The Vengeance Man (4 page)

Peering through the cloud of choking sand, I saw the red flare of the SAM’s tail receding. As the dust cleared we could see the helicopter at the top of its flight, just beginning to move off. The red dot of the missile swerved and began to make erratic circles in the sky as its heat seeker sniffed the tantalising exhaust of the helicopter's engine. Red dot and black tadpole seemed to hang in the air for seconds and I held my breath. Suddenly the helicopter's silhouette foreshortened to a blob as it swung away. Over my shoulder I heard the collective intake of breath. Then the tiny red dot went out.

Even at that distance, we saw the bits fly. There was no perceptible explosion, just a few dark fragments. For a moment nothing seemed to happen.   Then, ludicrously slowly, the helicopter began to turn and drop. The turn became a swing, then a spiral and then it was rotating steadily on its axis as it began to drop like a falling leaf. Nose down and spinning, the HIP disappeared behind the black crest of the Jebel. A huge ball of flame and black smoke erupted, then hung like a pall in the sky, followed a second or so later by the flat crump of the explosion as it rang around the cliffs.

I was nearly catapulted over by Nusret and Yusif's whoops of delight and claps on the back. When I recovered, the clowns were capering around like a pair of dancing bears.

We didn't have time for self-congratulation. 
Ra’ashid
was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared up the valley at the far end of the wadi; the helicopter's demise merely made his task easier. "Knock it off, you two - we've still got to get past that lot!" I could hear no more firing.

Sobered, they climbed back and we drove cautiously up the open wadi bottom. As I drove, the two Kurds scanned the rock faces as I tried to contact Ra
’a
shid on the crackling walkie-talkie, but nothing came back except static. Very slowly we threaded the flat pan of the valley bottom and edged up to the shadow of the pass ahead, like a huge gateway, past Jamal's burnt out Toyota.  At one point a burst of tracer banged overhead, the bullets glowing like red bees as they swarmed away into the gloomy rocks and splashed up into the sky. The distant sound of the machine gun followed much later as the abandoned Iranians fired from the spot where the helicopter had dropped them; but they were miles out of range.

As we crept into the shadow of the pass, the rock walls came closer, seeming to press in on us. Of  Jamal, Ra'ashid and his trucks there was now no sign, although wheel tracks led round the bend and an abandoned American deuce and a half truck sat silent, its tyres shot out, its windscreen smashed and a bleeding and crumpled body sprawled half out of the cab face down on the sand. We stopped to help, but there were only dead men and flies, so we took their dieso cans and re-mounted.
Ra’ashid
's men had taken all the water already.

We crawled up the pass, the Landrover whining noisily in second gear. At any moment I expected to see either
Ra’ashid
's trucks or feel the crash of an ambush as the remaining Ira
n
ian soldiers opened up. But nothing happened. We just ground further up the gloomy ravine, hearts pounding, mouths dry and watching every rock crevice for a sniper. Where the hell was Ra’ashid and his gang? It was eerie. The deeper we drove up the pass, the narrower and darker it got. The track turned from sand to gravel and the wheel tracks faded, but
Ra’ashid
's party could only have passed this way.

After about a quarter of an hour I became worried and tried to speed up, but the old Rover didn't like that, so after a series of shattering bangs and crashes punctuated by much tongue clicking from my two uncomfortable passengers, I slowed down again. Nusret sensed my concern, for without being told he leaned over and grabbed the radio. His puzzled Kurdish was just as fruitless as my earlier queries. After about half an hour we were all worried.  Ra'
a
shid and his survivors had about five kilometres start on us from his end of the open pass. Add a bit on for our missile engagement and searching the stricken deuce and a half, and he could be over twenty minutes ahead at least, for we had averaged about ten miles per hour so far. If
Ra’ashid
's gang had belted north the minute they had slaughtered the Irani
an
blocking force, they could be over an hour away. And even half an hour at twenty miles per hour was ten miles ahead: minimum.

I was concerned, to put it mildly. Ra'
a
shid had all the men, all my spare diesel and stores, and was the only real source of help for a hundred and fifty miles of mountains averaging 7
,
000 feet. I was more than concerned: I was worried sick. After another half hour, the engine started to get hot, so we stopped at the top of the pass to wait for it to cool. While Nusret tried to raise anyone on the radio and Yusif relieved himself behind a rock, I pored over the map Sal had provided. It was depressing viewing. Not only did the sheet consist mainly of blank grid squares, but about 10 miles to the north I knew that a cold and nasty decision lay ahead.

I worked out that we were now about 40 miles north west of Hasak. That made us about 10 miles from the end of the pass where it reached the crest, deep in the high mountains. As long as we stayed in the pass we were safe from pursuing Iranian aircraft - unless they put another helicopter full of troops up ahead. The problem was that once we got to the mouth of the pass it levelled out into a wide plateau, about 20 miles across, like a huge saucer between the peaks. Anyone moving across that open expanse by day would be a sitting duck if the Irani
ans
put up reconnaissance or an airstrike.

Ra'
a
shid should wait at the top of the pass, hoping to lie up until after dark. I hoped so. No-one but a desperate fool would risk a flat dash across the open expanse of sand towards the safety of the Iraqi mountains to the west in daylight with the Ayatollah’s bloody warplanes buzzing around. Too dangerous. But if  Ra'
a
shid
did
do something stupid, then it left me abandoned, still with the same problem and that nasty decision. If only the bloody radio would work. I looked at the map again.  If the plateau looked like a clock face then we would hit it at about four o’clock. There was a clear fork in the track marked at the end of the pass. The right hand dotted line followed the eastern side of the saucer hugging the mountains and the Turkish border to the north. But the left hand fork ran right across the centre of the open plateau due west, back toward the safety of the Ira
q
i mountains. Which way to go now?

There was no conceivable way that Ra'
a
shid would lead his men north, despite the safety of the hills and the Turkish border. The Turkish authorities would not exactly welcome another bunch of renegade Kurds, armed to the teeth.  Safety for them lay west. However,
our
  logical escape route was round the clock face to the right, north to the Turkish border. It was the only safe escape route anyway, whether I met
Ra’ashid
or not. I just wasn't sure how Ra'
a
shid would take being abandoned by his paymaster and acting rear-guard. But was
Ra’ashid
waiting for us at the end of the pass. Had he decided to abandon
us
?

I showed the map to Nusret and Yusif, and traced the route to Hakari and north to the  Turkish border with my finger. Nusret, of his own volition, promptly pointed to the right fork and traced the line due north. Yusif grinned slyly and they both looked at me. I shrugged.

"Maybe
Ra’ashid
will be waiting for us at the end of the pass." They looked thoughtful. "You will wish to rejoin the Pesh', your friends?" This time Nusret shrugged and looked carefully at Yusif.

"
Insh'sha'Allah
," he said non-committally, in the universal Arabic phrase of the Muslim world.    "As God wills."   I got the message.

"Let us drive carefully north to the end of the pass, my friends. At the fork in the track we shall see what we shall see." They exchanged glances
again
. Nusret spoke for them both.

"But not too fast, Quaa'id?"

I looked shocked. "
Laa'samah'Allah
," I intoned. "God forbid."

So it was. We drove gently up through what remained of the pass. I nursed the engine to save fuel. Gradually the  rock walls on either side began to grow further apart; little by little the cliffs were not so high as we neared the final crest. The sky above got wider and bigger.
Soon the narrow straight pass be
came a broad canyon winding due north. The gravelly track became sandier and the deep ruts of fresh tyre tracks showed that
Ra’ashid
had passed this way. Occasionally I stopped and listened on the radio, but no-one was talking.

Only static met our calls for a radio check.
 
Finally, by noon, we came to the top of the pass, high in the mountains.  In front of us, a dazzling white plateau of sand and gravel opened out in the glaring sun, like a broad sea with distant mountain tops in the distance.   To the north were the peaks on the Turkish border, far away; and, far off to the left, the plateau disappeared over the horizon to the blue peaks of the Kurdish mountains to the west.    I stopped the Landrover and gazed ahead to the north. 
Ra’ashid
's tyre tracks could clearly be seen as they fanned out from the exit from the pass onto the sandy plateau.  About a thousand yards ahead they could be seen equally clearly swinging hard to the left, then running straight as railway tracks across the open bay of sand -- due west towards
Iraq and
Kurdistan. 
Ra’ashid
had fled. He had abandoned us. Who could blame him?

I reversed the Rover back into the mouth of the pass and the shade. Then we climbed onto a rock where I could scan the plateau through the binoculars. Nothing. Ra’ashid and the trucks must have had a good hour’s start: on this flat going they could be twenty miles away by now – easily. I and took stock of our situation.  Perhaps Ra'ashid thought we too had got the chop in the pass and had pressed on. Who could tell?

I did some sums. By now we were down to one full tank of dieso in the Rover; about 10 gallons. In addition, we had our own four spare jerricans, each with four and a half gallons - say a total of 16 gallons, allowing for wastage - plus the three jerricans taken from the deuce and a half - another 12 gallons. With one tank and 28 extra gallons, I worked out that with a reserve we had fuel enough for about 280 miles at  l0 miles per gallon, and a lot less if we found bad going or had to detour. Nusret filled the empty tank as I worked and Yusif checked the water.

The decision was hanging over me, when a low rumble made us look at each other in alarm. Instinctively we pressed into the shade. A second later a pair of jets roared over, heading north west, one on either side of the pass and dropping to low level as they cleared the hills. Then they barrelled away into the distance, banking hard to their left. From the stubby fuselage and little wings I recognised them as bombed-up ex-Russian Sukhoi 25s. Ground attack variant. Probably from Tabriz air base a hundred miles to the south east. . . .

"
Narooh
!" muttered Yusif, "Let's go." He clutched the chagal, or  water bag, carefully. Hardly had he spoken when another pair of jets thundered north. Nusret and I needed no urging.

Ra’ashid
's group had abandoned us. We were on our own, and the Iranian air force was hunting for the Kurdish terrorists who had attacked Hasak.  Time to get the hell out before the Iranians found us and took their revenge.

Keeping as close to the bottom of the foothills to the right as we could , we inched along to the right, along the eastern side of the plateau. We drove slowly to keep the dust down and tried  to keep heading north.  All the time we gazed anxiously to across the open plain
out
to our left, looking for any sign of the jets. At one point a distant rumble, like far-off thunder, could be heard above the motor.  I stopped, but we heard nothing more, so I restarted the engine and drove quietly into a rock shadow against the rock wall that rimmed  the plateau.

Not a moment too soon, either.   Far off to the left two black dots appeared above the horizon and grew into climbing jets coming straight towards us, while behind them a distant smudge of dust and smoke rose indistinctly above the skyline.  Engines roaring, the silvery swept wing shapes passed high overhead, banking steeply to their right before disappearing above the mountains to the south. The rumble of their engines faded but all three of us continued to stare at the eastern rim of the plateau. A handspan to the left of the initial smudge of smoke a cloud of greyish yellow dust drifted gently up. The thunder-like rumblings echoed again, remote yet ominous.

Sa'aeed
!" hissed Ali, and pointed. Two more specks flitted low above the plain, miles away and wavering in the heat haze. Then they, too, disappeared behind us over  the mountains to the south. It would take them an hour to refuel and rearm, I reckoned, with maybe half an hour's flying time. The fighter bombers could make two more trips before dusk. I looked at my two bodyguards and Yusif shook his head.  Nusret gestured ahead to the north, where the track hugged the side of the plateau before escaping into the mountains on the Turkish border and freedom.