“They’re Iranian registry, but owned by S-G Helicopters Ltd of Aberdeen.” “Iranian registry, in Iranian skies, filled with Iranian gasoline, authorized by Iranians, servicing Iranian rigs pumping Iranian oil, by God. They’re Iranian!” Hussain’s thin mouth twisted. “Esvandiary will give the necessary flight orders by noon. How long will it take to visit all your sites?”
After a pause Starke said, “Airtime, maybe six hours. How long do you plan to spend at each setdown?”
The mullah just looked at him. “After that I want to follow the pipeline to Abadan and land where I choose.”
Starke’s eyes widened. He glanced at the colonel but saw that the man was still pointedly watching the spirals of smoke from his cigarette. “That one’s more difficult, mullah. We’d need clearances. Radar’s not working, most of that airspace’s controlled by Kish Air Traffic Control and that’s, er, air force controlled.”
“Whatever clearance is needed you will get,” Hussain said with finality and turned his eyes inflexibly on Peshadi. “In the Name of God, I come back at noon: if you stand in my way, the guns begin.”
Starke could feel his heart pumping and the mullah could feel his heart pumping and so could Peshadi. Only the mullah was content - there was no need for him to worry, he was in the Hands of God, doing God’s work, obeying orders: “Press the enemy in every way. Be like water flowing downhill to the dam. Press against the dam of the usurper Shah, his lackeys, and the armed forces. We have to win them over with courage and blood. Press them in every way, you do God’s work. …”
A wind rattled the window and, involuntarily, they glanced at it and at the night beyond. The night was still black, the stars brilliant, but to the east there was the glimmer of dawn, the sun just under the rim of the sky. “I will return at noon, Colonel Peshadi, alone or with many. You choose,” Hussain said quietly, and Starke felt the threat - or promise - with all of his being. “But now, now it is time for prayer.” He forced himself to his feet, his hands still burning with pain, his back and head and ears still aching monstrously. For a moment he felt he was going to faint but he fought off the giddiness and the pain and strode out.
Peshadi got up. “You will do as he asks. Please,” he added as a great concession. “It is a temporary truce and temporary compromise - until we have final orders from His Imperial Majesty’s legal government when we will stop all this nonsense.” Shakily he lit a cigarette from the butt of the last. “You have no problem. He will provide the necessary permissions so it will be a routine VIP flight. Routine. Of course you must agree because of course I can’t allow one of my military airplanes to service a mullah, particularly Hussain who’s renowned for his sedition! Of course not! It was a brilliant finesse on my part and you will not destroy it.” Angrily he stubbed out the cigarette, the ashtray full now, the air nicotine-laden, and he almost shouted, “You heard what he said. At noon! Alone or with many. Do you want more blood spilled? Eh?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Then do what you’re told!” Peshadi stormed off.
Grimly Starke went to the window. The mullah had taken his place near the gate, raised his arms, and, like every muezzin from every minaret at every dawn in Islam, called the Faithful to first prayer in the time-honored Arabic: “Come to prayer, come to progress, prayer is better than sleep. There is no other God but God…”
And as Starke watched, Peshadi devoutly took his place at the head of all the men of the base, all ranks, who obediently, and with obvious gladness, had streamed out of their barracks, soldiers laying down their rifles on the ground beside them, villagers outside the fence equally devout. Then, following the lead of the mullah, they all turned toward Mecca, and began the obligatory movements, prostrations, and Shahada litany: “I testify there is no other God but God, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God…” When the prayer was finished there was a great silence. Everyone waited. Then the mullah called out loudly: “God, the Koran, and Khomeini.” Then he went through the gates toward Kowiss. Obediently, the villagers followed him.
Starke shivered in spite of himself. That mullah’s so full of hate it’s coming out of his pores. And so much hate’s got to blow something or someone to hell. If I fly him maybe it’ll make him worse. If I assign someone or ask for a volunteer that’s ducking it because it’s my responsibility. “I have to fly him,” he muttered. “Have to.”
Chapter 5
OFF LENGEH: 6:42 A.M. The 212, with two pilots and a full load of thirteen passengers, was on a routine flight, outward bound into the Strait of Hormuz from her S-G base at Lengeh, heading over the placid water of the Gulf for the French-developed Sin oil field. The sun just over the horizon with the promise of another fine cloudless day, though haze, routine over the Gulf, brought visibility down to a few miles.
“Chopper EP-HST, this is Kish radar control, turn to 260 degrees.” Obediently, she went on to her new heading. “260 at one thousand,” Ed Vossi answered.
“Maintain one thousand. Report overhead Sin.” Unlike most of Iran, radar here was good, with stations at Kish Island and Lavan Island, manned by excellent USAF-trained Iranian Air Force operators - both ends of the Gulf were equally strategic and equally well serviced.
“HST.” Ed Vossi was an American - ex-USAF, thirty-two, and built like a linebacker. “Radar’s jumpy today, huh, Scrag?” he said to the other pilot. “Too right. Must be their piles.”
Ahead now was the small island of Siri. It was barren, desolate, and lowlying, with a small dirt airstrip, a few barracks for oil personnel, and a cluster of huge storage tanks that were fed by pipes laid on the seabed from rigs that were westward in the Gulf. The island lay about sixty miles off the Iranian coast, just inside the international boundary that bisected the Strait of Hormuz and separated Iranian waters from those of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Directly over the oil tanks, the chopper banked smoothly, heading westward, her first stop some miles away on the oil rig called Siri Three. At present the field had six working rigs, all operated by the French semigovemment consortium, EPF, that had developed the field for IranOil against future shipments of oil. “Kish radar control, HST over Siri at one thousand feet,” Ed Vossi said into the boom mike.
“Roger HST. Maintain one thousand,” came back instantly. “Report before you let down. You have outbound traffic ahead of you at ten o’clock, climbing.” “We have them in sight.” The two pilots watched the flight of four closely packed fighter jets soaring into the high skies, going past them for the mouth of the strait.
“They’re in a hurry,” the older man said and shifted in his seat. “You can say that again. Lookit! Jesus, they’re USAF, F15s!” Vossi was astonished. “Shit, I didn’t know any were in this area. You seen any before, Scrag?”
“No, mate,” Scrag Scragger said, equally concerned, making a slight adjustment to the volume of his headset. At sixty-three, he was the oldest pilot in S-G, senior pilot at Lengeh, a wizened little man, very thin, very tough, with grizzled gray hair and deep-set, light-blue Australian eyes that always seemed to be searching the horizon. His accent was interesting. “I’d like to know wot the hell’s up. Radar’s as itchy as a roo in a twiddle and that’s the third flight we’ve seen since we got airborne, though the first Yankee.”
“Gotta be a task force, Scrag. Or maybe they’re escort fighters the U.S. sent to Saudi Arabia, with the AWACs.”
Scragger was sitting in the left seat, acting as training captain. Normally the 212 used a single-pilot configuration, the pilot in the right seat, but Scragger had had this airplane fitted with dual controls for training purposes. “Well,” he said with a laugh, “so long as we don’t spot MIGs we’re in good shape.”