scot gavallan smiled to himself, thinking about his father, feeling a warm glow. i'm bloody lucky to have him, he thought. i still miss mother but i'm glad she died. terrible for a lovely, active woman to become a helpless, chairridden, palsied shell, still with her mind intact even at the end, the best mother a guy could have. rotten luck, her death, particularly for dad. but i'm glad he remarried, maureen's super, and dad's super and i've a smashing life and the future's rosy plenty of flying, plenty of birds and in a couple of years i'll get married: how about tess? his heart picked up a beat. bloody nuisance linbar's her uncle and she his favorite niece, but bloody lucky i don't have anything to do with him, she's only eighteen so there's plenty of time...
"which way will you land, mon views?" came through his earphones.
"from the west," he said, collecting himself.
"good." jean-luc was peering ahead. no sign of life. the site was heavily covered with snow, almost buried. only the helipad was cleared. threads of smoke came up from the trailer huts. "ah! there!"
they saw the tiny figure of a man, bundled up, standing near the helipad and waving his arms. "who is it?"
"i think it's pietro." scot was concentrating on the landing. at this height and because of the position on the ledge there were sudden gusts, turbulences, and whirlwinds within them no room for mistakes. he came in over the abyss, the eddies rocking them, then corrected beautifully as he swooped over the land and touched down.
"good." jean-luc turned his attention back to the bundled-up man he now recognized as pietro fieri, one of the "tool pushers," next in importance to the company man. they saw him motion with his hand across his throat, the sign
to cut engines, indicating the casevac was not an immediate takeoff situation. jean-luc beckoned the man to his side window and opened it. "what's up, pietro?" he shouted over the engines.
"guineppa is sick," pietro shouted back mario guineppa was the company man and thumped the left side of his chest. "we think it may be his heart. and that's not all. look there!" he pointed aloft. jean-luc and scot craned to see better but could not see what was agitating him.
jean-luc unbuckled and got out. the cold hit him and he winced, his eyes watering in the eddies caused by the rotors, his dark glasses helping only a little. then he saw the problem, and his stomach twisted nastily. a few hundred feet above and almost directly over the camp, just under the crest, was an enormous overhang of snow and ice. "madonna!"
"if that goes, it'll avalanche the whole mountainside and maybe take us and everything into the valley along with it!" pietro's face was bluish in the cold. he was thickset and very strong with a dark grizzled beard, his eyes brown and keen but squinting now against the wind. "guineppa wants to confer with you. come to his trailer, oh?"
"and that?" jean-luc jerked a thumb upward.
"if it goes, it goes," pietro said with a laugh, his teeth white against the darkness of his oil-stained parka. "come on!" he ducked away from the rotors and trudged away. "come on!"
uneasily jean-luc gauged the overhang. it could be there for weeks, or fall any second. above the crest the sky was peerless, but little warmth came from the afternoon sun. "stay here, scot, keep her idling," he called out, then followed pietro awkwardly, the snow very deep.
mario guineppa's two-room trailer was warm and untidy, charts on the walls, oil-stained clothes, heavy gloves, and hard hats on pegs with an oilman's paraphernalia scattered about the office/living room. he was in the bedroom, lying on his bed fully dressed but for his boots, a big tall man of forty-five with an imposing nose, normally ruddy and weathered, but now pallid, a curious bluish tinge to his lips. the tool pusher from the other shift, enrico banastasio, was with him a small, dark man with dark eyes and thin face.
"ah, jean-luc! good to see you," guineppa said wearily.
"and you, mon amt." very concerned, jean-luc unzipped his flying jacket and sat beside the bed. guineppa had been in charge of bellissima for two years twelve hours on, twelve off, two months on site, two off and had brought in three major producing wells here with space to drill another four. "it's the hospital in shiraz for you."
"that's not important, first there's the overhang. jean-luc, i wa "
"we evacuate and leave that stronzo to the hands of god," banastasio said.
"mamma mia, enrico," guineppa said irritably, "i tell you again i think we
can give god a hand with lean-luc's help. pietro agrees. eh, pietro?"
"yes," pietro said from the doorway, a toothpick in his mouth. "lean- luc, i was brought up in aosta in the italian alps so i know mountains and avalanches and i th "
"s., e set puzzo." yes, and you're crazy, banastasio said curtly.
"net too culo." in your ass. pietro casually made an obscene gesture. "with your help jean-luc, it's easy to shift that stronzo."
"what do you want me to do?" jean-luc asked.
guineppa said, "take pietro and fly up over the crest to a place he'll show you on the north face. he'll drop a stick of dynamite into the snow from there and that'll avalanche the danger away from us."
pietro beamed. "just like that and the overhang will vanish."
banastasio said even more angrily, his english american-accented, "for crissake, i tell you again it's too goddamn risky. we should evacuate first then if you must, try your dynamite."
guineppa's face screwed up as a spasm of pain went through him. one hand went to his chest. "if we evacuate we have to close everything down an "
"so? so we close down. so what? if you don't care about your own life, think of the rest of us. i say we evacuate pronto. then dynamite. jean- luc, isn't it safer?"
"of course it's safer," jean-luc replied carefully, not wanting to agitate the older man. "pietro, you say you know avalanches. how long will that hold?"
"my nose says it will go soon. very soon. there are cracks below. perhaps tomorrow, even tonight. i know where to blow her and be very safe." pietro looked at banastasio. "i can do it whatever this stronzo thinks."
banastasio got up. "jean-luc, me and my shift're evacuating. pronto. whatever is decided." he left.
guineppa shifted in his cot. "jean-luc, take pietro aloft. now."
"first, we'll evacuate everyone to rig rosa, you first," jean-luc said crisply, "then dynamite. if it works you're back in business, if not there's enough temporary space at rig rosa for you."
"not first, last... there's no need to evacuate."
jean-luc hardly heard him. he was estimating numbers of men to move. each of the two shifts contained nine men tool pusher, assistant, mudman, who monitored the mud and decided on its chemical constituents and weight, driller, who looked after the drilling, motorman, responsible for all winches, pumps, and so on, and four roustabouts to attach or unhook the pipes and drills. "you've seven iranian cooks and laborers?"
"yes. but i tell you it's not necessary to evacuate," guineppa said exhaustedly.
"safer, monvieux." jean-luc turned to pietro. "tell everyone to travel light and be fast."
pietro glanced down at guineppa. "yes or no?"
disgustedly, guineppa nodded, the effort tiring him. "ask for a volunteer crew to stay. if no one will, mother of god, close down."
pietro was clearly disappointed. still picking his teeth, he went out. guineppa shifted in the cot again, trying to get more comfortable, and began to curse. he seemed more frail than before.
jean-luc said quietly, "it's better to evacuate, mario."
"pietro is wise and clever but that porco misero, banastasio, he's fart up to his nostrils, always trouble, and it was his fault the radio was smashed, i know it!"
"what?"
"it was smashed on his shift. now we need a new one, do you have a spare?"
"no, but i'll see if i can get you one. is it reparable? perhaps one of our mechanics c "
"banastasio said he slipped and fell on it, but i heard he hit it with a hammer when it wouldn't work... mamma mia!" guineppa winced and clutched his chest and began to curse again.
"how long have you been having pains?"
"since two days. today has been the worst. that stronzo banastasio!" guineppa muttered. "but what can you expect, it runs in his family. eh! his family are half-american, no? i heard the american side has mafioso connections."
jean-luc smiled to himself, not believing it, half listening to the tirade. he knew that they hated each other guineppa, the portuguese-roman patrician, and banastasio, sicilian-american peasant. but that's not so surprising, he thought, locked up here, twelve hours on, twelve off, day after day, month after month, however good the pay.
ah, the pay! how i could use their pay! why even the lowest roustabout gets as much in one week as i get in a month a miserable 1,200 pounds sterling monthly for me, a senior captain and training captain, with forty-eight hundred hours! even with the miserly 500 pounds monthly overseas allowance, that's not enough for the kids, school fees, my wife, the mortgage and filthy taxes... iet alone the best food and wine and my darling sayada. ah, sayada, how i've missed you!
but for lochart...
piece of shit! tom lochart could have let me go with him and i could be in tehran in her arms right now! my god how i need her. and money. money! may the balls of all taxmen shrivel into dust and their cocks vanish! i've barely enough as it is and if iran goes down the sewer, what then? i'll bet s-g won't
survive. that's their bad luck there'll always be chopper work for a pilot as excellent as i am somewhere in the world.
he saw guineppa watching him. "yes, mon view?"
"i'll go with the last load."
"better to go first, there's a medic at rosa."
"i'm fine honestly."
then jean-luc heard his name being called and put on his parka. "can i do anything for you?"
the man smiled wearily. "just take pietro aloft with the dynamite."
"i'll do that, but last, with any luck, before dusk. don't worry."
outside the cold hit him again. pietro was waiting for him. men were already grouped near the idling helicopter, with packs and duffel bags of various sizes. banastasio went past leading a big german shepherd.
"the man said to travel light," pietro told him.
"i am," banastasio said equally sourly. "i've my papers, my dog, and my shift. the rest's replaceable, on the goddamn company." then to jean- luc, "you've a full load, jean-luc, let's get with it."
jean-luc checked the men aboard, and the dog, then called nasiri on the radio and told him what they were going to do. "okay, scot, off you go. you take her," he said and got out and saw scot's eyes widen.
"you mean by myself?"
"why not, morl brave. you've the hours. this's your third check ride. you've got to start sometime. off you go."
he watched scot lift om. in barely five seconds the chopper was over the abyss with a clear seventy-five hundred feet below and he knew how eerie and wonderful that first solo takeoff from bellissima would be, envying the young man the thrill. young scot's worth it, he thought, watching him critically.
"jean-luc!"
he took his eyes off the distant chopper and glanced around, wondering suddenly what was so different. then he realized it was the silence, so vast that it almost seemed to deafen him. for a moment he felt weirdly unbalanced, even a little sick, then the whine of the wind picked up and he became whole again.
"jean-luc! over here!" pietro was in a shadow with a group of men on the other side of the camp, beckoning him. laboriously, he picked his way over to them. they were strangely silent.
"look there," pietro said nervously and pointed aloft. "just under the overhang. there! twenty, thirty feet below. you see the cracks?"
jean-luc saw them. his testicles heaved. they were no longer cracks in the ice but fissures. as they watched, there was a vast groaning. the whole mass seemed to shift a fraction. a small chunk of ice and snow fell away. it gathered
speed and substance and thundered down the steep slope. they were shockstill. the avalanche, now tons of snow and ice, came to rest barely fifty yards away from them.
one of the men broke the silence. "let's hope the chopper doesn't come barreling back like a kamikaze that could be the detonator, amico. even a little noise could trigger that whole stronzo apart."
in the skies near qazvin: 3:17 p.m. from the moment charlie pettikin had left tabriz almost two hours ago with rakoczy the man he knew as smith he had flown the 206 as straight and level as possible, hoping to lull the kgb man to sleep, or at least off guard. for the same reason he had avoided conversation by slipping his headset onto his neck. at length rakoczy had given up, just watched the terrain below. but he stayed alert with his gun across his lap, his thumb on the safety catch. and pettikin wondered about him, who he was, what he was, what band of revolutionaries he belonged to fedayeen, mujhadin, or khomeini supporter or if he was loyal, gendarmerie, army, or savak, and if so why it was so important to get to tehran. it had never occurred to pettikin that the man was russian not iranian.
