“It is God-lost, my darling,” Ross had said the last time she had seen him in Tehran, just before he had left her - she could not endure parting without saying good-bye so she had gone to Talbot to inquire after him and then, a few hours later, he had knocked on her door, the apartment empty but for them. “It’s best you leave Iran, Azadeh. Your beloved Iran is once again bereft. This revolution’s the same as all of them: a new tyranny replaces the old. Your new rulers will implant their law, their version of God’s law, as the Shah implanted his. Your ayatollahs will live and die as popes live and die, some good men, some bad and some evil, in God’s time the world’ll get a little better, the beast in men that needs to bite and hack and kill and torment and torture will become a little more human and a little more restrained. It’s only people that bugger up the world, Azadeh. Men mostly. You know I love you?”
“Yes. You said it in the village. You know I love you?”
“Yes.”
So easy to swoop back into the womb of time as when they were young. “But we’re not young now and there’s a great sadness on me, Azadeh.” “It’ll pass, Johnny,” she had said, wanting his happiness. “It’ll pass as Iran’s troubles will pass. We’ve had terrible times for centuries but they’ve passed.” She remembered how they had sat together, not touching now, yet possessed, one with the other. Then later he had smiled and raised his hand in his devil-may-care salute and he had left silently. Again the glint in the valley. Anxiety rushed back into her. Now a movement through the trees and she saw them. “Erikki!” He was instantly awake. “Down there. Two men on horseback. They look like tribesmen.” She handed him the binoculars.
“I see them.” The men were armed and cantering along the valley bed, dressed as hill people would dress, keeping to cover where there was cover. Erikki focused on them. From time to time he saw them look up in their direction. “They can probably see the chopper but I doubt if they can see us.” “They’re heading up here?”
Through his aching and tiredness he had heard the fear in her voice. “Perhaps. Probably yes. It’d take them half an hour to get up here, we’ve plenty of time.”
“They’re looking for us.” Her face was white and she moved closer to Erikki. “Hakim will have alerted everywhere.”
“He won’t have done that. He helped me.”
“That was to escape.” Nervously she looked around the plateau and the tree line and the mountains, then back at the two men. “Once you escaped he’d act like a Khan. You don’t know Hakim, Erikki. He’s my brother but before that he’s Khan.”
Through the binoculars he saw the half-hidden village beside the road in the middle distance. Sun glinted off telephone lines. His own anxiety increased. “Perhaps they’re just villagers and curious about us. But we won’t wait to find out.” Wearily he smiled at her. “Hungry?”
“Yes, but I’m fine.” Hastily she began bundling the carpet that was ancient, priceless, and one of her favorites. “I’m thirsty more than hungry.” “Me too but I feel better now. The sleep helped.” His eyes ranged the mountains, setting what he saw against his remembrance of the map. A last look at the men still far below. No danger for a while, unless there are others around, he thought, then went for the cockpit. Azadeh shoved the carpet into the cabin and tugged the door closed. There were bullet holes in it that she had not noticed before. Another spark of sunlight off metal in the forest, much closer, that neither saw.
Erikki’s head ached and he felt weak. He pressed the starting button. Wind up, immediate and correct. A quick check of his instruments. Rev counter shattered, no compass, no ADF. No need for some instruments - the sound of the engines would tell him when the needles would be in the Green. But needles on the fuel gauges were stuck at a quarter full. No time to check on them or any other damage and if there was damage, what could he do? All gods great and small, old and new, living or dead or yet to be born, be on my side today, I’ll need all the help you can give me. His eyes saw the kookri that he remembered vaguely shoving in the seat pocket. Without conscious effort his fingers reached out and touched it. The feel of it burned. Azadeh hurried for the cockpit, turbulence from the rotors picking up speed clawing at her, chilling her even more. She climbed into the seat and locked the door, turning her eyes away from the mess of dried blood on the seat and floor. Her smile died, noticing his brooding concentration and the strangeness, his hand almost near the kookri but not quite. Again she wondered why he had brought it.
“Are you all right, Erikki?” she asked, but he did not appear to have heard her. Insha’Allah. It’s God’s will he is alive and I’m alive, that we’re together and almost safe. But now it’s up to me to carry the burden and to keep us safe. He’s not my Erikki yet, neither in looks nor in spirit. I can almost hear the bad thoughts pounding in his head. Soon the bad will again overpower the good. God protect us. “Thank you, Erikki,” she said, accepting the headset he handed her, mentally girding herself for the battle.
He made sure she was strapped in and adjusted the volume for her. “You can hear me, all right?”
“Oh, yes, my darling. Thank you.”
Part of his hearing was concentrated on the sound of the engines, a minute or two yet before they could take off. “We’ve not enough fuel to get to Van which’s the nearest airfield in Turkey - I could go south to the hospital in Rezaiyeh for fuel but that’s too dangerous. I’m going north a little. I saw a village that way and a road. Perhaps that’s the Khoi-Van road.” “Good, let’s hurry, Erikki, I don’t feel safe here. Are there any airfields near here? Hakim’s bound to have alerted the police and they’ll have alerted the air force. Can we take off?”
“Just a few more seconds, engines’re almost ready.” He saw the anxiety and her beauty and once more the picture of her and John Ross together tumbled into his mind. He forced it away. “I think there are airfields all over the border sector. We’ll go as far as we can; I think we’ve enough fuel to get over the border.” He made an effort to be light. “Maybe we can find a gas station. Do you think they’d take a credit card?”
She laughed nervously and lifted up her bag, winding the strap around her wrist. “No need for credit cards, Erikki. We’re rich - you’re rich. I can speak Turkish and if I can’t beg, buy, or bribe our way through I’m not of the tribe Gorgon! But through to where? Istanbul? You’re overdue a fabulous holiday, Erikki. We’re safe only because of you, you did everything, thought of everything!”
“No, Azadeh, you did.” You and John Ross, he wanted to shout and looked back at his instruments to hide. But without Ross Azadeh’d be dead and therefore I’d be dead and I can’t live with the thought of you and him together. I’m sure you lov - At that moment his disbelieving eyes saw the groups of riders break out of the forest a quarter of a mile away on both sides of him, police among them, and begin galloping across the rocky space to head them off. His ears told him the engines were in the Green. At once his hands shoved full throttle. Time slowing. Creeping off the ground, no way that the attackers could not shoot them down. A million years of time for them to rein in, aim, and fire, any one of the dozen men. The gendarme in the middle, the sergeant, he’s stopping, pulling the M16 out of his saddle holster! Abruptly time came back at full speed and Erikki swung away and fled from them, weaving this way and that, expecting every second to be the last, then they were over the side, roaring down into the ravine at treetop level.
“Hold your fire,” the sergeant shouted to the overexcited tribesmen who were at the lip, aiming and firing, their horses cavorting. “In the Name of God I told you we were ordered to capture them, to save her and kill him, not kill her!” Reluctantly the others obeyed and when he came up to them he saw the 212 was well away down in the valley. He pulled out the walkie-talkie and switched on: “HQ, this is Sergeant Zibri. The ambush failed. His engines were going before we got into position. But he’s flushed out of his hiding place.”