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. fedayeens? 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 doe," 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 1."
"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 linda 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 darling'. 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!"
"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 enroute 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.
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 upper works, 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?" all 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 swim
ming 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 villages. their radio had been open all the time. the only report they had heard was a venomous broadcast from isfahan, repeated several times, about a 212 full of traitors that was escaping southward and should be intercepted and shot down. "they didn't give our names or our registration," ali had said excitedly. "they must've forgotten to write it down."
"what the hell difference does that make?" lochart had said. "we must be the only 212 in the sky."
"never mind. stay at max a hundred feet and now turn west."
lochart had been astonished, expecting to head for bandar delam that lay almost due south. "where we heading?"
"forget compass bearings, i'll guide you from here on in."
"where're we heading?"
"baghdad." ali had laughed.
no one had told him their destination until they were ready to land, and by that time, a little over two hundred miles from isfahan, flying very low all the way with adverse winds, at maximum consumption and far beyond their expected maximum duration on empty too long ali was openly praying.
"if we put down in this godforsaken wilderness we'll never walk out, what about fuel?"
"there's plenty there when we arrive... god be praised!" ali had said excitedly as they came over the rise to see the lake and the dam. "god be praised!"
lochart had echoed his thanks and had landed quickly. beside the helipad was a subterranean s,000-gallon tank, and the shed hangar. in the shed hangar
were some tools and cylinders of air for tires, and racks of water skis and boating equipment.
"let's put her away," ali said. together they wheeled the 212 into the shed where she fitted snugly, putting chocks on her wheels. as lochart adjusted the rotor tie-down he noticed three hang gliders in a rack overhead. they were dust-covered and in tatters now.
"whose are those?"
"this used to be the private weekend place of general of the imperial air force, hassayn aryani. they were his."
lochart whistled. aryani was the legendary head of the air force who, according to rumor, also had been like captain of the praetorian guard in roman times to the shah, his confidant and married to one of his sisters. he had been killed hang gliding two years ago. "was this where he was killed?"
"yes." ali pointed to the other side of the lake. "they say he got into stillair turbulence and went into those cliffs."
lochart studied him. "'they say'? you don't believe that?"
"no. i'm sure he was assassinated. in the air force most of us're sure."
"you mean his hang glider was sabotaged?"
ali shrugged. "i don't know. perhaps, perhaps not, but he was much too careful and clever a pilot and flier to get into turbulence. aryani would never've flown on a bad day." he went out into the sun. below they could hear the voices and laughter of some of the others, and valik's children playing down by the lake. "he used a speedboat to take off. he'd wear short water skis, then hold on to a long rope attached to the speedboat that'd go charging down the lake and when he was fast enough he'd drop his skis and go airborne and soar up five hundred, a thousand feet, then cast off and spiral down and land within inches of the raft down there."
"he was that good?"
"yeah, he was that good. he was too good, that's why he was murdered."
"by whom?"
"i don't know. if i did, then he or they would have died long ago."
lochart saw the adoration. "you knew him, then?"
"i was his aide, one of his aides, for a year. he was easily the most wonderful man i have ever known the best general, the best pilot, best sportsman, skier everything. if he had been alive now the shah would never have been trapped by foreigners or snared by our archenemy carter, the shah'd never have left, iran would never have been allowed to slide into the abyss, and the generals would never have been allowed to betray us." ali abbasi's face twisted with anger. "it's impossible to conceive that we could be so betrayed with him alive."
"then who killed him? khomeini's followers?"
"no, not three years ago. he was a famous nationalist, shiite, though a modern. who? tudeh, fedayeen or any fanatic of the right, left, or center who wanted iran weakened." ali looked at him, dark eyes in a chiseled face. "there are even those who say people in high places feared his growing power and popularity."
lochart blinked. "you mean the shah might have ordered his death?"
"no. no, of course not, but he was a threat to those who misguided the shah. he was farrnandeh, a commander of the people. he was a threat al! over: to british interests, because he supported prime minister mossadegh who nationalized anglo-iranian oil, he supported the shah and opec when they quadrupled the cost of oil. he was pro-israel though not anti-arab, so a threat to the plo and yasir arafat. he could have been considered a threat to american interests to any or all of the seven sisters because he didn't give a good goddamn for them or anyone. anyone. for above all he was a patriot." ali's eyes had a strange look to them. "assassination is an ancient art in iran. wasn't ibn-al-sabbah one of us?" his mouth smiled, his eyes didn't. "we're different here."
