The nearest wood was the butt of the rifle the revolutionary had in his lap. The man was staring at him malevolently from the shade. Shitty bastard, you’re not going to spoil my day. He beamed at him, then turned his back, stretched, and looked around.
This’s a great site for a refinery, he told himself, close enough to Abadan, to the main pipelines joining the north and south oil fields - great idea to try to save all that gas being burned off, billions of tons of it all over the world. Criminal waste, when you think of it.
The refinery was on a promontory, with its own dredged wharfing setup that stretched out into the Gulf for four hundred yards, that Kasigi had told him would eventually be able to handle two supertankers at the same time of whatever size could be built. Around the helipads were acres of complex cracking plants and buildings, all seemingly interconnected with miles of steel and plastic pipes of all sizes, mazes of them, with huge cocks and valves, pumping stations, and everywhere cranes and earth-movers and vast piles of all manner of construction materials, mountains of concrete and sand, reinforcing steel mesh scattered around - along with neat dumps the size of football fields, of crates and containers protected with plastic tarpaulins - and half-finished roads, foundations, wharves, and excavations. But almost nothing moving, neither men nor machines. When they had landed, a welcoming committee of twenty or thirty Japanese had been at the helipad, hastily assembled, along with a hundred-odd Iranian strikers and armed Islamic Guards, some wearing IPLO armbands, the first Scragger had ever seen. After much shouting and threatening and examining their papers and the inbound Kish radar clearance, the spokesman had said the two of them could stay but no one could leave or the chopper take off without the komiteh’s permission.
En route to the office building, Chief Engineer Watanabe, who could speak English, had explained that the strike komiteh had been, for all intents and purposes, in possession for almost two months. In that time almost no progress had been made and all work had ceased. “They won’t even allow us to maintain our equipment.” He was a hard-faced, tough, grizzle-haired man in his sixties with very strong working hands. He lit another cigarette from his half smoked one. “And your radio?”
“Six days ago they locked the radio room, forbidding its use and took away the key. Phones of course have been out for weeks and the telex for a week or more. We’ve still about a thousand Japanese personnel here - dependents of course were never permitted - food supplies are very short, we’ve had no mail for six weeks. We can’t move out, we can’t work. We’re almost prisoners and can do nothing without very great troubles indeed. However, at least we are alive to protect what we have done and wait patiently to be allowed to continue. We are very indeed honored to see you, Kasigi-san, and you, Captain.”
Scragger had left them to their business, feeling the tension between the two men, however much they tried to hide it. In the evening he had eaten lightly, as always, allowed himself one ice
cold Japanese beer, “Bugger me, it’s not as good as Foster’s,” then had done his eleven minutes of Canadian Air Force exercises and had gone to bed. Just before midnight while he was still reading, there had been a soft knock. Kasigi had come in excitedly, apologizing for disturbing him but he felt Scragger should know at once that they had just heard a broadcast from a Khomeini spokesman in Tehran saying that all the armed services had declared for him, Prime Minister Bakhtiar had resigned, that now Iran was totally free of the Shah’s yoke, that by Khomeini’s personal order, all fighting should cease, all strikes should stop, oil production should commence again, all bazaars and shops should open, all men should hand in their weapons and return to work, and above everything, all should give thanks to God for granting them victory.
Kasigi had beamed. “Now we can start again. Thank all gods, eh? Now things will be normal again.”
When Kasigi had left, Scragger had lain there, the light on, his mind racing over the possibilities of what would happen now. Stone the crows, he had thought, how fast everything’s been. I’d’ve bet heavy odds the Shah’d never be shoved out, heavier odds that Khomeini’d never be allowed back, and then my bundle on a military coup.
He had turned off the light. “Just goes to show, Scrag, old chap. You know eff all.”
In the morning he had awakened early, accepted Japanese green tea in place of the breakfast tea he usually drank - Indian, very strong, and always with condensed milk - and gone to check, clean, and refuel, and now, everything tidy, he was very hungry. He nodded briefly to the guard who paid no attention to him and strolled off toward the four-story office building. Kasigi was standing at one of the windows on the top floor where the executive offices were. He was in the boardroom, a spacious corner office with a huge table and seats for twenty and had been watching the 206 and Scragger absently, his mind in turmoil, hard put to contain his rage. Since early this morning he had been going through cost projections, reports, accounts receivable, work projections, and so on, and they all added up to the same result: at least another billion dollars and another year of time to start production. This was only the second time he had visited the refinery which was not in his sphere of responsibility though he was a director and member of the Chairman’s Executive Committee that was their conglomerate’s highest echelon of decision-making.
Behind him Chief Engineer Watanabe sat alone at the vast table, outwardly patient, chain-smoking as always. He had been in charge for the last two years, deputy chief since the project began in ‘71 - a man of great experience. The previous chief engineer had died here, on-site, of a heart attack.
No wonder, Kasigi thought angrily. Two years ago - perhaps four - it must have been quite clear to him our absolute maximum budget of $3.5 billion would be inadequate, that overruns were already vast and delivery dates totally unrealistic.
“Why didn’t Chief Engineer Kasusaka inform us? Why didn’t he make a special report?”
“He did, Kasigi-san,” Watanabe said politely, “but by direction of the Head Agreements of the joint venture here, all reports have to go through our court-appointed partners. It’s an Iranian pattern - it’s always supposed to be a joint venture, fifty-fifty, with shared responsibilities, but gradually the Iranians manage to maneuver meetings and contracts and clauses, usually using the court or Shah as an excuse, till they have de facto control and then…”
He shrugged. “You’ve no idea how clever they are - worse than a Chinese merchant, much worse. They agree to buy the whole animal but renege and take only the steak and leave you with the rest of the carcass on your hands.” He put out the half-smoked cigarette and lit another. “There was a meeting of the whole board of partners with Gyokotomo-sama - Yoshi Gyokotomo himself, chairman of the Syndicate - here in this office, just before Chief Engineer Kasusaka-san died. I was present. Kasusaka-san cautioned everyone that Iranian bureaucratic delays and harassments - squeeze is the correct word - would put back production dates and cause a vast increase in cost overruns. I was present, I heard him with my own ears, but he was overridden by the Iranian partners who told the chairman everything would be rearranged, that Kasusaka-san didn’t understand Iran or the way they did things in Iran.” Watanabe studied the end of his cigarette. “Kasusaka-san even said the same in private to Gyokotomo-sama, begging him to beware, and gave him a written detailed report.”