On Wings of Eagles (18 page)

down to was: EDS took care of its people. As long as you were giving your

maximum effort to the company, it would stand by you through thick and thin:

when you were sick, when you had personal or family problems, when you got

yourself into any kind of trouble ... It was a bit like a family. Pochd felt

good about that, although he did not talk about the feeling-he did not talk

much about any of his feelings.

    EDS had changed since those days. With ten thousand people instead of three

    thousand, the family atmosphere could not be so intense. Nobody talked

    about the Faith anymore. But it was still there: this meeting proved it.

    And although his face was as expressionless as ever, Joe Poch6 was glad. Of

    course they would go in there and bust their friends out of jail. Pochd was

    just happy to get the chance to be on the team.

Contrary to Coburn's expectation, Ralph Boulware did not pour scom on the

idea of a rescue. The skeptical, independentminded Boulware was as hot for

the idea as anyone.

    He, too, had guessed what was going on, helped--like Pochd --by Sculley's

    inability to lie convincingly.

    Boulware and his family were staying with friends in Dallas. On New Year's

    Day Boulware had been doing nothing much, and his wife had asked him why he

    did not go to the office. He said there was nothing for him to do there.

    She did not buy that. Mary Boulware was the only person in the world who

    could bully Ralph, and in the end he went to the office. There he ran into

    Sculley.

"What's happening?" Boulware had asked.

"Oh, nothing," Sculley said.

"What are you doing?"

"Making plane reservations, mostly."

    Sculley's mood seemed strange. Boulware knew him well-in Tehran they had

    ridden to work together in the mornings-and his instinct told him Sculley

    was not telling the truth.

"Something's wrong," Boulware said. "What's going on?"

"There's nothing going on, Ralph!"

106 Ken FoUett

:'What are they doing about Paul and Bill?"

    'They're going through all the channels to try and get them out. The bail

    is thirteen million dollars, and we have to get the money into the

    country-"

    "Bullshit. The whole government system, the whole judicial system, has

    broken down over there. There ain't no channels left. What are y'all going

    to do?"

:'Look, don,t worry about it."

    'You guys ain't going to try to go in and get them out, are you?"

Sculley said nothing.

:'Hey, count me in," Boulware said.

    'What do you mew, count you in?"

:'It's obvious you're going to try to do something."

    'What do you mean?"

:'Let's don't play games anymore. Count me in."

    10kay. I I

    For him it was a simple decision. Paul and Bill were his friends, and it

    could as easily have been Boulware in jail, in which case he would have

    wanted his friends to come and get him out.

    There was another factor. Boulware was enormously fond of Pat Sculley.

    Hell, he loved Sculley. He also felt very protective toward him. In

    Boulware's opinion, Sculley really did not understand that the world was

    full of corruption and crime and sin: he saw what he wanted to see, a

    chicken in every pot, a Chevrolet on every driveway, a world of Mom and

    apple pie. If Sculley was going to be involved in a jailbreak, he would

    need Boulware to take care of him. It was an odd feeling to have about

    another man more or less your own age, but there it was.

    That was what Boulware had thought on New Year's Day, and he felt the same

    today. So he went back into the hotel room and said to Perot what he had

    said to Sculley: "Count me in."

Glenn Jackson was not afraid to die.

    He knew what was going to happen after death, and he had no fears. When the

    Lord wanted to call him home, why, he was ready to go.

    However, he was concerned about his family. They had just been evacuated

    from Iran, and were now staying at his mother's house in East Texas. He had

    not yet had time even to start looking for a place for them all to live. If

    he got involved in this,

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 107

he was not going to have time to go off and take care of family matters: it

would be left to Carolyn. All on her own, she would have to rebuild the life

of the family here in the States. She would have to find a house, get

Cheryl, Cindy, and Glenn Junior into schools, buy or rent some furniture ...

    Carolyn was kind of a dependent person. She would not find it easy.

    Plus, she was already mad at him. She had come to Dallas with him that

    morning, but Sculley had told him to send her home. She was not permitted

    to check into the Hilton Inn with her husband. That had made her angry.

    But Paul and Bill had wives and families, too. "Thou shalt love thy

    neighbor as thyself. " It was in the Bible twice: Leviticus, chapter 19,

    verse 18; and Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 19. Jackson thought: If

    I were stuck in jail in Tehran, I'd sure love for somebody to do something

    for me.

So he volunteered.

Sculley had made his choice days ago.

    Before Perot started talking about a rescue, Sculley had been discussing

    the idea. It had first come up the day after Paul and Bill were arrested,

    the day Sculley flew out of Tehran with Joe Pochd and Jim Schwebach.

    Sculley had been upset at leaving Paul and Bill behind, all the more so

    because Tehran had become dramatically more violent in the last few days.

    At Christmas two Afghanis caught stealing in the bazaa had been summarily

    hanged by a mob; and a taxi driver who tried to jump the queue at a gas

    station had been shot in the head by a soldier. What would they do to

    Americans, once they got started? It hardly bore thinking about.

    On the plane Sculley had sat next to Jim Schwebach. They had agreed that

    Paul's and Bill's lives were in danger. Schwebach, who had experience of

    clandestine commando-type operations, had agreed with Sculley that it

    should be possible for a few determined Americans to rescue two men from an

    Iranian jail.

    So Sculley had been surprised and delighted when, three days later, Perot

    had said: "I've been thinking the same thing."

Sculley had put his own name on the list.

He did not need time to think about it.

He volunteered.

108 Ken Folleu

Sculley had also put Coburn's name on the list-without telling Coburn.

    Until this moment, happy-go-lucky Coburn, who lived from day to day, had

    not even thought about being on the team himself.

But Sculley had been right: Coburn wanted to go.

He thought: Liz won't like it.

    He sighed. There were many things his wife did not like, these days.

    She was clinging, he thought. She had not liked his being in the military,

    she did not like his having hobbies that took him away from her, and she

    did not like his working for a boss who felt free to call on him at all

    hours of the day or night for special tasks.

    He had never lived the way she wanted, and it was probably too late to

    start now. If he went to Tehran to rescue Paul and Bill, Liz might hate him

    for it. But if he did not go, he would probably hate her for making him

    stay behind.

Sorry, Liz, he thought; here we go again.

Jim Schwebach arrived later in the afternoon but heard the same speech from

Perot.

    Schwebach had a highly developed sense of duty. (He had once wanted to be

    a priest, but two years in a Catholic seminary had soared him on organized

    religion.) He had spent eleven years in the army, and had volunteered for

    repeated tours in Vietnam, out of that same sense of duty. In Asia he had

    seen a lot of people doing their jobs badly, and he knew he did his well.

    He had thought: if I walk away from this, someone else will do what I'm

    doing, but he will do it badly, and in consequence a man will lose his arm,

    his leg, or his life. I've been trained to do this, and I'm good at it, and

    I owe it to them to carry on doing it.

    He felt much the same about the rescue of Paul and Bill. He was the only

    member of the proposed team who had actually done this sort of thing

    before. They needed him.

    Anyway, he liked it. He was a fighter by disposition. Perhaps this was

    because he was five and a half feet tall. Fighting was his thing, it was

    where he lived. He did not hesitate to volunteer.

He couldn't wait to get started.

Ron Davis, the second black man on the list and the youngest of them all,

did hesitate.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 109

    He arrived in Dallas early that evening and was taken straight to EDS

    headquarters on Forest Lane. He had never met Perot, but had talked to him

    on the phone from Tehran during the evacuation. For a few days, during that

    period, they had kept a phone line open between Dallas and Tehran all day

    and all night. Someone had to sleep with the phone to his ear at the Tehran

    end, and frequently the job had fallen to Davis. One time Perot himself had

    come on the line.

    "Ron, I know it's bad over there, and we sure appreciate your staying. Now,

    is there anything I can do for you?"

    Davis was surprised. He was only doing what his friends were doing, and he

    did not expect a special thank-you. But he did have a special worry. "My

    wife has conceived, and I haven't seen her for a while," he told Perot. "If

    you could have someone call her and tell her I'm okay and I'll be home as

    soon as possible, I'd appreciate it."

    Davis had been surprised to learn from Marva, later, that Perot had not had

    someone call her-he had called himself.

    Now, meeting Perot for the first time, Davis was once again impressed.

    Perot shook his hand warmly and said: "Hi, Ron, how are you?" just as if

    they had been friends for years.

    However, listening to Perot's speech about "loss of life," Davis had

    doubts. He wanted to know more about the rescue. He would be glad to help

    Paul aand Bill, but he needed to be assured that the whole project would be

    well organized and professional.

Perot told him about Bull Simons, and that settled it.

Perot was just so proud of them.

Every single one had volunteered.

    He sat in his office. It was dark outside. He was waiting for Simons.

    Smiling Jay Coburn; boyish Pat Sculley; Joe Poch6, the man of iron; Ralph

    Boulware, tall, black, and skeptical; mild-mannered Glenn Jackson; Jim

    Schwebach the scrapper; Ron Davis the comedian.

Every single one!

    He was grateful as well as proud, for the burden they had shouldered was

    more his than theirs.

    One way and another it had been quite a day. Simons had agreed instantly to

    come and help. Paul Walker, an EDS security man who had (coincidentally)

    served with Simons in Laos, had jumped on a plane in the middle of the

    night and flown to Red

110 Ken Follett

Bay to take care of Simons's pigs and dogs. And seven young executives had

dropped everything at a moment's notice and agreed to take off for Iran to

organize a jailbreak.

    They were now down the hall, in the EDS boardroom, waiting for Simons, who

    had checked into the Hilton Inn and gone to dinner with T. J. Marquez and

    Merv Stauffer.

    Perot thought about Stauffer. Stocky, bespectacled, forty years old, an

    economics graduate, Stauffer was Perot's right-hand man. He could remember

    vividly their first meeting, when he had interviewed Stauffer. A graduate

    of some college in Kansas, Merv had looked right off the farm, in his cheap

    coat and slacks. He had been wearing white socks.

    During the interview, Perot had explained, as gently as he knew how, that

    white socks were not appropriate clothing for a business meeting.

    But the socks were the only mistake Stauffer had made. He impressed Perot

    as being smart, tough, organized, and used to hard work.

    As the years went by, Perot had learned that Stauffer had yet more useful

    talents. He had a wonderful mind for detailsomething Perot lacked. He was

    completely unflappable. And he was a great diplomat. When EDS landed a

    contract, it often meant taking over an existing data-processing

    department, with its staff. This could be difficult: the staff were

    naturally waxy, touchy, and sometimes resentful. Merv Stauffer-calm,

    smiling, helpful, soft-spoken, gently detern-iined--could smooth their

    feathers like no one else.

    Since the late sixties he had been working directly with Perot. His

    specialty was taking a hazy, crazy idea from Perot's restless imagination,

    thinking it through, putting the pieces together, and making it work.

    Occasionally he would conclude that the idea was impracticable--and when

    Stauffer said that, Perot began to think that maybe it was impracticable.

    His appetite for work was enormous. Even among the workaholics on the

    seventh floor, Stauffer was exceptional. As well as doing whatever Perot

    had dreamed up in bed the previous night, he supervised Perot's real-estate

    company and his oil company, managed Perot's investments, and planned

    Perot's estate.

    The best way to help Simons, Perot decided, would be to give him Merv

    Stauffer.

He wondered whether Simons had changed. It had been years

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 111

since they last met. The occasion had been a banquet. Simons had told him a

story.

    During the Son Tay Raid, Simons's helicopter had landed in the wrong place.

    It was a compound very like the prison camp, but some four hundred yards

    distant; and it contained a barracks full of sleeping enemy soldiers.

    Awakened by the noise and the flares, the soldiers had begun to stumble out

    of the barracks, sleepy, half-dressed, carrying their weapons. Simons had

    stood outside the door, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. Beside him was

    a burly sergeant. As each man came through the door, he would see the glow

    of Simons's cigar, and hesitate. Simons would shoot him. The sergeant would

    heave the corpse aside, then they would wait for the next one.

    Perot had been unable to resist the question: "How many men did you kill?"

    "Must have been seventy or eighty," Simons had said in a matter-of-fact

    voice.

    Simons had been a great soldier, but now he was a pig farmer. Was he still

    fit? He was sixty years old, and he had suffered a stroke even before Son

    Tay. Did he still have a sharp mind? Was he still a great leader of men?

    He would want total control of the rescue, Perot was certain. The colonel

    would do it his way or not at all. That suited Perot just fine: it was his

    way to hire the best man for the job, then let him get on with it. But was

    Simons still the greatest rescuer in the world?

    He heard voices in the outer office. They had arrived. He stood up, and

    Simons walked in with T. J. Marquez and Merv Stauffer.

    "Colonel Simons, how are you?" said Perot. He never called Simons "Bull--he

    thought it was corny.

"Hello, Ross," said Simons, shaking hands.

    The handshake was firm. Simons was dressed casually, in khaki pants. His

    shirt collar was open, showing the muscles of his massive neck. He looked

    older: more lines in that aggressive face, more gray in the crewcut hair,

    which was also longer than Perot had ever seen it. But he seemed fit and

    hard. He still had the same deep, tobacco-roughened voice, with a faint but

    clear trace of a New York accent. He was carrying the folders Coburn had

    put together on the volunteers.

"Sit down," said Perot. "Did y'all have dinner?"

"We went to Dusty's," said Stauffer.

112 Ken Follett

    Simons said: "When was the last time this room was swept for bugs?"

    Perot smiled. Simons was still sharp, as well as fit. Good. He replied:

    "It's never been swept, Colonel."

    "From now on I want every room we use to be swept every day. 11

Stauffer said: "I'll see to that."

    Perot said: "Whatever you need, Colonel, just tell Merv. Now, let's talk

    business for a minute. We sure appreciate you coming here to help us, and

    we'd like to offer you some compensation-"

"Don't even think about it," Simons said gruffly.

"Well-"

    "I don't want payment for rescuing Americans in trouble," Simons said. "I

    never got a bonus for it yet, and I don't want to start now."

    Simons was offended. 'Me force of his displeasure filled the room. Perot

    backed off quickly: Simons was one of the very few people of whom he was

    wary.

The old warrior hasn't changed a bit, Perot thought.

Good.

    "The team is waiting for you in the boardroom, I see you have the folders,

    but I know you'll want to make your own assessment of the men. They all

    know Tehran, and they all have either military experience or some skill

    that may be useful-but in the end the choice of the team is up to you. If

    for any reason you don't like these men, we'll get some more. You're in

    charge here." Perot hoped Simons would not reject anyone, but he had to

    have the option.

Simons stood up. "Let's go to work."

    T.J. hung back after Simons and Stauffer left. He said in a low voice- "His

    wife died."

:'Lucille? I ' I ' Perot had not heard. "I'm sorry."

'Cancer.

"How did he take it, did you get an idea?"

T.J. nodded. "Bad."

    As T.J. went out, Perot's twenty-year-old son, Ross Junior, walked in. It

    was common for Perot's children to drop by the office, but this time, when

    a secret meeting was in session in the boardroom, Perot wished his son had

    chosen another moment. Ross Junior must have seen Simons in the hall. The

    boy had met Simons before and knew who he was. By now, Perot thought,

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 113

he's figured out that the only reason for Simons to be here is to organize

a rescue.

    Ross sat down and said: "Hi, Dad. I've been by to see Gtandrnother.

    "Good," Perot said. He looked fondly at his only son. Ross junior was tall,

    broad-shouldered, slim, and a good deal betterlooking than his father.

    Girls clustered around him like flies: the fact that he was heir to a form

    was only one of the acuutions. He handled it the way he handled everything:

    with immaculate good manners and a maturity beyond his years.

    Perot said: "You and I need to have a clear understanding about something.

    I expect to live to be a hundred, but if anything should happen to me, I

    want you to leave college and come home and take care of your mother and

    your sisters."

"I would," Ross said. "Don't worry."

    "And if anything should happen to your mother, I want you to live at home

    and raise your sisters. I know it would be hard on you, but I wouldn't want

    you to hire people to do it. They would need you, a member of the family.

    I'm counting on you to live at home with them and see they're properly

    raised-"

    "Dad, that's what I would have done if you'd never brought it UP- I I

"Good.

The boy got up to go. Perot walked to the door with him.

    Suddenly Ross put his arm around his father and said: "Love you, Pop."

Perot hugged him back.

He was surprised to see tears in his son's eyes.

Ross went out.

    Perot sat down. He should not have been surprised by those tears: the

    Perots were a close faniily, and Ross was a warmhearted boy.

    Perot had no specific plans to go to Tehran, but he knew that if his men

    were going there to risk their lives, he would not be far behind. Ross

    Junior had known the same thing.

    The whole family would support him, Perot knew. Margot might be entitled to

    say, "While you're risking your life for your employees, what about us?"

    but she would never say it. All through the prisoners-of-war campaign, when

    he had gone to Vietnam and Laos, when he had tried to fly into Hanoi, when

    the family had been forced to live with bodyguards, they had never

    complained, never said, "What about us?" On the contrary,

114 Ken Follett

they had encouraged him to do whatever he saw to be his duty.

While he sat thinking, Nancy, his eldest daughter, walked in. "Poops!" she

said. It was her pet name for her father.

"Little Nan! Come in!"

She came around the desk and sat on his lap.

    Perot adored Nancy. Eighteen years old, blond, tiny but strong, she

    reminded him of his mother. She was determined and hardheaded, like Perot,

    and she probably had as much potential to be a business executive as her

    brother.

"I came to say good-bye--I'm going back to Vanderbilt."

"Did you drop by Grandmother's house?"

"I sure (lid. " Good girl."

    She was in high spirits, excited about going back to school, oblivious of

    the tension and the talk of death here on the seventh floor.

"How about some extra funds?" she said.

    Perot smiled indulgently and took out his wallet. As usual, he was helpless

    to resist her.

    She pocketed the money, hugged him, kissed his cheek, jumped off his lap,

    and bounced out of the room without a care in the world.

This time there were tears in Perot's eyes.

It was like a reunion, Jay Coburn thought: the old Tehran hands in the

boardroom waiting for Simons, chatting about Iran and the evacuation. There

was Ralph Boulware talking at ninety miles an hour; Joe Pochd sitting and

thinking, looking about as animated as a robot in a sulk; Glenn Jackson

saying something about rifles; Jim Schwebach smiling his lopsided smile, the

smile that made you think 'he knew something you didn't; and Pat Sculley

talking about the Son Tay Raid. They all knew, now, that they were about to

meet the legendary Bull Simons. Sculley, when he had been a Ranger

instructor, had taught Simons's famous raid, and he knew all about the

meticulous planning, the endless rehearsals, and the fact that Simons had

brought back all his fifty-nine men alive.

The door opened and a voice said: "All stand."

They pushed back their chairs and stood up.

Coburn looked around.

Ron Davis walked in grinning all over his black face.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 115

    "Goddam you, Davis!" said Coburn, and they all laughed as they realized

    they had been fooled. Davis walked around the room slapping hands and

    saying hello.

That was Davis: always the clown.

    Coburn looked at all of them and wondered how they would change when faced

    with physical danger. Combat was a funny thing, you could never predict how

    people would cope with it. The man you thought the bravest would crumble,

    and the one you expected to nin scared would be solid as a rock.

Coburn would never forget what combat had done to him.

    The crisis had come a couple of months after he arrived in Vietnam. He was

    flying support aircraft, called "slicks" because they had no weapons