“Perhaps he’s not coming after all.” They had been watching for half an hour from a slight rise among the trees overlooking the landing area. Their car and the rest of Hashemi’s men were parked discreetly on the main road below and behind them. It was very quiet, little wind. Some birds went overhead, cawing plaintively.
“Hallelujah!” Armstrong whispered, his excitement picking up. One man had opened the side door and got out. Now he was looking into the northern sky. The driver started the engine. Then, over it, they heard the incoming chopper, saw her slip over the rise and fall into the valley, hugging the treetops, her piston en-gine throttled back nicely. She made a perfect landing in a billowing cloud of snow. They could see the pilot and another man beside him. The passenger, a small man, got out and went to meet the other. Armstrong cursed. “You recognize him, Robert?”
“No. That’s not Suslev - Petr Oleg Mzytryk. I’m certain.” Armstrong was bitterly disappointed. “Facial surgery?”
“No, nothing like that. He was a big bugger, heavyset, tall as I am.” They watched as he met the other, then handed over something.
“Was that a letter? What did he give him, Robert?” “Looked like a package, could be a letter.” Armstrong muttered another curse, concentrating on their lips.
“What’re they saying?” Hashemi knew Armstrong could lip-read. “I don’t know - it’s not Farsi, or English.” Hashemi swore and refocused his already perfectly focused binoculars. “It looked like a letter to me.” The man spoke a few more words then went back to the chopper. At once the pilot put on power and swirled away. The other man then trudged back to the Chevy. “Now what?” Hashemi said exasperated. Armstrong watched the man walking toward the car. “Two options: intercept the car as planned and find out what ‘it’ is, providing we could neutralize those two bastards before they destroyed ‘it’ - but that’d blow that we know the arrival point for Mister Big - or just tail them, presuming it’s a message for the Khan giving a new date.” He was over his disappointment that Mzytryk had avoided the trap. You must have the luck in our game, he reminded himself. Never mind, next time we’ll get him and he’ll lead us to our traitor, to the fourth and fifth and sixth man and I’ll piss on their graves and Suslev’s - or whatever Petr Oleg Mzytryk calls himself - if the luck’s with me. “We needn’t even tail them - he’ll go straight to the Khan.” “Why?”
“Because he’s a vital pivot in Azerbaijan, either for the Soviets or against them, so they’d want to find out firsthand just how bad his heart is - and who he’s chosen as regent till the babe conies of age, or more likely is levitated. Doesn’t the power go with the title, along with the lands and the wealth?”
“And the secret, numbered Swiss bank accounts - all the more reason to come at once.”
“Yes, but don’t forget something serious might have happened in Tbilisi to make for the delay - Soviets’re just as pissed off and anxious as we are about Iran.”
They saw the man climb back into the Chevy and begin talking volubly. The driver let in the clutch and turned back for the main road. “Let’s get back to our car.”
The way back down the rise was fairly easy going, traffic heavy on the Julfa-Tabriz road below, a few headlights already on and no way for their prey to escape the ambush if they decided to stage it. “Hashemi, another possibility’s that Mzytryk could have found out in the nick that he’s been betrayed by his son, and he’s sent“‘a warning to the Khan whose cover would also have been blown. Don’t forget we still haven’t found out what happened to Rakoczy since your late departed friend General Janan let him go.” “That dog’d never do it on his own,” Hashemi said with a twisted smile, remembering his vast joy when he had touched the transmit button and had seen the resultant car bomb explosion obliterate that enemy, along with his house, his future, and his past. “That would be ordered by Abrim Pahmudi.” “Why?”
Hashemi veiled his eyes and glanced at Armstrong but read no hidden guile therein. You know too many secrets, Robert, know about the Rakoczy tapes, and worst of all about my Group Four and that I assisted Janan into hell - where the Khan will soon join him, as Talbot’s due to in a couple of days, and you, my old friend, at my leisure. Should I tell you Pahmudi has ordered Talbot punished for his crimes against Iran? Should I tell you I’m happy to oblige? For years I’ve wanted Talbot removed but’ve never dared to go against him alone. Now Pahmudi is to blame, may God burn him, and another irritant will be out of my way. Ah, yes, and Pahmudi himself this coming week - but you, Robert, you’re the chosen assassin for that, probably to perish. Pahmudi’s not worth one of my real assassins.
He chortled to himself, trudging down the hill, not feeling the cold, not worried about Mzytryk’s nonappearance. I’ve more important worries, he was thinking. At all costs I’ve got to protect my Group Four assassins - my guarantee for an earthly paradise with power over even Khomeini himself. “Pahmudi’s the only one who could have ordered Rakoczy’s release,” he said. “Soon I’ll find out why and where he is. He’s either in the Soviet embassy, a Soviet safe house, or in a SA-VAMA interrogation dungeon.” “Or safely out of the country by now.”
“Then he’s safely dead - the KGB don’t tolerate traitors.” Hashemi smiled sardonically. “What’s your bet?”
For a moment Armstrong did not answer, thrown by the question mat was unusual for Hashemi who disapproved of gambling, as he did. Now. The last time he had bet was in Hong Kong in ‘63 with bribe money mat had been put into his desk drawer when he was a superintendent, CID. Forty thousand Hong Kong dollars - about seven thousand U.S. men. Against all his principles, he had taken the heung yau, the Fragrant Grease as it was called there, out of the drawer and, at the races that afternoon, had bet it all on the nose of a horse called Pilot Fish, all in one insane attempt to recoup his gambling losses - horses and the stock market.
This was the first bribe money he had ever taken in eighteen years in the force though it was always readily available in abundance. That afternoon he had won heavily and had replaced the money before the police sergeant giver had noticed it had been touched - with more than enough left over for his debts. Even so he had been disgusted with himself and appalled at his stupidity. He had never bet again, nor touched heung yau again though the opportunity was always there. “You’re a bloody fool, Robert,” some of his peers would say, “no harm in a little dolly money for retirement.” Retirement? What retirement? Christ, twenty years a copper in Hong Kong on the straight and narrow, eleven years here, equally so, helping these bloodthirsty twits, and it’s all up the bloody spout. Thank God I’ve only me to worry about, no wife now or kids or close relations, just me. Still, if I get bloody Suslev who’ll lead me to one of our high-up murdering bloody traitors, it’ll all have been worth it.
“Like you, I’m not a betting men, Hashemi, but if I was…” He stopped and offered his packet of cigarettes and they lit up gratefully. The smoke mixed with the cold air and showed clear in the falling light. “If I was, I’d say it was odds-on that Rakoczy was your Pahmudi’s pishkesh to some Soviet VIP, just to play it safe.”
Hashemi laughed. “You’re becoming more Iranian every day. I’ll have to be more careful.” They were almost to the car now and his assistant got out to open the rear door for him. “We’ll go straight to the Khan, Robert.” “What about the Chevy?”
“We’ll leave others to tail it, I want to get to the Khan first.” The colonel’s face darkened. “Just to make sure that traitor’s more on our side than theirs.”
Chapter 48
AT KOWISS AIR BASE: 6:35 P.M. Starke stared at Gavallan in total shock. “Whirlwind in six days?”