Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt
Page 31
nearest American Consulate. Paul and Bill might have some trouble getting
out of Iran, he said, and he wanted to be prepared to cross the border
himself, perhaps in a light airrraft, to bring them out. None of this fazed
Mr. Fish as much as the idea of traveling in bandit country.
However, a few days later he introduced Boulware to a who had relatives
among the mountain bandits. Mr. Fish whispered that the man was a criminal,
and he certainly looked the part: he had a scar on his face and little
beady eyes. He said he could guarantee Boulware safe passage to the border
and back,
232 Ken Follett
and his relatives could even take Boulware across the border into Iran, if
necessary.
Boulware called Dallas and told Merv Stauffer about the plan. Stauffer
relayed the news to Coburn, in code; and Coburn told Simons. Simons vetoed
it. If the man is a criminal, Simons pointed out, we can't trust him.
Boulware was annoyed. He had gone to some trouble to set it up--did Simons
imagine it was easy to get these people? And if you wanted to travel in
bandit country, who else but a bandit would escort you? But Simons was the
boss, and Boulware had no option but to ask Mr. Fish to start all over
again.
Meanwhile, Sculley and Schwebach flew into Istanbul.
The deadly duo had been on a flight from London to Tehran via Copenhagen
when the Iranians had closed their airport again, so Sculley and Schwebach
joined Boulware in Istanbul. Cooped up in the hotel, waiting for something
to happen, the three of them got cabin fever. Schwebach reverted to his
Green Beret role and tried to make them all keep fit by running up and down
the hotel stairs. Boulware did it once and then gave up. They became
impatient with Simons. Coburn, and Poch6, who seemed to be sitting in
Tehran doing nothing: why didn't those guys make it happen? Then Simons
sent Sculley and Schwebach back to the States. They left the radios with
Boulware.
When Mr. Fish saw the radios he had a fit. It was highly illegal to own a
radio transmitter in Turkey, he told Boulware. Even ordinary transistor
radios had to be registered with the government, for fear their parts would
be used to make transmitters for terrorists. "Don't you understand how
conspicuous you are?" he said to Boulware. "You're running up a phone bill
of a couple of thousand dollars a week, and you're paying cash. You don't
appear to be doing business here. The maids are sure to have seen the
radios and talked about it. By now you must be under surveillance. Forget
your friends in Iran--you are going to end up in jail."
Boulware agreed to get rid of the radios. The snag about Simons's
apparently endless patience was that further delay caused new problems. Now
Sculley and Schwebach could not get back into Iran, yet still nobody had
any radios. Meanwhile, Simons kept saying no to things. Mr. Fish pointed
out that there were two border crossings from Iran to Turkey, one at Sero
and the other at Barzagan. Simons had picked Sero. Barzagan was a
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 233
bigger and more civilized place, Mr. Fish pointed out; everyone would be a
little safer there. Simons said no.
A new escort was found to take Boulware to the border. Mr. Fish had a
business colleague whose brother-in-law was in the Milli Istihbarat
Teskilati, or MIT, the Turkish equivalent of the CIA. The name of this
secret policeman was Ilsman. His credentials would secure for Boulware army
protection in bandit country. Without such credentials, Mr. Fish said, the
ordinary citizen was in danger not only from bandits but also from the
Turkish Army.
Mr. Fish was very jumpy. On the way to meet lisman, he took Boulware
through a whole cloak-and-dagger routine, changing cars and switching to a
bus for part of the journey, as if he were trying to shake off a tail.
Boulware could not see the need for all that if they were really going to
visit a perfectly upright citizen who just happened to work in the
intelligence community. But Boulware was a foreigner in a strange country,
and he just had to go along with Mr. Fish and trust the man.
They ended up at a big, run-down apartment building in an unfamiliar
section of the city. The power was off-just like Tehran!--so it took Mr.
Fish a while to find the right apartment in the dark. At first he could get
no answer. His attempt to be secretive fell apart at this point, for he had
to hammer on the door for what seemed like half an hour, and every other
inhabitant of the building got a good look at the visitors in the meantime.
Boulware just stood there feeling like a white man in Harlem. At last a
woman opened up, and they went in.
It was a small, drab apartment crowded with ancient finmiture and dimly lit
by a couple of candles. lisman was a short, fat man of about Boulware's
age, thirty-five. Ilsman had not seen his feet for many years-he was gross.
He made Boulware think of the stereotyped fat police sergeant in the
movies, with a suit too small and a sweaty shirt and a wrinkled tie wrapped
around the place where his neck would have been if he had had a neck.
They sat down, and the woman-Mrs. Ilsman, Boulware presumed-served
tea--just like Tehran! Boulware explained his problem, with Mr. Fish
translating. Ilsman was suspicious. He cross-questioned Boulware about the
two fugitive Americans. How could Boulware be sure they were innocent? Why
did they have no passports? What would they bring into Turkey? In the end
he seemed convinced that Boulware was leveling with him, and he offered to
get Paul and Bill from the border to Istanbul for eight thousand dollars,
in all.
234 Ken Follett
Boulware wondered whether Usman was for real. Smuggling Americans into the
country was a funny pastime for an intelligence agent. And if Hsman really
was MIT, who was it that Mr. Fish thought might have been following him and
Boulware across town?
Perhaps Ilsman was free-lancing. Eight thousand dollars was a lot of money
in Turkey. It was even possible that Ilsman would tell his superiors what
he was doing. After afl--Usman might figure-if Boulware's story were true
no harm would be done by helping; and if Boulware were lying, the best way
to find out what he was really up to might be to accompany him. to the
border.
Anyway, at this point Ilsman seemed to be the best Boulware could get.
Boulware agreed to the price, and Ilsman broke out a bottle of scotch.
While other members of the rescue team were fretting in various parts of the
world, Simons and Coburn were driving the road from Tehran to the Turkish
border.
Reconnaissance was a watchword with Simons, and he wanted to be familiar
with every inch of his escape route before he embarked on it with Paul and
Bill. How much fighting was there in that part of the country? What was the
police presence? Were the roads passable in winter? Were the filling
stations open?
In fact there were two routes to Sero, the border crossing he had chosen.
(He preferred Sero because it was a little-used fronti
er post at a tiny
village, so there would be few people and the border would be lightly
guarded, whereas Barzagan-&e alternative Mr. Fish kept recommending-would
be busier.) The nearest large town to Seto was Rezaiyeh. Directly across
the path from Tehran to Rezaiyeh lay Lake Rezaiyeh, a hundred miles long:
you had to drive around it, either to the north or to the south. The
northerly route went through larger towns and would have better roads.
Simons therefore preferred the south edy route, provided the roads were
passable. On this reconnaissance trip, he decided, they would check out
both routes, the northerly going and the southerly on the return.
He decided that the best kind of car for the trip was a British Range
Rover, a cross between a jeep and a station wagon. There were no
dealerships or used car lots open in Tehran now, so Coburn gave the Cycle
Man the job of getting hold of two Range Rovers. The Cycle Man's solution
to the problem was character-
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 235
istically ingenious. He had a notice printed with his telephone number and
the message: "If you would like to sell your Range Rover, call this number."
Then he went around on his motorcycle and put a copy under the windshield
wipers of every Range Rover he saw parked on the streets.
He got two vehicles for twenty thousand dollars each, and he also bought
tools and spare parts for all but the most major repairs.
Simons and Coburn took two Iranians with them- Majid, and a cousin of
Majid's who was a professor at an agricultural college in Rezaiyeh. The
professor had come to Tehran to put his American wife and their children on
a plane to the States: taking him back to Rezaiyeh was Simons's cover story
for the trip.
They left Tehran early in the morning, with one of Keane Taylor's
fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline in the back. For the first hundred
miles, as far as Qazvin, there was a modem freeway. After Qazvin the road
was a two-lane blacktop. The hillsides were covered with snow, but the road
itself was clear. If it's like this all the way to the border, Coburn
thought, we could get there in a day.
They stopped at Zanjan, two hundred miles from Tehran and the same distance
from Rezaiyeh, and spoke to the local chief of police, who was related to
the professor. (Coburn could never quite work out the family relationships
of Iramans: they seemed to use the word "cousin" rather loosely.) This part
of the country was peaceful, the police chief said; if they were to
encounter any problems it would happen in the area of Tabriz.
They drove on through the afternoon, on narrow but good country roads.
After another hundred miles they entered Tabriz. There was a demonstration
going on, but it was nothing like the kind of battle they had got used to
in Tehran, and they even felt secure enough to take a stroll around the
bazaar.
Along the way Simons had been talking to Majid and the professor. It seemed
like casual conversation, but by now Coburn was familiar with Simons's
technique, and he knew that the colonel was feeling these two out, deciding
whether he could trust them. So far the proposis seemed good, for Simons
began to drop hints about the real purpose of the trip.
The professor said that the countryside around Tabriz was pro-Shah, so
before they moved on, Simons stuck a photograph of the Shah on the
windshield.
The first sip of trouble came a few miles north of Tabriz,
236 Ken Folleu
where they were stopped by a roadblock. It was an amateur affair, just two
tree trunks laid across the road in such a way that cars could maneuver
around them but could not pass through at speed. It was manned by villagers
armed with axes and sticks.
MaJid and the professor talked to the villagers. The professor showed his
university identity card, and said that the Americans were scientists come
to help him with a research project. It was clear, Coburn thought, that the
rescue team would need to bring Iranians when and if they did the trip with
Paul and Bill, to handle situations like this.
The villagers let them pass.
A little later Majid stopped and waved down a car coming in the opposite
direction. The professor talked to the driver of the other car for a few
minutes, then reported that the next town, Khoy, was anti-Shah. Simons took
down the picture of the Shah from the windshield and replaced it with one
of the Ayatollah Khomeini. From then on they would stop oncoming cars regu-
larly and change the picture according to local politics.
On the outskirts of Khoy there was another roadblock.
Like the first one, it looked unofficial, and was manned by civilians; but
this time the ragged men and boys standing behind the tree trunks were
holding guns.
Majid stopped the car and they all got out.
To Coburn's horror, a teenage boy pointed a gun at him.
Coburn froze.
The gun was a 9min Llama pistol. The boy looked about sixteen. He had
probably never handled a firearm before today, Cobum thought. Amateurs with
guns were dangerous. The boy was holding the gun so tightly that his
knuckles showed white.
Coburn was scared. He had been shot at many times, in Vietnam, but what
frightened him now was the possibility that he would be killed by goddam
accident.
"RoosUe," the boy said. "Rooskie."
He thinks I'm a Russian, Coburn realized.
Perhaps it was because of the busby red beard and the little black wool
cap.
"No, American ", Coburn said.
The boy kept his pistol leveled.
Coburn stared at those white knuckles and thought: I just hope the punk
doesn't sneeze.
7be villagers searched Simons, Majid, and the professor. Coburn, who could
not take his eyes off the kid, heard MaJid
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 237
say: "They're looking for weapons." The only weapon they had was a little
knife that Coburn was wearing in a scabbard behind his back, under his
shirt.
A villager began to search Coburn, and at last the lad lowered his pistol.
Coburn breathed again.
'Men lie wondered what would happen when they found his knife.
The search was not thorough, and the knife was not found.
The vigilantes believed the story about a scientific project. "They
apologize for searching the old man," Majid said. The "Old man" was Simons,
who was now looking just like an elderly hwian peasant. "We can go on,"
Majid added.
They climbed back into the car.
Outside Khoy they turned south , looping over the top end of the lake, and
drove down the western shore to the outskirts Of Rezaiyeh.
The professor guided them into the town by remote roads, and they saw no
roadblocks. The journey from Tehran had taken them twelve hours, and they
were now an hour away from the border crossing at Sero.
That evening they all had dinner-chella kebab, the h-Anian dish of rice and
lamb-with the professor's landlord, who haPpened to be a customs official.
Majid gently pumped the landlord for information , and learned that t
here
was very little activity at the Sero frontier station.
They spent the night at the professor's house, a two-storY villa on the
outskirts of the town.
In the morning majid and the professor drove to the border and back. They
reported that there were no roadblocks and the route was safe. Then Majid
went into town to seek out a contact from whom he could buy firearms, and
Simons and Coburn went to the border.
They found a small frontier post with only two guards. It had a custorns
warehouse, a weighbridge for trucks, and a guardhouse. mie road was barred
by a low chain stretched between a post on one side and the wan of the
guard house on the other. Beyond the chain was about two hundred yards of
no-man's-land, then anodw, smaller frontier post on the Turkish side.
They got out of the car to look around. The air was pure and bitingly cold.
Simons pointed across the hillside. "See the tracks? I
Coburn followed Simons's finger. In the snow-, close behind
238 Ken Follett
the border station, was a trail where a small caravan had crossed the
border, impudently close to the guards.
Simons pointed again, this time above their heads. "Easy to cut the guards
off." Coburn looked up and saw a single telephone wire leading down the
hill from the station. A quick snip and the guards would be isolated.
The two of them walked down the hill and took a side road, no more than a
dirt track, into the hills. After a mile or so they came to a small
village, just a dozen or so houses made of wood or mud brick. Speaking
halting Turkish, Simons asked for the chief. A middle-aged man in baggy
trousers, waistcoat, and headdress appeared. Coburn listened without
understanding as Simons talked. Finally Simons shook the chief s hand, and
they left.
"What was all that about?" Coburn asked as they walked away.
"I told him I wanted to cross the border on horseback at night with some
friends. "
"What did he say?"
"He said he could arrange it."
"How did you know the people in that particular village were smugglers?"
"Look around you," Simons said.
Coburn looked around at the bare, snow-covered slopes.
"What do you see?" Simons said.