Read On Wings of Eagles Online
Authors: Ken Follett
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Military, #Espionage, #General, #History, #Special Forces, #Biography & Autobiography
spend a night in that awful cell.
64 Ken FoUett
They followed the guard upstairs and into a little room. He pointed at
their shoes.
They understood they were to take their shoes off.
The guard handed them each a pair of plastic slippers.
Paul realized with bitter disappointment that they were not about to be
released; he did have to spend a night in the cell. He thought with anger
of the Embassy staff they had arranged the meeting with Dadgar, they had
advised Paul against taking lawyers, they had said Dadgar was "favorably
disposed" . . . Ross Perot would say: "Some people can't organize a two-car
ftmeral." Mmt applied to the U.S. Embassy staff. They were simply
incompetent. Surely, Paul thought , after all the mistakes they have made,
they ought to come here tonight and try to get us out?
They put on the plastic slippers and followed the guard back downstairs.
The other prisoners were getting ready for sleep, lying on the bunks and
wrapping themselves in thin wool blankets. The cell boss, using sign
language, showed Paul and Bill where to he down: Bill was on the middle
bunk of a stack, Paul below him with just a thin mattress between his body
and the floor.
They lay down. The light stayed on, but it was so dim it hardly mattered.
After a while Paul no longer noticed the smell, but he did not get used to
the cold. With the concrete floor, the open vent, and no heating, it was
almost like sleeping out of doors. What a terrible fife criminals lead,
Paul thought, having to endure conditions such as these; I'm glad I'm not
a criminal. One night of this will be more than enough.
3
Ross Perot took a taxi from the Dallas/Fort Worth regional airport to EDS
corporate headquarters at 7171 Forest Lane. At the EDS gate he rolled down
the window to let the security guards see his face, then sat back again as
the car wound along the quarter-mile driveway through the park. The site had
once been a country club, and these grounds a golf course. EDS headquarters
loomed ahead, a seven-story office building, and
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 65
next to it a tomado-proof blockhouse containing the vast computers with
their thousands of miles of magnetic tape,
Perot paid the driver, walked into the office building, and took the
elevator to the fifth floor, where he went to Gayden's comer office.
Gayden was at his desk. Gayden always managed to look untidy, despite the
EDS dress code. He had taken his jacket off. His tie was loosened, the
collar of his button-down shirt was open, his,Mr was mussed, and a
cigarette dangled from the comer of his mouth. He stood up when Perot
walked in.
"Ross, how's your mother?"
"She's in good spirits, thank you."
"That's good."
Perot sat down. "Now, where are we on Paul and Bill?"
Gayden picked up the phone, saying: "Lemme get T.J. in here." He punched T.
J. Marquez's number and said: "Ross is here . . . Yeah. My office." He hung
up and said: "He'll be right down. Uh ... I called the State Department.
The head of the Iran Desk is a man called Henry Precht. At first he
wouldn't return my call. In the end I told his secretary, I said: 'If he
doesn't call me within twenty minutes, I'm going to call CBS and ABC and
NBC, and in one hour's time Ross Perot is going to give a press conference
to say that we have two Americans-in trouble in Iran and our country won't
help them.' He called back five minutes later."
"What did he say?"
Gayden sighed. "Ross, their basic attitude up there is that if Paul and
Bill are in jail they must have done something wrong.
"But what are they going to do?"
"Contact the Embassy, look into it, blah blah blah."
"Well, we're going to have to put a firecracker under Precht's tail," Perot
said angrily. "Now, Tom Luce is the man to do that." Luce, an aggressive
young lawyer, was the founder of the Dallas firm of Hughes & Hill, which
handled most of EDS's legal business. Perot had retained him as EDS's
counsel years ago, mainly because Perot could relate to a young man who,
like himself, had left a big company to start his own business and was
struggling to pay the bills. Hughes & Hill, like EDS, had grown rapidly.
Perot had never regretted hiring Luce.
Gayden said: "Luce is right here in the office somewhere."
"How about Tom Walter?"
I 'He's here, too."
66 Ken Follett
Walter, a tall Alabaman with a voice like molasses, was EDS's chief
financial officer and probably the smartest man, in terms of sheer brains,
in the company. Perot said: "I want Walter to go to work on the bail. I
don't want to pay it, but I will if we have to. Walter should figure out
how we go about paying it. You can bet they won't take American Express."
"Okay," Gayden said.
A voice from behind said: "Hi, Ross!"
Perot looked around and saw T. J. Marquez. "Hi, Tom." T.J, was a tall, slim
man of forty with Spanish good looks: olive skin, short, curly black hair,
and a big smile that showed lots of white teeth. The first employee Perot
ever hired, he was living evidence that Perot had an uncanny knack of
picking good men. T.J. was now a vice-president of EDS, and his personal
shareholding in the company was worth millions of dollars. "The Lord has
been good to us," T.J. would say. Perot knew that T.J.'s parents had really
struggled to send him to college. Their sacrifices had been well rewarded.
One of the best things about the meteoric success of EDS, for Perot, had
been sharing the triumph with people like T.J.
T.J. sat down and talked fast. "I called Claude."
Perot nodded: Claude Chappelear was the company's in-house lawyer.
"Claude's friendly with Matthew Nimetz, counselor to Secretary of State
Vance. I thought Claude might get Nimetz to talk to Vance himself. Nimetz
called personally a little later: he wants to help us. He's going to send
a cable under Vance's name to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, telling them to
get off their butts; and he's going to write a personal note to Vance about
Paul and Bill."
"Good."
"We also called Admiral Moorer. He's up to speed on this whole thing
because we consulted him about the passport problem. Moorer's going to talk
to Ardeshir Zahedi. Now, Zahedi is not just the Iranian Ambassador in
Washington but also the Shah's brother-in-law, and he's now back in
Iran-running the country, some say. Moorer will ask Zahedi to vouch for
Paul and Bill. Right now we're drafting a cable for Zahedi to send to the
Ministry of Justice."
"Who's drafting it?"
"Tom Luce."
"Good." Perot summed up: "We've got the Secretary of State, the head of the
Iran Desk, the Embassy, and the Iranian
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 67
Ambassador all working on the case. That's good. Now let's talk about what
else we can do."
T.J. said: "Tom Luce and Tom Walter have an appointment with Admiral Moorer
in Washington tomorrow. Moorer also suggested we call Richard Helms-he used
to be Ambassador to Iran after he quit the CIA."
"I'll call Helms," Perot said. "And I'll call Al Haig and Henry Kissinger.
I want you two to concentrate on getting all our people out of Iran."
Gayden said: "Ross, I'm not sure that's necessary-"
"I don't want a discussion, Bill," said Perot. "Let's get it done. Now,
Lloyd Briggs has to stay there and deal with the problem-he's the boss,
with Paul and Bill in jail. Everyone else comes home."
"You can't make them come home if they don't want to," Gayden said.
"Who'll want to stay?"
"Rich Gallagher. His wife-"
"I know. Okay, Briggs and Gallagher stay. Nobody else." Perot stood up.
"I'll get started on those calls."
He took the elevator to the seventh floor and walked through his
secretary's office. Sally Walther was at her desk. She had been with him
for years, and had been involved in the prisonersof-war campaign and the
San Francisco party. (She had come back from that weekend with a Son Tay
Raider in tow, and Captain Udo Walther was now her husband.) Perot said to
her: "Call Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Richard Helms."
He went through to his own office and sat at his desk. The office, with its
paneled walls, costly carpet, and shelves of antiquarian books, looked more
like a Victorian library in an English country house. He was surrounded by
souvenirs and his favorite art. For the house Margot bought Impressionist
paintings, but in his office Perot preferred American art: Norman Rockwell
originals and the Wild West bronzes of Frederic Remington. Through the
window he could see the slopes of the old golf course.
Perot did not know where Henry Kissinger might be spending the holidays: it
could take Sally a while to find him. There was time to think about what to
say. Kissinger was not a close friend. It would need all his salesmanship
to grab Kissinger's attention and, in the space of a short phone call, win
his sympathy.
68 Ken Follett
The phone on his desk buzzed, and Sally called: "Henry Kissinger for you."
Perot picked it up. "Ross Perot."
"I have Henry Kissinger for you."
Perot waited.
Kissinger had once been called the most powerful man in the world. He knew
the Shah personally. But how well would he remember Ross Perot? The
prisoners-of-war campaign had been big, but Kissinger's projects had been
bigger: peace in the Middle East, rapprochement between the U.S. and China,
the ending of the Vietnam War ...
"Kissinger here." It was the familiar deep voice, its accent a curious
mixture of American vowels and German consonants.
"Dr. Kissinger, this is Ross Perot. I'm a businessman in Dallas, Texas,
and-"
"Hell, Ross, I know who you are," said Kissinger.
Perot's heart leaped. Kissinger's voice was warm, friendly, and informal.
This was great! Perot began to tell him about Paul and Bill: how they had
gone voluntarily to see Dadgar, how the State Department had let them down.
He assured Kissinger they were innocent, and pointed out that they had not
been charged with any crime, nor had the Iranians produced an atom of
evidence against them. "These are my men, I sent them there, and I have to
get them back," he finished.
"I'll see what I can do," Kissinger said.
Perot was exultant. "I sure appreciate it!"
"Send me a short briefing paper with all the details."
"We'll get it to you today."
"I'll get back to you, Ross."
"Thank you, sir."
The line went dead.
Perot felt terrific. Kissinger had remembered him, had been friendly and
willing to help. He wanted a briefing paper: EDS could send it today-
Perot was struck by a thought. He had no idea where Kissinger had been
speaking from-it might have been London, Monte Carlo, Mexico ...
I 'Sally?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Did you find out where Kissinger is?"
"Yes, sir."
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 69
Kissinger was in New York, in his duplex at the exclusive River House
apartment complex on East Fifty-second Street. From the window he could see
the East River.
Kissinger remembered Ross Perot clearly. Perot was a rough diamond. He
helped causes with which Kissinger was sympathetic, usually causes having
to do with prisoners. In the Vietnam War Perot's campaign had been
courageous, even though he had sometimes harassed Kissinger beyond the
point of what was doable. Now some of Perot's own people were prisoners.
Kissinger could readily believe that they were innocent. Iran was on the
brink of civil war: justice and due process meant little over there now. He
wondered whether he could help. He wanted to: it was a good cause. He was
no longer in office, but he still had friends, He would call Ardeshir
Zahedi, he decided, as soon as the briefing paper arrived from Dallas.
Perot felt good about the conversation with Kissinger. HeU, Ross, I know who
you are. That was worth more than money. The only advantage of being famous
was that it sometimes helped get important things done.
T.J. came in. "I have your passport," he said. "It already has a visa for
Iran, but, Ross, I don't think you should go. All of us here can work on
the problem, but you're the key man. The last thing we need is for you to
be out of contact-in Tehran or just up in a plane sornewhere--at a moment
when we have to make a crucial decision."
Perot had forgotten all about going to Tehran. Everything he
had heard in the last hour encouraged him to think it would not