“Don’t know… I don’t know, amico.” Pietro put his head close to the cockpit window. “We were having lunch when this stronzo bottle with gasoline and a burning rag came through the stronzo window and we were on fire…” He looked back as flames caught a half-full oil drum and leaped into the sky, choking black smoke billowing. The four men fighting the fire backed off. “Si, we were on fire quickly in the dining room and when we rushed out there were these men, tribesmen, banditos… Mamma mia, they started shooting so we scattered and took cover. Then later Gianni saw them starting a fire in the generator room, near where the dynamites are and… and he just ran out to warn them but one of them shot him. Mamma mia, no reason to shoot him! Bastardi, stronzi bastardi…”
Quickly Lochart and the others climbed out of the airplane. The only sound was that of the wind and the flames and the single fire pump - Pietro had cut the generators and pumps and done an emergency closedown of the whole rig. The roof of the trailer collapsed and sparks and embers soared, many falling on nearby roofs, but these were heavy with snow and no danger to them. The fire was still out of control near the rig, fed by waste oil and oil fumes, and highly dangerous. The men sprayed foam, but flames still reached toward the dynamite shed, licking a corrugated iron wall. “How much is in there, Pietro?”
“Too much.”
“Let’s get it out.”
“Mamma mia…” Pietro followed Lochart, their hands over the faces against the flames, and forced the door open - no time to find the key. The dynamite was in neat boxes. A dozen of them. Lochart picked up a box and went out, felt the blast of heat, and then he was clear. One of the other men took the box from him and hurried it to safety while Lochart returned for another. Near the helicopter Nitchak Khan and the Green Band stood in the lee of the wind out of danger. “As God wants.”
“As God wants,” the Green Band echoed. “What shall we do now?” “There are the terrorists to consider. And the dead man.” The young man looked across the snow at the figure lying like a broken doll. “If he hadn’t come to our hills he would not be dead. It’s his fault he’s dead - no one else’s.”
“True.” Nitchak Khan watched the fire and the men fighting it and by the time Lochart and Pietro had cleared the shed of dynamite, the others had the fire contained.
Lochart leaned against a trailer wall to catch his breath. “Pietro, we’ve only got till Sunday sunset. Then it’s get out or else.”
Pietro’s face closed. He glanced at the Green Band and Nitchak Khan who was near the helicopter. “Five days? That saves me a decision, Tom. We evacuate to Shiraz - via Rig Rosa or direct.” Pietro gestured at the fire with his clenched left fist, his other hand on the bicep. “For the moment Bellissima is ruined. I’ll need Almqvist to plug the wells. Mamma mia, that’s a lot of men to transport. What a waste! I’m glad old Guineppa’s not here to see the foulness of the day. Best I come to see Mimmo.”
“At once, with those who’re hurt. What about Gianni?”
Pietro glanced at the body. “We’ll leave him until last, my poor blood brother,” he said sadly. “He won’t rot.”
AT RIG ROSA: Mimmo Sera was sitting opposite Nitchak Khan and the Green Band in the mess hall, Lochart, Pietro, and the three senior riggers also at the table. For half an hour Mimmo, who spoke good Farsi, had tried to persuade the komiteh Green Band to extend the time, or to allow him to leave skeleton crews while he and Lochart went with him to see the chief of IranOil in Shiraz.
“In the Name of God, enough!” the Green Band said irritably. “But Excellency, without the helicopters we’ll have to shut down the whole field and start evacuating at once. Surely, Excellency, because the Ayatollah, bless him, and your Prime Minister Bazargan want oil production back to normal we should consult IranOil in Sh - ”
“Enough! Kalandar,” the Green Band added to Nitchak Khan, “if these mosquito brains disobey, it’s on your head, you’re finished, Yazdek is finished and all your people! If one foreigner or one flying machine remains on the fifth sunset and you haven’t fired the base, we will! Then we will burn the village, by hand or by air force. You,” the Green Band snarled at Lochart, “start up the airplane. We go back. Now!” He stormed out. They all stared after him dismayed. Lochart felt sad for all those who had found the oil and developed the field and put so much energy, money, talent, gamble, and risk into it. Scandalous, he thought, but we’ve no option. Nothing else to do. We evacuate. I cancel Scot leaving and use all airplanes and do the job. We work like hell for five days and forget Tehran and Sharazad and that today’s the day of the Protest March she’s forbidden. “Kalandar,” he said. “Without your benevolence, and assistance, we must leave.”
Nitchak Khan saw all the eyes turn to him. “I have to choose between the base and my village,” he said gravely. “That is no choice. I will try to find the terrorists and bring them to justice. Meanwhile, best that you take no chances. These hills are full of hiding places.”
With great dignity he got up and walked out, quite sure that now he would not have to burn the base, though, if God wanted, he knew he would do it without a moment’s hesitation, whether it be full or empty. He allowed himself the shadow of a smile. His plan had worked impeccably. All the foreigners had accepted Hassan the Goatherd as a genuine Green Band whose pretended arrogance and temper were marvelous to see; the foreigners had swallowed his fabrication about “terrorists” murdering a shepherd and he had seen their fear; these same “terrorists” had mutilated the oil rig, the most difficult to reach of all eleven and, in the black hours tonight, these same “terrorists” would fire part of the Rig Rosa and then would vanish forever - back into the village life stream from which they came. And by dawn tomorrow, he thought with satisfaction, terror will be widespread, all foreigners will be falling over themselves to leave, their evacuation is assured, and peace will come to Yazdek.
Fools to play games where only we know the rules! But there is still the problem of the young pilot. Was he a witness, or wasn’t he? The elders have advised an “accident” to be safe. Yesterday would have been perfect when the young man was hunting alone. So easy to slip and fall on your gun. Yes. But my wife advised against an “accident.” “Why?”
“Because the schoolhouse was a marvelous thing,” she had said. “Wasn’t it the first we have ever had? Without the pilots it would never have been. But now we know and can easily build another of our own; because the pilots have been good for us, without them we would not know much that we now know, nor would we have such a rich village; because I think that young man told the truth. I commend that you should let him go, don’t forget how that young man made us laugh with his fairy stories about this place called Kong in the land called China, where there are a thousand times a thousand times a thousand times a thousand people, where all their hair is black, all eyes black, and they eat with pieces of wood.”
He remembered how he had laughed with her. How could there be so many people in one land, all the same? “There is still the danger he lied.” “Then test him,” she had said. “There’s still time.” Yes, he thought, there are four days to uncover the truth - five including Holy Day.
Chapter 41
TEHRAN: 5:16 P.M. Now the Women’s March was over.
It had begun that morning with the same air of expectancy that had enveloped Tehran for two days - when incredibly, for the first time in history, women by themselves as a group were about to take to the streets in protest, to show their solidarity against any encroachment of their hard-earned rights by the new rulers, even by the Imam himself.