At that instant Rudi saw it and recognized Zataki in the front seat. Maximum power. “Agha, I’m just going to take her up a few feet, my torque counter’s jumping…”
Whatever Numir was screaming was lost in the noise. Zataki was barely a hundred yards away. Rudi felt the rotors biting into the air, then lift off. For a moment it looked as though Numir were going to jump onto a skid but he ducked out of the way, the skid scraping him, and fell as Rudi got forward momentum and lumbered away, almost bursting with excitement. Ahead, the others were in station over the marsh. He waggled his chopper from side to side as he joined them, gave them the thumbs-up, and led the rush for the Gulf four miles distant.
Numir was choked with rage as he picked himself up, and Zataki’s car skidded to a halt beside him. “By God, what’s going on?” Zataki said furiously, jumping out, the choppers already vanished into the haze, the sound of the engines dying away now. “They were supposed to wait for me!” “I know, I know, Colonel, I told them but they … they just took off an - ” Numir screamed as the fist smashed him in the side of the face and felled him. The other Green Bands watched indifferently, used to these outbursts. One of the men pulled Numir to his feet, slapped his face to bring him around.
Zataki was cursing the sky and when the spasm of rage had passed, he said, “Bring that piece of camel’s turd and follow me.” Storming past the open hangar he saw the two 206s parked neatly in the back, spares laid out here and there, a fan drying some new paintwork - all Rudi’s painstaking camouflage to give them an extra few minutes. “I’ll make those dogs wish they’d waited,” he muttered, his head aching.
He kicked the door of the office open and stormed over to the radio transmitter and sat down near it. “Numir, get those men on the loudspeaker!” “But Janan, our radio operator isn’t here yet and I do - ” “Do it!”
The terrified man switched on the VHF, his mouth bleeding and hardly able to talk. “Base calling Captain Lutz!” He waited, then repeated the order, adding, “Urgent!”
IN THE AIRPLANES: They were barely ten feet above the marshland and a few hundred yards away when they heard Zataki’s angry voice cut in: “All helicopters are recalled to base, recalled to base! Report in!” Rudi made a slight adjustment to the engine power and to the trim. In the chopper nearest to him he saw Marc Dubois point at his headset and make an obscene gesture. He smiled and did likewise, then noticed the sweat running down his face. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN! ALL…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “… HELICOPTERS REPORT IN.” Zataki was shrieking into the mike. “ALL HELICOPTERS REPORT IN!”
Nothing but static answered him. Suddenly Zataki slammed the mike onto the table. “Get Abadan Tower! HURRY UP!” he shouted and the terrified Numir, blood trickling into his beard, switched channels, and after the sixth call, this time in Farsi, got the tower. “Here is Abadan Tower, Agha, please go ahead.”
Zataki tore the mike out of his hand. “This is Colonel Zataki, Abadan Revolutionary Komiteh,” he said in Farsi, “calling from Bandar Delam airfield.”
“Peace be upon you, Colonel,” the voice was very deferential. “What can we do for you?”
“Four of our helicopters took off without approval, going to Iran-Toda. Recall them, please.”
“Just a moment, please.” Muffled voices. Zataki waited, his face mottled. Waiting and waiting, then, “Are you sure, Agha? We do not see them on the radar screen.”
“Of course I’m sure. Recall them!”
More muffled voices and more waiting, Zataki ready to explode, then a voice in Farsi said, “The four helicopters that left Bandar Delam are ordered to return to their base. Please acknowledge you are doing this.” It was transmitted ineptly and repeated. Then the voice added, “Perhaps their radios are not functioning, Agha, the blessings of God upon you.” “Keep calling them! They’re low and heading toward Iran-Toda.” More muffled voices, then more Farsi as before, then a sudden voice cut in in American English, “Okay, I’ll take it! This is Abadan Control. Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees, do you read?”
IN DUBOIS’S COCKPIT: His compass heading was 091 degrees. Again the crisp voice in his earphones: “This is Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast, do you read?” A pause. “Abadan Control, choppers on a heading of 090 switch to channel 121.9…do you read?” This was the emergency channel that all aircraft were supposed to listen in on automatically. “Choppers on a heading of 090 degrees one mile from the coast return to base. Do you read?”
Through the haze Dubois saw that the coast was approaching fast, less than half a mile away, but flying this low he doubted if they could possibly be on radar. He looked left. Rudi pointed at his earphones and then a finger to his lips meaning silence. He gave him the thumbs-up and passed the message to Sandor who was on his right, turned to see Fowler Joines climbing in from the cabin to sit beside him. He motioned to the spare headset hanging above the seat. The voice was more brittle now: “All choppers outward bound from Bandar Delam to Iran-Toda return to base. Do you read?”
Fowler, connected now through the headset, said into their intercom, “Hope the effer drops dead!”
Then again the voice and their smiles faded: “Abadan Control to Colonel Zataki. Do you read?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“We picked up a momentary radar trace, probably nothing, but it could have been a chopper or choppers tightly bunched, heading 090 degrees” - the transmission was weakening slightly - “this would take them direct…”
AT THE AIRFIELD: “…Iran-Toda. Not requesting engine start and not being in radio contact is a serious violation. Please give us their call signs and names of the captains. Iran-Toda’s VHF is still inoperative otherwise we would contact them. Suggest you send someone down there to arrest the pilots and bring them before the ATC Abadan komiteh at once for contravening air regulations. Do you copy?”
“Yes … yes, I understand. Thank you. Just a moment.” Zataki shoved the mike into Numir’s hands. “I’m going to Iran-Toda! If they come back before I get them, they’re under arrest! Give Traffic Control what they want to know!” He stormed out, leaving three men on base with machine guns. Numir began, “Abadan Control, Bandar Delam: HVV, HGU, HKL, HXC, all 212s. Captains Rudi Lutz, Marc Dubois …”
IN POP KELLY’S COCKPIT: “… Sandor Petrofi, and Ignatius Kelly, all seconded from IranOil by Colonel Zataki’s order to Iran-Toda.”
“Thank you, Bandar Delam, keep us advised.”
Kelly looked right and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to Rudi who acknowledged…
IN RUDI’S COCKPIT: … and did the same to Dubois who also acknowledged. Then he peered into the haze once more.
The closely bunched choppers were almost over the coastline. Iran-Toda was to their left, about half a mile away, but Rudi could see none of it through the haze or mist. He accelerated slightly to get ahead, then turned from his heading of due south to due east. This gave them a deliberate direct course over the plant and he increased altitude only enough to clear the buildings. The complex rushed past but he knew that those on the ground would be well aware of their flight because of the howling suddenness of its appearance. Once past, he went down low again and held this same course, now heading inland for a little more than ten miles. Here the land was desolate, no villages nearby. Again, according to their plan, he turned due south for the sea.