by Ken Follett
"No, they'll want to do it. The people who own the airplane will go bananas."
"Don't tell them. I'll be responsible."
"I'll need to know exactly where that marine is going to be," Carlen went on. "The Embassy will have to get him to the airport. I know a lot of people at that airport--I can talk my way in, bending the rules a little bit, and either talk my way out again or just take off."
Perot thought: And the Clean Team will be the stretcher bearers.
He called Dallas and reached Sally Walther, his secretary. He asked her to patch him through to General Wilson, commandant of the Marine Corps. He and Wilson were friends.
Wilson came on the line.
"I'm in Turkey on business," Perot told him. "I've just read about Sergeant Krause. I have a plane here. If the Embassy can get Krause to the airport, we will fly in tonight and pick him up and see he gets proper medical care."
"All right," said Wilson. "If he's dying I want you to pick him up. If not, I won't risk your crew. I'll get back to you."
Perot got Sally back on the line. There was more bad news. A press officer in the State Department's Iran Task Force had talked to Robert Dudney, Washington correspondent for the Dallas Times-Herald,and revealed that Paul and Bill were on their way out overland.
Perot cursed the State Department yet again. If Dudney published the story, and the news reached Tehran, Dadgar would surely intensify border security.
The seventh floor in Dallas blamed Perot for all this. He had leveled with the Consul, who had come to see him the night before, and they believed the leak started with the Consul. They were now frantically trying to get the story killed, but the newspaper was making no promises.
General Wilson called back. Sergeant Krause was not dying: Perot's help was not required.
Perot forgot about Krause and concentrated on his own problems.
The Consul called him. He had tried his best, but he could not help Perot buy or rent a small aircraft. It was possible to charter a plane to go from one airport to another within Turkey, but that was all.
Perot said nothing to him about the press leak.
He called in Dick Douglas and Julian "Scratch" Kanauch, the two spare pilots he had brought specifically to fly small aircraft into Iran, and told them he had failed to find any such aircraft.
"Don't worry," said Douglas. "We'll get an airplane."
"How?"
"Don't ask."
"No, I want to know how."
"I've operated in eastern Turkey. I know where there are planes. If you need 'em, we'll steal 'em."
"Have you thought this through?" said Perot.
"You think it through," Douglas said. "If we get shot down over Iran, what difference does it make that we stole the plane? If we don't get shot down, we can put the planes back where we got them. Even if they have a few holes in them, we'll be out of the area before anybody knows. What else is there to think about?"
"That settles it," said Perot. "We're going."
He sent John Carlen and Ron Davis to the airport to file a flight plan to Van, the nearest airport to the border.
Davis called from the airport to say that the 707 could not land at Van: it was a Turkish-language-only airport, so no foreign planes were allowed to land except U.S. military planes carrying interpreters.
Perot called Mr. Fish and asked him to arrange to fly the team to Van. Mr. Fish called back a few minutes later to say it was all fixed. He would go with the team as guide. Perot was surprised: until now, Mr. Fish had been adamant that he would not go to eastern Turkey. Perhaps he had become infected by the spirit of adventure.
However, Perot himself would have to stay behind. He was the hub of the wheel: he had to stay in telephone contact with the outside world, to receive reports from Boulware, from Dallas, from the Clean Team, and from the Dirty Team. If the 707 had been able to land at Van, Perot could have gone, for the plane's single-sideband radio enabled him to make phone calls all over the world; but without that radio he would be out of touch in eastern Turkey, and there would be no link between the fugitives in Iran and the people who were coming to meet them.
So he sent Pat Sculley, Jim Schwebach, Ron Davis, Mr. Fish, and the pilots Dick Douglas and Julian Kanauch to Van; and he appointed Pat Sculley leader of the Turkish Rescue Team.
When they had gone he was dead in the water again. They were just another bunch of his men off doing dangerous things in dangerous places. He could only sit and wait for news.
He spent a lot of time thinking about John Carlen and the crew of the Boeing 707. He had only known them for a few days: they were ordinary Americans. Yet Carlen had been prepared to risk his life to fly into Tehran and pick up a wounded marine. As Simons would say: This is what Americans are supposed to do for one another. It made Perot feel pretty good, despite everything.
The phone rang.
He answered. "Ross Perot."
"This is Ralph Boulware."
"Hi, Ralph, where are you?"
"I'm at the border."
"Good!"
"I've just seen Rashid."
Perot's heart leaped. "Great! What did he say?"
"They're safe."
"Thank God!"
"They're in a hotel thirty or forty miles from the border. Rashid is just scouting the territory in advance. He's gone back now. He says they'll probably cross tomorrow, but that's just his idea, and Simons may think otherwise. If they're that close I don't see Simons waiting until morning."
"Right. Now, Pat Sculley and Mr. Fish and the rest of the guys are on their way to you. They're flying to Van; then they'll rent a bus. Now, where will they find you?"
"I'm based in a village called Yuksekova, closest place to the border, at a hotel. It's the only hotel in the district."
"I' ll tell Sculley."
"Okay."
Perot hung up. Oh, boy, he thought; at last things are beginning to go right!
Pat Sculley's orders from Perot were to go to the border, ensure that the Dirty Team got across safely, and bring them to Istanbul. If the Dirty Team failed to reach the border, he was to go into Iran and find them, preferably in a plane stolen by Dick Douglas, or failing that, by road.
Sculley and the Turkish Rescue Team took a scheduled flight from Istanbul to Ankara, where a chartered jet was waiting for them. (The charter plane would take them to Van and bring them back: it would not go anywhere they pleased. The only way of making the pilot take them into Iran would have been to hijack the plane.)
The arrival of a jet seemed to be a big event in the town of Van. Getting off the plane, they were met by a contingent of policemen who looked ready to give them a hard time. But Mr. Fish went into a huddle with the police chief and came out smiling.
"Now, listen," said Mr. Fish. "We're going to check into the best hotel in town, but I want you to know it's not the Sheraton, so please don't complain."
They went off in two taxis.
The hotel had a high central hall with three floors of rooms reached via galleries, so that every room door could be seen from the hall. When the Americans walked in, the hall was full of Turks, drinking beer and watching a soccer match on a black-and-white TV, yelling and cheering. As the Turks noticed the strangers, the room quieted down until there was complete silence.
They were assigned rooms. Each bedroom had two cots and a hole in the corner, screened by a shower curtain, for a toilet. There were plank floors and whitewashed walls without windows. The rooms were infested with cockroaches. On each floor was one bathroom.
Sculley and Mr. Fish went to get a bus to take them all to the border. A Mercedes picked them up outside the hotel and took them to what appeared to be an electrical appliance store with a few ancient TV sets in the window. The place was closed--it was evening by now--but Mr. Fish banged on the iron grille protecting the windows, and someone came out.
They went into the back and sat at a table under a single lightbulb. Sculley understood none of the conversation, but by the end of it
Mr. Fish had negotiated a bus and a driver. They returned to the hotel in the bus.
The rest of the team were gathered in Sculley's room. Nobody wanted to sit on these beds, let alone sleep in them. They all wanted to leave for the border immediately, but Mr. Fish was hesitant. "It's two o'clock in the morning," he said. "And the police are watching the hotel."
"Does that matter?" said Sculley.
"It means more questions, more trouble."
"Let's give it a try."
They all trooped downstairs. The manager appeared, looking anxious, and started to question Mr. Fish. Then, sure enough, two policemen came in from outside and joined in the discussion.
Mr. Fish turned to Sculley and said: "They don't want us to go."
"Why not?"
"We look very suspicious. Don't you realize that?"
"Look, is it against the law for us to go?"
"No, but--"
"Then we're going. Just tell them."
There was more argument in Turkish, but finally the policemen and the hotel manager appeared to give in, and the team boarded the bus.
They left town. The temperature dropped rapidly as they drove up into the snow-covered hills. They all had warm coats, and blankets in their backpacks, and they needed them.
Mr. Fish sat next to Sculley and said: "This is where it gets serious. I can handle the police, because I have ties with them; but I'm worried about the bandits and the soldiers--I have no connections there."
"What d'you want to do?"
"I believe I can talk my way out of trouble, so long as none of you have guns."
Sculley considered. Only Davis was armed anyway; and Simons had always worried that weapons could get you into trouble more readily than they could get you out of it: the Walther PPKs had never left Dallas. "Okay," Sculley said.
Ron Davis threw his .38 out of the window into the snow.
A little later the headlights of the bus revealed a soldier in uniform standing in the middle of the road, waving. The bus driver kept right on going, as if he intended to run the man down, but Mr. Fish yelled and the driver pulled up.
Looking out the window, Sculley saw a platoon of soldiers armed with high-powered rifles on the mountainside, and thought: if we hadn't stopped, we'd have been mown down.
A sergeant and a corporal got on the bus. They checked all the passports. Mr. Fish offered them cigarettes. They stood talking to him while they smoked; then they waved and got off.
A few miles farther on, the bus was stopped again, and they went through a similar routine.
The third time, the men who got on the bus had no uniforms. Mr. Fish became very jumpy. "Act casual," he hissed at the Americans. "Read books, just don't look at these guys." He talked to the Turks for something like half an hour, and when the bus was finally allowed to proceed, two of them stayed on it. "Protection," Mr. Fish said enigmatically, and he shrugged.
Sculley was nominally in charge, but there was little he could do other than follow Mr. Fish's directions. He did not know the country, nor did he speak the language: most of the time he had no idea what was going on. It was hard to have control under those circumstances. The best he could do, he figured, was to keep Mr. Fish pointed in the right direction and lean on him a little when he began to lose his nerve.
At four o'clock in the morning they reached Yuksekova, the nearest village to the border station. Here, according to Mr. Fish's cousin in Van, they would find Ralph Boulware.
Sculley and Mr. Fish went into the hotel. It was dark as a barn and smelled like the men's room at a football stadium. They yelled for a while, and a boy appeared with a candle. Mr. Fish spoke to him in Turkish, then said: "Boulware's not here. He left hours ago. They don't know where he went."
Thirteen
1____
At the hotel in Rezaiyeh, Jay Coburn had that sick, helpless feeling again, the feeling he had had in Mahabad, and then in the courtyard of the schoolhouse: he had no control over his own destiny, his fate was in the hands of others--in this case, the hands of Rashid.
Where the hell was Rashid?
Coburn asked the guards if he could use the phone. They took him down to the lobby. He dialed the home of Majid's cousin, the professor, in Rezaiyeh, but there was no answer.
Without much hope he dialed Gholam's number in Tehran. To his surprise he got through.
"I have a message for Jim Nyfeler," he said. "We are at the staging area."
"But where are you?" said Gholam.
"In Tehran," Coburn lied.
"I need to see you."
Coburn had to continue the deception. "Okay, I'll meet you tomorrow morning."
"Where?"
"At Bucharest."
"Okay."
Coburn went back upstairs. Simons took him and Keane Taylor into one of the rooms. "If Rashid isn't back by nine o'clock, we're leaving," Simons said.
Coburn immediately felt better.
Simons went on: "The guards are getting bored, their vigilance is slipping. We'll either sneak past them or deal with them the other way."
"We've only got one car," said Coburn.
"And we're going to leave it here, to confuse them. We'll walk to the border. Hell, it's only thirty or forty miles. We can go across country: we'll avoid roadblocks by avoiding roads."
Coburn nodded. This was what he wanted. They were taking the initiative again.
"Let's get the money together," Simons said to Taylor. "Ask the guards to take you down to the car. Bring the Kleenex box and the flashlight up here and take the money out of them."
Taylor left.
"We might as well eat first," Simons said. "It's going to be a long walk."
Taylor went into an empty room and spilled the money out of the Kleenex box and the flashlight onto the floor.
Suddenly the door was flung open.
Taylor's heart stopped.
He looked up and saw Gayden, grinning all over his face. "Gotcha!" Gayden said.
Taylor was furious. "You bastard, Gayden," he said. "You gave me a fucking heart attack."
Gayden laughed like hell.
The guards took them downstairs to the dining room. The Americans sat at a big circular table, and the guards took another table across the room. Lamb with rice was served, and tea. It was a grim meal: they were all worried about what might have happened to Rashid, and how they would manage without him.
There was a TV set on, and Paul could not take his eyes off the screen. He expected at any minute to see his own face appear like a "Wanted" poster.
Where the hell was Rashid?
They were only an hour from the border, yet they were trapped, under guard, and still in danger of being sent back to Tehran and jail.
Someone said: "Hey, look who's here!"
Rashid walked in.
He came over to their table, wearing his self-important look. "Gentlemen," he said, "this is your last meal."
They all stared at him, horrified.
"In Iran, I mean," he added hastily. "We can leave."
They all cheered.
"I got a letter from the revolutionary committee," he went on. "I went to the border to check it out. There are a couple of roadblocks on the way, but I have arranged everything. I know where we can get horses to cross the mountains--but I don't think we need them. There are no government people at the border station--the place is in the hands of the villagers. I saw the head man of the village, and it will be all right for us to cross. Also, Ralph Boulware is there. I talked to him."
Simons stood up. "Let's move," he said. "Fast."
They left their meal half-eaten. Rashid talked to the guards, and showed them his letter from the deputy leader. Keane Taylor paid the hotel bill. Rashid had bought a stack of Khomeini posters, and he gave them to Bill to stick on the cars.
They were out of there in minutes.
Bill had done a good job with the posters. Everywhere you looked on the Range Rovers, the fierce, white-bearded face of the Ayatollah glared out at you.
>
They pulled away, Rashid driving the first car.
On the way out of town Rashid suddenly braked, leaned out of the window, and waved frantically at an approaching taxi.
Simons growled: "Rashid, what the fuck are you doing?"
Without answering, Rashid jumped out of the car and ran over to the taxi.
"Jesus Christ," said Simons.
Rashid talked to the cabdriver for a minute; then the cab went on. Rashid explained: "I asked him to show us a way out of town by the back streets. There is one roadblock I want to avoid because it is manned by kids with rifles and I don't know what they might do. The cabby has a fare already, but he's coming back. We'll wait."
"We won't wait very goddam long," Simons said.
The cab returned in ten minutes. They followed it through the dark, unpaved streets until they came to a main road. The cabby turned right. Rashid followed, taking the corner fast. On the left, just a few yards away, was the roadblock he had wanted to avoid, with teenage boys firing rifles into the air. The cab and the two Range Rovers accelerated fast away from the corner, before the kids could realize that someone had sneaked past them.
Fifty yards down the road, Rashid pulled into a gas station.
Keane Taylor said to him: "What the hell are you stopping for?"
"We've got to get gas."
"We've got three-quarters of a tankful, plenty to jump the border on--let's get out of here."
"It may be impossible to get gas in Turkey."
Simons said: "Rashid, let's go."
Rashid jumped out of the car.
When the fuel tanks had been topped up, Rashid was still haggling with the taxi driver, offering him a hundred rials--a little more than a dollar--for guiding them out of town.
Taylor said: "Rashid, just give him a handful of money and let's go."
"He wants too much," Rashid said.
"Oh, God," said Taylor.
Rashid settled with the cabby for two hundred rials and got back into the Range Rover, saying: "He would have got suspicious if I didn't argue."
They drove out of town. The road wound up into the mountains. The surface was good and they made rapid progress. After a while the road began to follow a ridge, with deep wooded gulleys on either side. "There was a checkpoint around here somewhere this afternoon," Rashid said. "Maybe they went home."
