On Wings of Eagles (10 page)

tastes were simple-he read westerns by the boxful, and enjoyed what his sons

called "supermarket music"--but he also read a lot of nonfiction, and had a

lively curiosity about all sorts of things. He could talk about antiques or

history as easily as battles and weaponry.

    Perot and Simons, two willful, dominating personalities, got along by

    giving one another plenty of room. They did not become close friends. Perot

    never called Simons by his first name, Art (although Margot did). Like most

    people, Perot never knew what Simons was thinking unless Simons chose to

    tell him. Perot recalled their first meeting in Fort Bragg. Before getting

    up to make his speech, Perot had asked Simons's wife, Lucille: "What is

    Colonel Simons really like?" She had replied: "Oh, he's just a great big

    teddy bear." Perot repeated this in his speech. The Son Tay Raiders fell

    apart. Simons never cracked a smile.

    Perot did not know whether this impenetrable man would care to rescue two

    EDS executives from a Persian jail. Was Simons grateful for the San

    Francisco party? Perhaps. After that party Perot had financed Simons on a

    trip to Laos to search for MlAs-American soldiers missing in action-who had

    not come back with the prisoners of war. On his return from Laos, Simons

    had remarked to a group of EDS executives: "Perot is a hard man to say no

    to."

    As he pulled into Denver Airport, Perot wondered whether, six years later,

    Simons would still find him a hard man to say no to.

    But that contingency was a long way down the line. Perot was going to try

    everything else first.

    He went into the terminal, bought a seat on the next flight to Dallas, and

    found a phone. He called EDS and spoke to T. J. Marquez, one of his most

    senior executives, who was known as T.J. rather than Tom because there were

    so many Toms around EDS. "I want you to go find my passport," he told T.J.,

    "and get me a visa for Iran."

T. J. said: "Ross, I think that's the world's worst idea."

    T.J. wouldargue until nightfall if you let him. "I'm not going to debate

    with you," Perot said curtly. "I talked Paul and Bill into going over

    there, and I'm going to get them out. -

    He hung up the phone and headed for the departure gate. All in all, it had

    been a rotten Christmas.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 59

T.J. was a little wounded. An old friend of Perot's as well as a

vice-president of EDS, he was not used to being talked to like the office

boy. This was a persistent failing of Perot's: when he was in high gear, he

trod on people's toes and never knew he had hurt them. He was a remarkable

man, but he was not a saint.

    2

Ruthie Chiapparone also had a rotten Christmas.

    She was staying at her parents' home, an eighty-five-year-old two-story

    house on the southwest side of Chicago. In the rush of the evacuation ftom

    Iran she had left behind most of the Christmas presents she had bought for

    her daughters, Karen, eleven, and Ann Marie, five; but soon after arriving

    in Chicago she had gone shopping with her brother Bill and bought some

    more. Her family did their best to make Christmas Day happy. Her sister and

    three brothers visited, and there were lots more toys for Karen and Ann

    Marie; but everyone asked about Paul.

    Ruthie needed Paul. A soft, dependent woman, five years younger than her

    husband-she was thirty-four-she loved him partly because she could lean on

    his broad shoulders and feel safe. She had always been looked after. As a

    child, even when her mother was out at work-supplementing the wages of

    Ruthie's father, a truck driver-Ruthie had two older brothers and an older

    sister to take care of her.

When she first met Paul he had ignored her.

    She was secretary to a colonel; Paul was working on data processing for the

    army in the same building. Ruthie used to go down to the cafeteria to get

    coffee for the colonel, some of her friends knew some of the young

    officers, she sat down to talk with a group of them, and Paul was there and

    he ignored her. So she ignored him for a while, then all of a sudden he

    asked her for a date. They dated for a year and a half and then got

    married.

    Ruthie had not wanted to go to Iran. Unlike most of the EDS wives, who had

    found the prospect of moving to a new country exciting, Ruthie had been

    highly anxious. She had never been outside the United States-Hawaii was the

    farthest she had ever traveled-and the Middle East seemed a weird and

    frightening place. Paul took her to Iran for a week in June of 1977, hoping

60 Ken Follett

she would like it, but she was not reassured. Finally she agreed to go, but

only because the job was so important to him.

    However, she ended up liking it. The Iranians were nice to her, the

    American community there was close-knit and sociable, and Ruthie's serene

    nature enabled her to deal calmly with the daily frustrations of living in

    a primitive country, like the lack of supermarkets and the difficulty of

    getting a washing machine repaired in less than about six weeks.

    Leaving had been strange. The airport had been crammed, just an

    unbelievable number of people in there. She had recognized many of the

    Americans, but most of the people were fleeing Iranians. She had thought:

    I don't want to leave like this--why are you pushing us out? What are you

    doing? She had traveled with Bill Gaylord's wife, Emily. They went via

    Copenhagen, where they spent a freezing cold night in a hotel where the

    windows would not close: the children had to sleep in their clothes. When

    she got back to the States, Ross Perot had called her and talked about the

    passport problem, but Ruthie had not really understood what was happening.

    During that depressing Christmas Day-so unnatural to have Christmas with

    the children and no Daddy-Paul had called from Tehran. "I've got a present

    for you," he had said.

:'Your airline ticket?" she said hopefully.

    'No. I bought you a mg."

"That's nice."

    He had spent the day with Pat and Mary Sculley, he told her. Someone else's

    wife had cooked his Christmas dinner, and he had watched someone else's

    children open their presents.

    Two days later she heard that Paul and Bill had an appointment, the

    following day, to see the man who was making them stay in Iran. After the

    meeting they would be let go.

    The meeting was today, December 28. By midday Ruthie was wondering why

    nobody from Dallas had called her yet. Tehran was eight and a half hours

    ahead of Chicago: surely the meeting was over? By now Paul should be

    packing his suitcase to come home.

    She calledDallas and spoke to Jim Nyfeler, an EDS man who had left Tehran

    last June. "How did the meeting work out?" she asked him.

"It didn't go too well, Ruthie .

"What do you mean, it didn't go too well?"

I 'They were arrested."

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 61

"They were arrested? You're kidding!"

"Ruthie, Bill Gayden wants to talk to you."

    Ruthie held the line, Paul arrested? Why? For what? By whom?

    Gayden, the president of EDS World and Paul's boss, came on the line.

    "Hello, Ruthie."

"Bill, what is all this?"

    "We don't understand it," Gayden said. "The Embassy over there set up this

    meeting, and it was supposed to be routine, they weren't accused of any

    crime ... Then, around six-thirty their time, Paul called Lloyd Briggs and

    told him they were going to jail. "

"Paul's in jail?"

    "Ruthie, try not to worry too much. We got a bunch of lawyers working on

    it, we're getting the State Department on the case, and Ross is already on

    his way back from Colorado. We're sure we can straighten this out in a

    couple of days. It's just a matter of days, really."

    "All right," said Ruthie. She was dazed. It didn't make sense. How could

    her husband be in jail? She said goodbye to Gayden and hung up.

What was going on out there?

The last time Emily Gaylord had seen her husband Bill, she had thrown a

plate at him.

    Sitting in her sister Dorothy's home in Washington, talking to Dorothy and

    her husband Tim about how they might help to get Bill out of jail, she

    could not forget that flying plate.

    It had happened in their house in Tehran. One evening in early December

    Bill came home and said that Emily and the children were to return to the

    States the very next day. Bill and Emily had four children: Vicki, fifteen;

    Jackie, twelve; Jenny, nine; and Chris, six. Emily agreed that they should

    be sent back, but she wanted to stay. She might not be able to do anything

    to help Bill, but at least he would have someone to talk to.

    It,was out of the question, said Bill. She was leaving tomorrow. Ruthie

    Chiapparone would be on the same plane. All the other EDS wives and

    children would be evacuated a day or two later.

    Emily did not want to hear about the other wives. She was going to stay

    with her husband.

They argued. Emily got madder and madder until finally she

62 Ken Follett

could no longer express her frustration in words, so she picked up a plate

and hurled it at him.

    He would never forget it, she was sure: it was the only time in eighteen

    years of marriage that she had exploded like that. She was highly strung,

    spirited, excitable-but not violent.

Mild, gentle Bill, it was the last thing he deserved ...

    When she first met him she was twelve, he was fourteen, and she hated him.

    He was in love with her best friend, Cookie, a strikingly attractive girl,

    and all he ever talked about was whom Cookie was dating and whether Cookie

    might like to go out and was Cookie allowed to do this or that ... Emily's

    sisters and brother really liked Bill. She could not get away from him, for

    their families belonged to the same country club and her brother played

    golf with Bill. It was her brother who finally talked Bill into asking

    Emily for a date, long after he had forgotten Coolde; and, after years of

    mutual indifference, they fell madly in love.

    By then Bill was in college, studying aeronautical engineering 240 miles

    away in Blacksburg, Virginia, and coming home for vacations and occasional

    weekends. They could not bear to be so far apart, so, although Emily was

    only eighteen, they decided to get married.

    It was a good match. They came from similar backgrounds, affluent

    Washington Catholic families, and Bill's personalitysensitive, calm,

    logical-complemented Emily's nervous vivacity. They went through a lot

    together over the next eighteen years. They lost a child with brain damage,

    and Emily had major surgery duee times. Their troubles brought them closer

    together.

And here was a new crisis: Bill was in jail.

    Emily had not yet told her mother. Mother's brother, Emily's uncle Gus, had

    died that day, and Mother was already terribly upset. Emily could not talk

    to her about Bill yet. But she could talk to Dorothy and Tim.

    Her brother-in-law Tim Reardon was a U.S. Attorney in the Justice

    Department and had very good connections. Tim's father had been an

    administrative assistant to President John F. Kennedy, and Tim had worked

    for Ted Kennedy. Tim also knew personally the Speaker of the House of

    Representatives, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, and Maryland Senator Charles

    Mathias. He was familiar with the passport problem, for Emily had told him

    about it as soon as she got back to Washington from Tehran, and he had

    discussed it with Ross Perot.

    A

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 63

    "I could write a letter to 'President Carter, and ask Ted Kennedy to

    deliver it personally," Tim was saying.

    Emily nodded. It was hard for her to concentrate. She wondered what Bill

    was doing right now.

Paul and Bill stood just inside Cell Number 9, cold, numb, and desperate to

know what would happen next.

    Paul felt very vulnerable: a white American in a business suit, unable to

    speak more than a few words of Farsi, faced by a crowd of what looked like

    thugs and murderers. He suddenly remembered reading that men were

    frequently raped in jail, and he wondered grimly how he would cope with

    something like that.

Paul looked at Bill. His face was white with tension.

    One of the ininates spoke to them in Farsi. Paul said: "Does anyone here

    speak English?"

    From another cell across the corridor a voice called: "I speak English.

    There was a shouted conversation in rapid Farsi, then the interpreter

    called: "What is your crime?"

"We haven't done anything," Paul said.

"What are you accused of?"

    "Nothing. We're just ordinary American businessmen with wives and children,

    and we don't know why we're in jail."

    This was translated. There was more rapid Farsi, then the interpreter said:

    "This one who is talking to me, he is the boss of your cell, because he is

    there the longest.

"We understand," Paul said.

"He will tell you where to sleep."

    The tension eased as they talked. Paul took in his surroundings. The

    concrete walls were painted what niight once have been orange but now just

    looked dirty. There was some kind of thin carpet or matting covering most

    of the concrete floor. Around the cell were six sets of bunks, stacked

    three high: the lowest bunk was no more than a thin mattress on the floor.

    The room was lit by a single dim bulb and ventilated by a grille in the

    wall that let in the bitterly cold night air. The cell was very crowded.

    After a while a guard came down, opened the door of Cell Number 9, and

    motioned Paul and Bill to come out.

    This is it, Paul thought; we'll be released now. Thank God I don't have to