A young man holding a club put his arm around him affectionately. “I’m glad we voted you leader. You were our perfect choice.”
They all agreed. Ibrahim Kyabi was very proud, and proud to be part of the revolution that would end all of Iran’s troubles. And proud too of his father who was an oil engineer and important official in IranOil who had patiently worked over the years for democracy in Iran, opposing the Shah, who now would surely be a powerful voice in the new and glorious Iran. “Come along, friends,” he said contentedly. “We’ve several more buildings to investigate.”
Chapter 12
AT SIRI ISLAND: 7:42 P.M. A little over seven hundred miles southwest from Tehran, the loading of the 50,000-ton Japanese tanker, the Rikomaru, was almost complete. A good moon lit up the Gulf, the night was balmy with many stars above and Scragger had agreed to join de Plessey and go aboard for dinner with Yoshi Kasigi. Now the three of them were on the bridge with the captain, the deck floodlit, watching the Japanese deckhands and the chief engineer near the big intake pipe that led overboard to the complex of valves on the permanently anchored, floating oil-loading barge that was alongside and also floodlit.
They were about two hundred yards off the lowlying Siri island, the tanker anchored securely with her two bow chains fixed to buoys ahead and two anchors aft from the stern. Oil was pumped from the shore storage tanks through a pipe laid on the seabed up to the barge, thence aboard through their own pipe system into their tanks. Loading and unloading were dangerous operations because volatile, highly explosive gases built up in the tanks in the space over the crude - emptied tanks being even more dangerous until they were washed out. In the most modern tankers, for increased safety, nitrogen - an inert gas - was pumped into the space built up in the tanks, to be expelled at leisure. The Rikomaru was not so equipped. They heard the chief engineer shout down to the men on the barge, “Close the valve,” then turn to the bridge and give a thumbs-up that the captain acknowledged and said to Kasigi in Japanese, “Permission to sail as soon as we can?” He was a thin, taut-faced man in starched white shirt and shorts, with white socks and shoes, epaulets, and a naval style, peaked cap. “Yes, Captain Moriyama. How long will that be?”
“Two hours at the most - to clean up and to cat the moorings.” This meant sending out their motorboat to unshackle their bow anchor chains that were bolted to the permanent buoys, then reattach them to the ship’s anchors. “Good.” To de Plessey and Scragger, Kasigi said in English, “We’re full now and ready to leave. About two hours and we’ll be on our way.” “Excellent,” de Plessey said, equally relieved. “Now we relax.” The whole operation had gone very well. Security had been tightened throughout the island and throughout the ship. Everything that could be checked was checked. Only three essential Iranians had been allowed aboard. Each had been searched and were being carefully monitored by a Japanese crewman. There had been no signs of any hostiles among any of the other Iranians ashore. Every likely place had been searched that could hide explosives or arms. “Perhaps that poor young man off Siri One was mistaken, Scrag, mon ami.”
“Perhaps,” Scragger replied. “Even so, cobber, I think young Abdollah Turik was murdered - no one gets face and eye mutilation like that from falling off a rig in a calm sea. Poor young bugger.”
“But the sharks, Captain Scragger,” Kasigi said, equally disquieted, “the sharks could have caused those wounds.”
“Yes, they could. But I’ll bet my life it was because of wot he told me.” “I hope you’re wrong.”
“I’ll bet we’ll never know the truth,” Scragger said sadly. “Wot was your word, Mr. Kasigi? Karma. That poor young bugger’s karma was short and not sweet.”
The others nodded. In silence they watched the ship being detached from the barge’s umbilical cord.
To see better, Scragger went to the side of the bridge. Under more floodlights oilmen were laboriously unscrewing the twelve-inch pipe from the barge’s complex of valves. Six men were mere. Two Japanese crew, three Iranians, and a French engineer.
Ahead of him was the expanse and length of the flat deck. In the middle of the deck was his 206. He had landed there at de Plessey’s suggestion and with Kasigi’s permission. “Beaut,” Scragger had told the Frenchman; “I’ll fly you back to Siri, or Lengeh, just as you want.”
“Yoshi Kasigi suggests we both stay overnight, Scrag, and return in the morning. It’ll make a change for you. We can leave at dawn and return to Lengeh. Come aboard. I’d appreciate it.”
So he had landed on the tanker at sunset, not sure why he had accepted the invitation but he had made a pact with Kasigi and felt he should honor it. Too, he felt sickeningly responsible for young Abdollah Turik. The sight of the youth’s corpse had rocked him badly and made him want to be at Siri until the tanker left. So he had arrived and had tried to be a good guest, halfheartedly agreeing with de Plessey that perhaps, after all, the youth’s death was just a coincidence and that their security precautions would stop any sabotage attempt.
Since the loading had begun the day before, they had all been edgy. Tonight more so. The BBC news had again been very bad with reports of greatly increased confrontations in Tehran, Meshed, and Qom. Added to this was McIver’s report that Ayre had carefully relayed from Kowiss in French - news of the continuing investiture of Tehran’s International Airport, of the possible coup and about Kyabi. Kyabi’s murder had also shocked de Plessey. And all of this, along with the floods of rumors and counterrumors among the Iranians had made the evening somber. Rumors of imminent U.S. military intervention, of imminent Soviet intervention, of assassination attempts on Khomeini, on Bazargan his chosen prime minister, on Bakhtiar the legal prime minister, on the U.S. ambassador, rumors that the military coup d’état would happen in Tehran tonight, that Khomeini was arrested already, that all the armed services had capitulated and Khomeini was already de facto ruler of Iran and that General Nassiri, chief of SAVAK, had been captured, tried and shot.
“All the rumors can’t be true,” Kasigi had said for all of them. “There’s nothing we can do except wait.”
He had been a fine host. All the food was Japanese. Even the beer. Scragger had tried to hide his distaste for the hors d’oeuvre of sushi but he greatly enjoyed the barbecued chicken in a salty sweet sauce, the rice, and the deep-fried prawns and vegetables in batter. “Another beer, Captain Scragger?” Kasigi had offered.
“No, thanks. One’s all I allow myself though I’ll admit it’s good. Maybe not as good as Foster’s but close.”
De Plessey had smiled, “You don’t know what a compliment that is, Mr. Kasigi. For an Australian to say a beer’s ‘close to Foster’s’ is praise indeed.”
“Oh, yes, indeed I know, Mr. de Plessey. Down Under I prefer Foster’s.” “You spend a lot of time there?” Scragger had asked him.
“Oh, yes. Australia’s one of Japan’s main sources of all kinds of raw materials. My company has bulk cargo freighters for coal, iron ore, wheat, rice, soya bean,” Kasigi had said. “We import huge amounts of your rice though much of that goes into the manufacture of our national drink, sake. Have you tried sake, Captain?”
“Yes, yes I did once. But warm wine… sake’s not to my taste.” “I agree,” de Plessey said, then added hurriedly, “except in winter, like hot toddy. You were saying about Australia?”
“I enjoy the country very much. My eldest son goes to Sydney University too, so we visit him from time to time. It’s a wonderland - so vast, so rich, so empty.”
Yes, Scragger had thought grimly. You mean so empty and just waiting to be filled up by your millions of worker ants? Thank the Lord we’re a few thousand miles away and the U.S.‘ll never allow us to be taken over. “Bollocks!” McIver had said to him once during a friendly argument, when he, McIver, and Pettikin were on a week’s leave two years ago in Singapore. “If some time in the future Japan picked the right time, say when the U.S. was having at Russia, the States wouldn’t be able to do a thing to help Australia. I think they’d make a deal an - ”