Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt
Page 38
with the illegal rescue team, talking on the phone in code. Now they all
realized that Simons was the key figure in Tehran, and that whatever hap-
pened next would probably be illegal; so they moved up to Stauffer's
office, which was also more private.
"I'm going to go to Washington right away," Perot told them. "Our best hope
is still an air force jet out of Tehran. "
Stauffer said: "I don't know about flights to Washington from DFW on
Sundays--
I 'Charter a jet, I I Perot said.
Stauffer picked up the phone.
"We're going to need secretaries here twenty-four hours a day for the next
few days," Perot went on.
"I'll see to that," said T.J.
"Now, the military has promised to help us, but we can't rely on
them.--they may have bigger fish to fry - The likeliest altemative is for
the team to drive out via Turkey. In that event, the plan is for us to meet
them at the border or if necessary fly into the northwest of Iran to pull
them out. We need to assemble the Turkish Rescue Team. Boulware is already
in Istanbul. Schwebach, Sculley, and Davis are in the States-sornebody call
them and have the three of them meet me in Washington. We may also need a
helicopter pilot and another pilot for small fixed-wing aimmd, in case we
want to sneak into Iran. Sally, call Margot and ask her to pack me a
case--I'H need casual clothes, a flashlight, all-weather boots, thermal
underwear, a sleeping bag, and a tent."
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 285
"Yes, sir. - Sally left the room.
"Ross, I don't think that's a good idea," T.J. said. "Margot might got
scared."
Perot suppressed a sigh: it was just like T.J. to argue. But he was right.
"Okay, I'll go home and do it myself. Come with me so we can talk while I'm
packing."
"Sure. t,
Stauffer put down the phone and said: "There's a Lear jet waiting for you
at Love Field."
"Good."
Perot and T.J. went downstairs and got in their cars. They left EDS and
turned right on Forest Lane. A few seconds later T.J. looked at his
speedometer and saw that he was doing eightyand Perot, in Margot's Jaguar,
was losing him.
At Page Terminal in Washington, Perot ran into two old friends: Bill
Clements, Governor of Texas and former Deputy Secretary of Defense; and
Clements's wife, Rita.
Clements said: "Hi, Ross! What the hell are you doing in Washington on a
Sunday afternoon?"
"I'm up here on business," said Perot.
"No, what are you doing really?" said Clements with a grin.
"Have you got a minute?"
Clements had a minute. The three of them sat down, and Perot told the story
of Paul and Bill.
When he had finished, Clements said: "There's a guy you need to talk to.
I'll write down his name."
"How am I going to get him on a Sunday afternoon?"
"Hell, I'll get him."
The two men walked over to a pay phone. Clements put in a coin, called the
Pentagon switchboard, and identified himself. He asked to be put through to
the home of one of the most senior military officers in the country. Then
he said: "I've got Ross Perot hum Texas with me. He's a friend of mine and
a good friend to the military, and I want, you to help him." Then he handed
the phone to Perot and walked away.
Half an hour later Perot was in an operations room in the Pentagon basement,
surrounded by computer terminals, talking to half a dozen generals.
He had never met any of them before, but he felt he was
286 Ken Folleu
among friends: they all knew of his campaign for the American prisoners of
war in North Vietnam.
"I want to get two men out of Tehran," Perot told them. "Can you fly them
out?"
"No," said one of the generals. "We're grounded in Tehran. Our air base,
Doshen Toppeh, is in the hands of the revolutionaries. General Gast is in
the bunker beneath MAAG headquarters, surrounded by a mob. And we have no
communications because the phone fines have been cut, "
"Okay," said Perot. He had half-expected that answer. "I'm going to have to
do it myself. "
"It's on the other side of the world, and there's a revolution going on,"
said a general. "It won't be easy."
Perot smiled. "I have Bull Simons over there."
They broke up. "Dararnit, Perot!" said one of them. "You aren't giving the
Iranians an even chance!"
'Ptiglit." Perot grimieA. "I may have to fly in myself. Now, can you give
me a list of all the airfields between Tehran and the Turkish border?"
"Sure. 11
"Could you find out whether any of those airfields are obstructed?"
"We can just look at the satellite photographs."
Now, what about radar? Is there a way to fly in there without appearing on
the Iranians' radar screens?"
"Sure. We'll get you a radar map at five hundred feet."
"Goodl"
-Anything else?"
Hell, Perot thought, this is just like going into McDonald's! "That'll do
for now," he said.
The generals started pushing buttons.
T. J. Marquez picked up the phone. It was Perot.
- I got your pilots," T.J. told him. "I called Larry Joseph, who used to be
head of Continental Air Services in Vientiane, Laos-he's in Washington now.
He found the guys~-Dick Douglas and Julian Kanauch. They'll be in
Washington tomorrow."
"I'liat's great," said Perot. "Now, I've been to the Pentagon and they
can't fly the guys out--4hey're grounded in Tehran. But I have all kinds of
maps and stuff so we can fly in ourselves. Now, this is what I need: a jet
plane, capable of crossing the Atlantic, complete with a crew and equipped
with a single-
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 287
sideband radio, like we used to have in Laos, so we can make phone calls
from the plane."
"I'll get right on it," said T.J.
"I'm at the Madison Hotel."
..C
Tot it.-
T.J. started calling. He contacted two Texas charter companies: neither of
them had a transatlantic jet. The second, Jet Fleet, gave him the name of
Executive Aircraft out of Columbus, Oluo. They could not help, and they did
not know of anyone who could.
T.J. thought of Europe. He called Carl Nilsson, an EDS executive who had
been working on a proposal for Martinair. Nilsson called back and said
Martinair would not fly into Iran, but had given him the name of a Swiss
outfit who would. T.J. called Switzerland: that company had stopped flying
into Iran as oftoday.
T.J. dialed the number of Harry McKillop, a Braniff vicepresident who lived
in Paris. McKillop was out.
T.J. called Perot and confessed failure.
Perot had an idea. He seemed to remember that Sol Rogers, the president of
Texas State Optical Company down in Beaumont, had either a BAC I I I or a
Boeing 727, he was not sure which. Nor did he have the phone number.
T.J. called information. The number was unlisted. He called Margot. She had
the number. He called Rogers. He had sold his plane.
Rogers knew of an outfit called Omn
i International, in Washington, which
leased planes. He gave T.J. the home phone numbers of the president and
vice-president.
T.J. called the president. He was out.
He called the vice-president. He was in.
"Do you have a transatlantic jet?" T.J. asked.
"Sure. We have two."
T.J. breathed a sigh of relief.
"We have a 707 and a 727," the man went on.
'IgVhere?' '
"The 707 is at Meachein Field in Forth Worth-"
"Why, that's right here!" said T.J. "Now tell me, does it have a
single-sideband radio?"
Sure does.' 0
T.J. could hardly believe his luck.
288 Ken Folleu
"This plane is rather luxuriously fitted out," the vice-president said. "It
was done for a Kuwaiti prince who backed out."
T.J. was not interested in the decor. He asked about the price. The
vice-president said the president would have to make the final decision. He
was out for the evening, but T.J. could call him first thing in the
morning.
T.J. had the plane checked out by Jeff Heller, an EDS vice-president and
former Vietnam pilot, and two of Heller's friends, one an American Airlines
pilot and the other a flight engineer. Heller reported that the plane
seemed to be in good shape, as far as they could tell without flying it.
The decor was kind of overripe, he said with a smile.
At seven-thirty the following morning T.J. called the president of Omni and
got him out of the shower. The president had talked to his vice-president
and he was sure they could do business.
"Good," said T.J. "Now what about crew, ground facilities, insurance---
"We don't charter planes," said the president. "We lease them. "
"What's the difference?"
"It's like the difference between taking a cab and renting a car. Our
planes are for rent."
-L,ook, we're in the computer business, we know nothing about airlines,"
said T.J. "Even though you normally don't do it, will you make a deal with
us where you supply all the extras, crew and so on? We'll pay you for it."
"It'll be complicated. The insurance alone .
'But you'll do it?"
"Yes, we'll do it."
It was complicated, T.J. learned during the course of the day. The unusual
nature of the deal did not appeal to the insurance companies, who also
hated to be hurried. It was hard to figure out which regulations EDS needed
to comply with, since they were not an airline. Omni required a deposit of
sixty thousand dollars in an offshore branch of a U.S. bank. The problems
were solved by EDS executive Gary Fernandes in Washington and EDS house
lawyer Claude Chappelear in Dallas: the contract, which was executed at the
end of the day, was a sales demonstration lease. Omni found a crew in
California and sent them to Dallas to pick up the plane and fly it on to
Washington.
By midnight on Monday the plane, the crew, the extra pilots,
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 289
and the remnants of the rescue team were all in Washington with Ross
Perot.
T.J. had worked a miracle.
'Mat was why it took so long.
3
The negotiating team-Keane Taylor, Bill Gayden, John Howell, Bob Young, and
Rich Gallagher, augmented now by Rashid, Cathy Gallagher, and the dog,
Buffy-spent the night of Sunday, February 11, at the Hyatt. They got little
sleep. Close by, the mob was attacking an armory. It seemed part of the army
had now joined the revolution, for tanks were used in the attack. Toward
morning they blew a hole in the wall and got in. From dawn on, a stream of
orange cabs ferried weapons from the armory downtown to where the fighting
was still heavy.
The team kept the line to Dallas open all night: John Howell lay on the
couch in Gayden's sitting room with the phone to his ear.
In the morning Rashid left early. He was not told where the others were
gomg-no Iranians were to know the location of the hideout.
The others packed their suitcases and left them in their rooms, just in
case they should get a chance to pick them up later. This was not part of
Simons's instructions, and he would certainly have disapproved, for the
packed bags showed that the EDS people were no longer living here-but by
morning they all felt Simons was overdoing his security precautions. They
gathered in Gayden's sitting room a few minutes after the seven o'clock
deadline. The Gallaghers; had several bags, and did not really look as if
they were going to the office.
In the foyer they met the hotel manager. "Where are you going?" he asked
incredulously.
"To the office," Gayden told him.
"Don't you know there's a civil war going on out there? All night long
we've been feeding the revolutionaries out of our kitchen&. They asked if
there were any Americans hem-1 told them there was nobody here. You must go
back upstam and stay out of sight. I I
290 Ken Follen
"Life must go on," said Gayden, and they all walked out.
Joe Pochd was waiting in a Range Rover, silently fuming because they were
fifteen minutes late and he had instructions from Simons to be back at
seven forty-five, with or without them.
As they walked to the cars, Keane Taylor saw a hotel clerk drive in and
park. He went over to speak to the man. "How are the streets?"
"Roadblocks all over the place," said the clerk. "There's one right here,
at the end of the hotel driveway. You shouldn't go (mt. 19
"Thank you," said Taylor.
They all got into the cars and followed Pochd's Range Rover. The guards at
the gate were preoccupied, trying to jam a banana clip into a machine
pistol that did not take that kind of ammunition, and they paid no
attention to the three cars.
The scene outside was scary. Many of the weapons from the armory had found
their way into the hands of teenage boys who had probably never handled
firearms before, and the kids were running down the hill, yelling and
waving their guns, and jumping into cars to tear off along the highway,
shooting into the air.
Poch6 headed north on Shahanshahi, following a roundabout route to avoid
roadblocks. At the intersection with Pahlavi there was the remains of a
barricad"umed cars and tree trunks across the road-but the people manning
the roadblock were celebrating, chanting and firing into the air, and the
three cars drove straight through.
As they approached the hideout they entered a relatively quiet area. They
turned into a narrow street; then, half a block down, they drove through
gates into a walled garden with an empty swimming pool. The Dvoranchik
place was the bottom half of a duplex, with the landlady living upstairs.
They all went in.
During Monday, Dadgar continued to search for Paul and Bill.
Bill Gayden called Bucharest, where a skeleton staff of loyal Iranians
continued to man the phones. Gayden learned that Dadgar's men had called
twice, speaking to two different secretaries, and asked where they could
find Mr. Chiapparone and Mr. Gaylord. The first secretary had said she did
not know the names o
f any of the Americans, which was a brave lie-she had
been working for EDS for four years and knew everyone.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 291
The second secretary had said: "You will have to speak to Mr. Lloyd Briggs,
who is in charge of the office."
61"ere is he?"
"Out of the country."
"Well, who is in charge of the office in his absence?"
"Mr. Keane Taylor."
"Let me speak to him."
"He's not here right now."
7Ibe girls, bless them, had given Dadgar's men the runaround.
Rich Gallagher was keeping in touch with his friends in the military (Cathy
had a job as secretary to a colonel). He called the Evin Hotel, where most
of the military were staying, and learned that "revolutionaries" had gone
to both the Evin and the Hyatt showing photographs of two Americans for
whom they were looking.
Dadgar's tenacity was almost incredible.
Simons decided they could not stay at the Dvoranchik house more than
forty-eight hours.
The escape plan had been devised for five men. Now there were ten men, a
woman, and a dog.
They had only two Range Rovers. An ordinary car would never take those
mountain roads, especially in snow. They needed another Range Rover. Coburn
called Majid and asked him to try to get one.
The dog worried Simons. Rich Gallagher was planning to carry Buffy in a
knapsack. If they had to walk or ride horseback through the mountains to
cross the border, a single yap could get them all killed-wd Buffy barked at
everything. Simons said to Coburn and Taylor: "I want you two to lose that
fucking dog."
"Okay," Coburn said. "Maybe I'll offer to walk it, then just let it go. 09
"No," said Simons. "When I say lose it, I mean pernmerItly-11
Cathy was the biggest problem. That evening she felt ill-"Feminine
problems," Rich said. He was hoping that a day in bed would leave her
feeling stronger; but Simons was not optimistic. He fumed at the Embassy.
"There are so many ways the State Department could get someone out of the
country and prow them if they wanted to," he said. "Put them in a case,
ship them out as cargo ... if they were interested, it would be a snap-19
Bill began to feel like the cause of all the trouble. "I think it's inswe
for nine people to risk their lives for the sake of two," he