“Put it on, harlot…”
“In the Name of God, put on the chador…”
“Not in the Name of God, woman, in the name of the People …” “God is Great, obey the word…”
“Piss on God, in the name of the revolution…”
“Cover your hair, whore and daughter of a whore…”
“Obey the Prophet whose Name be praised…”
The shouting increased and the jostling, their feet trampling the dying man on the ground, then someone tore at Erikki’s arm that was around Azadeh and she felt his other hand go for the big knife and she screamed out, “Don’t, don’t, Erikki, they’ll kill you…”
In panic she pushed the peasant woman away and fought the chador into place, calling out repeatedly, “Allah-u Akbarrr,” and this mollified those nearby somewhat, their jeers subsiding, though people at the back shoved forward to see better, crushing others against the Range Rover. In the melee Erikki and Azadeh gained a little more space around them though they were still trapped on all sides. She did not look up at him, just clutched him, shivering like a frozen puppy, enveloped in the coarse shroud. A roar of laughter as one of the men held her bra against his chest and minced around. The vandalism went on until, suddenly, Erikki sensed a newness surrounding them. The squat man and his followers had stopped and they were looking fixedly toward Qazvin. As he watched he saw them begin to melt into the crowd. In seconds they had vanished. Other men near the roadblock were getting into cars and heading off down the Tehran road, picking up speed. Now villagers also stared toward the city, then others, until the whole crowd was transfixed. Approaching up the road, through the snarled lines of traffic, was another mob of men, mullahs at their head. Some of the mullahs and many of the men were armed. “Allah-u Akbar,” they shouted, “God and Khomeiniiiii!” then broke into a run, charging the roadblock. A few shots rang out, the fire was returned from the roadblock, the opposing forces clashed with staves, stones, iron bars, and some guns. Everyone else scattered. Villagers rushed for the protection of their homes, drivers and passengers fled from their cars for the ditches or lay on the ground. The cries and countercries and shots and noise and screams of this minor skirmish snapped Erikki’s paralysis. He shoved Azadeh toward their car, hastily picking up the nearest of their scattered possessions, throwing them into the back, and slammed the rear door. Half a dozen of the villagers began scavenging too but he shoved them out of the way, jumped into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine, jerked the car into reverse, then ahead, then roared off across the meadow, paralleling the road. Just ahead and to the right he saw the squat man with three of his followers getting into a car and remembered that the man still had their papers. For a split second he considered stopping but instantly rejected the thought and held course for the trees that skirted the road. But then he saw the squat man pull the machine gun off his shoulder, aim, and fire. The burst was a little high and Erikki’s maddened reflexes swung the wheel over and shoved his foot on the accelerator as he charged the gun. Their massive bumper rammed the man against the car broadside, crushing him and it, the machine gun firing until the magazine was spent, bullets howling off metal, splaying through the windshield, the Range Rover now a battering ram. Berserk, Erikki backed off then charged again, overturning the wreckage, killing them, and he would have got out and continued the carnage with his bare hands but then, in the rearview mirror, he saw men running for him and so he reversed and fled.
The Range Rover was built for this sort of terrain, its snow tires gripping the surface of the rough ground. In a moment they were in the trees and safe from capture, and he turned for the road, shifted into low, locked both differentials and clambered over the deep joub, ripping the barbed-wire fence apart. Once on the road he unlocked the differentials, changed gear, and whirled away.
Only when he was well away did the blood clear from his eyes. Aghast, he remembered the howl of the bullets spraying the car, and that Azadeh was with him. In panic he looked across at her. But she was all right though paralyzed with fear and hunched down in the seat, hanging on with both hands to the side, bullet holes in the glass and roof nearby, but all right though he did not recognize her for a moment, saw just an Iranian face made ugly by the chador - like any one of the tens of thousands they had all seen in the mobs.
“Oh, Azadeh,” he gasped, then reached over and pulled her to him, driving with one hand. In a moment he slowed and pulled over to the side and held her to him as the sobs tore her. He did not notice that the fuel gauge read near empty, or that the traffic was building up, or the hostile looks of the passersby, or that many cars contained revolutionaries fleeing their roadblock for Tehran.
Chapter 17
AT ZAGROS THREE: 3:18 P.M. The four men were lying on toboggans, racing down the slope behind the base, Scot Gavallan slightly in the lead of JeanLuc Sessonne who was neck and neck with Nasiri, their base manager, with Nitchak Khan trailing some twenty yards. This was a challenge match arranged by JeanLuc, Iran against the World, and all four men were excitedly trying to maximize their speed. The snow was virgin powder - very light snow on top of hard pack - and trackless. They had all climbed to the crest behind the base with Rodrigues and a villager as starting marshals. The winner’s prize was 5,000 rials - about $60 - and one of Lochart’s bottles of whisky: “Tom won’t mind,” JeanLuc had said grandly. “He’s having extra leave, enjoying the fleshpots of Tehran while we have to stay on base! Me, am I not in command? Of course. This commander is commandeering the bottle for the glory of France, the good of my troops, and our glorious overlords, the Yazdek Kash’kai,” he had added to general cheers.
It was a wonderful, sunny afternoon, here at seventy-five hundred feet, the sky cloudless and deep blue, air crisp. In the night the snow had stopped. Ever since Lochart had left to go to Tehran three days before, it had been snowing. Now the base and the bowl of mountains were a fairyland of pine and snow and crests soaring to thirteen thousand feet - with about twenty-four inches of fresh powder.
As the racers came lower, the slope steepened even more, a few unseen moguls bouncing them from time to time. They picked up speed, sometimes almost disappearing under the spray of snowflakes, all exhilarated, flat-out, and determined to win.
Ahead now were clumps of pine trees. Scot braked neatly with the toes of his ski boots, his mittened hands gripping the curved front supports, and arced gracefully around the trees, banked again, and began to swoop down the last great slope toward the finish line far below where the rest of the base and villagers were cheering them on. Nasiri and JeanLuc braked a fraction later, came around the trees just a fraction faster, banked in a cascade of snow and gained on him, now only inches between the three of them. Nitchak Khan did not brake at all, or make the diversion. He commended himself to God for the hundredth time, closed his eyes and went barreling into the pines. “Insha’Allahhhh!”
He passed the first tree safely by a foot, the next by half a foot, opened his eyes just in time to avoid a head-on collision by an inch, plowed through a dozen saplings gaining speed, abruptly soared into the air over a bump to clear miraculously a fallen tree, and slam back to earth once more in a chest-aching mump that almost crushed the air out of him. But he hung on, rearing up, heeled over on one runner for a second, got his balance back and now he burst out of the forest faster than the others, straighter than the others, ten yards ahead of the others to a roar from all the villagers. The four racers were converging now, hugging their toboggans for just that extra little speed, Scot, Nasiri, and JeanLuc gaining on Nitchak Khan, closer and closer. Here the snow was not so good and some small moguls bounced them, making them hold on tighter. Two hundred yards to go, one hundred - the men from the base and the villagers cheering and begging God for victory - now eighty, seventy, sixty, fifty, and then… The great mogul was well hidden. In the lead Nitchak Khan was the first to sail up out of control and come down broadside, the wind knocked out of him, then Scot and JeanLuc both whirled into the air to sprawl equally helpless, their toboggans upended in clouds of spray. Nasiri desperately tried to avoid mem and the mogul and wrenched his craft into a violent skidding turn but lost it and went tumbling down the mountainside to end up a little ahead of the others, gasping for breath.