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Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt

Page 52

by On Wings of Eagles [lit]


  spoke to T. J. Marquez.

  T.J. said: "I called an international lawyer in Washington, and he thinks

  there is an extradition treaty between Iran and Germany. Also, he said the

  Germans are kind of legalistic about stuff like this, and if they got a

  request to pick up Paul and Bill, hell, they'd probably go right ahead and

  do it."

  Perot repeated all of that to Simons.

  "Okay," said Simons. "We're not going to take any chances at this point in

  the game. There , s a movie house with three screens down at the basement

  level in this airport. Paul and Bill can hide in them ... where's Bill?"

  "Gone to buy toothpaste," someone said.

  . ~Jay, go find him."

  Coburn went out.

  Simons said: "Paul goes into one theater, with Jay. Bill goes into another,

  with Keane. Pat Sculley stands guard outside. He has a ticket, so he can go

  in and check on the others."

  It was interesting, Perot thought, to see the switches turn and

  392 Ken FoUett

  the wheels start rolling as Simons changed from an old man relaxing on a

  plane to a commando leader again.

  Simons said: "The entrance to the train station is down in the basement,

  near the movies. If there's any sign of trouble Sculley gets the four men

  out of the movies and they all take a subway downtown. They rent a car and

  drive to England. If nothing happens, we get them out of the movies when

  we're about to board the plane. All right, let's do it."

  Bill was down in the shopping precinct. He had changed some money and

  bought toothpaste, a toothbrush, and a comb. He decided that a fresh new

  shut would make him feel human again, so he went to change some more money.

  He was standing in line at the currency-exchange booth when Coburn tapped

  turn on the shoulder.

  "Ross wants to see you in the hotel," Coburn said.

  11.197

  Vhat for?"

  "I can't talk about it now, you need to come on back."

  "You've got to be kidding!"

  .IWIs go. 11

  They went to Perot's room, and Perot explained to Bill what was happening.

  Bill could hardly believe it. He had thought for sure he was safe in modem,

  civilized Germany. Would he ever be safe? he wondered. Would Dadgar pursue

  hun to the ends of the earth, never resting until Bill was returned to Iran

  or killed?

  Coburn did not know whether there was any real chance of Paul and Bill

  getting into trouble hem in Frankfurt, but he did know the value of

  Simons's elaborate precautions. Much of what Simons had planned, over the

  past seven weeks, had come to nothing: the attack on the fust jail, the

  idea of snatching Paul and Bill from house arrest, the route out via

  Kuwait. But then, some of the contingencies for which Simons planned had

  come to pus, often the most farfetched ones: the Gasr Prison had been

  stormed and Rashid was there; the road to Sero, which Simons and Coburn had

  carefully reconnoitered, had in the end been their route out; even making

  Paul and Bill learn all the inforniation on their false passports had

  turned out to be crucial when the man in the long black overcoat started

  asking questions. Coburn needed no convincing: whatever Simons said was

  okay with him.

  They went down to the movie house. There were three films: two were prono

  movies and the third was Jaws 11. Bill and Taylor got Jaws 11. Paul and

  Coburn went in to see something about naked South Sea maidens.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 393

  Paul sat staring at the screen, bored and fired. The movie was in German,

  not that the dialogue appeared to count for much. What could be worse, he

  thought, than a bad X-rated movie? Suddenly he heard a loud snort. He

  looked at Coburn.

  Coburn was fast asleep, snoring.

  When John Howell and the rest of the Clean Team landed at Frankfurt, Simons

  had everything set up for a quick turnaround.

  Ron Davis was at the arrival gate, waiting to pun the Clean Team out of the

  line and direct them to another gate where the Boeing 707 was parked. Ralph

  Boulware was watching from a distance: as soon as he saw the first member

  of the Clean Team arrive, he would go down to the movie theater and tell

  Sculley to round up the guys inside. Jim Schwebach was in the roped-off

  press area, where reporters were waiting to see the American evactWes. He

  was sitting next to writer Pierre Salinger (who did not know how close he

  was to a realty good story) and pretending to read a furniture

  advertisement in a German newspaper. Schwebach's job was to tail the Clean

  Team from one gate to the other, just to make sure no one was following

  them. If there was trouble, Schwebach and Davis would start a disturbance.

  It would not matter much if they were arrested by the Germans, for there

  was no reason for them to be extradited to Iran.

  The plan went like clockwork. There was only one hitch: Rich and Cathy

  Gallagher did not want to go to Dallas. They had no friends or farmly

  there, they were not sure what their future would be, they did not know

  whether the dog, Buffy, would be allowed to enter the U.S.A., and they did

  not want to get on another plane. They said goodbye and went off to make

  their own arrangements.

  The rest of the Clean Team---John Howell, Bob Young, and Joe

  Poch6--followed Ron Davis and boarded the Boeing 707. Jim Schwebach tailed

  them. Ralph Boulware rounded up everyone else, and they all got on board

  for the flight home.

  Merv Stauffer in Dallas had called Frankfurt Airport and ordered food for

  the flight. He had asked for thirty superdeluxe meals, each including fish,

  fowl, and beef, six seafood trays with sauce, horseradish and lemon; six

  hors d'oeuvre trays; six sandwich trays with ham-and-cheese, roast beef,

  turkey, and Swiss cheese; six dip trays with raw vegetables and

  blue-cheese-andvinaigrette dip; three cheese trays with assorted breads and

  crackers; four deluxe pastry trays; four fresh-fruit trays; four bottles of

  394 Ken FoUett

  brandy; twenty Seven-Ups and twenty ginger ales; ten club sodas and ten

  tonics; ten quarts of orange juice; fifty cartons of milk; four gallons of

  freshly brewed coffee in Thermos bottles; one hundred sets of plastic

  cutlery consisting of knife, fork, and spoon; six dozen paper plates in two

  sizes; six dozen plastic glasses; six dozen Styrofoam cups; two cartons each

  of Kent, Marlboro, Kool, and Salem Light cigarettes; and two boxes of

  chocolates.

  There had been a mix-up, and the airport caterers had delivered the order

  double.

  Takeoff was delayed. An ice storm had dropped out of nowhere, and the

  Boeing 707 was last in the queue for de-icing--commercial flights had

  priority. Bill began to worry. The airport was going to close at midnight,

  and they might have to get off the plane and return to the hotel. Bill did

  not want to spend the night in Germany. He wanted American soil beneath his

  feet.

  John Howell, Joe Poch6, and Bob Young told the story of their flight from

  Tehran. Both Paul and Bill were chilled to hear how implacably determined

  Dadgar had been to prevent their
leaving the country.

  I At last the plane was de-ice"ut then its Number I engine would not start.

  Pilot John Carlen traced the problem to the start valve. Engineer Ken Lenz

  got off the plane and held the valve open manually while Carlen started the

  engine.

  Perot brought Rashid to the flight deck. Rashid had never flown until

  yesterday, and he wanted to sit with the crew. Perot said to Carlen: "Let's

  have a really spectacular takeoff."

  "You got it," said Carlen. He taxied to the runway, then took off in a very

  steep climb.

  In the passenger cabin Gayden was laughing: he had just heard that, after

  six weeks in jail with all-male company, Paul had been forced to sit

  through an X-rated movie; and he thought it was funny as hell.

  Perot popped a champagne cork and proposed a toast. "Here's to the men who

  said what they were going to do, then went out and did it."

  Ralph Boulware sipped his champagne and felt a warm glow. That's right, he

  thought. We said what we were going to do, then we went out and did it.

  Right.

  He had another reason to be happy. Next Monday was Kecia's birthday: she

  would be seven. Every time he had called Mary she

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 395

  had said: "Get home in time for Kecia's birthday. " It looked like he was

  going to make it.

  Bill began to relax at last. Now there's nothing but a plane ride between

  me and America and Emily and the kids, he thought. Now I'm safe.

  He had imagined himself safe before: when he reached the Hyatt in Tehran,

  when he crossed the border into Turkey, when he took off from Van, and when

  he landed in Frankfurt. He had been wrong each time.

  And he was wrong now.

  3

  Paul had always been crazy about airplanes, and now he took the opportunity

  to sit on the flight deck of the Boeing 707.

  As the plane flew across the north of England, he realized that pilot John

  Carlen, engineer Ken Lenz, and first officer Joe Fosnot were having

  trouble. On autopilot the plane was drifting, first to the left and then to

  the right. The compass had failed, rendering the inertial navigation system

  erratic.

  "What does all that mean?" Paul asked.

  "It means we'll have to hand-fly this thing all the way across the

  Atlantic," said Carlen. "We can do it-4t's kind of exhausting, that's all."

  A few minutes later the plane became very cold, then very hot. Its

  pressurization system was failing.

  Carlen took the plane down low.

  "We can't cross the Atlantic at this height," he told Paul.

  "Why not?"

  "We don't have enough fuel---an aircraft uses much more fuel at low

  altitudes."

  "Why can't we fly high?"

  "Can't breathe up there."

  "ne plane has oxygen masks."

  "But not enough oxygen to cross the Atlantic. No plane carries that much

  oxygen."

  Carlen and his crew fiddled with the controls for a while, then Carlen

  sighed and said: "Would you get Ross up here, Paul?"

  Paul fetched Perot.

  396 Ken Follett

  Carlen said: "Mr. Perot, I think we ought to take this thing and land it as

  soon as we can. " He explained again why they could not cross the Atlantic

  with a faulty pressure system.

  Paul said: "John, I'll be forever grateful to you if we don't have to land

  in Germany."

  "Don't worry," said Carlen. "We'll head for London, Heathrow. "

  Perot went back to tell the others. Carlen called London Air Traffic

  Control on the radio. It was one in the morning, and he was told Heathrow

  was closed. This is an emergency, he replied. They gave him permission to

  land.

  Paul could hardly believe it. An emergency landing, after all he had been

  through!

  Ken Lenz began to dump fuel to reduce the plane below its maximum landing

  weight.

  London told Carlen there was fog over southern England, but at the moment

  visibility was up to half a mile at Heathrow.

  When Ken Lenz shut off the fuel-dump valves, a red light that should have

  gone out stayed on. "A dump chute hasn't retracted," said Lenz.

  "I can't believe this," said Paul. He lit a cigarette.

  Carlen said: "Paul, can I have a cigarette?"

  Paul stared at him. "You told me you quit smoking ten years ago. "

  "Just give me a cigarette, would you?"

  Paul gave him a cigarette and said: "Now I'm really scared."

  Paul went back into the passenger cabin. The stewardesses had everyone busy

  stowing trays, bottles, and baggage, securing all loose objects, in

  preparation for landing.

  Paul went into the bedroom. Simons was lying on the bed. He had shaved in

  cold water and there were bits of stickum tape all over his face. He was

  fast asleep.

  Paul left him. He said to Jay Coburn: "Does Simons know what's going on?"

  "Sure does," Coburn replied. "He said he doesn't know how to fly a plane

  and there's nothing he can do, so he was going to take a nap."

  Paul shook his head in amazement. How cool could you get?

  He returned to the flight deck. Carlen was as laid-back as ever, his voice

  calm, his hands steady; but that cigarette worried Paul.

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 397

  A couple of minutes later the red fight went out. The dump chute had

  retracted.

  They approached Heathrow in dense cloud and began to lose height. Paul

  watched the altimeter. As it dropped through six

  ,hundred feet, then five hundred, there was still nothing outside but

  swirling gray fog.

  At three hundred feet it was the same. Then, suddenly, they dropped out of

  the cloud and there was the runway, straight ahead, fit up like a Christmas

  tree. Paul breathed a sigh of relief.

  They touched down, and the fire engines and ambulances came screaming

  across the tarmac toward the plane; but it was a perfect safe landing.

  Rashid had been hearing about Ross Perot for years. Perot was the

  multimillionaire, the founder of EDS, the business wizard, the man who sat

  in Dallas and moved men such as Coburn and Sculley around the world like

  pieces on a chessboard. It had been quite an experience for Rashid to meet

  W. Perot and find he was just an ordinary-looking human being, rather short

  and surprisingly friendly. Rashid had walked into the hotel room in

  Istanbul, and this little guy with the big smile and the bent nose just

  stuck out his hand and said: "Hi, I'm Ross Perot," and Rashid had shaken

  hands and said: "Hi, I'm Rashid Kazemi," just as natural as could be.

  Since that moment he had felt more than ever one of the EDS team. But at

  Heathrow Airport he was sharply reminded that he was not.

  As soon as the plane taxied to a halt, a vanload of airport police, customs

  men, and immigration officials boarded and started asking questions. They

  did not like what they saw: a bunch of dirty, scruffy, smelly, unshaven

  men, carrying a fortune in various currencies, aboard an incredibly

  luxurious airplane with a Grand Cayman Islands tail number. This, they said

  in their British way, was highly irregular, to say the least.

  However, after an hour or so of questioning, they coul
d find no evidence

  that the EDS men were drug smugglers, terrorists, or members of the PLO.

  And as holders of U.S. passports, the Americans needed no visas or other

  documentation to enter Britain. They were all admitted--except for Rashid.

  Perot confronted the immigration officer. "There's no reason why you should

  know who I am, but my name is Ross Perot, and if you would just check me

  out, maybe with U.S. Customs,

  398 Ken Follett

  I believe you will conclude that you can trust me. I have too much to lose

  by trying to smuggle an illegal immigrant into Britain. Now, I will assume

  personal responsibility for this young man. We will be out of England in

  twenty-four hours. In the morning we will check with your counterparts at

  Gatwick Airport, and we will then get on the Braniff flight to Dallas."

  "I'm afraid we can't do that, sir," said the official. I 'This gentleman

  will have to stay with us until we put him on the plane. 11

  "If he stays, I stay," said Perot.

  Rashid was flabbergasted. Ross Perot would spend the night at the airport,

  or perhaps in a prison cell, rather than leave Rashid behind! It was

  incredible. If Pat Sculley had made such an offer, or Jay Coburn, Rashid

  would have been grateful but not surprised. But this was Ross Perot!

  The immigration officer sighed. "Do you know anyone in Great Britain who

  might vouch for you, sit?"

  Perot racked his brains. Who do I know in Britain? he thought. "I don't

  think-no, wait a minute." Of course! One of Britain's great heroes had

  stayed with the Perots in Dallas a couple of times. Perot and Margot had

  been guests at his home in England, a place called Broadlands. "I know Earl

  Mountbatten of Burma,

  he said.

  "I'll just have a word with my supervisor," said the officer, and he got

  off the plane.

  He was away a long time.

  Perot said to Sculley: "As soon as we get out of here, your job is to get

  us all first-class seats on that Braniff flight to Dallas in the morning."

  "Yes, sir," said Sculley-

  The immigration officer came back. "I can give you twenty-four hours," he

  said to Rashid.

  Rashid looked at Perot. Oh, boy, he thought; what a guy to work for!

  They checked in to the Post House Hotel near the airport, and Perot called

 

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