The Balkan Assignment (24 page)

We left within the hour. Mikhail was marched out under guard and handcuffed to a cargo stanchion in the back of the aircraft. Two guards were to remain with him at all times. Klaus took his customary place in the copilot's seat. The ammunition crates were secured in the center of the fuselage, and for some reason a canvas cover had been thrown over the small stack. I settled myself silently into the pilot's seat and started the engines. The desert floor fled past the wings and we were quickly airborne. The sky was crystal clear ahead, but off the starboard wing, the brown haze of a sandstorm was walking across the desert, throwing clouds of sand to two and three thousand feet. The early morning sun spread a golden pall on the desert, softening the contours of the sand dunes and rock outcroppings. Shortly, we passed over the southern end of Lake Nasser, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. The mighty Aswan Dam was barely visible miles to the north. To the south, the sluggish Nile flowed steadily into the lake, a silver bar in the sunlight.

Klaus drowsed in the copilot's seat, oblivious to all .. . the passing scenery and my barely concealed hatred. One of the guards brewed a pot of coffee and brought a cup forward. With the DC-3 on automatic pilot I relaxed, watched the desert below and went over the events of the past few days, trying to arrange the almost incoherent series of events into some meaningful sequence. The radar vector light winked on. Bingo! Automatically, I craned my neck to peer out the window . . . Ley would be at least twenty miles behind, completely out of sight.

The radar vector light burned steadily, a bright red eye in the center of the control panel. I glanced over at Klaus. He had fallen soundly asleep, his head thrown back against the seat rest and one arm dangling along the floor boards.

Stealthily, I unscrewed the 0-ring holding the red glass dome over the bulb and loosened the bulb in its socket until it winked off. Then I tightened it back down until it barely made contact, but stayed dark, then screwed the dome and the 0-ring back on. By pressing on the dome with my thumb, I could make the contact and know whether or not Ley was still with us without attracting Klaus's attention. He had a habit of scanning the control panel periodically and asking about instrument readings. I sat back in the seat, satisfied, and watched the long blue line of the Red Sea edge over the horizon and stretch out north to south between its lines of fringing mountains rising to six and seven thousand feet. Far to the south ran the sere brown desert of the Sudan while to the north, the same desert in Egypt reached to the Mediterranean. We cleared the coast and headed out over the incredibly blue, clear water. Tiny specks of Arab dhows mingled with flashes of white foam on the rippling surface. Occasionally a freighter bound for Elath or some other Red Sea port passed beneath, trailing a mile-long wake. I had last flown over the Red Sea in 1964, three years before the Six-Day War that closed the Suez Canal. The contrast was startling. Then the Red Sea had been covered with seeming convoys of shipping, following one another politely up the narrow waterway to the Suez Canal and from there to the markets of Mediterranean and coastal Europe. Now, only the Saudi Arabian or Israeli ports welcomed the occasional ship. By the end of the morning we had settled into the routine of the flight. We passed out of Egypt less than two miles north of the border demarcation with Sudan. I had wanted to avoid the border area by more than that since, in spite of what both Egypt and the Sudan would like you to believe, the border position is not entirely clear. You might even say that in this area relations between two countries are strained. Sudan administers a large area which the United Arab Republic claims belong to them and the UAR, in return, administers a large area that Sudan claims rightfully belongs to them. And antiaircraft guns enforce the strict rules about violating borders unless you are flying an air corridor . . . which we weren't. I wondered if it had ever occurred to them just to trade "administrative" areas and be done with it. Maybe today was a holiday or perhaps the Israelis were making it hot up north again; whatever, not one interceptor rose to look us over.

But careful tuning, I managed to pick up the beacon from Medina north and a few moments later, the beacon from At Tä'if south. For some reason, I wasn't able to raise the beacon at Mecca, but At Td'if, some fifty miles east and south gave me the same position approximation. As long as I crossed the Saudi Arabian coast between the two, I would not be far off course.

For some strange reason, Saudi Arabia, one of the most xenophobic of all Middle Eastern countries, maintains no civilian restrictions on flying within its air space, not even nighttime restrictions. There are only a few closed areas surrounding military or industrial complexes. The rest of the Middle East is certainly different. Israel restricts flying within six miles of its borders or maritime territories to air corridors and polices them strictly. Iraq, Syria and Lebanon maintain the same restrictions. In effect, we were free to come and go across Saudi Arabia as we pleased so long as we checked with Medina Tower or Jidda App. Con. ten to fifteen minutes before entering Saudi airspace. The only other restrictions were against overflying cities and built-up areas. That left you with nearly one hundred percent of the country. They preferred to have you stay on air routes whenever possible, mostly for your own protection, but did not insist on it. Military aircraft, however, were treated differently. While for them, the country was pretty well open, there were numerous restricted, prohibited or danger areas which if violated, could and would bring interceptors loaded for bear. , We crossed the coast at 1100 hours somewhat south of Masturah and picked up the first up-drafts from the baking hills. I knew that it was going to get worse because we would be flying over an ancient lava bed in less than an hour. I had never cared much for desert flying since the plethora of thermals rising from the super-heated surface often remain intact to twelve and thirteen thousand feet.

Klaus slept soundly in spite of the jouncing until we crossed the fuzzy boundary that marked the transition from gravel desert to steppe. The land surface had been climbing easily since the coast, and as it rode higher the gravel began to give way to the vegetation of high desert and finally to grass-covered plains more reminiscent of the midwestern prairies or the Asian steppes. The rainy season was just ending on the steppe and the new grass was sprouting. The terrain was covered with soft emerald-green from horizon to horizon with only an occasional weathered hill rearing bare and worn above the grass. Klaus stretched hugely and sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Where are we?" he muttered.

I handed him the map, pointed out the approximate position.

"We are making good time?"

"Yeah. We've picked up a mild tail wind and it's helping us along." By late afternoon we had crossed the peninsula divide and descending on the far side, had left the grassy steppe far behind. Below, the spare, hard gravel plains of the northeastern part of the Arabian peninsula stretched forever. I picked up the beacon at Karj As San right on schedule and shortly scattered oil fields were below as we approached the Persian Gulf.

Jebel Dhana, our first refueling stop, was hard on the Persian Gulf, and we approached just after sunset over high, white sand dunes fringing the coast to pick up the city lights. A light rain was falling, lending a magical, futuristic air to the scattering of buildings and brightly lit streets of Jebel Dhana, the westernmost city in the oil rich Trucial States. Jebel Dhana has only a small airport on the southern end of the city and Klaus had grudgingly allotted two hours to refuel and eat before continuing on. We still had six hours of flying time ahead of us to Pakistan and the abandoned airfield at Sibi. Jebel tower gave us permission to land and I found the airfield with some difficulty. They only turn on the landing lights when the tower has you in sight. Since they have no radar at all, on

a rainy night like this, I almost had to buzz the tower to wake them up. The meager lights finally did come on and I gingerly put down on the packed sand surface. The ground crew consisted of one old Arab and his grandson pedaling bicycles out to the aircraft to see what we wanted. I tried to explain to the old man that we wanted gasoline and something to eat, but he didn't speak a word of English . . . and from the way he babbled, I'm not too sure that he spoke Arabic either. We finally got the message across with hand signals, and he and the grandson wobbled off across the apron to return a few minutes later in an old truck that must have been left at the airfield by the British, following the war. The old man went creakingly about his business, patting the sides and wings of the DC-3 as if it were a favorite horse .. . or a woman. By 2000 hours we were airborne again and flying deep into the triangular peninsula of land that juts into the Persian Gulf dividing it neatly from the Gulf of Oman; if you could slice the Arabian Peninsula north some fifty miles to close the Strait of Hormuz, the peninsula would fit neatly into the bight of Asia Minor. Staring at the map, mentally tracing the obvious land cleavages, it was hard to encompass the tremendous forces needed to move an entire sub-continent southward to open a gulf some eighty miles wide.

We left the darkened Persian Gulf behind and flew on again into the depths of the peninsula where the dark bulk of the Al Hajar Al-Gharbi and the Al-Jabal AlSkhadar mountains reared menacingly. The black, wind-tortured peaks and slopes passed silently beneath, falling away rapidly to the narrow lowlands of Muscat and Oman fringing the Gulf of Oman. The eastern slopes of the mountain chain were lit by the moon; flanks painted molten silver for long minutes. Shortly, the land disappeared and we were deep into the Gulf of Oman, flying toward the Indian Ocean beyond. I felt a bit better, having eaten. The coffee was already brewing and through the open cabin door I could hear the quiet murmur of voices. Klaus had not come forward for the take-off as he normally did. I reached forward and pushed my thumb against the radio vector warning light. It lit up immediately. Good, Ley and his friends were doing an excellent job of keeping track of us. On the ground at Jebel Dhana

I had heard the distant drone of an aircraft passing over the airfield at about ten thousand feet. After a few minutes, the aircraft had returned, looping around from the north. All the time we were on the ground, the aircraft had continued to make long and wide passes around the city. I assumed that they had landed for refueling after we had left. After a while, Klaus came forward with a cup of coffee for me. He handed it over and climbed into the copilot's seat to sit brooding at the windshield.

"Our friend, Mikhail, has become very quiet," he said after a few minutes. "Very quiet, indeed. He stares out the window and will not answer any questions that we put to him."

"Well, you can hardly expect him to strike up a conversation after the way he's been cheated."

Klaus continued to stare out the window, himself. Finally, "You are probably right. Still, I cannot but help feeling that he is planning something that will ruin our chances even now." ,

I shrugged. "For crying out loud. You have him securely tied and guarded by two men. He's at twelve thousand feet over the Indian Ocean. What in the name of God could he do to foul anything up? As long as your boys keep their eyes open, he won't have a chance."

"And you?" Klaus abruptly switched the topic. "Are you going to do anything to ruin my plans?"

I turned to stare at him as if he were a madman, putting all the injured innocence into that look that I could muster; it did no good, he was still staring straight through the window.

"Of course not. The deal you offered yesterday is almost as good as having a third of the gold. Almost." "Of course," Klaus nodded.

With that, he pushed himself out of the seat, clapped me on the shoulder and went back into the fuselage. I thoughtfully finished the coffee and drew out a cigarette and sat watching the vast span of the Indian Ocean, broken occasionally by the lights of a ship far, far below. Paranoia, I thought to myself and touched the radar vector light for assurance. It lit up . . . cheerfully.

We crossed the Pakistani coast at 0300 hours some thirty miles east of the port city and air base at Gwadar.

Pakistan requires all aircraft overflying the country to adhere strictly to certain air routes; since we were sneaking into the country, I dropped down to the deck and flew in under the radar nets in a northeasterly direction until the Dasht Kech River passed beneath and the slopes of the Central Makran Range reared above us. There, I climbed for altitude, knowing that the mountains would hide us from the radar, and bored on into the night for the abandoned airstrip at Sibi.

Under the light of the no longer full moon, the terrain flowing past the wings appeared to have been taken straight from hell. Tortuous convolutions twisted and turned across the plains and into the highlands of the Makran Range. Long synclines and folds squeezed up foothills to the bare mountains, and not a light showed anywhere from horizon to horizon. There were small mountain villages of herders and their families below but so scattered and primitive that in the night the land gave the impression of complete desolation.

Dawn was still several hours away when I picked up the beacon from Quetta, a small city high in the eleven thousand foot mountains of the Brahui Range. Quetta was only some fifty or sixty miles distant from Sibi and so I began a careful descent among the towering peaks.

Both Quetta and Sibi lie deep in a valley that separates the two ranges the Brahui and the Sulaiman. Both ranges flow northward to meet in the Toba Kakar range that runs down to end at Fort Sandeman. Both ranges are considered to be southern extensions of the Hindu Kush.

Klaus had come forward again as he felt the aircraft descending and took the copilot's seat. "All right," I said to him, "I have the beacon from Quetta. Now what?"

"Switch your radio to 123 kc. You will pick up a beacon, two short dots and a dash for the center of the route. Follow it right along to Sibi." I nodded. It would have to be an illegal beacon, otherwise in the darkness, we would never find Sibi in the wasteland below. I took a quick glance through the cockpit window. The moon was descending from zenith, flooding the tortured landscape below with a silvery sheen. Deep rills and mountain rifts seemed to run at all angles. Occasionally, I caught the flash of a mountain stream in its headlong flight to the Indian Ocean or to the Indus River to the east of us yet another two hundred miles or more. The peaks of the Sulaiman on the starboard and the Brahui on the portside towered above us, snowcapped and ghostly in the moonlight. The entire scene carried a dreamlike quality, brought about by the pale light of the moon shining down on this other-worldly land.