bravely trying to hide his terror. “You stand there and stay there till I say to move.” Zataki glanced at Starke who was watching Manuela. “Pilot, we should finish the unloading. Then my men must eat.” “Yes. And thank you.”
“Nothing. These people did not know - they are not to be blamed.” Again he looked at Manuela, dark eyes piercing. “Your woman, pilot?” he asked. “My wife,” Starke replied.
“My wife is dead, killed in the Abadan fire with my two sons. It was the Will of God.”
“Sometimes the Will of God is unendurable.” “The Will of God is the Will of God. We should finish the unloading.”
“Yes.” Starke climbed into the cabin, the danger only over for the moment as Zataki was as volatile as nitroglycerin. Two more wounded were still strapped in their seats as were two stretcher cases. He knelt beside one of them. “How you doing, old buddy?” he said softly in English. Jon Tyrer opened his eyes and winced, a bloody bandage around his head. “Okay… yeah, okay. What… what happened?”
“Can you see?”
Tyrer seemed surprised. He peered up at Starke, then rubbed his eyes and forehead. To Starke’s relief, he said, “Sure, it’s… you’re a bit soft focus and my head aches like hell but I can see you okay. Course I can see you, Duke. What the hell happened?” “During the fedayeen counterattack at dawn this morning you were caught in some crossfire, a bullet creased the side of your head, and when you got up you started running around in circles like a headless chicken, crying out, ‘I can’t see… I can’t see.’ Then you collapsed and you’ve been out ever since.”
“Ever since? Goddamn!” The American peered out of the cabin door. “Where the hell are we?”
“Kowiss - I thought I’d better get you and the rest here fast.” Tyrer was still astonished. “I remember nothing. Nothing. Fe
dayeens? For crissake, Duke, I don’t even remember being brought aboard.” “Hang in there, old buddy. I’ll explain later.” He turned and called out, “Freddy, get someone to carry Jon Tyrer to the doc,” adding, in Farsi, to Zataki who watched from the doorway, “Excellency Zataki, please ask men to carry your men to the infirmary.” He paused a moment. “My second-in-command, Captain Ayre, will make arrangements for feeding everyone. Would you like to eat with me - in my house?”
Zataki smiled strangely and shook his head. “Thank you, pilot,” he said in English. “I will eat with my men. This evening we should talk, you and I.” “Whenever you wish.” Starke jumped out of the cabin. Men began carrying away all the wounded. He pointed at his bungalow. “That is my house, you are welcome there, Excellency.”
Zataki thanked him and went away, shoving Sergeant Wazari in front of him. Ayre and Manuela joined Starke. She took his hand. “When he pulled the trigger, I thought…” she smiled weakly, switched to Farsi. “Ah, Beloved, how good the day has become now that you are safe and beside me.” “And thee beside me.” Starke smiled at her.
“What happened? At Bandar Delam?” she asked in English.
“There was a goddamn battle between Zataki and his men and about fifty leftists at the base - yesterday Zataki took over our base in the name of Khomeini and the revolution - I had a bit of a run-in with him when I first got there but now he’s kinda okay, though he’s psycho, dangerous as a rattler. Anyway at dawn the leftist fedayeen rushed the airport in trucks and on foot. Zataki was asleep with the rest of his men, no sentries out, nothing - you heard the generals capitulated and Khomeini’s now warlord?” “Yes, we’ve just heard actually.”
“The first I knew of the attack was all hell let loose, bullets everywhere, coming through the walls of the trailers. Me, you know me, I ducked for cover and scrambled out of the trailer… You cold, honey?” “No, no darlin’. Let’s go home - I could use a drink too… oh, my God…” “What is it?”
But she was already running for the house. “The chili - I left the chili on the stove!”
WHIRLWIND 357 “Jesus Christ!” Ayre muttered, “I thought we were about to be shot or something.”
Starke was beaming. “We got chili?”
“Yes. Bandar Delam?”
“Not much to tell, Freddy.” They started walking for the house. “I evacuated the trailer - I think the attackers figured Zataki and his men would be sleeping in them but Zataki had everyone bedded down in hangars guarding the choppers - Freddy, they’re goddamn paranoid about choppers, that we’re gonna fly away in them, or use them to fly out SAVAK, generals, or enemies of the revolution. Anyway, old Rudi and me, we had our heads down in back of a spare mud tank, then some of these new bastards - you couldn’t tell one from another except Zataki’s guys were shouting ‘Allah-u Akbar’ as they died - some of the fedayeen opened up with a Sten gun on the hangars just as Jon Tyrer was evacuating his trailer. I saw him go down and I got as mad as a sonofabitch - now don’t you tell Manuela - and got a gun away from one of them and started my own little war to go get Jon. Rudi…” Starke started smiling. “That one’s a sonofabitch! Rudi got himself a gun too and we were like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid…”
“God Almighty, you must’ve been crazy!”
Starke nodded. “We were, but we got Jon out of the line of fire and then Zataki and three of his guys broke out of a hangar and charged the main group, firing like the Wild Bunch. But hell, they ran out of ammo. Poor bastards just stood there and you’ve never seen anyone nakeder.” He shrugged. “Rudi and I thought what the hell, shooting a sitting duck’s not fair and Zataki’d been okay once the mullah - Hussain - had left, and we’d, er, come to an agreement. So we let off a burst over the attackers’ heads and that gave Zataki and the others time to get to cover.” Again he shrugged. “That’s about it,” he said. They were near the bungalow now. He sniffed the air. “We really got chili, Freddy?”
“Yes - unless it’s burned. That’s all that happened?”
“Sure, except when the shooting stopped I thought we’d best head for Kowiss and Doc Nutt. The mullah looked rough and I was scared for Jon. Zataki said, ‘Sure, why not, I need to go to Isfahan’ - so here we are. The radio went out en route - I could hear you but couldn’t transmit. No sweat.” Ayre watched him sniff the air again, knowing that a psychopath like Zataki would never give Starke the authority he had given him - or protect him - for so little assistance.
The Texan opened the bungalow door. At once the grand, spicy smell surrounded him, transporting him home to Texas, God’s country, and a thousand meals. Manuela had a drink poured* for him, the way he liked it. But he did not drink it, just went into the kitchen area and picked up the big wooden spoon and tasted the brew. Manuela watched, hardly breathing. A second taste.
“How ‘bout that?” he said happily. The chili was the best he had ever had.
Chapter 25
AT THE DEZ DAM: 4:31 P.M. Lochart’s 212 was parked just outside the shed that doubled as a hangar near a well-kept landing pad that was beside the cobbled forecourt of the house. He was standing on the copter’s upperworks, checking the rotor column with its multitude of couplings, lockpins - and danger points - but he found nothing untoward. Carefully he clambered down and wiped his hands clean of grease.
“Okay?” Ali Abbasi asked, stretched out in the sun. He was the young and very good-looking Iranian helicopter pilot who had helped release Lochart from detention at Isfahan Air Base just before dawn, and had sat up front in the cockpit with him all the way here. “Everything okay?” “Sure,” Lochart said. “She’s clean and all set to go.” It was a nice day, cloudless and warm. When the sun went down in an hour or so the temperature would drop twenty or more degrees but that wouldn’t matter. He knew that he would be warm because generals always looked after themselves - and those necessary to
them for their survival. At the moment I’m necessary to Valik and to General Seladi, but only for the moment, he thought.
Muted laughter came from the house and more from those sunning or swimming in the clear blue waters of the lake below. The house seemed incongruous in such desolation - a modern, single-story, spacious, four-bedroom bungalow with separate servants’ quarters. It was set on a slight rise overlooking the lake and the dam, the only habitation in this whole area. Surrounding the lake and the dam was a barren wilderness - small, rock hills jutting from a high plateau devoid of any vegetation. The only ways here were to backpack in or to come by air, by helicopter or light airplane into the very short, narrow, dirt airstrip that had been hacked out of the uneven terrain. Doubt if even a light twin could get in here, Lochart had thought when he first saw it. Have to be a single engine. And no way to go around again - once you commit you’re committed. But it’s a great hideaway, no doubt about that - just great.
Ali got up and stretched.
They had arrived here this morning, their flight uneventful. On orders and directions from General Seladi, quietly varied by Captain Ali, Lochart had hugged the ground, weaving through the passes, avoiding all towns and
