“You’d, er, best go back with the others, Mr. Kasigi, there’s no telling how long we’ll be.”
“Choppers make me nervous. I’d prefer to fly with you, if you don’t mind.” Kasigi looked back at Scragger, hard eyes in a lived-in face. “It was a bad one. You had almost no time, yet you autorotate at barely three hundred feet to make a perfect setdown on this fly-spot. That was incredible flying. Incredible. One thing I don’t understand: why were you high angle, on a high-angle approach?” He caught Vossi glance at Scragger. Ah, he thought, you’re wondering too. “There’s no reason on a day like today, is there?” Scragger stared at him, even more unsettled. “You fly choppers?” “No, but I’ve been in enough to know when there’s bad trouble. My business is tankers, so oil fields, here in the Gulf, Iraq, Libya, Alaska, everywhere - even Australia.” Kasigi let the hatred pass over him. He was used to it. He knew the reason, for he did a great deal of business now in Australia, a very great deal. Some of the hatred’s merited, he thought. Some. Never mind, Australians will change, they’ll have to. After all, we own a considerable section of her raw materials for years to come and soon we’ll own more. Curious that we can do economically so easily what we failed to do militarily. “Please, why did you choose a high-angle approach today? On a normal approach we’d be under the sea right now, on the bottom. Why?” Scragger shrugged, wanting to end it.
“Skipper,” Vossi said, “why did you?”
“Luck.”
Kasigi half smiled. “If you’ll allow me I would like to fly back with you. A life for a life, Captain. Please keep my card. Perhaps one day I can be of service to you.” He bowed politely and left.
11:56 A.M. “Explosives on Sin, Scrag?” De Plessey was shocked. “There might be,” Scragger replied, equally softly. They were on the far side of the platform, well away from everyone, and he had just told him what Abdollah had whispered.
The second 212 was long since there, waiting for de Plessey to give the word to start up and take him and his party on to Siri where they were due to have lunch. Mechanics had already stripped most of the tail section of Scragger’s 212 and were well into repairs, Vossi watching attentively. The new rotor and gearbox were already in place.
After a moment, de Plessey said helplessly, “Explosives could be anywhere, anywhere. Even a little explosive could wreck our whole pumping system. Madonna, it would be a perfect ploy to further wreck Bakhtiar’s chances - or Khomeini’s - of getting back to normal.”
“Yes. But be careful how you use the info - and for God’s sake keep it to yourself.”
“Of course. This man was on Siri Three?”
“At Lengeh.”
“Eh? Then why didn’t you tell me this morning?”
“There was no time.” Scragger glanced around, making sure they were still not overheard. “Be careful, whatever you do. Those fanatics don’t give a twopenny damn for anything or anyone and if they think there’s been a leak, that someone’s ratted … there’ll be bodies floating from here to Hormuz.” “I agree.” De Plessey was very worried. “Did you tell anyone else?” “No, cobber.”
“Mon Dieu, what can I do? Security is … how can you have security in Iran? Like it or not we’re in their power.” Then he added, “Thank you a second time. I must tell you I’ve been expecting major sabotage on Kharg, and at Abadan, it’s to the leftist advantage to create even more chaos, but I never thought they’d come here.”
Moodily he leaned on the rail and looked down at the sea sluggishly washing the legs of the platform. Sharks were circling and feeding. Now we’ve terrorists threatening us. Siri’s tanks and pumps are a good target for sabotage. And if Siri’s interfered with, we lose years of planning, years of oil that France desperately needs. Oil we may have to buy from the shit-stenched English and their shit-stenched North Sea oil fields - how dare they be so lucky with their 1.3 million barrels a day and rising! Why isn’t there oil off our coasts or off Corse? God-cursed English with their two-faced, two-hearted approach to life! De Gaulle was right to keep them out of Europe, and now that we, out of the goodness of our hearts, have accepted them, even though we all know they’re lying bastards, they care nothing to share their windfall with us, their partner. They only pretend to be with us in the EEC - they’ve always been against us and always will be. The Great Charles was right about them but incredibly wrong about Algeria. If we still had our Algeria, our soil and therefore our oil, we’d be rich, content, with Britain and Germany and all the rest licking the grime from between our toes.
Meanwhile, what to do?
Go to Siri and have lunch. After lunch you will think better. Thank God we can still get supplies from sensible, civilized Dubai, Sharjah, and Al Shargaz: Brie, Camembert, Boursin, fresh garlic and butter from France daily, and real wine without which we might as well be dead. Well, almost, he added cautiously and saw Scragger staring at him. “Yes, mon brave?” “I said, wot’re you going to do?”
“Order a security exercise,” he said majestically. “It seems that I had forgotten clause 56/976 of our original French-Iran contract that says every six months for a period of several days security must be checked against any and all intruders for… for the great glory of France and, er, Iran!” De Plessey’s fine eyes lit up with the beauty of his ruse. “Yes. Of course my subordinates forgot to remind me but now we will all hurl ourselves into the exercise with perfect French enthusiasm. Everywhere, on Siri, on the rigs, ashore, even at Lengeh! Les crétins! How dare they think they could sabotage the work of years.” He glanced around. There was still no one near. The rest of the party was assembled now near the second 212. “I’ll have to tell Kasigi because of his tanker,” he said quietly. “That might be the target.” “Can you trust him? I mean to do everything quietly.”
“Yes. We will have to, mon ami. We will have to warn him, yes, we’ll have to do that.” De Plessey felt his stomach rumbling. My God, he thought, very perturbed, I hope it’s just hunger and that I’m not in for a bilious attack - though I wouldn’t wonder with all that’s happened today. First we almost have an accident, then our top pilot almost has a fight with that barrel full of dung Ghafari, and now the revolution may come to us. “Kasigi asked if he could fly back with you. When will you be ready?”
“Before sundown, but there’s no need for him to wait for us, he can go back with you.”
De Plessey frowned. “I understand why you don’t like Japanese - me, I still can’t stand the Germans. But we must be practical. He’s a good customer and since he asked, I’d appreciate it if you’d, you’d, er, ask Vossi to fly him, mon cher ami. Yes, now we are intimate friends, you saved our lives, and we shared an Act of God! And he is one of our very good customers,” he added firmly. “Very good. Thank you, mon ami. I’ll leave him at Siri. When you’re ready, pick him up there. Tell him what you told me. Excellent, then that’s decided, and rest assured I will commend you to the authorities and to the Laird Gavallan himself.” He beamed again. “We’ll be off and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Scragger watched him go. He cursed silently. De Plessey was the top man so there was nothing he could do and that afternoon on the way to Siri he sat back in the cabin, sweating and hating it.
“Jesus, Scrag,” Vossi had said, in shock, when he had told him he was riding in the back. “Passenger? You all right? You sure y - ”
“I just want to see what it feels like,” Scragger had said irritably. “Get your arse in the captain’s seat, fetch that bugger from Siri, and set her down like a bleeding feather at Lengeh or it’s in your bleeding report.” Kasigi was waiting at the helipad. There was no shade and he was hot, dusty, and sweating. Dunes stretched back to the pipelines and tank complex, all dirty brown from the dust. Scragger watched the dust devils, little whirlwinds, dance over the ground, and he thanked his stars that he could fly and didn’t have to work in such a place. Yes, choppers are noisy and always vibrating and maverick, he thought, and yes, I miss flying the high skies, flying fixed wing alone in the high skies, diving and turning over and falling like an eagle to rise up again - but flying is flying and I still hate sitting in the bleeding cabin. For God’s sake, here it’s even worse than a regular aircraft! He hated flying without the controls and never felt safe and this added to his discomfort as he beckoned Kasigi to sit beside him and slammed the door shut. The two mechanics were dozing in their seats opposite, their white overalls stained with sweat. Kasigi adjusted the Mae West and snapped his seat belt tight.