Perot approached her. He handed over his passport and a yellow exit form.
The form had his name at the top-
The girl took the yellow sheet, opened his passport, stamped it, and handed
it back without looking at him. She returned to her book immediately.
Perot walked into the departure lounge.
The flight was delayed.
He sat down. He was on tenterhooks. At any moment the girl could finish her
book, or just get bored with it, and start checking the stop list against
the names on the yellow forms. Then, he imagined, they would come for him,
the police or the military or Dadgar's investigators, and he would go to
jail, and Margot would be like Ruthie and Emily, not knowing whether she
would ever see her husband again.
He checked the departures board every few seconds: it just said "Delayed. -
He sat on the edge of his chair for the first hour.
Then he began to feel resigned. If they were going to catch him they would,
and there was nothing he could do about it. He started to read a magazine.
Over the next hour he
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 217
read everything in his briefcase. Then he started talking to the man sitting
next to him. Perot learned that the man was an English engineer working in
Iran on a project for a large British company. They chatted for a while,
then swapped magazines.
In a few hours, Perot thought, r1l be in a beautiful hotel suite with
Margot-.or in an Iranian jail. He pushed the thought from his mind.
Lunchtime went by, and the afternoon wore on. He began to believe they were
not going to come for him.
The flight was finally called at six o'clock.
Perot stood up. If they come for me now ...
He joined the crowd and approached the departure gate. There was a security
check. He was frisked, and waved through.
I've almost made it, he thought as he boarded the plane. He sat between two
fat people in an economy seat-it was an all-economy flight. I think I've
made it.
The doors were closed and the plane began to move.
It taxied onto the runway and gathered speed.
The plane took off.
He had made it.
He had always been lucky.
His thoughts turned to Margot. She was handling this crisis the way she had
handled the prisoners-of-war adventures: she understood her husband's
concept of duty and she never complained. That was why he could stay
focused on what he had to do, and block out negative thoughts that would
excuse inaction. He was lucky to have her. He thought of all the lucky
things that had happened to him: good parents, getting into the Naval
Academy, meeting Margot, having such fine children, starting EDS, getting
good people to work for him, brave people like the volunteers he had left
behind in Iran ...
He wondered superstitiously whether an individual had a certain limited
quantity of luck in his life. He saw his luck as sand in an hourglass,
slowly but steadily running out. What happens, he thought, when it's all
gone?
The plane descended toward Kuwait. He was out of Iranian airspace-he had
escaped.
While the plane was refueling he walked to the open door and stood there,
breathing the fresh air and ignoring the stewardess who kept asking him to
return to his seat. There was a nice
218 Ken Follen
breeze blowing across the tarmac, and it was a relief to get away from the
fat people sitting on either side of him. The stewardess eventually gave
up and went to do something else. He watched the sun go down. Luck, he
thought; I wonder how much I've got left?
EiGHT
The rescue team in Tehran now consisted of Simons, Coburn, Pocht, Sculley,
and Schwebach. Simons decided that Boulware, Davis, and Jackson would not
come to Tehran. The idea of rescuing Paul and Bill by frontal assault was
now dead, so he did not need such a big team. He sent Glenn Jackson to
Kuwait, to investigate that end of the southerly route out of Iran. Boulware
and Davis went back to the States to await further orders.
Majid reported to Coburn that General Mohari , the man in charge of the
Gasr Prison, was not easily corruptible, but had two daughtm at school in
the United States. The team briefly discussed kidnappirig the girls and
forcing Mohan to help Paul and Bill escape; but they rejected the idea.
(Perot hit the roof when he learned they had even discussed it.) The idea
of sneaking Paul and Bill out in the hunk of a car was put on the back
burner for a while.
For two or three days they concentrated on what they would do if Paul and
Bill were released under house arrest. They went to look at the houses the
two men had occupied before the arrest. The snatch would be easy unless
Dadgar put Paul and Bill under surveillance. The team would use two cars,
they decided. The first car would pick up Paul and Bill. The second,
following at a distance, would contain Sculley and Schwebach , who would be
responsible for elimmating anyone who tried to tail the first car. Once
again, the deadly duo would do the killing.
The two cars would keep in touch by shortwave radio, they decided. Coburn
called Merv Stauffer in Dallas and ordered the equipment. Boulware would
take the radios to London: Schwebach and Sculley went to London to meet him
and pick them up. While in London, the deadly duo would try to get hold of
some
219
220 Ken Follett
good maps of Iran, for use during the escape from the country, should the
team have to leave by road. (No good maps of the Fountry were to be found in
Tehran, as the Jeep Club had learned in happier days: Gayden said Persian
maps were at the "Turn left by the dead horse" level.)
Simons wanted also to prepare for the third possibility--4hat Paul and Bill
would be released by a mob storming the prison. What should the team do in
that eventuality? Coburn was continuously monitoring the situation in the
city, calling his contacts in U.S. military intelligence and several
trustworthy Iranian employees: if the prison were overrun he would know
very quickly. What then? Someone would have to look for Paul and Bill and
bring them to safety. But a bunch of Americans driving into the middle of
a riot would be asking for trouble: Paul and Bill would be safer mingling
inconspicuously with the crowd of escaping prisoners. Simons told Coburn to
speak to Paul about this possibility the next time he visited the jail, and
instruct Paul to head for the Hyatt Hotel.
However, an Iranian could go looking for Paul and Bill in the riots. Simons
asked Coburn to recommend an Iranian employee of EDS who was really
street-smart.
Coburn thought immediately of Rashid.
He was a dark-skinned, rather good-looking twenty-three-yearold from an
affluent Tehran family. He had completed EDS's training program for systems
engineers. He was intelligent and resourceful, and he had bags of charm.
Coburn recalled the last time Rashid had demonstrated his talent
forimprovisation. Ministry of Health employees who were on partial strike
h
ad refused to key the data for the payroll system, but Rashid had got all
the input together, taken it down to Bank Omran, talked someone there into
keying the data, then run the program on the Ministry computer. The trouble
with Rashid was that you had to keep an eye on him, because he never
consulted anyone before implementing his unconventional ideas. Getting the
data keyed the way he had constituted strikebreaking, and might have got
EDS into big trouble-indeed, when Bill had heard about it he had been more
anxious than pleased. Rashid was excitable and impulsive, and his English
was not so good, so he tended to dash off and do his own crazy thing
without telling anyone-a tendency that made his managers nervous. But he
always got away with it. He could talk his way into and out of anything. At
the airport, meeting people or seeing them off, he always managed
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 221
to pass through all the "Passengers Only" barriers even though he never had
a boarding card, ticket, or passport to show. Coburn knew him. well, and
liked him enough to have brought him home for supper several times. Coburn
also trusted him completely, especially since the strike, when Rashid had
been one of Coburn's informants among the hostile Iranian employees.
However, Simons would not trust Rashid on Coburn's say-so. Just as he had
insisted on meeting Keane Taylor before letting him in on the secret, so he
would want to talk to Rashid.
So Coburn arranged a meeting.
When Rashid was eight years old he had wanted to be President of the United
States.
At twenty-three he knew he could never be President, but he stili wanted to
go to America, and EDS was going to be his ticket. He knew he had it in him
to be a great businessman. He was a student of the psychology of the human
being, and it had not taken him long to understand the mentality of EDS
people. They wanted results, not excuses. If you were given a task, it was
always better to do a little more than was expected. If for some reason the
task was difficult, or even impossible, it was best not to say so: they
hated to hear people whining about problems. You never said: "I can't do
that because . You always said: "This is the progress I have made so far,
and this is the problem I am working on right now . . ." It so happened
that these attitudes suited Rashid perfectly. He had made himself useful to
EDS, and he knew the company appreciated iL
His greatest achievement had been installing computer terimnals in offices
where the Iranian staff were suspicious and hostile. So great was the
resistance that Pat Sculley had been able to install no more than two per
month: Rashid had installed the remaining eighteen in two months. He had
planned to capitalize on this. He had composed a letter to Ross Perot,
who--he understood--was the head of EDS, asking to be allowed to complete
his training in Dallas. He had intended to ask all the EDS managers in
Tehran to sip the letter. but events had overtaken him, most of the
managers had been evacuated, and EDS in Iran was falling to pieces; and he
never mailed the letter. So he would think of something else.
He could always find a way . Everything was possible for Rashid. He could
do anything. He had even got out of the army. At a time when thousands of
young middle-class Iranians were
222 Ken FolkU
spending fortunes in bribes to avoid military service, Rashid, after a few
weeks in uniform, had convinced the doctors that he was incurably ill with
a twitching disease. His comrades and the officers over him knew that he was
in perfect health, but every time he saw the doctor he twitched
uncontrollably. He went before medical boards and twitched for hours-an
absolutely exhausting business, he discovered. Finally, so many doctors had
certified him M that he got his discharge papers. It was crazy, ridiculous,
impossible--but doing the impossible was Rashid's normal practice.
So he bjew that he would go to America. He did not know how, but careful
and elaborate planning was not his style anyway. He was a
spur-of-the-moment man, an unproviser, an opportunist. ths chance would
come and he would seize it.
Mr. Simons interested him. He was not like the other EDS managers. They
were all in their thirties or forties, but Simons was nearer to sixty. His
long hair and white whiskers and big nose seemed more Iranian than
American. Finally, he did not come right out with whatever was on his mind.
People like Sculley and Coburn would say: "This is the situation and this
is what I want you to do and you need to have it done by tomorrow morning
. . . " Simons just said: "Let's go for a walk."
They strolled around the streets of Tehran. Rashid found himself talking
about his family, his work at EDS, and his views on the psychology of the
human being. They could hear continual shooting, and the streets were alive
with people marching and chanting. Everywhere they saw the wreckage of past
battles, overturned cars and burned-out buildings. "The Marxists smash up
expensive cars and the Muslims trash the liquor stores,
Rashid told Simons.
"Why is this happening?" Simons asked him.
"This is the time for Iranians to prove themselves, to accomplish tbeir
ideas, and to gain their freedom."
They found themselves in Gasr Square, facing the prison. Rashid said:
"There are many Iranians in these jails simply because they ask for
freedom. "
Simons pointed at the crowd of women in chadors. "What are they doing?"
"Their husbands and sons are unjustly imprisoned, so they gather here,
wailing and crying to the guards to let the prisoners go. 91
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 223
Simons said: "Well, I guess I feel the same about Paul and Bill as those
women do about their men."
"Yes. I, too, am very concerned about Paul and Bill."
"But what are you doing about it?" Simons said.
Rashid was taken aback. "I am doing everything I can to help my American
friends," he said. He thought of the dogs and cats. One of his tasks at the
moment was to care for all the pets left behind by EDS evacuees-including
four dogs and twelve cats. Rashid had never had pets and did not know how
to deal with large, aggressive dogs. Every time he went to the apartment
where the dogs were stashed to feed them, he had to hire two or three men
off the streets to help him restrain the animals. Twice now he had taken
them all to the airport in cages, having heard that there was a flight out
that would accept them; and both times the flight had been canceled. He
thought of telling Simons about this, but somehow he knew that Simons would
not be impressed.
Simons was up to something, Rashid thought, and it was not a business
matter. Simons struck him as an experienced man-you could see that just by
looking at his face. Rashid did not believe in experience. He believed in
fast education. Revolution, not evolution. He liked the inside track, short
cuts, accelerated development, superchargers. Simons was different. He was
a patient man, and Rashid--analyzing Simons's psychol
ogyguessed that the
patience came from a strong will. When he is ready, Rashid thought, he will
let me know what he wants from
`~-,Do you know anything about the French Revolution?" Simons asked.
"A little."
"This place reminds me of the Bastille-a symbol of oppression. 9'
It was a good comparison, Rashid thought.
Simons went on: "The French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille and let
all the prisoners out."
"I think the same will happen here. It's a possibility, at least."
Simons nodded. "If it happens, someone ought to be here to take care of
Paul and Bill."
"Yes." That will be me, Rashid thought.
They stood together in Gasr Square, looking at the high walls and huge
gates, and the wailing women in their black robes. Rashid recalled his
principle: always do a little more than EDS
224 Ken FoUelt
asks of you. What if the mobs ignored Gasr Prison? Maybe he should make
sure they did not. The mob was nothing but people like Rashid-young,
discontented Iranian men who wanted to change their lives. He might not
only join the mob--he might lead it. He might lead an attack on the
prison. He, Rashid, might rescue Paul and Bill.
Nothing was impossible.
2
Coburn did not know all that was going on in Simons's mind at this point. He
had not been in on Simons's conversations with Perot and Rashid, and Simons
did not volunteer much information. From what Coburn did know, the three
possibilities-4he trunkof-a-car trick, the house-arrest-and-snatch routine,
and the storming of the Bastille---seemed pretty vague. Furthermore, Simons
was doing nothing to make it happen, but appeared content to sit around the
Dvoranchik place discussing ever-more-detailed scenarios. Yet none of this
made Coburn uneasy. He was an optimist anyway; and he--like Ross
Perot-figured there was no point in second-guessing the world's greatest
rescue expert.
While the dim possibilities were simmering, Simons concentrated on routes
out of Iran, the problem Coburn thought of as
Cietting out of Dodge. -
Coburn looked for ways of flying Paid and Bill out. He poked around
warehouses at the airport, toying with the idea of shipping Paul and Bill
Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Page 29
