Firing nearby startled him and the guards. Outside the hospital gates, the traffic slowed, horns sounding irritably, then quickly snarled. People began running past. More firing and those trapped in their vehicles got out and took cover or fled. Inside the gates the expanse was wide, the 212 parked on the helipad to one side. Wild firing now, much closer. Some glass windows on the top floor of the hospital blew out. The two guards were hugging the snow behind the plane’s undercarriage, Erikki fuming that his airplane was so exposed and not knowing where to run or what to do, no time to take off, and not enough fuel to go anywhere. A few ricochets, and he ducked down as the small battle built outside the walls. Then it died as quickly as it had begun. People picked themselves up out of cover, horns began sounding, and soon the traffic was as normal and as spiteful as ever.
“Insha” Allah,” one of the tribesmen said, then cocked his rifle and came on guard. A small gasoline truck was approaching from behind the hospital, driven by a young Iranian with a broad smile. Erikki went to meet it. “Hi, Cap,” the driver said happily, his accent heavily New York. “I’m to gas you up. Your fearless leader, Sheik Bayazid, fixed it.” He greeted the tribesmen in Turkish dialect. At once they relaxed and greeted him back. “Cap, we’ll fill her brimming. You got any temp tanks, or special tanks?” “No. Just the regular. I’m Erikki Yokkonen.”
“Sure. Red the Knife.” The youth grinned. “You’re kinda a legend in these parts. I gassed you once, maybe a year ago.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m ‘Gasoline’ Ali - Ali Reza mat is.”
They shook hands and, while they talked, the youth began the refuel. “You went to American school?” Erikki asked.
“Hell, no. I was sort of adopted by the hospital, years ago, long before this one was built, when I was a kid. In the old days the hospital worked out of one of the Golden Ghettos on the east side of town - you know, Cap, U.S. Personnel Only, an ExTex depot.” The youth smiled, screwed the tank cap back carefully, and started to fill the next. “The first doc who took me in was Abe Weiss. Great guy, just great. He put me on the payroll, taught me about soap and socks and spoons and toilets - hell, all sorts of gizmos un-Iranian for street rats like me, with no folks, no home, no name, and no nothing. He used to call me his hobby. He even gave me my name. Then, one day, he left.”
Erikki saw the pain in the youth’s eyes, quickly hidden. “He passed me on to Doc Templeton, and he did the same. At times it’s kinda hard to figure where I’m at. Kurd but not, Yank but not - Iranian but not, Jew but not, Muslim but not Muslim.” He shrugged. “Kinda mixed up, Cap. The world, everything. Huh?”
“Yes.” Erikki glanced toward the hospital. Bayazid was coming down the steps with his two fighters beside orderlies carrying a stretcher. The old woman was covered now, head to foot.
“We leave soon as fuel,” Bayazid said shortly.
“Sorry,” Erikki said.
“Insha’Allah.” They watched the orderlies put the stretcher into the cabin. Bayazid thanked them and they left. Soon the refuel was complete. “Thanks, Mr. Reza.” Erikki stuck out his hand. “Thanks.”
The youth stared at him. “No one’s ever called me mister before, Cap, never.” He pummeled Erikki’s hand. “Thanks - any time you want gas, you got it.”
Bayazid climbed in beside Erikki, fastened his belt, and put on the headset, the engines building. “Now we go to village from whence we came.” “What then?” Erikki asked.
“I consult new chieftain,” Bayazid said, but he was thinking, this man and the helicopter will bring a big ransom, perhaps from the Khan, perhaps from the Soviets, or even from his own people. My people need every rial we can get.
NEAR TABRIZ ONE - IN THE VILLAGE OF ABU MARD: 6:16 P.M. Azadeh picked up the bowl of rice and the bowl of horisht, thanked the headman’s wife, and walked across the duty, refuse-fouled snow to the hut that was set a little apart. Her face was pinched, her cough not good. She knocked, then went through the low doorway. “Hello, Johnny. How do you feel? Any better?” “I’m fine,” he said. But he wasn’t.
The first, night they had spent in a cave not far away, huddled together, shivering from the cold. “We can’t stay here, Azadeh,” he had said in the dawn. “We’ll freeze to death. We’ll have to try the base.” They had gone through the snows and watched from hiding. They saw the two mechanics and even Nogger Lane from time to time - and the 206 - but all over the base were armed men. Dayati, the base manager, had moved into Azadeh and Erikki’s cabins - he, his wife and children. “Sons and daughters of dogs,” Azadeh hissed, seeing the wife wearing a pair of her boots. “Perhaps we could sneak into the mechanics’ huts. They’ll hide us.”
“They’re escorted everywhere; I’ll bet they’ve even guards at night. But who are the guards, Green Bands, the Khan’s men, or who?”
“I don’t recognize any of them, Johnny.”
“They’re after us,” he said, feeling very low, the death of Gueng preying on him. Both Gueng and Tenzing had been with him since the beginning. And there was Rosemont. And now Azadeh. “Another night in the open and you’ll have had it, we’ll have had it.”
“Our village, Johnny. Abu Mard. It’s been in our family for more than a century. They’re loyal, I know they are. We’d be safe there for a day or two.”
“With a price on my head? And you? They’d send word to your father.” “I’d ask them not to. I’d say Soviets were trying to kidnap me and you were helping me. That’s true. I’d say that we need to hide until my husband comes back - he’s always been very popular, Johnny, his CASEVACs saved many lives over the years.”
He looked at her, a dozen reasons against. “The village’s on the road, almost right on the road an - ”
“Yes, of course you’re quite right and we’ll do whatever you say, but it sprawls away into the forest. We could hide there - no one’d expect that.” He saw her tiredness. “How do you feel? How strong do you feel?” “Not strong, but fine.”
“We could hike out, go down the road a few miles - we’d have to skirt the roadblock, it’s a lot less dangerous than the village. Eh?” “I’d…I’d rather not. I could try.” She hesitated, then said, “I’d rather not, not today. You go on. I’ll wait. Erikki may come back today.” “And if he doesn’t?” “I don’t know. You go on.”
He looked back at the base. A nest of vipers. Suicide to go there. From where they were on a rise, he could see as far as the main road. Men still manned the roadblock - he presumed Green Bands and police - a line of traffic backed up and waiting to leave the area. No one’ll give us a ride now, he thought, not unless it’s for the reward. “You go to the village. I’ll wait in the forest.”
“Without you they’ll just return me to my father - I know them, Johnny.” “Perhaps they’ll betray you anyway.”
“As God wants. But we could get some food and warmth, perhaps even a night’s rest. In the dawn we could sneak away. Perhaps we could get a car or truck from them - the kalandar has an old Ford.” She stifled a sneeze. Armed men were not far away. More than likely there were patrols out in the forest - coming here they had had to detour to avoid one. The village’s madness, he thought. To get around the roadblock’ll take hours in daylight, and by night - we can’t stay outside another night. “Let’s go to the village,” he said. So they had gone yesterday and Mostafa, the kalandar, had listened to her story and kept his eyes away from Ross. News of their arrival had gone from mouth to mouth and in moments all the village knew and mis news was added to the other, about the reward for the saboteur and kidnapper of the Khan’s daughter. The kalandar had given Ross a one-room hut with dirt floor and old mildewed carpets. The hut was well away from the road, on the far edge of the village, and he noticed the steel-hard eyes and matted hair and stubbled beard - his carbine and kookri and ammunition-heavy knapsack. Azadeh he invited into his home. It was a two-room hovel. No electricity or running water. The joub was the toilet.