Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt

by On Wings of Eagles [lit]

of thousands of Iranians was surging through the streets, yelling: "Shah

  raft!" The Shah has gone! Paul said it reminded him of the New Year's Day

  parade in Philadelphia. All cars were driving with their headlights on and

  most were hooting continuously. Many drivers pulled their windshield wipers

  forward, attached rags to them, and turned them on, so that they swayed

  from side to side, permanent mechanical flag-wavers. Truckloads of jubilant

  youths careened around the streets celebrating, and all over the city

  crowds were pulling down and smashing statues of the Shah. Bill wondered

  what the mobs would do next. This led hirn to wonder what the guards and

  the other prisoners would do next. In the hysterical release of all this

  pent-up Iranian emotion, would Americans become targets?

  He and Paul stayed in their cell for the rest of the day, trying to be

  inconspicuous. They lay on their bunks, talking desultorily. Paul smoked.

  Bill tried not to think about the terrifying scenes he had watched on TV,

  but the roar of that lawless multitude, the collective shout of

  revolutionary triumph, penetrated the prison walls and filled his ears,

  like the deafening crack and roll of nearby thunder a moment before the

  lightning strikes.

  Two days later, on the moniing of January 18, a guard came to Cell Number 5

  and said something in Farsi to Reza Neghabat, the former Deputy Minister.

  Neghabat translated to Paul and Bill: "You must get your things together.

  They are moving

  YOU. -

  "Where to?" Paul asked.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 195

  "To another jail.-

  Alarm bells rang in Bill's mind. What kind of jail were they going to? The

  kind where people were tortured and killed? Would EDS be told where they

  had gone, or would the two of them simply disappear? This place was not

  wonderful, but it was the devil they knew.

  The guard spoke again, and Neghabat said: "He tells you not to be

  concerned, this is for your own good."

  It was the work of minutes to put together their toothbrushes, their shared

  shaver, and their few spare clothes. Then they sat and waited-for three

  hours.

  It was unnerving. Bill had got used to this jail, and-despite his

  occasional paranoi&--basically he trusted his cellmates. He feared the

  change would be for the worse.

  Paul asked Neghabat to try to get news of the move to EDS, maybe by bribing

  the colonel in charge of the jail.

  1lie cell father, the old man who had been so concerned for their welfare,

  was upset that they were leaving. He watched sadly as Paul took down the

  pictures of Karen and Ann Marie. Irnpulsively Paul gave the photographs to

  the old man, who was visibly moved and thanked him profusely.

  At last they were taken out into the courtyard and herded onto a minibus,

  along with half a dozen other prisoners from different parts of the jail.

  Bill looked around at the others, tying to figure out what they had in

  common. One was a Frenchman. Were all the foreigners being taken to a jail

  of their own, for their safety? But another was the burly Iranian who had

  been boss of the downstairs cell where they had spent their first night--a

  common criminal, Bill assumed.

  As the bus pulled out of the courtyard, Bill spoke to the Frenchman. "Do

  you know where we're going?"

  "I am to be released," the Frenchman said.

  Bill's heart leaped. This was good news! Perhaps they were all to be

  released.

  He turned his attention to the scene in the streets. It was the first time

  for three weeks he had seen the outside world. The government buildings all

  around the Ministry of Justice were damaged: the mobs really had run wild.

  Burned cars and broken windows were everywhere. The streets were full of

  soldiers and tanks, but they were doing nodung--not maintairung order, not

  even controlling the traffic. It seemed to Bill only a matter of time

  before the weak Bakhtiar government would be overthrown.

  196 Ken Follett

  What had happened to the EDS people-Taylor, Howell, Young, Gallagher, and

  Coburn? They had not appeared at the jail since the Shah left. Had they

  been forced to flee, to save their own lives? Somehow Bill was sure they

  were still in town, still trying to get him and Paul out of jail. He began

  to hope that this transfer had been arranged by them. Perhaps, instead of

  taking the prisoners to a different jail, the bus would divert and take

  them to the U.S. air base. The more he thought about it, the more he

  believed that everything had been arranged for their release. No doubt the

  American Embassy had realized, since the departure of the Shah, that Paul

  and Bill were in serious danger, and had at last got on the case with some

  real diplomatic muscle. The bus ride was a ruse, a cover story to get them

  out of the Ministry of Justice jail without arousing the suspicion of

  hostile Iranian officials such as Dadgar.

  The bus was heading north. It passed through districts with which Bill was

  familiar, and he began to feel safer as the turbulent soudi of the city

  receded behind him.

  Also, the air base was to the north.

  The bus entered a wide square dominated by a huge structure like a

  fortress. Bill looked interestedly at the building. Its walls were about

  twenty-five feet high and dotted with guard towers and machine-gun

  emplacements. The square was full of Iranian women in chadors, the

  traditional black robes, all making a heck of a noise. Was this some kind

  of palace, or mosque? Or perhaps a military base?

  The bus approached the fortress and slowed down.

  Oh, no.

  A pair of huge steel doors was set centrally in the front. To Bill's

  horror, the bus drove up and stopped with its nose to the gateway.

  This awesome place was the new prison, the new nightmare.

  The gates opened and the bus entered.

  They were not going to the air base, EDS had not arranged a deal, the

  Embassy had not got moving, they were not going to be released.

  The bus stopped again. The steel doors closed behind it and a second pair

  of doors opened in front. The bus passed through and stopped in a massive

  compound dotted with buildings. A guard said something in Farsi, and all

  the prisoners stood up to get off the bus.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 197

  Bill felt like a disappointed child. Life is rotten, he thought. What did

  I do to deserve this?

  What did I do?

  "Don't drive so fast," said Simons.

  Joe Poch6 said: "Do I drive unsafe?"

  "No, I just don't want you violating the laws."

  "What laws?"

  "Just be careful."

  Coburn interrupted: "We're there."

  Pochd stopped the car.

  They all looked across the heads of the weird women in black and saw the

  vast fortress of the Gasr Prison.

  "Jesus Christ," said Simons. His deep, rough voice was tinged with awe.

  "Just look at that bastard."

  They all stared at the high walls, the enormous gates, the guard towers and

  the machine-gun nests.

  Simons said: "That place is worse than the Alamo."

  It dawned on
Coburn that their little rescue team could not attack this

  place, not without the help of the entire U.S. Army. The rescue they had

  planned so carefully and rehearsed so many times was now completely

  irrelevant. There would be no modifications or improvements to the plan, no

  new scenarios; the whole idea was dead.

  They sat in the car for a while, each with his own thoughts.

  "Who are those women?" Coburn wondered aloud.

  -71bey have relatives in the jail," Poch6 explained.

  Coburn could hear a peculiar noise. "Listen, he said. "What is that?"

  "The women," said PocM. "Wailing."

  Colonel Simons had looked up at an impregnable fortress once before.

  He had been Captain Simons then, and his friends had called him Art, not

  Bull.

  It was October 1944. Art Simons, twenty-six years old, was commander of

  Company B, 6th Ranger Infantry Battalion. The Americans were winning the

  war in the Pacific, and were about to attack the Philippine Islands. Ahead

  of the invading U.S. forces, the 6th Rangers were already there, committing

  sabotage and mayhem behind enemy lines.

  Company B landed on Homonhon Island in the Leyte Gulf and

  198 Ken Folleu

  found there were no Japanese on the island. Simons raised the Stars and

  Stripes on a coconut palm in front of two hundred docile natives.

  That day a report came in that the Japanese garrison on nearby Suluan

  Island was massacring civilians. Simons requested permission to take

  Suluan. Permission was refused. A few days later he asked again. He was

  told that no ships could be spared to transport Company B across the water.

  Simons asked permission to use native transportation. This time he got the

  okay.

  Simons commandeered three native sailboats and eleven canoes and appointed

  himself Admiral of the Fleet. He sailed at two A.M. with eighty men. A

  storm blew up, seven of the canoes capsized, and Simons's fleet returned to

  shore with most of the navy swimming.

  They set off aq*n the next day. This time they sailed by daylight,

  and---since Japanese planes still controlled the air-.the men stripped off

  and concealed their uniforms and equipment in the bottoms of the boats, so

  that they would look like native fishermen. The ruse worked, and Company B

  made landfall on Suluan Island. Simons immediately reconnoitered the

  Japanese garrison.

  That was when he looked up at an impregnable fortress.

  The Japanese were garrisoned at the south end of the island, in a

  lighthouse at the top of a three-hundred-foot coral cliff.

  On the west side a trail led halfway up the cliff to a steep flight of

  steps cut into the coral. The entire stairway and most of the trail were in

  full view of the sixty-foot lighthouse tower and du-ee west-facing

  buildings on the lighthouse platform. It was a perfect defensive position:

  two men could have held off five hundred on that flight of coral steps.

  But there was always a way.

  Simons decided to attack from the east, by scaling the cliff.

  The assault began at one A.M. on November 2. Simons and fourteen men

  crouched at the foot of the cliff, directly below the garrison. Their faces

  and hands were blacked: there was a bright moon and the terrain was as open

  as an Iowa prairie. For silence, they communicated by hand signals and wore

  their socks over their boots.

  Simons gave the signal and they began to climb.

  IMe sharp edges of the coral sliced into the flesh of their fingers and the

  palms of their hands. In places, there were no footholds, and they had to

  go up climbing vines hand-over-hand.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 199

  They were completely vulnerable: if one curious sentry should look over the

  platform, down the east side of the cliff, he would see them instantly, and

  could pick them off one by one--easy shooting.

  They were halfway up when the silence was rent by a deafening clang.

  Someone's rifle stock had banged against a coral cone. They all stopped and

  lay still against the face of the cliff. Simons held his breath and waited

  for the rifle shot from above that would begin the massacre. It never came.

  After ten minutes they went on.

  The climb took a full hour.

  Simons was first over the top. He crouched on the platform, feeling naked

  in the bright moonlight. No Japanese were visible, but he could hear voices

  from one of the low buildings. He trained his rifle on the lighthouse.

  The rest of the men began to reach the platform. The attack was to start as

  soon as they got the machine gun set up.

  Just as the gun came over the edge of the cliff, a sleepy Japanese soldier

  wandered into view, heading for the latrine. Simons signaled to his point

  guard, who shot the Japanese; and the firefight began.

  Simons turned immediately to the machine gun. He held one leg and the

  ammunition box while the gunner held down the other leg and fired. The

  astonished Japanese ran out of the buildings straight into the deadly hail

  of bullets.

  Twenty minutes later it was all over. Some fifteen of the enemy had been

  killed. Simons's squad suffered two casualties, neither fatal. And the

  -impregnable- fortress had been taken.

  There was always a way.

  SEVEN

  The American Embassy's Volkswagen minibus threaded its way through the

  streets of Tehran, heading for Gasr Square. Ross Perot sat inside. It was

  January 19, the day after Paul and Bill were moved, and Perot was going to

  visit them in the new jail.

  It was a little crazy.

  Everyone had gone to great lengths to hide Perot in Tehran, for fear that

  Dadgar-seeing a far more valuable hostage than Paul or Bill-would arrest

  him and throw him in jail. Yet here he was, heading for the jail of his own

  ftee will, with his own passport in his pocket for identification.

  His hopes were pinned on the notorious inability of government everywhere

  to let its right hand know what its left was doing. The Ministry of Justice

  might want to arrest him, but it was the military who ran the jails, and

  the military had no interest in him.

  Nevertheless, he was taking precautions. He would go in with a group of

  people-Rich Gallagher and Jay Coburn were on the bus, as well as some

  Embassy people who were going to visit an American woman in the jail--and

  he was wearing casual clothes and carrying a cardboard box containing

  groceries, books, and warm clothing for Paul and Bill.

  Nobody at the prison would know his face. He would have to give his name as

  he went in, but why would a minor clerk or prison guard recognize it? His

  name might be on a list at the airport, at police stations, or at hotels;

  but the prison would surely be the last place Dadgar would expect him to

  turn up.

  Anyway, he was determined to take the risk. He wanted to boost Paul's and

  Bill's morale, and to show them that he was

  200

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 201

  willing to stick out his neck for them. It would be the only achievement of

  his trip: his efforts to get the negotiations moving had come to nothing.

  The bus entered Gasr Square and he got his first si
ght of the new prison.

  It was formidable. He could not imagine how Simons and his little rescue

  team could possibly break in there.

  In the square were scores of people, mostly women in chadors, making a lot

  of noise. The bus stopped near the huge steel doors. Perot wondered about

  the bus driver he was Iranian, and he knew who Perot was ...

  They all got out. Perot saw a television camera near the prison entrance.

  His heart missed a beat.

  It was an Amefican crew.

  What the hell were they doing there?

  He kept his head down as he pushed his way duough the crowd, carrying his

  cardboard box. A guard looked out of a small window set into the brick wall

  beside the gates. The television crew seemed to be taking no notice of him.

  A minute later a little door in one of the gates swung open, and the

  visitors stepped inside.

  The door clanged shut behind them.

  Perot had passed the point of no return.

  He walked on, through a second pair of steel doors, into the prison

  compound. It was a big place, with streets between the buildings, and

  chickens and turkeys running around loose. He followed the others through

  a doorway into a reception room.

  He showed his passport: The clerk pointed to a register. Perot took out his

  pen and signed -H. R. Perot" more or less legibly.

  The clerk handed back the passport and waved him on.

  He had been right. Nobody hem had heard of Ross Perot.

  He walked on into a waiting room--aiid stopped dead.

  Standing there, talking to an Iranian in general's uniform, was someone who

  knew perfectly well who Ross Perot was.

  It was Ramsey Clark, a Texan who had been U.S. Attorney General under

  President Lyndon B. Johnson. Perot had met him several times and knew

  Clark's sister Mimi very well.

  For a moment Perot froze. That explains the television cameras, he thought.

  He wondered whether he could keep out of Clark's sight. Any moment now, he

  thought, Ramsey will see me and say to the general: "Lord, them's Ross

  Perot of EDS,- and if I look as if I'm trying to hide, it will be even

  worse.

  202 Ken Follett

  He made a snap decision.

  He walked over to Clark, stuck out his hand, and said: "Hello, Ramsey, what

  are you doing in jail?"