’s mind. “Erikki had a Range Rover,” he burst out and saw the rifle butt shatter the window. “You think that’s Erikki?” “Yes… yes it’s possible.”
At once he went faster and lower, his pain forgotten, his excitement overriding all the sudden questions of how and why this Freedom Fighter knew Erikki. Now they could see the crowd turning toward them and people scattering. His pass was very fast and very low but he did not see Erikki. “You see him?”
“No. I couldn’t see inside the cab.”
“Nor could I,” Pettikin said anxiously, “but a few of those buggers are armed and they were smashing the windows. You see them?”
“Yes. They must be fedayeen. One of them fired at us. If you…” Rakoczy stopped, hanging on tightly as the chopper skidded into a 180-degree turn, twenty feet off the ground, and hurtled back again. This time the crowd of men and the few women fled, falling over one another. Traffic in both directions tried to speed away or shuddered to a halt, one overloaded truck skidding into another. Several cars and trucks turned off the road and one almost overturned in the joub.
Just abreast of the Range Rover, Pettikin swung into a sliding 90-degree turn to face it - snow boiling into a cloud - for just enough time to recognize Erikki, then into another 90 degrees to barrel away into the sky. “It’s him all right. Did you see the bullet holes in the windscreen?” he asked, shocked. “Reach in the back
for the machine gun. I’ll steady her and then we’ll go and get him. Hurry, I want to keep them off balance.”
At once Rakoczy unbuckled his seat belt, reached back through the small intercommunicating window but could not get the gun that lay on the floor. With great difficulty he twisted out of his seat and clambered headfirst, half through the window, groping for it, and Pettikin knew the man was at his mercy. So easy to open the door now and shove him out. So easy. But impossible.
“Come on!” he shouted and helped pull him back into the seat. “Put your belt on!”
Rakoczy obeyed, trying to catch his breath, blessing his luck that Pettikin was a friend of the Finn, knowing
