“Ask. You ask, laddie, you ask the registry lads in London to do it. In fact I did before I left London. ‘Things are kind of ropy in Iran,’ says I. ‘Totally snafu, old boy, yes,’ says they. ‘I’d like you to put my birds back on British registry, temporarily,’ says I, ‘I may bring them out until the situation normalizes - of course, the powers that be in Iran’d approve but I can’t get a bloody piece of paper signed there at the moment, you know how it is.’ ‘Certainly, old boy’, says they, ‘same with our bloody government - any bloody government. Well, they are your kites, no doubt about that, it’s a tiny bit irregular but I imagine it might be all right. Are you going to the Old Boys’ beer-up?’”
McIver had stopped walking and stared at him in wonder. “They agreed?” “Not yet, laddie. Next?”
“I’ve got a hundred ‘nexts’ but!” Irritably McIver started walking again, too cold to stand still. “But?”
“But if I give them one at a time, you’ll give me an answer - and a possible solution but they still won’t all add up.” “I agree with Genny, we have to do it ourselves.” “Maybe, but it has to be feasible. Another thing: We’ve permission to take three 212s out, maybe we could get out the rest.” “The three aren’t out yet, Mac. The partners, let alone ICAA, won’t let us out of their grasp. Look at Guerney - all their choppers are impounded. Forty-eight, including all their 212s - maybe $30 million rotting, they can’t even service them.” They glanced at the runway. An RAF Hercules was landing. Gavallan watched it. “Talbot told me by the end of the week all British army, navy, and air force technicians and training personnel’ll be out and at the embassy they’ll be down to three, including him. It seems that in the fracas at the U.S. embassy - someone sneaked in under cover of it, blew open safes, grabbed ciphers …” “They still had secret stuff there?” McIver was appalled.
“Seems so. Anyway, Talbot said the infiltration caused every diplomatic sphincter in Christendom - and Sovietdom - and Arabdom - to palpitate. All embassies are closing. The Arabs are the most fractured of all - not one of the oil sheiks wants Khomeinism across the Gulf and they’re anxious, willing and able to spend petro dollars to prevent it. Talbot said: ‘Fifty pounds against a bent hat pin that Iraq privately now has an open checkbook, the Kurds likewise, and anyone else who’s Arab, pro-Sunni and anti-Khomeini. The whole Gulf’s poised to explode.’”
“But meanwhile th - ”
“Meanwhile, he’s not so bullish as he was a few days ago and not so sure that Khomeini’s going to quietly retire to Qom. ‘It’s jolly old Iran for the Iranians, old boy, so long as they’re Khomeini and mullahs,’ he said. ‘It’s in with Khomeinism if the leftists don’t assassinate him first and out with the old. That means us.’” Gavallan banged his gloved hands together to keep the circulation going. “I’m bloody frozen. Mac, it’s clear from the books we’re in dead trouble here. We’ve got to look after ourselves.” “It’s a hell of a risk. I think we’d lose some birds.”
“Only if luck’s against us.”
“You’re asking a lot from luck, Andy. Remember those two mechanics in Nigeria who’ve been jailed for fourteen years just for servicing a 125 that was flown out illegally?”
“That was Nigeria, the mechanics stayed behind. We’d leave no one.”
“If just one expat gets left behind, he’ll be grabbed, tossed into jail, and become a hostage for all of us and all the birds - unless you’re prepared to let him take the flak. If you’re not, they’ll use him to force us back and when we come back they’ll be plenty bloody irritated. What about all our Iranian employees?”
Doggedly Gavallan said, “If luck’s against us it’ll be a disaster whatever we do. I think we should come up with a proper plan with all the final details, in case. That’ll take weeks - and we’d better keep the planning super secret, just between us.”
McIver shook his head. “We’ll have to consult Rudi, Scragger, Lochart, and Starke, if you want to be serious.”
“Just as you say.” Gavallan’s back was aching and he stretched. “Once it’s properly planned… We don’t have to press the final tit until then.” They walked for a while in silence, snow crunching loudly. Now they were almost at the end of the apron. “We’d be asking a hell of a lot from the lads,” McIver said.
Gavallan did not appear to have heard him. “We can’t just leave fifteen years of work, can’t toss away all our savings, yours, Scrag’s, and everything,” he said. “Our Iran’s gone. Most of the fellows we’ve worked with over the years have fled, are in hiding, dead - or against us if they like it or not. Work’s at a minimum. We’ve got nine choppers working out of twenty-six here. We’re not being paid for the little we do, or any back money. I think that’s all a write-off.”
Doggedly McIver said, “It’s not as bad as you think. The partn - ” “Mac, you’ve got to understand I can’t write off the money we’re owed plus our birds and spares and stay in business. I can’t. Our thirteen 212s are worth $13 million, nine 206s another $1.3 odd million, three Alouettes another $1.5 million, and 3 million of spares - $20 million give or take a few dollars. I can’t write that off. Ian warned me Struan’s needs help this year, there’s no spare cash - Linbar’s made some bad decisions and … well you know what I think of him and he of me. But he’s still taipan. I can’t write off Iran, can’t get out of the new contracts for the X63s, can’t battle Imperial who’re presently clobbering us in the North Sea with their unfair bloody bookkeeping with taxpayers’ money. Can’t be done.” “You’d be asking a hell of a lot from the lads, Chinaboy.” “And from you, Mac, don’t forget you. It’d be a team effort, not just for me, for them too - because it’s that or go under.”
“Most of our lads can get jobs with no problem. The market’s desperate for trained chopper pilots who’re oilers.”
“So what? Bet you all of them’d rather be with us, we look after them, pay top dollar, we’ve the best safety record - S-G’s the best chopper company on earth, and they know it! You and I know we’re part of the Noble House, by God, and that means something too.” Gavallan’s eyes suddenly lit up with his irrepressible twinkle. “It’d be a great caper if we pulled it off. I’d love to shove Linbar’s nose in it. When the time comes we’ll ask the lads. Meanwhile all systems go, eh, laddie?”
“All right,” McIver said without enthusiasm. “For the planning.” Gavallan looked at him. “I know you too well, Mac. Soon you’ll be raring to go and I’ll be the one saying, Hold it, what about so-and-so…” But McIver wasn’t listening. His mind was trying to formulate a plan, despite the impossibility of it - except for the British registry. Could that make the difference?
“Andy, about the plan. We’d better have a code name.” “Genny said we should call it ‘Whirlwind’ - that’s what we’re mixed up in.”
BOOK THREE
Thursday - February 22
Chapter 42
NORTHWEST OF TABRIZ: 11:20 A.M. From where he sat on the cabin steps of his parked 212 high up on the mountainside, Erikki could see deep into Soviet Russia. Far below the river Aras flowed eastward toward the Caspian, twisting through gorges and marking much of the Iran-USSR border. To his left he could see into Turkey, to soaring Mount Ararat, 15,500 feet, and the 212 was parked not far from the cave mouth where the secret American listening post was.
Was, he thought with grim amusement. When he had landed here yesterday afternoon - the altimeter reading 8,562 feet - the motley bunch of leftist fedayeen fighters he had brought with him stormed the cave, but the cave was empty of Americans and when Cimtarga inspected it he found all the important equipment destroyed and no cipher books. Much evidence of a hasty departure, but nothing of real value to be scavenged. “We’ll clean it out anyway,” Cimtarga had said to his men, “clean it out like the others.” To Erikki he had added, “Can you land there?” He pointed far above where the complex of radar masts stood. “I want to dismantle them.”