Whirlwind Read Free Page A

mullahs on one side, the armed forces ready to stage a coup any day, the communists winding everyone up, the government of bakhtiar powerless, and civil war inevitable."
     
     
"what do they know in france, old boy?" scot gavallan had said airily as they loaded their gear. "the fr "
     
     
"the french know, mon vieux. all the papers say khomeini'll never cooperate with bakhtiar because he's a shah appointee and anyone connected with the shah is finished. finished. that old fire-eater's said fifty times he won't work with anyone shah-appointed."
     
     
lochart said, "i saw andy three days ago in aberdeen, jean-luc, and he was bullish as hell that irantll come back to normal soon, now that khomeini's back and the shah gone."
     
     
scot beamed. "there, you see. if anyone should know it's the old man. how is he, tom?"
     
     
lochart grinned back at him. "in great shape, his usual ball of fire." andy was andrew gavallan, scot's father, chairman and managing director of s-g. "andy said bakhtiar has the army, navy, and air force, the police, and savak, so khomeini's got to make a deal somehow. it's that or civil war."
     
     
"jesus," rodrigues said, "what the hell we doing back here anyway?"
     
     
"it's the money."
     
     
"bullmerde!"
     
     
they had all laughed, jean-luc the natural pessimist, then scot said, "what the hell does it matter, jean-luc? no one's ever bothered us here, have they? all through the troubles here no one's really ever bothered us. all our contracts are with iranoil which's the government bakhtiar, khomeini or general whoever. doesn't matter whoever's in power, they've got to get back to normal soon any government'll need oil dollars desperately, so they've got to have choppers, they've got to have us. for god's sake, they're not fools!"
     
     
"no, but khomeini's fanatic and doesn't care about anything except islam and oil's not islam."
     
     
"what about saudi? the emirates, opec, for god's sake? they're islamic and they know the price of a barrel. the hell with that, listen!" scot beamed. "guerney aviation have pulled out of all the zagros mountains and are cutting all their iranian ops to zero. to zero!"
     
     
this caught the attention of all of them. guerney aviation was the huge american helicopter company and their major rival. with guerney gone, work would be doubled and all expat s-g personnel in iran were on a bonus system that was tied to iranian profits.
     
     
"you sure, scot?"
     
     
"sure, tom. they had a helluva row with iranoil about it. the upshot was that iranoil said, if you want to leave, leave, but all the choppers are on license to us so they stay and all spares! so guerney told them to shove it, closed their base at gash, and put all the choppers in mothballs and left."
     
     
"i don't believe it," jean-luc said. "guerney must have fifty choppers on contract; even they can't afford to write off that lot."
     
     
"even so, we've already flown three missions last week which were all guerney exclusives."
     
     
jean-luc broke through the cheers. "why did guerney pull out, scot?"
     
     
"our fearless leader in tehran thinks they haven't the bottle, can't stand the pressure, or don't want to. let's face it, most of khomeini's vitriol's against america and american companies. mclver thinks they're cutting their losses and that's great for us."
     
     
"madonna, if they can't take out their planes and spares, they're in dead trouble."
     
     
"ours not to reason why, old boy, ours just to do and fly. so long as we sit tight we'll get all their contracts and more than double our pay this year alone."
     
     
"tu en parles mon cut, ma tete est malade!"
     
     
they had all laughed. even jordon knew what that meant: speak to my backside, my head is sick. "not to worry, old chap," scot said.
     
     
confidently, lochart nodded to himself, the cold on the mountainside not hurting him yet. andy and scottre right, everything's going to be normal soon, has to be, he thought. the