“Why’re you stopping me, for crissake?” Wazari was shaking with fear. “He’ll betray us!”
“No need… no need for that.” Lochart had difficulty talking for a moment. “Be patient. Listen, Pavoud, if you keep quiet, we’ll keep quiet.” “I swear by God, of course I’ll ke - ”
Wazari hissed, “You can’t trust these bastards.”
“I don’t,” Lochart said. “Quick. Write it all down! Quick! All the names you can remember. Quick - and make three copies!” Lochart shoved a pen into the young man’s hand. Wazari hesitated then grabbed the pad and began to scribble. Lochart went closer to Pavoud who cringed from him, begging mercy. “Shut up and listen. Pavoud, I’ll make a deal, you say nothing, we’ll say nothing.”
“By God, of course I won’t say anything, Agha, haven’t I faithfully served the company, faithfully all these years, haven’t I been ev - ” “Liar,” Wazari said, then added to Lochart’s shock, “I’ve overheard you and the others lying and cheating and slobbering after Manuela Starke, peeping at her in the night.”
“Lies, more lies, don’t belie - ”
“Shut up, you bastard!” Wazari said.
Pavoud obeyed, petrified by the venom, and huddled back into the corner. Lochart tore his eyes off the quaking man and took one of the lists, put it into his pocket. “You keep one, Sergeant. Here,” he said to Pavoud, shoving the third into his face. The man tried to back away, couldn’t, and when the list was thrust into his hand, he moaned and dropped it as though it were on fire. “If we get stopped I promise you before God this goes to the first Green Band and don’t forget we both speak Farsi and I know Hussain! Understand?” Numbly Pavoud nodded. Lochart leaned down and picked the list up and stuffed it into the man’s pocket. “Sit down over there!” He pointed to a seat in the corner, then wiped his sweating hands on his trousers and switched on the VHF, picked up the mike.
“Kowiss calling inbound choppers from Bandar Delam, do you read?” Lochart waited, then repeated the call. Then, “Tower, this is base, do you read?” After a pause a weary, heavily accented voice said, “Yes, we hearing you.” “We’re expecting four inbound choppers from Bandar Delam that’re only equipped with VHF. I’m going to get airborne and try to raise them. We’ll be off the air until I get back. Okay?” “Okay.”
Lochart switched off. From the HF came: “Kowiss, this is Tehran, do you read?”
Lochart asked, “What about him?” Both of them looked at Pavoud who seemed to shrink into his chair.
The stabbing pain behind Wazari’s eye was the worst it had ever been. I’m gonna have to kill Pavoud, that’s the only way I can prove I’m on Lochart’s side. “I’ll deal with him,” he said and got up.
“No,” Lochart said. “Pavoud, you’re taking the rest of the day off. You walk downstairs, you tell the others you’re sick, and you’re going home. You say nothing else and leave at once. We can see you and hear you from here. If you betray us, by the Lord God, you and every man on this list’ll be betrayed too.”
“You swear you … you’ll…” the words started to pour out, “you swear you’ll tell no one, you swear?”
“Get out and go home! And it’s on your head not ours! Go on, get out!” They watched him totter away. And when they saw him on his bicycle pedaling slowly down the road toward the town, they both felt a little easier. “We should have killed him… we should have, Cap. I’d’ve done it.” “This way’s just as safe and… well, killing him wouldn’t solve anything.” Nor help me with Sharazad, Lochart thought.
Again over the HF, again the nagging: “Kowiss, this is Bandar Delam, do you read?”
“It’s not safe to leave those bastards broadcasting, Cap. Tower’s gotta pick ‘em up, however untrained and inefficient they are.”
Lochart put all his mind on the problem. “Sergeant, get on the HF for an instant, pretend you’re a radio mec who’s pissed off with having his holiday screwed up. Tell ‘em in Farsi to shut up, to stay the hell off our channel until we’re repaired, that this lunatic Lochart’s gone aloft to raise the four choppers on the VHF, perhaps one of them had an emergency and the others are with him on the ground. Okay?”
“Got it!” Wazari did it all, perfectly. When he switched off he held his head in his hands a moment, pain blinding him. Then he looked up at Lochart. “You trust me now?”
“Yes.”
“I can come with you? Honest?”
“Yes.” Lochart put out his hand. “Thanks for the help.” He pulled the company HF frequency crystal out, mutilated it, and put it back, then pulled out the breaker of the VHF and pocketed it. “Come on.”
In the office downstairs he stopped a moment. “I’m going aloft,” he told the three clerks who stared at him strangely. “I’m going to try to raise the Bandar choppers on the VHF.” The three men said nothing, but Lochart felt they knew the secret too. Then he turned to Wazari. “See you tomorrow, Sergeant.”
“Hope it’s okay to quit. My head hurts like hell.”
“See you tomorrow.” Lochart pottered in the office, conscious of the scrutiny, to give Wazari enough tune to pretend to saunter off, actually to go around the hangar and sneak aboard: “Once you’re out of the office you’re on your own,” Lochart had told him, “I won’t check the cabin, I’ll just take off.”
“God help us all, Captain.”
Chapter 63
AT BAHRAIN AIRPORT: 11:28 A.M. JeanLuc and Mathias Delarne were standing beside a station wagon near the helipad watching the incoming 212, shading their eyes against the sun, still unable to recognize the pilot. Mathias was a short, thickset man, with dark wavy hair, half a face, the other half badly bum-scarred when he had bailed out on fire not far from Algiers. “It’s Dubois,” he said.
“No, you’re wrong, it’s Sandor.” JeanLuc waved, motioning him to land crosswind. The moment the skids touched, Mathias rushed under the rotors for the left cockpit door - paying no attention to Sandor who was shouting across at him. He carried a large paintbrush and a can of quick-drying airplane paint and he slapped the white paint over the Iran registration letters just below the door’s window. JeanLuc used the stencil they had prepared and black paint and his brush, then carefully peeled the stencil off. Now she was G-HXXI and legal.
Meanwhile, Mathias had gone to the tail boom and painted out IHC, ducked under the boom to do the same on the other side. Sandor just had time to move his arm out of the way of the door as, enthusiastically, JeanLuc stenciled the second G-HXXI.
“Voilá!” JeanLuc gave his material back to Mathias who went to the station wagon to stash it under a tarpaulin, while JeanLuc wrung Sandor Petrofi’s hand and told him about Rudi and Kelly and asked about Dubois. “Don’know, old buddy,” Sandor said. “After the pileup” - he explained about the near miss - “Rudi waved us off to head here independently. I never saw any of them again. Me, I put her into minimum consumption, stuck to the waves, and prayed. I’ve been on empty, warning lights on, for maybe ten goddamn minutes and crapping for twenty. What about the others?” “Rudi and Kelly landed on Abu Sabh beach - Rod Rodrigues’s looking after them - nothing yet on Scrag, Willi, or Vossi, but Mac’s still at Kowiss.”
“Jesusss!”
“Oui, along with Freddy and Tom Lochart, at least they were, ten or fifteen minutes ago.” JeanLuc turned to Mathias who came up to them, “Are you tuned into the tower?”