Clark looked down--he was six foot three---and laughed.
They shook hands.
"How's Mimi?" Perot asked before Clark had a chance to perform
introductions.
The general was saying something in Farsi to an underling.
Clark said: "Mimi's fine."
"Well, good to see you," Perot said, and walked on.
His mouth was dry as he went out of the waiting room and into the prison
compound with Gallagher, Coburn, and the Embassy people. That had been a
close shave. An hmm in colonel's uniform joined them: he had been assigned
to take care of them, Gallagher said. Perot wondered what Clark was saying
to the general now ...
Paul was sick. The cold he had caught in the first jail had recurred. He was
coughing persistently and had pains in his chest. He could not get warm, in
this jail or in the old one: for three whole weeks he had been cold. He had
asked his EDS visitors to get him warm underwear, but for some reason they
had not brought any.
He was also miserable. He really had expected that Coburn and the rescue
team would ambush the bus that brought him and Bill here from the Ministry
of Justice, and when the bus had entered the impregnable Gasr Prison he had
been bitterly disappointed.
General Mohari, who ran the prison, had explained to Paul and Bill that he
was in charge of all the jails in Tehran, and he had arranged for their
transfer to this one for their own safety. It was small consolation: being
less vulnerable to the mobs, this place was also more difficult, if not
impossible, for the rescue team to attack.
The Gasr Prison was part of a large military complex. On its west side was
the old Gasr Ghazar Palace, which had been turned into a police academy by
the Shah's father. The prison compound had once been the palace gardens. To
the north was a military hospital; to the east an army camp where
helicopters took off and landed all day.
The compound itself was bounded by an inner wall twentyfive or thirty feet
high, and an outer wall twelve feet high. Inside
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 203
were fifteen or twenty separate buildings, including a bakery, a mosque, and
six cell blocks, one reserved for women.
Paul and Bill were in Building Number 8. It was a two-story block in a
courtyard surrounded by a fence of tall tron bars covered with chicken
wire. The environment was not bad, for a jail. There was a fountain in the
middle of the courtyard, rose bushes around the sides, and ten or fifteen
pme aves. The prisoners were allowed outside during the day, and could play
volleyball or Ping-Pong in the courtyard. However, they could not pass
through the courtyard gate, which wag manned by a guard.
The ground floor of the building was a small hospital with twenty or so
patients, mostly mental cases. They screamed a lot. Paul and Bill and a
handful of other prisoners were on the first floor. They had a large cell,
about twenty feet by thirty, which they shared with only one other
prisoner, an Iranian lawyer in his fiffies who spoke English and French as
well as Farsi. He had showed them pictures of his villa in France. There
was a TV set in the cell.
Meals were prepared by some of the prisoners-who were paid for this by the
others-and eaten in a separate dining room. The food here was better than
at the first jail. Extra privileges could be bought, and one of the other
inmates, apparently a hugely wealthy man, had a private room and meals
brought in from outside. The routine was relaxed: there were no set times
for getting up and going to bed.
For all that, Paul was thoroughly depressed. A measure of extra comfort
meant little. What he wanted was freedom.
He was not much cheered when they were told, on the morning of January 19,
that they had visitors.
There was a visiting room on the ground floor of Building Number 8, but
today, without explanation, they were taken out of the building and along
the street.
Paul realized they were headed for a building known as the Officers' Club,
set in a small tropical garden with ducks and peacocks. As they approached
the place he glanced around the compound and saw his visitors coming in the
opposite direction.
He could not believe his eyes.
"My God!" he said delightedly. "It's Ross!"
Forgetting where he was, he turned to ran over to Perot: the guard jerked
him back.
"Can you believe this?" he said to Bill. "Perot's herel"
204 Ken Folktt
The guard hustled hun through the garden. Paul kept looking back at Perot,
wondering whether his eyes were deceiving him. He was led into a big
circular room with banqueting tables around the outside and walls covered
with small triangles of mirrored glass: it was like a small ballroom. A
moment later Perot came in with Gallagher, Coburn, and several other
people.
Perot was grinning broadly. Paul shook his hand, then embraced him. It was
an emotional moment. Paul felt the way he did when he listened to "The Star
Spangled Banner": a kind of shiver went up and down his spine. He was
loved, he was cared for, he had friends, he belonged. Perot had come
halfway across the world into the middle of a revolution just to visit him.
Perot and Bill embraced and shook hands. Bin said: "Ross, what in the world
are you doing here? Have you come to take us home?"
'Not quite," Perot said. "Not yet."
The guards gathered at the far end of the room to drink tea. The Embassy
staff who had come in with Perot sat around another table, talking to a
woman prisoner.
Perot put his box on a table. "There's some long underwear in here for
you," he said to Paul. "We couldn't buy any, so this is mine, and I want it
back, you hear?"
"Sure," Paul grinned.
"We brought you some books as well, and groceries-peanut butter and tuna
fish and juice and I don't know what. " He took a stack of envelopes from
his pocket. "And your mail."
Paul glanced at his. There was a letter from Ruthie. Another envelope was
addressed to "Chapanoodle. " Paul smiled: that would be from his friend
David Behne, whose son Tommy, unable to pronounce "Chiapparone," had dubbed
Paul "Chapanoodle." He pocketed the letters to read later, and said: "How's
Ruthie?"
"She's just fine, I talked to her on the phone," Perot said. "Now, we have
assigned one man to each of your wives, to make sure everything necessary
is done to take care of them. Ruthie's in Dallas now, Paul, staying with
Jun and Cathy Nyfeler. She's buying a house, and Tom Walter is handling all
the legal details for her."
He turned to Bill. "Emily has gone to visit her sister Vickie in North
Carolina. She needed a break. She's been working with Tim Reardon in
Washington, putting pressure on the State Department. She wrote to Rosalynn
Carter-you know, as one
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 205
wife to another-she's trying everything. Matter of fact, we're all trying
everything . . . "
As Perot ran down the long list of people who had been asked to help-from
<
br /> Texas congressmen all the way up to Henry Kissinger-Bill realized that the
main purpose of Perot's visit was to boost his and Paul's morale. It was
something of an anticlimax. For a moment back there, when he had seen Perot
walking across the compound with the other guys, grinning all over his face,
Bill had thought: here comes the rescue party-at last they've got this damn
thing solved, and Perot is coming to tell us personally. He was
disappointed. But he cheered up as Perot talked. With his letters from home
and his box of goodies, Perot was like Santa Claus; and his presence here,
and the big grin on his face, symbolized a tremendous defiance of Dadgar,
the mobs, and everything that threatened them.
Bill was worried, now, about Emily's morale. He knew instinctively what was
going on in his wife's mind. The fact that she had gone to North Carolina
told him she had given up hope. It had become too much for her to keep up
a faqade of normality with the children at her parents' house. He knew,
somehow, that she had started smoking again. That would puzzle little
Chris. Emily had given up smoking when she went into the hospital to have
her gall bladder removed, and she had told Chris then that she had had her
smoker taken out. Now he would wonder how it had got back in.
"If all this fails," Perot was saying, "we have another team in town who
will get you out of here by other methods. You'll recognize all the members
of the team except one, the leader, an older man."
Paul said: "I have a problem with that, Ross. Why should a bunch of guys
get cut up for the sake of two?"
Bill wondered just what was being planned. Would a helicopter fly over the
compound and pick them up? Would the U.S. Army storm the walls? It was hard
to imagine-but with Perot, anything could happen.
Coburn said to Paul: "I want you to observe and memorize all the details
you can about the compound and the prison routine, just like before."
Bill was feeling embarrassed about his mustache. He had grown it to make
him look more Iranian. EDS executives were not allowed to have mustaches or
beards, but he had not ex-
206 Ken Follett
pected to see Perot. It was silly, he knew, but he felt uncomfortable about
it. "I apologize for this," he said, touching his upper lip. "I'm trying to
be inconspicuous. I'll shave it off as soon as I get out of here. "
"Keep it," Perot said with a smile. "Let Emily and the children see it.
Anyway, we're going to change the dress code. We've had the results of the
employee attitude survey, and we'll probably permit mustaches, and colored
shirts, too."
Bill looked at Coburn. "And beards?"
"No beards. Coburn has a very special excuse."
The guards came to break up the party: visiting time was over.
Perot said: "We don't know whether we'll get you out quickly or slowly.
Tell yourselves it will be slowly. If you get up each morning thinking
'Today could be the day,' you may have a lot of disappointments and become
demoralized. Prepare yourselves for a long stay, and you may be pleasantly
surprised. But always remember this: we will get you out."
They all shook hands. Paul said: "I really don't know how to thank you for
coming, Ross."
Perot smiled. "Just don't leave without my underwear.
They all walked out of the building. The EDS men headed across the compound
toward the prison gate, leaving Paul and Bill and their guards watching. As
his friends disappeared, Bill was seized by a longing just to go with diem.
Not today, he told himself; not today.
Perot wondered whether he would be allowed to leave.
Rmsey Clark had had a full hour to let the cat out of the bag. What had he
said to the general? Would there be a reception committee waiting in the
administration block at the prison entrance?
His heart beat faster as he entered the waiting room. There was no sign of
the general or of Clark. He walked through and into the reception area.
Nobody looked at him.
With Coburn and Gallagher close behind, he walked through the first set of
doors.
Nobody stopped him.
He was going to get away with it.
He crossed the littlecourtyard and waited by the big gates.
The small door set into one of the gates was opened.
Perot walked out of the prison.
The TV cameras were still there.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 207
All I need, he thought, having gotten this far, is to have the U.S.
networks show my picture ...
He pushed his way through the crowd to the Embassy minibus and climbed
aboard.
Coburn and Gallagher got on with him, but the Embassy people had lagged
behind.
Perot sat on the bus, looking out the window. The crowd in the square
seemed malevolent. They were shouting in Farsi. Perot had no idea what they
were saying.
He wished the Embassy people would hurry up.
"Where are those guys?" he said tetchily.
I 'T'hey're coming," Coburn said.
"I thought we'd all just come on out, get in the bus, and leave. "
A minute later the prison door opened again and the Embassy people came
out. They got on the bus. The driver started the engine and pulled away
across Gasr Square.
Perot relaxed.
He need not have worried quite so much. Ramsey Clark, who was there at the
invitation of h-anian human-rights groups, did not have such a good memory.
He had known that Perot's face was vaguely familiar, but thought he was
Colonel Frank Borman, the president of Eastern Airlines.
2
Emily Gaylord sat down with her needlepoint. She was making a nude for Bill.
She was back at her parents' house in Washington, and it was another normal
day of quiet desperation. She had driven Vicki to high school then returned
and taken Jackie, Jenny, and Chris to elementary school. She had dropped by
her sister Dorothy's place and talked for a while with her and her husband,
Tim Reardon. Tim was still working through Senator Kennedy and Congressman
Tip O'Neill to put pressure on the State Department.
Emily was becoming obsessed with Dadgar, the mystery man who had the power
to put her husband in jail and keep him there. She wanted to confront
Dadgar herself, and ask him personally
208 Ken Folien
why he was doing this to her. She had even asked Tim to try to get her a
diplomatic passport, so she could go to Iran and just knock on Dadgar's
door. Tim had said it was a pretty crazy idea, and she realized he was
right; but she was desperate to do so . mething, anything, to get Bill back.
Now she was waiting for the daily call from Ekdlas. It was usually Ross, T.
J. Marquez, or Jim Nyfeler who called. After that she would pick up the
children then help them with their homework for a while. Then there was
nothing ahead but the lonely night.
She 1W only recently told Bill's parents that he was in jail. Bill had
asked her, in a letter read over the phone by Keane Taylor, not to tell
them until it was absolutely necessary, because Bill's father had a history
of strokes and the shock might
be dangerous. But after three weeks the
pretense had become impossible, so she had broken the news; and Bill's
father had been angry at having been kept in the dark so long. Sometimes it
was hard to know the right thing to do.
The phone rang, and she snatched it up. "Hello?"
"Emily? This is Jim Nyfeler."
"Hi, Jim, what's the news?"
"Just that they've been moved to another jail.
Why was there never any good news?
"It's nothing to worry about," Jim said. "In fact, it's good. The old jail
was in the south of the city, where the fighting is. This one is further
north, and more secure---they'll be safer there. "
Emily lost her cool. "But, Jim," she yelled, "you've been telling me for
three weeks that they're perfectly safe -in jail, now you say they've been
moved to a new jail and now they'll be safe! "
"Emily-
"Come on, please don't lie to me I"
"Emily-"
"Just tell it like it is and be upfront, okay?"
"Emily, I don't think they have been in danger up till now, but the
Iranians are taking a sensible precaution , okay?"
Emily felt ashamed of herself for getting mad at him. "I'm sorry, Jim."
"That's all right."
They talked a little longer, then Emily hung up and went back to her
needlepoint. I'm losing my grip, she thought. I'm going
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 209
around in a trance, taking the kids to school, talking to Dallas, going to
bed at night and getting up in the morning ...
Visiting her sister Vickie for a few days had been a good idea, but she
didn't really need a change of scene--what she needed was Bill.
It was hard to keep on hoping. She began to think about how fife might be
without Bill. She had an aunt who worked at Woody's Department Store in
Washington: maybe she could get ;t job there. Or she could talk to her
father about getting secretarial work. She wondered whether she would ever
fall in love with anyone else, if Bill should die in Tehran. She thought
not.
She remembered when they were first married. Bill had been at college, and
they were short of money; but they had gone Oead and done it because they
could not bear to be apart any longer. Later, as Bill's career began to
take off, they prospered, and gradually bought better cars, bigger houses,
Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Page 27
