On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

by Ken Follett

  "You're right," Perot said. "It's not for consideration."

  He hung up. "Mort, I sure appreciate your offer, but I'm going to Turkey."

  "Whatever you say."

  A few minutes later Meyerson left, to return to Dallas in the chartered Lear jet. Perot called EDS again and spoke to Merv Stauffer. "Now, I want you guys to work in shifts and get some sleep," Perot said. "I don't want to be talking to a bunch of zombies back there."

  "Yes, sir!"

  Perot took his own advice and got some sleep.

  The phone woke him at two A.M. It was Pat Sculley, calling from the airport: the plane's mechanical problems were fixed.

  Perot got a cab to Dulles Airport. It was a hair-raising thirty-mile ride on icy roads.

  The Turkish Rescue Team was now together: Perot; Pat Sculley and Jim Schwebach--the deadly duo; young Ron Davis; the crew of the 707; and the two extra pilots, Dick Douglas and Julian "Scratch" Kanauch. But the plane was not mended. It needed a spare part that was not available in Washington. Gary Femandes--the EDS manager who had worked on the leasing contract for the plane--had a friend who was in charge of ground support for one of the airlines at New York's LaGuardia Airport: he called the friend, and the friend got out of bed, found the part, and put it on a plane for Washington. Meanwhile, Perot lay down on a bench in the terminal and slept for a couple more hours.

  They boarded at six A.M. Perot looked around the interior of the aircraft in amazement. It had a bedroom with a king-size bed, three bars, a sophisticated hi-fi system, a television, and an office with a phone. There were plush carpets, suede upholstery, and velvet walls. "It looks like a Persian whorehouse," said Perot, although he had never seen a Persian whorehouse.

  The plane took off. Dick Douglas and Scratch Kanauch immediately curled up and went to sleep. Perot tried to follow their example: he had sixteen hours of nothing to do in front of him. As the plane headed out across the Atlantic Ocean, he wondered again whether he was doing the right thing.

  He might, after all, have left Paul and Bill to take their chances in Tehran. Nobody would have blamed him: it was the government's job to rescue them. Indeed, the Embassy might even now be able to get them out unharmed.

  On the other hand, Dadgar might pick them up and throw them in jail for twenty years--and the Embassy, on past performance, might not protect them. And what would the revolutionaries do if they got hold of Paul and Bill? Lynch them?

  No, Perot could not leave his men to take then chances--it was not his way. Paul and Bill were his responsibility--he did not need his mother to tell him that. The trouble was that he was now putting more men at risk. Instead of having two people hiding in Tehran, he would now have eleven employees on the run in the wilds of northwest Iran, and another four, plus two pilots, searching for them. If things went wrong--if someone got killed--the world would see this whole thing as a foolhardy adventure by a man who thought he was still living in the Wild West. He could imagine the newspaper headlines: MILLIONAIRE TEXAN'S IRAN RESCUE BID ENDS IN DEATH ...

  Suppose we lose Coburn, he thought; what would I tell his wife? Liz might find it hard to understand why I staked the lives of seventeen men to gain the freedom of two.

  He had never broken the law in his life, and now he was involved in so many major illegal activities he could not count them.

  He put all that out of his mind. The decision was made. If you go through life thinking about all the bad things that can happen, you soon talk yourself into doing nothing at all. Concentrate on the problems that can be solved. The chips are on the table and the wheel is in spin. The last game has begun.

  4______

  On Tuesday the U.S. Embassy announced that evacuation flights for all Americans in Tehran would leave during the coming weekend.

  Simons got Coburn and Poche in one of the bedrooms of the Dvoranchik place and closed the door. "This solves some of our problems," he said. "I want to split them up at this point in the game. Some can take the Embassy evacuation flight, leaving a manageable group for the overland trip."

  Coburn and Poche agreed.

  "Obviously, Paul and Bill have to go overland," Simons said. "Two of us three have to go with them: one to escort them across the mountains and the other to cross the border legitimately and meet up with Boulware. We'll need an Iranian driver for each of the two Range Rovers. That leaves us two spare seats. Who takes them? Not Cathy--she'll be much better off on the Embassy flight."

  "Rich will want to go with her," said Coburn.

  "And that fucking dog," Simons added.

  Buffy's life is saved, Coburn thought. He was rather glad.

  Simons said: "There's Keane Taylor, John Howell, Bob Young, and Bill Gayden. Here's the problem: Dadgar might pick people up at the airport, and we'll end up back where we started--with EDS men in jail. Who is at most risk?"

  "Gayden," said Coburn. "He's president of EDS World. As a hostage, he'd be better than Paul and Bill. In fact, when Dadgar arrested Bill Gaylord, we wondered whether it was a mistake, and he really wanted Bill Gayden, but got confused because of the similarity of the names."

  "Gayden comes out overland with Paul and Bill, then."

  "John Howell is not even employed by EDS. And he's a lawyer. He should be all right."

  "Howell goes out by air."

  "Bob Young is employed by EDS in Kuwait, not Iran. If Dadgar has a list of EDS names, Young won't be on it."

  "Young flies. Taylor drives. Now, one of us has to go on the evacuation flight with the Clean Team. Joe, that's you. You've kept a lower profile than Jay. He's been on the streets, at meetings at the Hyatt--whereas nobody knows you're here."

  "Okay," said Poche.

  "So the Clean Team is the Gallaghers, Bob Young, and John Howell, led by Joe. The Dirty Team is me, Jay, Keane Taylor, Bill Gayden, Paul, Bill, and two Iranian drivers. Let's go tell 'em."

  They went into the living room and everyone sat down. As Simons talked, Coburn admired how he announced his decision in such a way that they all thought they were being asked for their opinions rather than being told what to do.

  There was some discussion of who should be in which team--both John Howell and Bob Young would have preferred to be in the Dirty Team, feeling themselves vulnerable to arrest by Dadgar--but in the end they all reached the decision Simons had already made.

  The Clean Team might as well move into the Embassy compound as soon as possible, Simons said. Gayden and Joe Poche went off to find Lou Goelz, the Consul General, and talk to him about it.

  The Dirty Team would leave tomorrow morning.

  Coburn had to organize the Iranian drivers. These were to have been Majid and his cousin, the professor, but the professor was in Rezaiyeh and could not get to Tehran, so Coburn had to find a replacement.

  He had already decided on Seyyed. Seyyed was a young Iranian systems engineer like Rashid and the Cycle Man, but from a much wealthier family: relatives of his had been high in politics and the army under the Shah. Seyyed had been educated in England and spoke with a British accent. His great asset, from Coburn's point of view, was that he came from the northwest, so he knew the territory and he spoke Turkish.

  Coburn called Seyyed and they met at Seyyed's house. Coburn told him lies. "I need to gather intelligence on the roads between here and Khoy," Coburn said. "I'll need someone to drive me. Will you do it?"

  "Sure," said Seyyed.

  "Meet me at ten forty-five tonight at Argentine Square."

  Seyyed agreed.

  Simons had instructed Coburn to go through all this. Coburn trusted Seyyed, but of course Simons did not; so Seyyed would not know where the team was staying until he got there, and he would not know about Paul and Bill until he saw them; and from that moment on he would not be out of Simons's sight.

  When Coburn returned to the Dvoranchik place, Gayden and Poche were back from seeing Lou Goelz. They had told Goelz that a few EDS men were staying in Tehran to look for Paul and Bill, but the others wanted to leave on the first ev
acuation flight, and stay at the Embassy in the meantime. Goelz had said that the Embassy was full, but they could stay at his house.

  They all thought that was pretty damn good of Goelz. Most of them had got mad at him once or twice over the last two months, and had made it pretty clear that they blamed him and his colleagues for the arrest of Paul and Bill: it was big of him to open his house to them after all that. As everything came unglued in Iran, Goelz was becoming less of a bureaucrat and showing that his heart was in the right place.

  The Clean Team and the Dirty Team shook hands and wished each other luck, not knowing who needed it most; then the Clean Team left for Goelz's house.

  It was now evening. Coburn and Keane Taylor went to Majid's house to pick him up: he would spend the night at the Dvoranchik place like Seyyed. Coburn and Taylor also had to get a fifty-five-gallon drum of fuel that Majid had been keeping for them.

  When they got to the house Majid was out.

  They waited, fretting. At last Majid came in. He greeted them, welcomed them to his home, called for tea, the whole nine yards. Eventually Coburn said: "We're leaving tomorrow morning. We want you to come with us now."

  Majid asked Coburn to step into another room with him; then he said: "I can't go with you."

  "Why not?"

  "I have to kill Hoveyda."

  "What?" said Coburn incredulously. "Who?"

  "Amir Abbas Hoveyda, who used to be Prime Minister."

  "Why do you have to kill him?"

  "It's a long story. The Shah had a land-reform program, and Hoveyda tried to take away my family's tribal lands, and we rebelled, and Hoveyda put me in jail ... I have been waiting all these years for my revenge."

  "You have to kill him right away?" said Coburn, astonished.

  "I have the weapons and the opportunity. In two days' time all may be different."

  Coburn was nonplussed. He did not know what to say. It was clear Majid could not be talked around.

  Coburn and Taylor manhandled the fuel drum into the back of the Range Rover, then took their leave. Majid wished them luck.

  Back at the Dvoranchik place, Coburn started trying to reach the Cycle Man, hoping he would replace Majid as driver. The Cycle Man was as elusive as Coburn himself. He could normally be reached at a certain phone number--some kind of revolutionary headquarters, Coburn suspected--just once a day. The regular time for him to drop by this place was now past--it was late in the evening--but Coburn tried anyway. The Cycle Man was not there. He tried a few more phone numbers without success.

  At least they had Seyyed.

  At ten-thirty Coburn went out to meet Seyyed. He walked through the darkened streets to Argentine Square, a mile from the Dvoranchik place, then picked his way across a construction site and into an empty building to wait.

  At eleven o'clock Seyyed had not arrived.

  Simons had told Coburn to wait fifteen minutes, no longer; but Coburn decided to give Seyyed a little more time.

  He waited until eleven-thirty.

  Seyyed was not coming.

  Coburn wondered what had happened: given Seyyed's family connections, it was quite possible he had fallen victim to the revolutionaries.

  For the Dirty Team this was a disaster. Now they had no Iranians to go with them. How the hell will we get through all those roadblocks? wondered Coburn. What a shitty break: the professor drops out, Majid drops out, the Cycle Man can't be found, then Seyyed drops out. Shit.

  He left the construction site and walked away. Suddenly he heard a car. He looked back, and saw a jeep full of armed revolutionaries swinging around the square. He ducked behind a convenient bush. They went by.

  He went on, hurrying now, wondering whether the curfew was in force tonight. He was almost home when the jeep came roaring back toward him.

  They saw me last time, he thought, and they've come back to pick me up.

  It was very dark. They might not have spotted him yet. He turned and ran back. There was no cover on this street. The noise of the jeep became louder. At last Coburn saw some shrubbery and flung himself into it. He lay there listening to his heartbeat as the jeep came closer. Were they looking for him? Had they picked up Seyyed and tortured him, and made him confess that he had an appointment with a capitalist American pig at Argentine Square at ten forty-five ... ?

  The jeep went by without stopping.

  Coburn picked himself up.

  He ran all the way to the Dvoranchik place.

  He told Simons they now had no Iranian drivers.

  Simons cursed. "Is there another Iranian we can call?"

  "Only one. Rashid."

  Simons did not want to use Rashid, Coburn knew, because Rashid had led the jailbreak, and if someone who remembered him from that should see him driving a carload of Americans, there might be trouble. But Coburn could not think of anyone else.

  "Okay," said Simons. "Call him."

  Coburn dialed Rashid's number.

  He was at home!

  "This is Jay Coburn. I need your help."

  "Sure."

  Coburn did not want to give the address of the hideout over the phone, in case the line was wiretapped. He recalled that Bill Dvoranchik had a slight squint. He said: "You remember the guy with the funny eye?"

  "With a funny eye? Oh, yeah--"

  "Don't say his name. Remember where he used to live?"

  "Sure--"

  "Don't say it. That's where I am. I need you here."

  "Jay, I live miles from there and I don't know how I'm going to get across the city--"

  "Just try," Coburn said. He knew how resourceful Rashid was. Give him a task and he just hated to fail. "You'll get here."

  "Okay."

  "Thanks." Coburn hung up.

  It was midnight.

  Paul and Bill had each picked a passport from the ones Gayden had brought from the States, and Simons had made them learn the names, dates of birth, personal details, and all the visas and country stamps. The photograph in Paul's passport looked more or less like Paul, but Bill's was a problem. None of them was right, and he ended up with the passport of Larry Humphreys, a blond, rather Nordic type who really did not look like Bill.

  The tension mounted as the six men discussed details of the journey they would begin within the next few hours. There was fighting in Tabriz, according to Rich Gallagher's military contacts; so they would stick to the plan of taking the low road, south of Lake Rezaiyeh, passing through Mahabad. The story they would tell, if questioned, would be as close to the truth as possible--always Simons's preference when lying. They would say they were businessmen who wanted to get home to their families, the airport was closed, and they were driving to Turkey.

  In support of that story, they would carry no weapons. It was a difficult decision--they knew they might regret being unarmed and helpless in the middle of a revolution--but Simons and Coburn had found, on the reconnaissance trip, that the revolutionaries at the roadblocks always searched for weapons. Simons's instinct told him they would be better off talking their way out of trouble than trying to shoot their way out.

  They also decided to leave behind the fifty-five-gallon fuel drum, on the grounds that they made the team look too professional, too organized, for businessmen quietly driving home.

  They would, however, take a lot of money. Joe Poche and the Clean Team had gone off with fifty thousand dollars, but Simons's crew still had around a quarter of a million dollars, some of it in Iranian rials, deutsche marks, sterling, and gold. They packed fifty thousand dollars into kitchen Baggies, weighted the bags with shot, and put them in a gas can. They hid some in a Kleenex box and more in the battery hold of a flashlight. They passed the rest out for each to conceal about his person.

  At one o'clock Rashid still had not arrived. Simons sent Coburn to stand at the street gate and watch for him.

  Coburn stood in the darkness, shivering, hoping Rashid would show up. They would leave tomorrow, with or without him, but without him they might not get far. The villagers in
the countryside would probably detain Americans just on general principles. Rashid would be the ideal guide, despite Simons's worries: the kid had a silver tongue.

  Coburn's thoughts turned to home. Liz was mad at him, that he knew. She had been giving Merv Stauffer a hard time, calling every day and asking where her husband was and what he was doing and when he was coming home.

  Coburn knew he would have to make some decisions when he got home. He was not sure that he was going to spend the rest of his life with Liz; and after this episode, maybe she would begin to feel the same way. I suppose we were in love, once upon a time, he thought. Where did all that go?

  He heard footsteps. A short, curly-headed figure was walking along the sidewalk toward him, shoulders hunched against the cold.

  "Rashid!" hissed Coburn.

  "Jay?"

  "Boy, am I glad to see you!" Coburn took Rashid's arm. "Let's go inside."

  They went into the living room. Rashid said hello to everyone, smiling and blinking: he blinked a lot, especially in moments of excitement, and he had a nervous cough. Simons sat him down and explained the plan to him. Rashid blinked faster.

  When he understood what was being asked of him, he became a little self-important. "I will help you on one condition," he said, and coughed. "I know this country and I know this culture. You are all important people in EDS, but this is not EDS. If I lead you to the border, you must agree always to do everything I say, without question."

  Coburn held his breath. Nobody talked like this to Simons.

  But Simons grinned. "Anything you say, Rashid."

  A few minutes later Coburn got Simons in a corner and said quietly: "Colonel, did you mean that about Rashid being in charge?"

  "Sure," said Simons. "He's in charge as long as he's doing what I want."

  Coburn knew, better than Simons, how hard it was to control Rashid even when Rashid was supposed to be obeying orders. On the other hand, Simons was the most skilled leader of small groups Coburn had ever met. Then again, this was Rashid's country, and Simons did not speak Farsi.... The last thing they needed on this trip was a power struggle between Simons and Rashid.