On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

by Ken Follett

  "They want to escort us to Rezaiyeh and hand us over to the head man there," said Simons. "It'll help to have them with us if we meet any more roadblocks. But when we get to Rezaiyeh, we may be able to persuade them to take us to the professor's house instead of the head man."

  Coburn nodded. "Okay."

  Rashid looked worried. "These are bad people," he whispered. "Don't trust them. We've got to get out of here."

  Coburn was not sure he trusted the Kurds, but he was quite certain there would be trouble if the Americans tried to leave now.

  He noticed that one of the guards had a G3 rifle. "Hey, that's a real neat firearm," he said.

  The guard smiled and seemed to understand.

  "I've never seen one before," Coburn said. "How do you load it?"

  "Load ... so," said the guard, and showed him.

  They sat down and the guard explained the rifle. He spoke enough English to make himself understood with the help of gestures.

  After a while Coburn realized that he was now holding the rifle.

  He started to relax.

  The others wanted to take showers, but Gayden went first and used all the hot water. Paul took a cold shower: he had sure as hell got used to cold showers lately.

  They learned a little about their interpreter. He was studying in Europe and had been home on holiday when the revolution caught him and prevented his going back: that was how come he knew the airport was closed.

  At midnight Coburn asked him: "Can we try to place that call again?"

  "Okay."

  One of the guards escorted Coburn back into town. They went to the post office, which was still open. However, there were no lines to Tehran.

  Coburn waited until two o'clock in the morning, then gave up.

  When he returned to the palace beside the dam, everyone was fast asleep.

  He went to bed. At least they were all still alive. That was enough to be thankful for. Nobody knew what was between them and the border. He would worry about that tomorrow.

  Twelve

  1_____

  "Wake up, Coburn, let's move, let's go!"

  Simons's gravelly voice penetrated Coburn's slumber and he opened his eyes, thinking: Where am I?

  In the Shah's palace at Mahabad.

  Oh, shit.

  He got up.

  Simons was getting the Dirty Team ready to go, but there was no sign of their guards: Apparently they were all still asleep. The Americans made plenty of noise, and eventually the Kurds emerged from the royal suite.

  Simons said to Rashid: "Tell them we have to go, we're in a hurry, our friends are waiting at the border for us."

  Rashid told them, then said: "We have to wait."

  Simons did not like this. "What for?"

  "They all want to take showers."

  Keane Taylor said: "I don't see the urgency--most of them haven't taken a shower in a year or two; you'd think they could wait another day."

  Simons contained his impatience for half an hour, then told Rashid to tell the guards again that the team had to hurry.

  "We have to see the Shah's bathroom," Rashid said.

  "Goddammit, we've seen it," said Simons. "What's the delay?"

  Everyone trooped into the royal suite and dutifully exclaimed at the shameful luxury of an unused palace; and still the guards would not move out.

  Coburn wondered what was happening. Had they changed their minds about escorting the Americans to the next town? Had Bolourian checked up on EDS during the night? Simons would not be kept here much longer ...

  Finally the young interpreter showed up, and it turned out the guards had been waiting for him. The plan was unchanged : a group of Kurds would go with the Americans on the next leg of their journey.

  Simons said: "We have friends in Rezaiyeh--we'd like to be taken to their house, rather than go see the head man of the town."

  "It's not safe," said the interpreter. "The fighting is heavy north of here--the city of Tabriz is still in the hands of the Shah's supporters. I must hand you over to people who can protect you."

  "All right, but can we leave now?"

  "Sure."

  They left.

  They drove into the town and were ordered to stop outside a house. The interpreter went in. They all waited. Somebody bought bread and cream cheese for breakfast. Coburn got out of his car and went to Simons's. "What's happening now?"

  "This is the mullah's house," Rashid explained. "He is writing a letter to the mullah of Rezaiyeh, about us."

  It was about an hour before the interpreter came out with the promised letter.

  Next they drove to the police station, and there they saw their escort vehicle: a big white ambulance with a flashing red light on top, its windows knocked out, and some kind of identification scrawled on its side in Farsi with red magic marker, presumably saying "Mahabad Revolutionary Committee" or something similar. It was full of gun-toting Kurds.

  So much for traveling inconspicuously.

  At last they got on the road, the ambulance leading the way.

  Simons was anxious about Dadgar. Clearly no one in Mahabad had been alerted to look out for Paul and Bill, but Rezaiyeh was a much bigger town. Simons did not know whether Dadgar's authority extended into the countryside: all he knew was that so far Dadgar had always surprised everyone by his dedication and his ability to persist through changes of government. Simons wished the team did not have to be taken before the Rezaiyeh authorities.

  "We have good friends in Rezaiyeh," he told the young interpreter. "If you could take us to their house, we'd be very safe there."

  "Oh, no," said the interpreter. "If I disobey orders and you get hurt, there will be hell to pay."

  Simons gave up. It was clear they were as much prisoners as guests of the Kurds. The revolution in Mahabad was characterized by Communist discipline rather than Islamic anarchy, and the only way to get rid of the escort would be by violence. Simons was not yet ready to start a fight.

  Just outside the town, the ambulance pulled off the road and stopped at a little cafe.

  "Why are we stopping?" Simons said.

  "Breakfast," said the interpreter.

  "We don't need breakfast," Simons said forcefully.

  "But--"

  "We don't need breakfast!"

  The interpreter shrugged, and shouted something to the Kurds getting out of the ambulance. They got back in and the convoy drove on.

  They reached the outskirts of Rezaiyeh late in the morning.

  Their way was barred by the inevitable roadblock. This one was a serious, military-style affair of parked vehicles, sandbags, and barbed wire. The convoy slowed, and an armed guard waved them off the road and into the forecourt of a filling station that had been turned into a command post. The approach road was well covered by machine guns in the filling-station building.

  The ambulance failed to stop soon enough and ran right into the barbed-wire fence.

  The two Range Rovers pulled up in an orderly fashion.

  The ambulance was immediately surrounded by guards, and an argument started. Rashid and the interpreter went over to join in. The Rezaiyeh revolutionaries did not automatically assume that the Mahabad revolutionaries were on their side. The Rezaiyeh men were Azerbaijanis, not Kurds, and the argument took place in Turkish as well as Farsi.

  The Kurds were being ordered to turn in their weapons, it seemed, and they were refusing angrily. The interpreter was showing the note from the Mahabad mullah. Nobody was taking much notice of Rashid, who was suddenly an outsider.

  Eventually the interpreter and Rashid came back to the cars. "We're going to take you to a hotel," said the interpreter, "then I will go and see the mullah."

  The ambulance was all tangled up in the barbed-wire fence, and had to be extricated before they could go. Guards from the roadblock escorted them into the town.

  It was a large town by the standards of the Iranian provinces. It had plenty of concrete and stone buildings and a few paved roads. The convoy p
ulled up in a main street. Distant shouting could be heard. Rashid and the interpreter went into a building--presumably a hotel--and the others waited.

  Coburn felt optimistic. You didn't put prisoners into a hotel before shooting them. This was just administrative hassle.

  The distant shouting grew louder, and a crowd appeared at the end of the street.

  In the rear car Coburn said: "What the hell is this?"

  The Kurds jumped out of their ambulance and surrounded the two Range Rovers, forming a wedge in front of the lead car. One of them pointed to Coburn's door and made a motion like turning a key. "Lock the doors," Coburn said to the others.

  The crowd came closer. It was some kind of street parade, Coburn realized. At the head of the procession were a number of army officers in tattered uniforms. One of them was in tears. "You know what I think?" said Coburn. "The army just surrendered, and they're running the officers down Main Street."

  The vengeful crowd surged around the vehicles, jostling the Kurdish guards and looking through the windows with hostile glares. The Kurds stood their ground and tried to push the crowds away from the cars. It looked as though it would turn into a fight at any moment. "This is getting ugly," said Gayden. Coburn kept an eye on the car in front, wondering what Simons would do.

  Coburn saw the snout of a gun aimed at the window on the driver's side. "Paul, don't look now, but someone's pointing a gun at your head."

  "Jesus ..."

  Coburn could imagine what would happen next: The mob would start rocking the cars; then they would turn them over...

  Then, suddenly, it ended. The defeated soldiers were the main attraction, and as they passed on, the crowd followed. Coburn relaxed. Paul said: "For a minute there ..."

  Rashid and the interpreter came out of the hotel. Rashid said: "They don't want to know about a bunch of Americans going into their hotel--they won't take the risk." Coburn took that to mean that feelings were running so high in the town that the hotel could get burned by the mob for taking in foreigners. "We have to go to revolutionary headquarters."

  They drove on. There was feverish activity in the streets: lines of pickup trucks of all shapes and sizes were being loaded with supplies, presumably for the revolutionaries still fighting in Tabriz. The convoy stopped at what appeared to be a school. There was a huge, noisy crowd outside the courtyard, apparently waiting to get in. After an argument, the Kurds persuaded the gate sentry to admit the ambulance and the two Range Rovers. The crowd reacted angrily when the foreigners went in. Coburn breathed a sigh of relief as the courtyard gate closed behind him.

  They got out of the cars. The courtyard was crammed with shot-up automobiles. A mullah was standing on a stack of rifle crates conducting a noisy and passionate ceremony with a crowd of men. Rashid said: "He is swearing in fresh troops to go to Tabriz and fight for the revolution."

  The guards led the Americans toward the school building on one side of the courtyard. A man came down the steps and started yelling at them angrily, pointing at the Kurds. "They must not go into the building armed," Rashid translated.

  Coburn could tell the Kurds were getting jumpy: to their surprise, they found themselves in hostile territory. They produced the note from the Mahabad mullah. There was more argument.

  Eventually Rashid said: "You all wait here. I'm going inside to talk to the leader of the revolutionary committee." He went up the steps and disappeared.

  Paul and Gayden lit cigarettes. Paul felt scared and dejected. These people were bound to call Tehran, he felt, and find out all about him. Getting sent back to jail might be the least of his worries now. He said to Gayden: "I really appreciate what you've done for me, but it's a shame--I think we've had it."

  Coburn was more worried about the mob outside the gate. In here at least someone was trying to maintain order. Out there was a wolf pack. What if they persuaded some goofy guard to open the gate? It would be a lynch mob. In Tehran a fellow--an Iranian--who had done something to anger a crowd had been literally pulled apart, his arms and legs torn off by people who were just crazed, hysterical.

  The guards jerked their weapons, indicating that the Americans should move to one side of the courtyard and stand against a wall. They obeyed, feeling vulnerable. Coburn looked at the wall. It had bullet holes in it. Paul had seen them, too, and his face was white. "My God," he said. "I think we bought the farm."

  Rashid asked himself: What will be the psychology of the leader of the revolutionary committee?

  He has a million things to do, Rashid thought. He has just taken control of this town, and he has never been in power before. He must deal with the officers of the defeated army, he must round up suspected SAVAK agents and interrogate them, he must get the town running normally, he must guard against a counterrevolution, and he must send troops to fight in Tabriz.

  All he wants to do, Rashid concluded, is cross things off his list.

  He has no time or sympathy for fleeing Americans. If he must make a decision, he will simply throw us in jail for the time being, and deal with us later, at his leisure. Therefore, I must make sure that he does not decide.

  Rashid was shown into a schoolroom. The leader was sitting on the floor. He was a tall, strong man with the thrill of victory in his face; but he looked exhausted, confused, and restless.

  Rashid's escort said in Farsi: "This man comes from Mahabad with a letter from the mullah--he has six Americans with him."

  Rashid thought of a movie he had seen in which a man got into a guarded building by flashing his driving license instead of a pass. If you had enough confidence you could undermine people's suspicions.

  "No, I come from the Tehran Revolutionary Committee," Rashid said. "There are five or six thousand Americans in Tehran, and we have decided to send them home. The airport is closed, so we will bring them all out this way. Obviously we must make arrangements and set up procedures for handling all these people. That is why I am here. But you have many problems to deal with--perhaps I should discuss the details with your subordinates."

  "Yes," said the leader, and waved them away.

  It was the technique of the Big Lie, and it had worked.

  "I'm the deputy leader," said Rashid's escort as they left the room. They went into another room where five or six people were drinking tea. Rashid talked to the deputy leader, loud enough for the others to hear. "These Americans just want to get home and see their families. We're happy to get rid of them, and we want to treat them right so they won't have anything against the new regime."

  "Why do you have Americans with you now?" the deputy asked.

  "For a trial run. This way, you know, we find out what the problems are ..."

  "But you don't have to let them cross the border."

  "Oh, yes. They are good men who have never done any harm to our country, and they have wives and children at home--one of them has a little child dying in the hospital. So the Revolutionary Committee in Tehran has instructed me to see them across the border ..."

  He kept talking. From time to time the deputy would interrupt him with a question: Whom did the Americans work for? What did they have with them? How did Rashid know they were not SAVAK agents spying for the counterrevolutionaries in Tabriz? For every question Rashid had an answer, and a long one. While he was talking, he could be persuasive; whereas if he were silent, the others would have time to think of objections. People came in and went out continually. The deputy left three or four times.

  Eventually he came in and said: "I have to clear this with Tehran."

  Rashid's heart sank. Of course nobody in Tehran would verify his story. But it would take forever to get a call through. "Everything has been verified in Tehran, and there is no need to reverify," he said. "But if you insist, I'll take these Americans to a hotel to wait." He added: "You had better send some guards with us." The deputy would have sent the guards anyway: asking for them was a way of allaying suspicion.

  "I don't know," said the deputy.

  "This is not a good pla
ce to keep them," Rashid said. "It could cause trouble. They might be harmed." He held his breath. Here they were trapped. In a hotel they would at least have the chance to make a break for the border...

  "Okay," said the deputy.

  Rashid concealed his relief.

  Paul was deeply grateful to see Rashid coming down the steps of the schoolhouse. It had been a long wait. Nobody had actually pointed guns at them, but they had got an awful lot of hostile looks.

  "We can go to the hotel," said Rashid.

  The Kurds from Mahabad shook hands with them and left in their ambulance. A few moments later the Americans left in the two Range Rovers, followed by four or five armed guards in another car. They drove to the hotel. This time they all went in. There was an argument between the hotel keeper and the guards, but the guards won, and the Americans were assigned four rooms on the third floor at the back, and told to keep the curtains drawn and stay away from windows in case local snipers thought Americans inviting targets.

  They gathered in one of the rooms. They could hear distant gunfire. Rashid organized lunch and ate with them: barbecued chicken, rice, bread, and Coke. Then he left for the school.

  The guards wandered in and out of the room, carrying their rifles. One of them struck Coburn as being evil. He was young, short, and muscular, with black hair and eyes like a snake. As the afternoon wore on, he seemed to get bored.

  One time he walked in and said: "Carter no good."

  He looked around for a reaction.

  "CIA no good," he said. "America no good."

  Nobody replied. He went out.

  "That guy is trouble," Simons said calmly. "Don't anybody take the bait."

  The guard tried again a little later. "I am very strong," he said. "Wrestling. Wrestle champion. I went to Russia."

  Nobody spoke.

  He sat down and fiddled with his gun, as if he did not know how to load it. He appealed to Coburn. "You know guns?"

  Coburn shook his head.

  The guard looked at the others. "You know guns?"

  The gun was an M1, a weapon they were all familiar with, but nobody said anything.