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gen!" mciver was a heavyset man of fifty-eight, built like a boxer, with grizzled grey hair. "callaghan's a bloody twit and th " he stopped, hearing faint rumbles of a heavy vehicle going past in the street below. the apartment was on the top floor, the fifth, of the modern residential building in the northern suburbs of tehran. another vehicle passed.
     
     
"sounds like more tanks," she said.
     
     
"they are tanks, genny," charlie pettikin said. he was fifty-six, ex-raf, originally from south africa, his hair dark and gray-flecked, senior pilot, iran, and chief of s-g's iranian army and air force helicopter training program.
     
     
"perhaps we're in for another bad one," she said.
     
     
for weeks now every day had been bad. first it was martial law in september when public gatherings had been banned and a 9:00 rm. to 5:00 a.m. curfew imposed by the shah had only further inflamed the people. particularly in the capital tehran, the oil port of abadan, and the religious cities of qom and meshed. there had been much killing. then the violence had escalated, the shah vacillating, then abruptly canceling martial law in the last days of de
     
     
comber and appointing bakhtiar, a moderate, prime minister, making concessions, and then, incredibly, on january 16 leaving iran for "a holiday." then bakhtiar forming his government and khomeini still in exile in france decrying it and anyone who supported it. riots increasing, the death toll increasing. bakhtiar trying to negotiate with khomeini, who refused to see him or talk to him, the people restive, the army restive, then closing all airports against khomeini, then opening them to him. then, equally incredibly, eight days ago on february 1, khomeini returning.
     
     
since then the days have been very bad, she thought.
     
     
that dawn she, her husband, and pettikin had been at tehran's international airport. it was a thursday, very cold but crisp with patches of snow here and there, the wind light. to the north the elburz mountains were white-capped, the rising sun brooding the snow. the three of them had been beside the 212 that was standing on the airport apron, well away from the tarmac in front of the terminal. another 212 was on the other side of the airfield, also ready for instant takeoff both ordered here by khomeini's supporters.
     
     
this side of the terminal was deserted, except for twenty or so nervous airport officials, most of whom carried submachine guns, waiting near a big black mercedes and a radio car that was tuned to the tower. it was quiet here in violent contrast to the inside of the terminal and outside the perimeter fence. inside the terminal building was a welcoming committee of about a thousand specially invited politicians, ayatollahs, mullahs, newsmen, and hundreds of uniformed police and special islamic guards with green armbands nicknamed green bands the mullahs' illegal revolutionary private army. everyone else had been kept away from the airport, all access roads blocked, guarded, and barricaded. but just the other side of these barricades were tens of thousands of anxious people of all ages. most women wore the chador, the long, shroudlike robe that covered them from head to foot. beyond these people, lining the ten-mile route, all the way to behesht-zahra cemetery where the ayatollah was to make his first speech, were five thousand armed police, and around them, crammed together on balconies, in windows, on walls, and in the streets was the biggest gathering of people iran had ever known, a sea of people most of tehran's population. nearly five million lived in and around the city. all anxious, all nervous, all afraid that there would be a last-moment delay or that perhaps the airport would be closed once more against him or that perhaps the air force would shoot him down with or without orders.
     
     
prime minister shahpur bakhtiar, his cabinet, and the generals of all the armed services were not at the airport. by choice. nor were