“I don’t know,” Erikki had said. The grenade Ross had given him was still taped in his left armpit - Cimtarga and his captors had not searched him - and his pukoh knife was still in its back scabbard. “I’ll go and look.” “We’ll look, Captain. We’ll look together,” Cimtarga had said with a laugh. “Then you won’t be tempted to leave us.”
He had flown him up there. The masts were secured to deep beds of concrete on the northern face of the mountain, a small flat area in front of them. “If the weather’s like today it’d be okay, but not if the wind picks up. I could hover and winch you down.” He had smiled wolfishly. Cimtarga had laughed. “Thanks, but no. I don’t want an early death.” “For a Soviet, particularly a KGB Soviet, you’re not a bad man.” “Neither are you - for a Finn.”
Since Sunday, when Erikki had begun flying for Cimtarga, he had come to like him - not that you can really like or trust any KGB, he thought. But the man had been polite and fair, had given him a correct share of all food. Last night he had split a bottle of vodka with him and had given him the best place to sleep. They had slept in a village twenty kilometers south on carpets on a dirt floor. Cimtarga had said that though this was all mostly Kurdish territory the village was secretly fedayeen and safe. “Then why keep the guard on me?”
“It’s safe for us, Captain - not safe for you.”
The night before last at the Khan’s palace when Cimtarga and guards had come for him just after Ross had left, he had been driven to the air base and, in darkness and against IATC regulations, had flown to the village in the mountains north of Khoi. There, in the dawn, they had collected a full load of armed men and had flown to the first of the two American radar posts. It was destroyed and empty of personnel like this one. “Someone must have tipped them we would be coming,” Cimtarga said disgustedly. “Matyeryebyets spies!”
Later Cimtarga told him locals whispered that the Americans had evacuated the night before last, whisked away by helicopters, unmarked and very big. “It would have been good to catch them spying. Very good. Rumor says the bastards can see a thousand miles into us.”
“You’re lucky they weren’t here, you might have had a battle and that would have created an international incident.”
Cimtarga had laughed. “Nothing to do with us - nothing. It was the Kurds again, more of their rotten work - bunch of thugs, eh? They’d’ve been blamed. Rotten yezdvas, eh? Eventually the bodies would have been found - on Kurdish land. That’d be proof enough for Carter and his CIA.” Erikki shifted on the plane’s steps, his seat chilled by the metal, depressed and weary. Last night he had slept badly again - nightmares about Azadeh. He hadn’t slept well since Ross had appeared.
You’re a fool, he thought for the thousandth time. I know, but that doesn’t help. Nothing seems to help. Maybe the flying’s getting to you. You’ve been putting in too many hours in bad conditions, too much night flying. Then there’s Nogger to worry about - and Rakoczy to brood about and the killings. And Ross. And most of all Azadeh. Is she safe?
He had tried to make his peace with her about her Johnny Brighteyes the next morning. “I admit I was jealous. Stupid to be jealous. I swore by the ancient gods of my forefathers that I could live with your memory of him - I can and I will,” he had said, but saying the words had not cleansed him. “I just didn’t think he’d be so… so much a man and so… so dangerous. That kookri would be a match for my knife.”
“Never, my darling. Never. I’m so glad you’re you and I’m me and we’re together. How can we get out of here?”
“Not all of us, not together at the same time,” he told her honestly. “The soldiers’d be better to get out while they can. With Nogger, and them, and while you’re here - I don’t know, Azadeh. I don’t know how we can escape yet. We’ll have to wait. Maybe we could get into Turkey…” He looked eastward into Turkey now, so close and so far with Azadeh still in Tabriz - thirty minutes by air to her. But when? If we got into Turkey and if my chopper wasn’t impounded, and if I could refuel we could fly to Al Shargaz, skirting the border. If if if! Gods of my ancestors, help me! Over vodka last night Cimtarga had been as taciturn as ever, but he had drunk well and they had shared the bottle glass to glass to the last drop. “I’ve another for tomorrow night, Captain.”
“Good. When will you be through with me?”
“It’ll take two to three days to finish here, then back to Tabriz.” “Then?”
“Then I’ll know better.”
But for the vodka Erikki would have cursed him. He got up and watched the Iranians piling the equipment for loading. Most of it seemed to be very ordinary. As he strolled over the broken terrain, his boots crunching the snow, his guard went with him. Never a chance to escape. In all five days he had never had a single chance. “We enjoy your company,” Cimtarga had said once, reading his mind, his Oriental eyes crinkling.
Above, he could see some men working on the radar masts, dismantling them. Waste of time, he thought. Even I know there’s nothing special about them. “That’s unimportant, Captain,” Cimtarga had said. “My Master enjoys bulk. He said get everything. More is better than less. Why should you worry - you’re paid by the hour.” Again the laugh, not taunting.
Feeling his neck muscles taut, Erikki stretched and touched his toes and, in that position, let his arms and head hang freely, then waggled his head in as big a semicircle as he could, letting the weight of his head stretch the tendons and ligaments and muscles and smooth out the kinks, forcing nothing, just using the weight. “What’re you doing?” Cimtarga asked, coming up to him.
“It’s great for neck ache.” He put his dark glasses back on - without them the reflected light from the snow was uncomfortable. “If you do it twice a day you’ll never get neck ache.”
“Ah, you get neck aches too? Me, I’m always getting them - have to go to a chiropractor at least three times a year. That helps?”
“Guaranteed. A waitress told me about it - carrying trays all day gives them plenty of neck and backache, like pilots; it’s a way of life. Try it and you’ll see.” Cimtarga bent over as Erikki had done and moved his head, “No, you’re doing it wrong. Let your head and arms and shoulders hang freely, you’re too stiff.”
Cimtarga did as he was told and felt his neck crack and the joints ease and when he raised himself again, he said, “That’s wonderful, Captain. I owe you a favor.”
“It’s a return for the vodka.”
“It’s worth more than a bottle of vod - ”
Erikki stared at him blankly as blood spurted out of Cimtarga’s chest in the wake of the bullet that pierced him from behind, then came a thraaakkk followed by others as tribesmen poured out of ambush from the rocks and trees, shrieking battle cries and “Allah-u Akbarrr,” firing as they came. The attack was brief and violent and Erikki saw Cimtarga’s men going down all over the plateau, quickly overwhelmed. His own guard, one of the few who was carrying a weapon, had opened up at the first bullet but was hit at once, and now a bearded tribesman stood over him and gleefully finished him with the rifle butt. Others charged into the cave. More firing, then silence again.
Two men rushed him and he put his hands up, feeling naked and foolish, his heart thundering. One of these turned Cimtarga over and shot him again. The other bypassed Erikki and went to the cabin of the 212 to make sure no one was hiding there. Now the man who had shot Cimtarga stood in front of Erikki, breathing hard. He was small and olive-skinned and bearded, dark eyes and hair, and wore rough garments and stank.