On Wings of Eagles (55 page)

    a minute there . . . "

    Rashid and the interpreter came out of the hotel. Rashid said: 1611ey don't

    want to know about a bunch of Americans going into their hotel--4hey won't

    take the risk." Coburn took that to mean that feelings were running so high

    in the town that the

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 335

hotel could get burned by the mob for taking in foreigners. "We have to go

to revolutionary headquarters. "

    They drove on. There was feverish activity in the streets: lines of pickup

    trucks of all shapes and sizes were being loaded with supplies, presumably

    for the revolutionaries still fighting in Tabriz. The convoy stopped at

    what appeared to be a school. There was a huge, noisy crowd outside the

    courtyard, apparently waiting to get in. After an argument, the Kurds

    persuaded the gate sentry to admit the ambulance and the two Range Rovers.

    The crowd reacted angrily when the foreigners went in. Coburn breathed a

    sigh of relief as the courtyard gate closed behind him.

    They got out of the can. The courtyard was crammed with shot-up

    automobiles. A mullah was standing on a stack of rifle crates conducting a

    noisy and passionate ceremony with a crowd of men. Rashid said: "He is

    swearing in fresh troops to go to Tabriz and fight for the revolution. "

    The guards led the Americans toward the school building on one side of the

    courtyard. A man came down the steps and started yelling at them angrily,

    pointing at the Kurds. "They must not go into the building armed," Rashid

    translatedL

    Coburn could tell the Kurds were getting jumpy: to their surprise, they

    found themselves in hostile territory. They produced the note from the

    Mahabad mullah. There was more argument.

    Eventually Rashid said: "You all wait here. I'm going inside to talk to the

    leader of the revolutionary committee.- He went up the steps and

    disappeared.

    Paul and Gayden lit cigarettes. Paul felt scared and dejected. These people

    were bound to call Tehran, he felt, and find out all about him. Getting

    sent back to jail might be the least of his worries now. He said to Gayden:

    "I really appreciate what you've done for me, but it's a shame, I think

    we've had it."

    Coburn was more worried about the mob outside the gate. In here at least

    someone was trying to maintain order. Out there was a wolf pack. What if

    they persuaded some goofy guard to open the gate? It would be a lynch mob.

    In Tehran a fellow--aii Iranian-who had done something to anger a crowd had

    been literally pulled apart, his arms and legs torn off by people who were

    just crazed, hysterical.

    The guards jerked their weapons, indicating that the Americans should move

    to one side of the courtyard and stand against a wall. They obeyed, feeling

    vulnerable. Coburn looked at the

336 Ken Follett

wall. It had bullet holes in it. Paul had seen them, too, and his face was

white. "My God," he said. "I think we bought the farm. I I

Rashid asked himself. What will be the psychology of the leader of the

revolutionary committee?

    He has a million things to do, Rashid thought. He has just taken control of

    this town, and he has never been in power before. He must deal with the

    officers of the defeated army, he must round up suspected SAVAK agents and

    interrogate them, he must get the town running normally, he must guard

    against a counterrevolution, and he must send troops to fight in Tabriz.

    All he wants to do, Rashid concluded, is cross things off his list.

    He has no time or sympathy for fleeing Americans. If he must make a

    decision, he will simply throw us in jail for the time being, and deal with

    us later, at his leisure. Therefore, I must make sure that he does not

    decide.

    Rashid was shown into a schoolroom. The leader was sitting on the floor. He

    was a tall, strong man with the thrill of victory in his face; but he

    looked exhausted, confused, and restless.

    Rashid's escort said in Farsi: "This man comes from Mahabad with a letter

    from the mullah-he has six Americans with him."

    Rashid thought of a movie he had seen in which a man got into a guarded

    building by flashing his driving license instead of a pass. If you had

    enough confidence you could undermine people's suspicions.

    "No, I come from the Tehran Revolutionary Cormnittee," Rashid said. "There

    are five or six thousand Americans in Tehran, and we have decided to send

    them home. The airport is closed, so we will bring them all out this way.

    Obviously we must make arrangements and set up procedures for handling all

    these people. That is why I am here. But you have many problems to deal

    widi--perhaps I should discuss the details with your subordinates.

"Yes," said the leader, and waved them away.

It was the technique of the Big Lie, and it had worked.

    "I'm the deputy leader," said Rashid's escort as they left the room. They

    went into another room where five or six people were drinking tea. Rashid

    talked to the deputy leader, loud enough for the others to hear. "These

    Americans just want to get home and see their families. We're happy to get

    rid of them, and

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 337

we want to treat them right so they won't have anything against the new

regime."

    "Why do you have Americans with you now?" the deputy asked.

    "For a trial run. This way, you know, we find out what the problems are .

    . . -

"But you don't have to let them cross the border."

    "Oh, yes. They are good men who have never done any harm to our country,

    and they have wives and children at home---one of them has a little child

    dying in hospital. So the Revolutionary Committee in Tehran has instructed

    me to see them across the border . . . -

    He kept talking. From time to time the deputy would interrupt him with a

    question: Whom did the Americans work for? What did they have with them?

    How did Rashid know they were not SAVAK agents spying for the

    counterrevolutionaries in Tabriz? For every question Rashid had an answer,

    and a long one. While he was talking, he could be persuasive; whereas if he

    were silent, the others would have time to think of objections. People came

    in and went out continually. The deputy left three or four times.

    Eventually he came in and said: "I have to clear this with Tehran. -

    Rashid's heart sank. Of course nobody in Tehran would verify his story. But

    it would take forever to get a call through. I 'Everything has been

    verified in Tehran, and there is no need to reverify," he said. "But if you

    insist, I'll take these Americans to a hotel to wait. - He added: "You had

    better send some guards with us. - The deputy would have sent the guards

    anyway: asking for them was a way of allaying suspicion.

"I don't know," said the deputy.

    "This is not a good place to keep them," Rashid said. "It could cause

    trouble. They might be harmed. - He held his breath. Here they were

    trapped. In a hotel they would at least have the chance to make a break for

    the border . . .

"Okay," said the deputy.

Rashid concealed his relief.

Paul was deeply grateful to see Rashid coming down the steps of the

schoolhouse. It had been a long wait. Nobody had actually pointed guns at

them, but they had got an awful lot of hostile looks.

338 Ken Follett

    "We can go to the hotel," said Rashid.

    The Kurds from Mahabad shook hands with them and left in their ambulance.

    A few moments later the Americans left in the two Range Rovers, followed by

    four or five armed guards in another car. They drove to the hotel. This

    time they all went in. There was an argument between the hotel keeper and

    the guards, but the guards won, and the Americans were assigned four rooms

    on the third floor at the back, and told to keep the curtains drawn and

    stay away from windows in case local snipers thought Americans inviting

    targets.

    They gathered in one of the rooms. They could hear distant gunfire. Rashid

    organized lunch and ate with them: barbecued chicken, rice, bread, and

    Coke. Then he left for the school.

    The guards wandered in and out of the room, carrying their rifles. One of

    them struck Coburn as being evil. He was young, short, and muscular, with

    black hair and eyes like a snake. As the afternoon wore on, he seemed to

    get bored. -

One time he walked in and said: "Carter no good."

He looked around for a reaction.

"CIA no good," he said. "America no good."

Nobody replied. He went out.

    "That guy is trouble," Simons said calmly. "Don't anybody take the bait."

    The guard tried again a little later. "I am very strong," he said.

    "Wrestling. Wrestle champion. I went to Russia."

Nobody spoke.

    He sat down and fiddled with his gun, as if he did not know how to load it.

    He appealed to Coburn. "You know guns?"

Coburn shook his head.

The guard looked at the others. "You know guns?"

    The gun was an Ml, a weapon they were all familiar with, but nobody said

    anything.

    "You want to trade?" the guard said. "This gun for a backpack?"

    Coburn said: "We don't have a backpack and we don't want a gun. 11

The guard gave up and went out into the corridor again.

Simons said: "Where the hell is Rashid?"

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 339

    2

The car hit a pothole, jolting Ralph Boulware awake. He felt tired and

groggy after his short, restless sleep. He looked through the windows. It

was early morning. He saw the shore of a vast lake, so big he could not see

the far side.

"Where are we?" he said.

"That's Lake Van," said Charlie Brown, the interpreter.

    There were houses and villages and civilian cars: they had come out of the

    wild mountain country and returned to what passed for civilization in this

    part of the world. Boulware looked at a map. He figured they were about a

    hundred miles from the border.

"Hey, this is good!" he said.

    He saw a filling station. They really were back in civilization. "Let's get

    gas," he said.

    At the filling station they got bread and coffee. The coffee was almost as

    good as a shower: Boulware felt raring to go. He said to Charlie: "Tell the

    old man I want to drive."

    The cabby had been doing thirty or forty miles per hour, but Boulware

    pushed the ancient Chevrolet up to seventy. It looked as though he had a

    real chance of getting to the border in time to meet Simons.

    Bowling along the lakeside road, Boulware heard a muffled bang, followed by

    a tearing sound; then the car began to buck and bump, and there was a

    screech of metal on stone: he had blown a tire.

He braked hard, cursing.

    They all got out and looked at the wheel: Boulware, the elderly cabby,

    Charlie Brown, and fat Ilsman. The tire was completely shredded and the

    wheel deformed. And they had used the spare wheel during the night, after

    the last blowout.

    Boulware looked more closely. The wheel nuts had been stripped: even if

    they could get another spare, they would not be able to remove the damaged

    wheel.

    Boulware looked around. There was a house a way up the hill. "Let's go

    there," Boulware said. "We can phone."

Charlie Brown shook his head. "No phones around here."

340 Ken Follett

    Boulware was not about to give up, after all he had gone through: he was

    too close. "Okay," he said to Charlie. "Hitch a ride back to the last town

    and get us another cab. "

    Charlie started walking. Two cars passed him without stopping, then a truck

    pulled up. It had hay and a bunch of children in the back. Charlie jumped

    in, and the truck drove out of sight.

    Boulware, Ilsman, and the cabby stood looking at the lake, eating oranges.

    An hour later a small European station wagon came tearing along the road

    and screeched to a halt. Charlie jumped out.

    Boulware gave the driver from Adana five hundred dollars, then got into the

    new taxi with Usman and Charlie and drove off, leaving the Chevrolet beside

    the lake, looking like a beached whale.

    The new driver went like the wind, and by midday they were in Van, on the

    eastern shore of the take. Van was a small town, with brick buildings in

    the center and mud-hut suburbs. Ilsman directed the driver to the home of

    a cousin of Mr. Fish.

    They paid their driver and went in. Ilsman got into a long discussion with

    Nft. Fish's cousin. Boulware sat in the living room, listening but not

    understanding, impatient to get moving. After an hour he said to Charlie: