here with a bus, Perot is in Istanbul with a plane. We're going to make it.
He reached the border. Lights were on in the guard huts. He jumped out of
the car and ran inside.
A great cheer went up.
There they all were: Paul and Bill, Coburn, Simons, Taylor, Gayden, and
Rashid.
Boulware shook hands warmly with Paul and Bill.
They all started picking up their coats and bags. "Hey, hey, wait a
minute," Boulware said. "Mr. Fish is on the way with a bus." He took from
his pocket a bottle of Chivas Regal he had been saving for this moment.
"But we can all have a drink!"
They all had a celebratory drink except Rashid, who did not take alcohol.
Simons got Boulware in a comer. "All right, what's happening?"
"I talked to Ross this afternoon," Boulware told him. "Mr. Fish is on his
way here, with Sculley, Schwebach, and Davis. They're in a bus. Now, we
could all leave right now--the twelve of us could get into the two cars,
just about-but I think we should wait for the bus. For one thing, we'll all
be together, so nobody can get lost anymore. For another, the road out of
here is supposed to be Blood Alley, you know; bandits and like that. I
don't know whether that's been exaggerated, but they keep saying it, and
I'm beginning to believe it. If it's a dangerous road, we'll be safer all
together. And, number three, if we go to Yuksekova and wait for Mr. Fish
there, we can't do anything but check into the worst hotel in the world,
and attract questions and hassles from a new set of officials."
"Okay," Simons said reluctantly. "We'll wait awhile."
He looked tired, Boulware thought; an old man who just wanted to rest.
Coburn looked the same: drained, exhausted, almost broken. Boulware
wondered just what they had been through to get here.
Boulware himself felt terrific, even though he had had little sleep for
forty-eight hours. He thought of his endless discussions with Mr. Fish
about how to get to the border; of the screw-up in
368 Ken Folleit
Adana when the bus failed to come; of the taxi ride through a blizzard in
the mountains ... And here he was, after all.
The little guardhouse was bitterly cold, and the wood-burning stove did
nothing but fill the room with smoke. Everyone was fired, and the scotch
made them drowsy. One by one they began to fall asleep on the wooden
benches and the floor.
Simons did not sleep. Rashid watched him, pacing up and down like a caged
tiger, chain-smoking his plastic-tipped cigars. As dawn broke, he started
looking out of the window, across no-man's-land to Iran.
"There are a hundred people with rifles across there," he said to Rashid
and Boulware. "What do you think they would do if they should happen to
find out exactly who it was who slipped across the border last night?"
Boulware, too, was beginning to wonder whether he had been right to propose
waiting for Mr. Fish.
Rashid looked out the window. Seeing the Range Rovers on the other side, he
remembered something. "The fuel can," he said. "I left the can with the
money. We might need the money.
Simons just looked at him.
On impulse Rashid walked out of the guardhouse and started across the
border.
It seemed a long way.
He thought about the psychology of the guards on the Iranian side. They
have written us off, he decided. If they have any doubts about whether they
did right last night, then they must have spent the last few hours making
up excuses, justifying their action. By now they have convinced themselves
that they did the right thing. It will take them a while to change their
minds.
He reached the other side and stepped over the chain.
He went to the first Range Rover and opened the tailgate.
Two guards came running out of their hut.
Rashid lifted the can out of the car and closed the tailgate. "We forgot
the off," he said as he started walking back toward the chain.
"What do you need it for?" asked one of the guards suspiciously. "You don't
have the cars anymore."
-For the bus," said Rashid as he stepped over the chain. "The bus that's
taking us to Van."
He walked away, feeling their eyes on his back.
He did not look around until he was back inside the Turkish guardhouse.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 369
A few minutes later they all heard the sound of a motor.
They looked out of the windows. A bus was coming down the road.
They cheered all over again.
Pat Sculley, Jim Schwebach, Ron Davis, and Mr. Fish stepped off the bus and
came into the guardhouse.
They all shook hands.
The latest arrivals had brought another bottle of scotch, so everyone had
another celebratory drink.
Mr. Fish went into a huddle with Ilsman and the border guards.
Gayden put his arm around Pat Sculley and said: "Have you noticed who's
with us?" He pointed.
Sculley saw Rashid, asleep in a comer. He smiled. In Tehran he had been
Rashid's manager, and then, during that first meeting with Simons in the
EDS boardroom-was it only six weeks ago?-he had strongly argued that Rashid
should be in on the rescue. Now it seemed Simons had come round to the same
point of view.
Mr. Fish said: "Pat Sculley and I have to go to Yuksekova and speak with
the chief of police there. The rest of you wait here for us, please."
"Now hold it," Simons said. "We waited for Boulware, then we waited for
you. Now what are we waiting for?"
Mr. Fish said: "If we don't get clearance in advance, there will be
trouble, because Paul and Bill have no passports."
Simons turned to Boulware. "Your guy Ilsman is supposed to have dealt with
that problem," he said angrily.
"I thought he did!" said Boulware. "I thought he bribed them. -
"So what's happening?"
Mr. Fish said: "It's better this way."
Simons growled: "Make it goddam fast."
Sculley and Mr. Fish went off.
The others started a poker game. They all had thousands of dollars hidden
in their shoes, and they were a little crazy. One hand Paul got a full
house, with three aces in the hole, and the pot went over a thousand
dollars. Keane Taylor kept raising him. Taylor had a pair of kings showing,
and Paul guessed he had another king in the hole, making a full house with
kings. Paul was right. He won fourteen hundred dollars.
A new shift of border guards arrived, including an officer who
370 Ken Follett
T U R K
. Mara5 51
--VJORDAP~
0 100200Mom
=10D 2DO3=0040=0III
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 371
4f 0
U. S. S. R.
E rum
Bin"
Khoy
Ma 4f r S
Katai
TEHRAN
Hama
Kerlq.
I R Q q&haf\
I R A N
ghdad
Escape Routs
......... . Reconnaissance Route
VVJMMN~ Irandan aardw
---------
SAUDI ARABIA
372 Ken Follett
wa
s mad as hell to find his guardhouse Uttered with cigarette butts,
hundred-dollar bills, and poker-playing Americans, two of whom had entered
the country without passports.
The morning wore on, and they all began to feel bad---too much liquor and
not enough sleep. As the sun climbed in the sky, poker did not seem fun
anymore. Simons got jittery. Gayden started giving Boulware a hard time.
Boulware wondered where ScuRey and Mr. Fish had got to.
Boulware was now sure he had made a mistake. They should all have left for
Yuksekova as soon as he had arrived. He had made another mistake in letting
Mr. Fish take charge. Somehow he had lost the initiative.
At ten A.M., having been away four hours, Sculley and Mr. Fish came back.
Nft. Fish told the officer that they had permission to leave.
The officer said something sharp, and-as if accidentally-let his jacket
fall open to reveal his pistol.
1"he other guards backed away from the Americans.
Mr. Fish said: "He says we leave when he gives permission.
"Enough," said Simons. He got to his feet and said something in Turkish.
All the Turks looked at him in surprise: they had not realized he spoke
their language.
Simons took the officer into the next room.
They came out a few minutes later. "We can go," said Simons.
They all went outside.
Coburn said: "Did you bribe him, Colonel---or frighten him to (Wth?"
Simons gave the ghost of a smile and said nothing.
Pat Sculley said: "Want to come to Dallas, Rashid?"
For the last couple of days, Rashid reflected, they had been talking as if
he would go all the way with them; but this was the first time anyone had
asked him directly whether he wanted to. Now he had to make the most
important decision of his fife.
Want to come to Dallas, Rashid? It was a dream come true. He thought of
what be was leaving behind. He had no children, no wife, not even a
girlftiend--he had never been in love. But he thought of his parents, his
sister, and his brothers. They might need him: life was sure to be rough in
Tehran for some time. Yet what help could he give them? He would be
employed for a few more days, or weeks, shipping the Americans' possessions
back to the States, taking care of the dogs and cats---then nothing.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 373
EDS was finished in Iran. Probably computers were finished, too, for many
years. Unemployed, he would be a burden to his fairtily, just another mouth
to feed in hard times.
But in America-
In America he could continue his education. He could put his talents to
work, become a success in busines&---especially with the help of people
like Pat Sculley and Jay Coburn.
Want to come to Dallas, Rashid?
"Yes," he said to Sculley. "I want to go to Dallas."
"What are you waiting for? Get on the bus!"
They all got on the bus.
Paul settled into his seat with relief. The bus pulled away, and Iran
disappeared into the distance: he would probably never see the country
again. There were strangers on the bus: some scruffy Turks in improvised
uniforms, and two Americans who--someone mumbled-were pilots. Paul was too
exhausted to inquire further. One of the Turkish guards from the border
station had joined the party: presumably he was just hitching a ride.
They stopped in Yuksekova. Mr. Fish told Paul and Bill: "We have to talk to
the chief of police. He has been here twenty-five years and this is the
most important thing that has ever happened. But don't worry. It's all
routine - "
Paul, Bill, and Mr. Fish got off the bus and went into the little police
station. Somehow Paul was not worried. He was out of Iran, and although
Turkey was not exactly a Western country, at least, he felt, it was not in
the throes of a revolution. Or perhaps he was just too tired to be
frightened.
He and Bill were interrogated for two hours, then released.
Six more people joined the bus at Yuksekova: a woman and a child who seemed
to belong to the border guard, and four very dirty men-"Bodyguards," said
Mr. Fish-who sat behind a curtain at the back of the bus.
They drove off, heading for Van, where a charter plane was waiting. Paul
looked out at the scenery. It was prettier than Switzerland, he thought,
but incredibly poor. Huge boulders littered the road. In the fields ragged
people were treading down the snow so that their goats could get at the
frozen grass beneath. There were caves with wood fences across their
mouths, and it seemed that was where the people lived. They passed the
ruins of a stone fortress that might have dated back to the Crusades.
The bus driver seemed to think he was in a race. He drove aggressively on
the winding road, apparently confident that noth-
374 Ken Folleu
ing could possibly be coming at him the other way. A group of soldiers waved
him down, and he drove right past them. Nk. Fish yelled at him to stop, but
he yelled back and kept going.
A few miles farther on, the army was waiting for them in force, probably
having heard that the bus had run the last checkpoint. The soldiers stood
in the road with their rifles raised, and the driver was forced to stop.
A sergeant jumped on the bus and dragged the driver off with a pistol at
his head.
Now we're in trouble, Paul thought.
The scene was almost funny. The driver was not a bit cowed: he was yelling
at the soldiers as loudly and as angrily as they were yelling at him.
Mr. Fish, Ilsman, and some of the mystery passengers got off the bus and
started talking, and eventually they satisfied the military. The driver was
literally thrown back onto the bus, but even that did not quench his
spirit, and as he drove away he was still yelling out of the window and
shaking his fist at the soldiers.
They reached Van late in the afternoon.
They went to the town hall, where they were handed over to the local
police; and the scruffy bodyguards disappeared like melting snow. The
police filled in forms, then escorted them to the airstrip.
As they were boarding the plane, Ilsman was stopped by a policeman: he had
a .45 pistol strapped under his arm, and it seemed that even in Turkey
passengers were not allowed to take firearms on board aircraft. However,
Ilsman flashed his credentials yet again, and the problem went away.
Rashid was also stopped. He was carrying the fuel can with the money in it,
and of course inflammable liquids were not allowed on aircraft. He told the
police the can contained suntan oil for the Americans' wives, and they
believed him.
They ail boarded the plane. Simons and Coburn, coming down from the effects
of the stay-awake pills, both stretched out and were asleep within seconds.
As the plane taxied and took off, Paul felt as elated as if it were his
first plane trip. He recalled how, in jail in Tehran, he had longed to do
that most ordinary thing, get on a plane and fly away. Soaring up into the
clouds now gave him a feeling he had not experienced for a long time: the
feeling of freedom.
ON WINGS OF EAG
LES 375
3
According to the peculiar rules of Turkish air travel, the charter plane
could not go where a scheduled flight was available; so they could not fly
directly to Istanbul where Perot was waiting, but had to change planes in
Ankara.
While they were waiting for their connection, they solved a couple of
problems.
Simons, Sculley, Paul, and Bill got into a taxi and asked for the American
Embassy.
It was a long drive through the city. The air was brownish and had a strong
smell. "The air's bad here," said Bill.
"High-sulfur coal," said Simons, who had lived in Turkey in the fifties.
"They've never heard of pollution controls."
The cab pulled up at the U.S. Embassy. Bill looked out the window and his
heart leaped: there stood a young, handsome marine guard in an immaculate
uniform.
This was the U.S.A.
They paid off the cab.
As they went in, Simons said to the marine: "Is there a motor pool here,
soldier?"
"Yes, sir," said the marine, and gave him directions.
Paul and Bill went into the passport office. In their pockets they had
passport-sized photographs of themselves that Boulware had brought from the
States. They went up to the desk, and Paul said: "We've lost our passports.
We left Tehran in kind of a hurry. "
"Oh, yes," said the clerk, as if he had been expecting diem.
They had to fill in forms. One of the officials took them into a private
office and told them he wanted some advice. The U.S. Consulate in Tabriz,
Iran, was under attack by revolutionaries, and the staff there might have
to escape as Paul and Bin had. They told him the route they had taken and
what problems they had encountered.
A few minutes later they walked out of there, each holding a sixty-day U.S.
passport. Paul looked at his and said: "Did you ever see anything so
beautiful in your whole damn life?"
376 Ken Folleu
Simons emptied the oil from the can and shook out the money in the weighted
plastic bags. There was a hell of a mess: some of the bags had broken and
there was oil all over the banknotes. Sculley started cleaning off the oil
Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Page 49
