Book Read Free

Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt

Page 19

by On Wings of Eagles [lit]


  trouble and expense instead of saving them. Perot's idea was to sell a

  total package-4 complete data-processing department with machinery,

  software, and staff. The customer had only to say, in simple language, what

  information he needed, and EDS would give it to him. Then he could get on

  with what he was good at---banking, insurance, or manufacturing.

  IBM turned down Perot's idea. It was a good concept but the pickings would

  be small. Out of every dollar spent on data processing, eighty cents went

  into hardware-the machineryand only twenty cents into software, which was

  what Perot wanted to sell. IBM did not want to chase pennies under the

  table.

  So Perot drew a thousand dollars out of his savings and started up on his

  own. Over the next decade the proportions changed until software was taking

  seventy cents of every data-processing dollar, and Perot became one of the

  richest self-made men in the world.

  The chairman of IBM, Tom Watson, met Perot in a restaurant one day and

  said: "I just want to know one thing, Ross. Did you foresee that the ratio

  would change?"

  "No," said Perot. "The twenty cents looked good enough to me. Is

  Yes, he was lucky; but he had to give his luck room to operate. It was no

  good sitting in a comer being careful. You never got the chance to be lucky

  unless you took risks. All his life Perot had taken risks.

  This one just happened to be the biggest.

  Merv Stauffer walked into the office. "Ready to go?" he said.

  .'Yes. f9

  144 Ken Follett

  Perot got up and the two men left the office. They went down in the

  elevator and got into Stauffer's car, a brand-new four-door Lincoln

  Versailles. Perot read the nameplate on the dashboard: "Merv and Helen

  Stauffer. " The interior of the car stank of Simons's cigars.

  "He's waiting for you," Stauffer said.

  -C

  3ood.

  Perot's oil company, Petrus, had offices in the next building along Forest

  Lane. Merv had already taken Simons there, then come for Perot. Afterward

  he would take Perot back to EDS, then return for Simons. The object of the

  exercise was secrecy: as few people as possible were to see Simons and

  Perot together.

  In the last six days, while Simons and the rescue team had been doing their

  thing out at Lake Grapevine, the prospects of a legal solution to the

  problem of Paul and Bill had receded. Kissinger, having failed with

  Ardeshir Zahedi, was unable to do anything else to help. Lawyer Tom Luce

  had been busy calling every single one of the twenty-four Texas

  congressmen, both Texas senators, and anyone else in Washington who would

  take his calls; but what they all did was to call the State Department to

  find out what was going on, and all the calls ended up on the desk of Henry

  Precht.

  EDS's chief financial officer, Tom Walter, still had not found a bank

  willing to post a letter of credit for $12,750,000. The difficulty, Walter

  had explained to Perot, was this: under American law, an individual or a

  corporation could renege on a letter of credit if there was proof that the

  letter had been signed under illegal pressure; for example, blackmail or

  kidnapping. The banks saw the imprisonment of Paul and Bill as a

  straightforward piece of extortion, and they knew EDS would be able to

  argue, in an American court, that the letter was invalid and the money

  should not be paid. In theory that would not matter, for by then Paul and

  Bill would be home, and-the American bank would simplyand quite

  legally-.refuse to honor the letter of credit when it was presented for

  payment by the Iranian government. However, most American banks had large

  loans outstanding with Iran, and their fear was that the Iranians would

  retaliate by deducting $12,750,000 from what they owed. Walter was still

  searching for a large bank that did no business with Iran.

  So, unfortunately, Operation Hotfoot was still Perot's best bet.

  Perot left Stauffer in the car park and went into the oil company building.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 145

  He found Simons in the little office reserved for Perot. Simons was eating

  peanuts and listening to a portable radio. Perot guessed that the peanuts

  were his lunch and the radio was to swamp any eavesdropping devices that

  might be hidden in the room.

  They shook hands. Perot noticed that Simons was growing a beard. "How are

  things?" he said.

  "They're good," Simons answered. "The men are beginning to pull together as

  a team. "

  "Now," said Perot, "you realize you can reject any member of the team you

  find unsatisfactory." A couple of days earlier Perot bad proposed an

  addition to the team, a man who knew Tehran and had an outstanding military

  record, but Simons had turned him down after a short interview, saying:

  "That guy believes his own bullshit." Now Perot wondered whether Simons had

  found fault, during the training period, with any of the others. He went

  on: "You're in charge of the rescue, and--

  "There's no need," Simons said. "I don't want to reject anyone." He laughed

  softly. "They're easily the most intelligent squad I've ever worked with,

  and that does create a problem, because they think orders are to be

  discussed, not obeyed. But they're teaming to turn off their thinking

  switches when necessary. I've made it very clear to them that at some point

  in the game discussion ends and blind obedience is called for."

  Perot smiled. "Then you've achieved more in six days than I have in sixteen

  years."

  "There's no more we can do here in Dallas," Simons said. "Our next step is

  to go to Tehran."

  Perot nodded. This might be his last chance to call off Operation Hotfoot.

  Once the team left Dallas, they might be out of touch and they would be out

  of his control. The die would be cast.

  Ross, this is idiotic. You're going to destroy the company and you're going

  to destroy yourself.

  Hell, Ross, I can't make a list of the laws you're going to break.1

  Instead of two innocent employees in jail, you could have eight guilty

  employees dead.

  Well, we've got this boyfrom Texarkana who's been tryingfor years ...

  "When do you want to leave?" Perot asked Simons.

  . 'Tomorrow. 19

  "Good luck," said Perot.

  While Simons was talking to Perot in Dallas, Pat Sculley-the world's worst

  liar-was in Istanbul, trying and failing to pull the wool over the eyes of

  a wily Turk.

  Mr. Fish was a travel agent who had been "discovered" during the December

  evacuation by Merv Stauffer and T. J. Marquez. They had hired him to make

  arrangements for the evacuees' stopover in Istanbul, and he had worked

  miracles. He had booked them all into the Sheraton and organized buses to

  take them from the anport to the hotel. When they arrived there had been a

  meal waiting for diem. They left him to collect their baggage and clear it

  through customs, and it appeared outside their hotel rooms as if by magic.

  The next day there had been video movies for the children and sightseeing

  tours for the adults to keep everyone occupied while they wai
ted for their

  flights to Now York. Mr. Fish achieved all this while most of the hotel

  staff were on strike-T.J. found out later that Mrs. Fish had made the beds

  in the hotel rooms. Once onward flights had been reserved, Merv Stauffer

  had wanted to duplicate a handout sheet with instructions for everyone, but

  the hotel's photocopier was broken: Mr. Fish got an electrician to mend it

  at five o'clock on a Sunday morning. Mr. Fish could make it happen.

  Simons was still worried about smuggling the Walther PPKs into Tehran, and

  when he heard how Mr. Fish had cleared the evacuees' baggage through

  Turkish customs he proposed that the same man be asked to solve the problem

  of the guns. Sculley had left for Istanbul on January 8.

  The following day he met Mr. Fish at the coffee shop in the Sheraton. Mr.

  Fish was a big, fat man in his late forties, dressed

  146

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 147

  in drab clothes. But he was shrewd: Sculley was no, match for him.

  Sculley told him that EDS needed help with two problems. "One, we need an

  aircraft that can fly into and out of Tehran. Two, we want to get some

  baggage through customs without its being inspected. Naturally, we'll pay

  you anything reasonable for help with these problems. "

  Mr. Fish looked dubious. "Why do you want to do these things?"

  "Well, we've got some magnetic tapes for computer systems in Tehran,"

  Sculley said. "We've got to get them in there and we can't take any

  chances. We don't want anyone to X-ray those tapes or do anything that

  could damage them, and we can't risk having them confiscated by some petty

  customs official."

  "And for this, you need to hire a plane and get your bags through customs

  unopened?"

  "Yes, that's right." Sculley could see that Mr. Fish did not believe a word

  of it.

  Mr. Fish shook his head. "No, Mr. Sculley. I have been happy to help your

  friends before, but I am a travel agent, not a smuggler. I will not do

  this."

  "What about the plane-can you get us a plane?"

  Mr. Fish shook his head again. "You will have to go to Amman, Jordan. Arab

  Wings run charter flights from there to Tehran. That is the best suggestion

  I can make."

  Sculley shrugged. "Okay."

  A few minutes later he left Mr. Fish and went up to his room to call

  Dallas.

  His first assignment as a member of the rescue team had not gone well.

  When Simons got the news he decided to leave the Walther PPKs in Dallas.

  He explained his thinking to Coburn. "Let's not jeopardize the whole

  mission, right at the start, when we're not even sure we're going to need

  the handguns: that's a risk we don't have to take, not yet anyway. Let's

  get in the country and see what we're up against. If and when we need the

  guns, Schwebach will go back to Dallas and get 'em. "

  The guns were put in the EDS vault, together with a too] Simons had ordered

  for filing off the serial numbers. (Since that was against the law it would

  not be done until the last possible moment.)

  148 Ken Follen

  However, they would take the false-bottomed suitcase and do a dry run. They

  would also take the Number 2 shot-Davis would carry it in his beanbag---and

  the equipment Simons needed for reloading the shot into birdshot

  cartridges-Simons would carry that himself.

  There was now no point in going via Istanbul, so Simons sent Sculley to

  Paris to book hotel rooms there and try to get reservations for the team on

  a flight into Tehran.

  The rest of the team took off from the Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport

  at 11:05 A.M. on January 10 aboard Braniff flight 341 to Miami, where they

  transferred to National 4 to Paris.

  They met up with Sculley at Orly Airport, in the picture gallery between

  the restaurant and the coffee shop, the following morning.

  Coburn noticed that Sculley was jumpy. Everyone was becoming infected with

  Simons's security-consciousness, he realized. Coming over from the States,

  although they had all been on the same plane, they had traveled separately,

  sitting apart and not acknowledging one another. In Paris Sculley had got

  nervous about the staff at the Orly Hilton and suspected that someone was

  listening to his phone calls, so Simons-who was always uneasy in hotels

  anyway-had decided they would talk in the picture gallery.

  Sculley had failed in his second assignment, to get onward reservations

  from Pans to Tehran for the team. "Half the airlines have just stopped

  flying to Iran, because of the political unrest and the strike at the

  airport," he said. "What flights there are are overbooked with Iranians

  trying to get home. All I have is a rumor that Swissair is flying in from

  Zurich."

  They split into two groups. Simons, Coburn, Poch6, and Boulware would go to

  Zurich and try for the Swissair flight. Sculley, Schwebach, Davis, and

  Jackson would stay in Paris.

  Simons's group flew Swissair first class to Zurich. Coburn sat next to

  Simons. They spent the whole of the flight eating a splendid lunch of

  shrimp and steak. Simons raved about how good the food was. Coburn was

  amused, remembering how Simons had said: "When you're hungry, you open a

  can."

  At Zurich Airport the reservations desk for the Tehran flight was mobbed by

  Iranians. The team could get only one seat on the plane. Which of them

  should go? Coburn, they decided. He would be the logistics man: as Director

  of Personnel and as

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 149

  evacuation mastermind he had the most complete knowledge of EDS resources in

  Tehran: 150 empty houses and apartments, 60 abandoned cars and jeeps, 200

  Iranian employees-4hose who could be trusted and those who could not---and

  the food, drink, and tools left behind by the evacuees. Going in first,

  Coburn could arrange transport, supplies, and a hideout for the rest of the

  team.

  So Coburn said good-bye to his friends and got on the plane, heading for

  chaos, violence, and revolution.

  That same day, unknown to Simons and the rescue team, Ross Perot took

  British Airways flight 172 from New York to London. He, too, was on his way

  to Tehran.

  The flight from Zurich to Tehran was all too short.

  Coburn spent the time anxiously running over in his mind the things he had

  to do. He could not make a list: Simons would not allow anything to be

  written down.

  His first job was to get through customs with the falsebottomed case. There

  were no guns in it: if the case was inspected and the secret compartment

  discovered, Coburn was to say that it was for carrying delicate

  photographic equipment.

  Next he had to select some abandoned houses and apartments for Simons to

  consider as hideouts. Then he had to find cars and make sure there was a

  supply of gasoline for them.

  His cover story, for the benefit of Keane Taylor, Rich Gallagher, and EDS's

  Iranian employees, was that he was arranging Shipment of evacuees' personal

  belongings back to the States. Coburn had told Simons that Taylor ought to

  be let in on the secret: he would be a valuable asset to the
rescue team.

  Simons had said he would make that decision himself, after meeting Taylor.

  Coburn wondered how to hoodwink Taylor.

  He was still wondering when the plane landed.

  Inside the terminal all the airport staff were in army uniforms. That was

  how the airport had been kept open despite the strike, Coburn realized: the

  military was running it.

  He picked up the suitcase with the false bottom and walked through customs.

  No one stopped him.

  The arrivals hall was a zoo. The waiting crowds were more unruly than ever.

  The army was not running the airport on military lines.

  He fought his way through the crowd to the cabstand. He

  150 Ken FolkU

  skirted two men who appeared to be fighting over a taxi, and took the next

  in fine.

  Riding into town, he noticed a good deal of military hardware on the road,

  especially near the airport. There were many more tanks about than there

  had been when he left. Was that a sign that the Shah was still in control?

  In the press the Shah was still talking as if he were in control, but then

  so was Bakhtiar. So, for that matter, was the Ayatollah, who had just

  announced the formation of a Council of the Islamic Revolution to take over

  the government, just as if he were already in power in Tehran instead of

  sitting in a villa outside Paris at the end of a telephone line. In truth,

  nobody was in charge; and while that hindered the negotiations for the

  release of Paul and Bill, it would probably help the rescue team.

  The cab took him to the office they called Bucharest, where he found Keane

  Taylor. Taylor was in charge now, for Lloyd Briggs had gone to New York to

  brief EDS's lawyers in person. Taylor was sitting at Paul Chiapparone's

  desk, in an immaculate vested suit, just as if he were a million miles away

  from the nearest revolution instead of in the middle of it. He was aston-

  ished to see Coburn.

  "Jay! When the hell did you get here?"

  'Just arrived," Coburn said.

  "What's with the beard-you trying to get yourself fired?"

  "I thought it might make me look less American here."

  "Did you ever see an Iranian with a ginger beard?"

  "No," Coburn laughed.

  "So, what are you hem for?"

 

‹ Prev