On Wings of Eagles (48 page)

    Bill began to feel like the cause of all the trouble. "I think it's inswe

    for nine people to risk their lives for the sake of two," he

292 Ken FoIku

said. "If Paul and I weren't here, none of you would be in any danger-you

could just wait here until flights out resume. Maybe Paul and I should throw

ourselves on the mercy of the U. S. Embassy. I I

    Simons said: "And what if you two get out, then Dadgar decides to take

    other hostages?"

    Anyway, Coburn thought, Simons won't let these two out of his sight now,

    not until they're back in the U.S.A.

The bell at the street gate rang, and everybody froze.

"Move into the bedrooms, but quietly," Simons said.

    Coburn went to the window. The landlady still thought there were only two

    people living here, Coburn and Poch6---she had never seen Simons--and

    neither she nor anyone else was supposed to know that there were now eleven

    people in the house.

    As Coburn watched, she walked across the courtyard and opened the gate. She

    stood there for a few minutes, talking to someone Cobum could not see, then

    closed the gate and carne back alone.

    When he heard her door slam shut upstairs, he called: "False alarm. I I

    They all prepared for the journey by looting the Dvoranchik place for warm

    clothes. Paul thought: Toni Dvoranchik would die of ernbarTassment if she

    knew about all these men going through her drawers. They ended up with a

    peculiar assortment of ifl-fitting hats, coats, and sweaters.

    After that they had nothing to do but wait: wait for Majid to find another

    Range Rover, wait for Cathy to get better, and wait for Perot to get the

    Turkish Rescue Team organized.

    They watched some old football games on a Betamax video. Paul played gin

    with Gayden. The dog got on everyone's nerves, but Cobum decided not to

    slit its throat until the last minute, in cast there was a change of plan

    and it could be saved. John Howell read The Deep by Peter Benchley: he had

    seen part of the movie on the flight over and had missed the ending because

    the

pi Ibe orevie finished, and he had never

figured

    f

otn= I gCZ Z

    d e ys and who were the bad guys. Simons said: "Those who wish to

    drink can do so, but if we have to move fast we'll be much better

    without any alcohol in our systems," but despite the waniing both

    Gayden and Gallagher surreptitiously mixed Drambuie with their coffee.

    The bell rang once more, and they all went through the same routine,

    but again it was for the landlady.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 293

    They were all remarkably good-tempered, considering how many of them were

    crammed into the living room and three bedrooms of the place. The only one

    to get imtable was-predictably-Keane Taylor. He and Paul cooked a big

    dinner for everyone, almost emptying the freezer; but by the time Taylor

    came in from the kitchen, the others had eaten every scrap and there was

    nothing for him. He cursed them all roundly for a bunch of greedy hogs, and

    they all laughed, the way they always did when Taylor got mad.

    During the night he got mad again. He was sleeping on the floor next to

    Coburn, and Coburn snored. The noise was so awful that Taylor could not get

    to sleep. He could not even wake Coburn to tell him to stop snoring, and

    that made him even madder.

It was snowing in Washington that night. Ross Perot was tired and tense.

    With Mitch Hart, he had spent most of the day in a last-ditch effort to

    persuade the governinent to fly his people out of Tehran. He had seen

    Undersecretary David Newsom at the State Department, Thomas V. Beard at the

    White House, and Mark Ginsberg, a young Carter aide whose job was liaison

    between the White House and the State Department. They were doing their

    best to arrange to fly the remaining one thousand Americans out of Tehran,

    and they were not about to make special plans fbr Ross Perot.

    Resigned to going to Turkey, Perot went to a sporting-goods store and

    bought himself cold-weather clothes. The leased 707 arrived from Dallas,

    and Pat Sculley called from Dulles Airport to say that some mechanical

    problems had surfaced dunng the flight: the transponder and the inertial

    navigation system did not work properly, the Number I engine was using oil

    at twice the normal rate, there was insufficient oxygen aboard for cabin

    use, there were no spare tires, and the water-tank valves were ftozen

    solid.

    While mechanics worked on the plane, Perot sat in the Madison Hotel with

    Mort Meyerson, a vice-president of EDS.

    At EDS there was a special group of Perot associates, men such as T. J.

    Marquez and Merv Stauffer, to whom he turned for help with matters that

    were not part of the day-to-day business of computer software: schemes like

    the prisoners-of-war campaign, the Texas War on Drugs, and the rescue of

    Paul and Bill.

294 Ken Folleu

Although Meyerson did not get involved in Perot,s special projects, he was

fully informed about the rescue plan and had given it his blessing: he knew

Paul and Bill well, having worked alongside them in earlier years as a

systems engineer. For business matters he was Perot's top man, and he would

soon become president of EDS. (Perot would continue to be chairman of the

board.)

    Now Perot and Meyerson talked business, reviewing each of EDS's current

    projects and problems. Both knew, though neither said, that the reason for

    the conference was that Perot might never come back from Turkey.

    In some ways the two men were as different as chalk and cheese. Meyerson's

    grandfather was a Russian Jew who had saved for two years to buy his rail

    ticket from New York to Texas. Meyerson's interests ranged from athletics

    to the arts: he played handball, was involved with the Dallas Symphony

    Orchestra and was himself a good pianist. Making fun of Perot and his

    "eagles, " Meyerson called hisown close colleagues "Meyerson's toads. " But

    in many ways he was like Perot, a creative and daring businessman whose

    bold ideas often scared more conventional executives in EDS. Perot had

    given instructions that, if something were to happen to him during the

    rescue, all his stock would be voted by Meyerson. EDS would continue to be

    run by a leader, not a bureaucrat.

    While Perot discussed business and worried about the plane and fumed

    against the State Department, his deepest concern was for his mother. Lulu

    May Perot was sinking fast, and Perot wanted to be with her. If she were to

    die while he was in Turkey, he would never see her again, and that would

    break his heart.

    Meyerson knew what was on his mind. He broke off the business talk to say:

    "Ross, why don't I go?"

"What do you mean?"

    "Why don't I go to Turkey instead of you? You've done your share.-you went

    to Iran. There's nothing you can do that I can't do in Turkey. And you want

    to stay with your mother."

    Perot was touched. Mort didn't have to say that, he thought. "If you're

    willing. . . " He was tempted. "That's something I'd sure want to think

    about. Let me think about it. "

    He was not sure he had the right to let Meyerson do this instead of him.

    "Let's see what the others think." He picked up the phone, called Dallas,

    and reached T. J. Marquez. "Mort's

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 295

offered to- go to Turkey instead of me," he told T.J. "'Arhatt 8 your

reaction to that?"

    "It's the worst idea in the world," T.J. said. "You've been close to this

    project from the start, and you couldn't possibly tell Mort everything he

    needs to know in a few hours. You know Simons, you know how his mind

    works-Mort doesn't. Plus, Simons doesn't know Mort--and you're aware of how

    Simons feels about trusting people he doesn't know. Well, he won't trust

    diem, that's how he feels."

"You're right," Perot said. "It's not for consideration."

    He hung up. "Mort, I sure appreciate your offer, but I'm going to Turkey."

"Whatever you say."

    A few minutes later Meyerson left, to return to Dallas in the chartered

    Lear jet. Perot called EDS again and spoke to Merv Stauffer. "Now, I want

    you guys to work in shifts and get some sleep," Perot said. "I don't want

    to be talking to a bunch of zombies back there.

"Yes, sir!"

Perot took his own advice and got some sleep.

    The phone woke him at two A.M. It was Pat Sculley, calling from the

    airport: the plane's mechanical problems were fixed.

    Perot got a cab to Dulles Airport. It was a hair-raising thirtymile ride on

    icy roads.

    The Turkish Rescue Team was now together: Perot; Pat Sculley and Jim

    Schwebac"e deadly duo; young Ron Davis; the crew of the 707; and the two

    extra pilots, Dick Douglas and Julian "Scratch" Kanauch. But the plane was

    not mended. It needed a spare part that was not available in Washington.

    Gary Femandes-the EDS manager who had worked on the leasing contract for

    the plan"ad a friend who was in charge of ground support for one of the

    airlines at New York's LaGuardia Airport: he called the friend, and the

    friend got out of bed, found the part, and put it on a plane for

    Washington. Meanwhile, Perot lay down on a bench in the terminal and slept

    for a couple mom hours.

    They boarded at Six A.M. Perot looked around the interior of the aircraft

    in amazement. It had a bedroom with a king-size bed, three bars, a

    sophisticated hi-fi system, a television, and an office with a phone. Them

    were plush carpets, suede upholstery, and velvet walls. "It looks like a

    Persian whorchouse," said Perot, although he had never seen a Persian

    whorehouse.

296 Ken FoUett

    The plane took off. Dick Douglas and Scratch Kanauch immediately curled up

    and went to sleep. Perot tried to follow their example: he had sixteen

    hours of nothing to do in front of him. As the plane headed out across the

    Atlantic Ocean, he wondered again whether he was doing the right thing.

    He might, after all, have left Paul and Bill to take their chances in

    Tehran. Nobody would have blamed him: it was the government's job to rescue

    diem. Indeed, the Embassy might even now be able to get them out unharmed.

    On the other hand, Dadgar might pick them up and throw them in jail for

    twenty years-and the Embassy, on past performance, might not protect them.

    And what would the revolutionaries do if they got hold of Paul and Bill?

    Lynch them?

    No, Perot could not leave his men to take their chance"t was not his way.

    Paul and Bill were his responsibility-he did not need his mother to tell

    him that. The trouble was that he was now putting more men at risk. Instead

    of having two people hiding in Tehran, he would now have eleven employees

    on the run in the wilds of northwest Iran, and another four, plus two

    pilots, searching for diem. If things went wrong-ff someone got kdkd-the

    world would see this whole thing as a foolhardy adventure by a man who

    thought he was still living in the Wild West. He could imagine the

    newspaper headlines: NmuoNAIRE TEXWS HLAN RESCUE BID 13NDS IN DEATH ...

    Suppose we lose Coburn, he thought; what would I tell his wife? Liz might

    find it hard to understand why I staked the lives of seventeen men to gain

    the freedom of two.

    He had never broken the law in his life, and now he was involved in so many

    major illegal activities he could not count diem.

    He put all that out of his mind. The decision was made. If you go through

    fife thinking about all the bad things that can happen, you soon talk

    yourself into doing nothing at all. Concentrate on the problems that can be

    solved. The chips are on the table and the wheel is in spin. The last game

    has begun.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 297

On Tuesday the U.S. Embassy announced that evacuation flights fbr all

Americans in Tehran would leave during the coming weekend.

    Simons got Coburn and Pochd in one of the bedrooms of the Dvoranchik place

    and closed the door. "This solves some of our problems," he said. "I want

    to split them up at this point in the game. Some can take the Embassy

    evacuation flight, leaving a manageable group for the overland trip."

Coburn and Pochd agreed.

    "Obviously, Paul and Bill have to go overland," Simons said. "Two of us

    three have to go with them: one to escort them across the mountains and the

    other to cross the border legitimately and meet up with Boulware. We'll

    need an Iranian driver for each of the two Range Rovers. That leaves us two

    spare seats. Who takes them? Not Cathy--she'll be much better off on the