On Wings of Eagles (34 page)

    get cut up for the sake of two?"

    Bill wondered just what was being planned. Would a helicopter fly over the

    compound and pick them up? Would the U.S. Army storm the walls? It was hard

    to imagine-but with Perot, anything could happen.

    Coburn said to Paul: "I want you to observe and memorize all the details

    you can about the compound and the prison routine, just like before."

    Bill was feeling embarrassed about his mustache. He had grown it to make

    him look more Iranian. EDS executives were not allowed to have mustaches or

    beards, but he had not ex-

    206 Ken Follett

pected to see Perot. It was silly, he knew, but he felt uncomfortable about

it. "I apologize for this," he said, touching his upper lip. "I'm trying to

be inconspicuous. I'll shave it off as soon as I get out of here. "

    "Keep it," Perot said with a smile. "Let Emily and the children see it.

    Anyway, we're going to change the dress code. We've had the results of the

    employee attitude survey, and we'll probably permit mustaches, and colored

    shirts, too."

Bill looked at Coburn. "And beards?"

"No beards. Coburn has a very special excuse."

The guards came to break up the party: visiting time was over.

    Perot said: "We don't know whether we'll get you out quickly or slowly.

    Tell yourselves it will be slowly. If you get up each morning thinking

    'Today could be the day,' you may have a lot of disappointments and become

    demoralized. Prepare yourselves for a long stay, and you may be pleasantly

    surprised. But always remember this: we will get you out."

    They all shook hands. Paul said: "I really don't know how to thank you for

    coming, Ross."

Perot smiled. "Just don't leave without my underwear.

    They all walked out of the building. The EDS men headed across the compound

    toward the prison gate, leaving Paul and Bill and their guards watching. As

    his friends disappeared, Bill was seized by a longing just to go with diem.

Not today, he told himself; not today.

Perot wondered whether he would be allowed to leave.

    Rmsey Clark had had a full hour to let the cat out of the bag. What had he

    said to the general? Would there be a reception committee waiting in the

    administration block at the prison entrance?

    His heart beat faster as he entered the waiting room. There was no sign of

    the general or of Clark. He walked through and into the reception area.

    Nobody looked at him.

    With Coburn and Gallagher close behind, he walked through the first set of

    doors.

Nobody stopped him.

He was going to get away with it.

He crossed the littlecourtyard and waited by the big gates.

The small door set into one of the gates was opened.

Perot walked out of the prison.

The TV cameras were still there.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 207

    All I need, he thought, having gotten this far, is to have the U.S.

    networks show my picture ...

    He pushed his way through the crowd to the Embassy minibus and climbed

    aboard.

    Coburn and Gallagher got on with him, but the Embassy people had lagged

    behind.

    Perot sat on the bus, looking out the window. The crowd in the square

    seemed malevolent. They were shouting in Farsi. Perot had no idea what they

    were saying.

He wished the Embassy people would hurry up.

"Where are those guys?" he said tetchily.

I 'T'hey're coming," Coburn said.

    "I thought we'd all just come on out, get in the bus, and leave. "

    A minute later the prison door opened again and the Embassy people came

    out. They got on the bus. The driver started the engine and pulled away

    across Gasr Square.

Perot relaxed.

He need not have worried quite so much. Ramsey Clark, who was there at the

invitation of h-anian human-rights groups, did not have such a good memory.

He had known that Perot's face was vaguely familiar, but thought he was

Colonel Frank Borman, the president of Eastern Airlines.

    2

Emily Gaylord sat down with her needlepoint. She was making a nude for Bill.

    She was back at her parents' house in Washington, and it was another normal

    day of quiet desperation. She had driven Vicki to high school then returned

    and taken Jackie, Jenny, and Chris to elementary school. She had dropped by

    her sister Dorothy's place and talked for a while with her and her husband,

    Tim Reardon. Tim was still working through Senator Kennedy and Congressman

    Tip O'Neill to put pressure on the State Department.

    Emily was becoming obsessed with Dadgar, the mystery man who had the power

    to put her husband in jail and keep him there. She wanted to confront

    Dadgar herself, and ask him personally

208 Ken Folien

why he was doing this to her. She had even asked Tim to try to get her a

diplomatic passport, so she could go to Iran and just knock on Dadgar's

door. Tim had said it was a pretty crazy idea, and she realized he was

right; but she was desperate to do so . mething, anything, to get Bill back.

    Now she was waiting for the daily call from Ekdlas. It was usually Ross, T.

    J. Marquez, or Jim Nyfeler who called. After that she would pick up the

    children then help them with their homework for a while. Then there was

    nothing ahead but the lonely night.

    She 1W only recently told Bill's parents that he was in jail. Bill had

    asked her, in a letter read over the phone by Keane Taylor, not to tell

    them until it was absolutely necessary, because Bill's father had a history

    of strokes and the shock might be dangerous. But after three weeks the

    pretense had become impossible, so she had broken the news; and Bill's

    father had been angry at having been kept in the dark so long. Sometimes it

    was hard to know the right thing to do.

The phone rang, and she snatched it up. "Hello?"

"Emily? This is Jim Nyfeler."

"Hi, Jim, what's the news?"

"Just that they've been moved to another jail.

Why was there never any good news?

    "It's nothing to worry about," Jim said. "In fact, it's good. The old jail

    was in the south of the city, where the fighting is. This one is further

    north, and more secure---they'll be safer there. "

    Emily lost her cool. "But, Jim," she yelled, "you've been telling me for

    three weeks that they're perfectly safe -in jail, now you say they've been

    moved to a new jail and now they'll be safe! "

"Emily-

"Come on, please don't lie to me I"

"Emily-"

"Just tell it like it is and be upfront, okay?"

    "Emily, I don't think they have been in danger up till now, but the

    Iranians are taking a sensible precaution , okay?"

    Emily felt ashamed of herself for getting mad at him. "I'm sorry, Jim."

"That's all right."

    They talked a little longer, then Emily hung up and went back to her

    needlepoint. I'm losing my grip, she thought. I'm going

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 209

around in a trance, taking the kids to school, talking to Dallas, going to

bed at night and getting up in the morning ...

    Visiting her sister Vickie for a few days had been a good idea, but she

    didn't really need a change of scene--what she needed was Bill.

    It was hard to keep on hoping. She began to think about how fife might be

    without Bill. She had an aunt who worked at Woody's Department Store in

    Washington: maybe she could get ;t job there. Or she could talk to her

    father about getting secretarial work. She wondered whether she would ever

    fall in love with anyone else, if Bill should die in Tehran. She thought

    not.

    She remembered when they were first married. Bill had been at college, and

    they were short of money; but they had gone Oead and done it because they

    could not bear to be apart any longer. Later, as Bill's career began to

    take off, they prospered, and gradually bought better cars, bigger houses,

    more expensive clothes ... more things. How worthless those things were,

    she thought now; how little it mattered whether she was rich or poor. Bill

    was what she wanted, and he was all she needed. He would always be enough

    for her, enough to make her happy.

If he ever came back.

Karen Chiapparone said: "Mommy, why doesn't Daddy call? He always calls when

he's away."

"He called today," Ruthie lied. "He's fine."

    "Why did he call when I was at school? I'd like to talk to him. t I

    "Honey, it's so difficult to get through from Tehran, the lines are so

    busy, he just has to call when he can.

.lob.-

    Karen wandered off to watch TV, and Ruthie sat down. It was getting dark

    outside. She was finding it increasingly difficult to lie to everyone about

    Paul.

    That was why she had left Chicago and come to Dallas. Living with her

    parents and keeping the secret from them had become impossible. Mom would

    say: "Why do Ross and the fellows from EDS keep calling you?"

    "They just want to make sure we're okay, you know, - Ruthie would say with

    a forced smile.

"That is so nice of Ross to call."

    Here in Dallas she could at least talk openly to other EDS people.

    Moreover, now that the Iran business was certain to be

210 Ken Follen

closed down, Paul would be based at EDS headquarters, at least for a while,

so Dallas would be their home; and Karen and Ann Marie had to go to school -

    They were all living with Jim and Cathy Nyfeler. Cathy was especially

    sympathetic, for her husband had been on the original list of four men

    whose passports Dadgar had asked for: if Jim had happened to be in han at

    the time, he would now be in jail with Paul'and Bill. Stay with us, Cathy

    had said; it will only be for maybe a week, then Paul will be back. That

    had been at the beginning of January. Since then Ruthie had proposed

    getting an apartment of her own, but Cathy would not hear of it.

    Right now Cathy was at the hairdresser's, the children were watching TV in

    another room, and Jim was not yet home from work, so Ruthie was alone with

    her thoughts.

    With Cathy's help she was keeping busy and putting on a brave face. She had

    enrolled Karen in school and found a kindergarten for Ann Marie. She went

    out to lunch with Cathy and some of the other EDS wives--Mary Boulware, Liz

    Coburn, Mary Sculley, Marva Davis, and Toni Dvoranchik. She wrote bright,

    optimistic letters to Paul, and listened to his bright, optimistic replies

    read over the phone from Tehran. She shopped and went to dinner parties.

    She had killed a lot of time house-hunting. She did not know Dallas well,

    but she remembered Paul saying that Central Expressway was a nightmare, so

    she looked for houses wen away from it. She had found one she liked and

    decided to buy it, so there would be a real home for Paul to come back to,

    but there were legal problems because he was not here to sip the papers:

    Tom Walter was trying to sort that out.

Ruthie was making it look good, but inside she was dying.

    She rarely slept more than an hour at night. She kept waking up wondering

    whether she would ever see Paul again. She tried to think about what she

    would do if he did not come back. She supposed she would return to Chicago

    and stay with Mom and Dad for a while, but she would not want to live with

    them permanently. No doubt she could get some kind of a job ... But it was

    not the practical business of living without a man and taking care of

    herself that bothered her. it was the idea of being without Paul, forever.

    She could not imagine what life would be like if he were not there. What

    would she do, what would she care about, what would she want, what could

    possibly make her

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 211

happy? She was completely dependent on him, she realized. She could not live

without him.

    She heard a car outside. That would be Jim, home from work: perhaps he

    would have some news.

A moment later he came in. "Hi, Ruthie. Cathy not home?"

"She's at the hairdresser's. What happened today?"

"Well . . ."

    She knew from his expression that he had nothing good to tell her and he

    was trying to find an encouraging way of saying so.

    "Well, they had a meeting scheduled to talk about the bail, but the

    Iranians didn't turn up. Tomorrow--

    "But why?" Ruthie fought to keep calm. "Why don't they turn up when they

    arrange these meetings?"

    "You know, sometimes they're called out on strike, and sometimes people

    just can't move around the city because of ... because of the

    demonstrations, and so on - . . -

    She seemed to have been hearing reports like this for weeks. There were

    always delays, postponements, frustrations. "But, Jim," she began; then the

    tears started and she could not stop them. "Jim . . . - Her throat

    tightened up until she could not speak. She thought: All I want is my

    husband! Jim stood there looking helpless and embarrassed. All the misery

    she had kept locked up for so long suddenly flooded out, and she could not

    control herself any longer. She burst into tears and ran from the room. She

    rushed to her bedroom, threw herself on the bed, and lay there sobbing her

    heart out.

Liz Coburn sipped her drink. Across the table were Pat Sculley's wife, Mary,

and another EDS wife who had been evacuated from Tehran, Toni Dvoranchik.

The three women were at Recipes, a restaurant on Greenville Avenue, Dallas.

They were drinking strawberry Daiquiris.

    Tony Dvoranchik's husband was here in Dallas. Liz knew that Pat Sculley had

    disappeared, like Jay, in the direction of Europe. Now Mary Sculley was

    talking as if Pat had gone not just to Europe but to Iran.

"Is Pat in Tehran?" Liz asked.

"They're all in Tehran, I guess," Mary said.

    Liz was horrified. "Jay in Tehran . - ." She wanted to cry. Jay had told

    her he was in Paris. Why couldn't he tell the truth? Pat Sculley had told

    Mary the truth. But Jay was different. Some men would play poker for a few

    hours, but Jay had to play all

212 Ken FoUelt

night and all the next day. Other men would play nine or eighteen holes of

golf: Jay would play thirty-six. Lots of men had demanding jobs, but Jay had

to work for EDS. Even in the army, when the two of them had been not much

more than kids, Jay had to volunteer for one of the most dangerous

assignments, helicopter pilot. Now he had gone to Tehran in the middle of a

revolution. Same old thing, she thought: he's gone away, he's lying to me,

and he's in danger. She suddenly felt cold all over, as if she were in

shock. He's not coming back, she thought numbly. He's not going to get out

of them alive.

    3

Perot's good spirits soon passed. He had got into the prison, defying

Dadgar, and had chetred up Paul and Bill; but Dadgar so held all the cards.

After six days in Tehran he understood why the political pressure he had

been putting on in Washington had been ineffectual: the old regime in Iran

was struggling for survival and had no control. Even if he posted the

bail-and a lot of problem had to be solved before that could happen-Paul and

Bill would stiff be held in I=. And Simons's rescue plan was now in tatters,

rumed by the move to the new prison. There seemed to be no hope.

That night Perot went to see Simons.

    He waited until dark, for safety. He wore his jogging suit with tannis

    shoes and a dark businessman's overcoat. Keane Taylor drove him.

    The rescue team had moved out of Taylor's house. Taylor had now met Dadgar

    face-to-face, and Dadgar had started examining EDS's records: it was

    possible, Simons had reasoned, that Dadgar would raid Taylor's house,

    looking for incnnunatmg documents. So Simons, Coburn, and PocM were living

    in the home of Bill and Tom Dvoranchik, who were now back in Dallas. Two

    more of the team had made it to Tehran from Paris: Pat Sculley and Jim

    Schwebach, the short but deadly duo who had been flank guards in the

    original, now useless, rescue scenario.

    In a typical Tehran arrangement, Dvoranchik's home was the ground floor of

    a two-story house, with the landlord living upstairs. Taylor and the rescue

    team left Perot alone with Simons.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 213

Perot looked around the living room distastefully. No doubt the place had

been spotless when Toni Dvoranchik lived here, but now, inhabited by five

men, none of whom was very interested in housekeeping, it was dirty and

run-down, and it stank of Simons's cigars.

    Simons's huge ftume was slumped in an armchair. His white whiskers were

    bushy and his hair long. He was chain-smoking, as usual; drawing heavily on

    his little cigar and inhaling with relish.

"You've seen the new prison," Perot said.

"Yeah," Simons rasped.

"What do you think?"

    "The idea of taking that place with the kind of frontal attack we had in

    mind just isn't worth talking about."

"That's what I figured."

"Which leaves a number of possibilities.

It does? thought Perot.

    Simons went on: "One: I understand there are cars parked in the prison

    compound. We may find a way to get Paul and Bill driven out of there in the

    trunk of a car. As part of that plan, or as an alternative, we may be able

    to bribe or blackmail this general who is in charge of the place."

"General Mohari. -

    "Right. One of your Iranian employees is getting -us a rundown on the man."

'Good. -

    "Two: the negotiating team. If they can get Paul and Bill released under

    house an-est, or something of that kind, we can snatch the two of them. Get

    Taylor and those guys to concentrate on this house-arrest idea. Agree to

    any conditions the hwdans cam to name, but get 'em out of that jail.

    Working on the assumption that they would be confined to their homes and

    kept under surveillance, we're developing a new rescue scenario."

    Perot was beginning to feel better. There was an aura of confidence about

    this massive man. A few minutes ago Perot had felt almost hopeless: now

    Simons was calmly listing fresh approaches to the problem, as if the move

    to the new jail, the bail problems, and the collapse of the legitimate

    government were mmor snags rather than total catastrophe.

    "Three," Simons went on, "there's a revolution going on here. Revolutions

    are predictable. The same things happen every damn time. You can't say when

    they'll occur, only that they

214 Ken Follett

will, sooner or later. And one of the things that always happens is, the mob

storms the prisons and lets everyone out.

Perot was intrigued. "Is that so?"

    Simons nodded. "Those are the three possibilities. Of course, at this point

    in the game we can't pick one: we have to prepare fbr each of them.

    Whichever of the three happens first, we'll need a plan for getting

    everyone out of this goddam country just as soon as Paul and Bill are in

    our hands."

    "Yes." Perot was worried about his own departure: that of Paul and Bill

    would be a good deal more hazardous. "I've had promises of help from the

    American military-"

    "Sure," Simons said. "I'm not saying they're insincere, but I will say they

    have higher priorities, and I'm not prepared to place a great deal of

    reliance on their promises."

    All right." That was a matter for Simons's judgment, and Perot was content

    to leave it to him. In fact, he was content to leave everything to Simons.

    Simons was probably the bestqualified man in the world to do this job, and

    Perot had complete faith in him. "What can I do?"

    "Get back to the States. For one thing, you're in danger here. For another,

    I need you over there. Chances are, when we eventually come out, it won't

    be on a scheduled flight. We may not fly at all. You'll have to pick us up

    somewhere-4t could be Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey, or Afghanistan-and that will

    take organizing. Go home and stay ready. "

    "Okay." Perot stood up. Simons had done to him what Perot sometimes did to

    his staff. inspired him with the strength to go one more mile when the game

    seemed lost. "I'll leave tomorrow."

He got a reservation on British Airways flight 200, Tehran to London via

Kuwait, leaving at 10:20 A.M. on January 20, the next day.

    He called Margot and asked her to meet him in London. He wanted a few days

    alone with her they might not get another chance, once the rescue started

    to unfold.

    They had had good times in London in the past. They would

stay at the Savoy Hotel. (Margot liked Claridge's, but Perot

did not --- they turned the heat too lugh, and if he opened the

windows he was kept awake by the roar of the all-night traffic

along Brook Suva.) He and Margot would see plays and concerts,

and go to Margot's favorite London nightclub, Annabel's. For a

few days they would enjoy life.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 215

if he got out of Iran.

    In order to minimize the amount of time he would have to spend at the

    airport, he stayed at the hotel until the last minute. He called the

    airport to find out whether the flight would leave on time, and was told

    that it would.

He checked in a few minutes before ten o'clock.

    Rich Gallagher, who accompanied him to the airport, went off to inquire

    whether the authorities were planning to give Perot a hard time. Gallagher

    had done this before. Together with an Iranian friend who worked for Pan

    Am, he walked through to passport control carrying Perot's passport. The

    Iranian explained that a VIP was coming through, and asked to clear the

    passport in advance. The official at the desk obligingly looked through the

    loose-leaf folder that contained the stop list and said there would be no

    problems for Mr. Perot. Gallagher returned with the good news.

    Perot remained apprehensive. If they wanted to pick him up, they might be

    smart enough to lie to Gallagher.

    Affable Bill Gayden, the president of EDS World, was flying in to take over

    direction of the negotiating team. Gayden had left Dallas for Tehran once

    before, but had turned back in Paris on hearing about Bunny Fleischaker's

    warning of more arrests to come. Now he, like Perot, had decided to risk

    it. By chance, his night came in while Perot was waiting to leave , and

    they had an opportunity to talk.

    in his suitcase Gayden had eight American passports belonging to EDS

    executives who looked vaguely like Paul or Bill.

    Perot said: "I thought we were getting forged passports for them. Couldn't

    you find a way?"

    "Yeah, we found a way," Gayden said. "If you need a passport in a huffy,

    you can take all the documentation down to the courthouse in Dallas, then

    they put everything in an envelope and you carry it to New Orleans, where

    they issue the passport. It's just a plain government envelope sealed with

    Scotch tape, so you could open it on the way to New Orleans, take out the

    photographs, replace them with photographs of Paul and Billwhich we

    have-reseal the envelope, and, bingo, you've got passports for Paul and

    Bill in false names. But it's against the law. "

"So what did you do instead?"

    "I told all the evacuees that I had to have their passports in Ord" to get

    their belongings shipped over from Tehran. I got a

216 Ken Follett

hundred or two hundred passports, and I picked the best eight. I bogused up

a letter from someone in the States to someone here in Tehran saying: 'Here

are the passports you asked for us to return so you could deal with the

immigration authorities,' just so that I've got a piece of paper to show if

I'm asked why the hell I'm carrying eight passports. -

    -ff Paid and Bill use those passports to cross a frontier, they'll be

    breaking the law anyway."

"ff we get that far, we'll break the law."

Perot nodded. "It makes sense."

    His flight was called. He said goodbye to Gayden and to Taylor, who had

    driven him to the airport and would take Gayden to the Hyatt. Then he went

    off to discover the truth about the stop list.

    He went first through a "Passengers Only" gate, where his boarding pass was

    checked. He walked along a corridor to a booth where he paid a small sum as

    airport tax. Then, on Ins right, he saw a series of passport-control desks.

Here the stop list was kept.

    One of the desks was manned by a girl who was absorbed in a paperback book.

    Perot approached her. He handed over his passport and a yellow exit form.