On Wings of Eagles (13 page)

    and Sorenson was a way of notifying the Iranians that the Embassy was

    concerned but at the same time letting Paul and Bill know that they could

    not expect much help from the U.S. government. We're a problem the Embassy

    wants to ignore, Bill thought angrily. ,

    Inside the main building the guard opened a door they had not been through

    before, and they went from the reception area into a corridor. On their

    right were three offices. On their left were windows looking out into the

    courtyard. They came to another door, this one made of thick steel. The

    guard unlocked it and ushered them through.

The first thing Bill saw was a TV set.

    As he looked around he started to feel a little better. This part of the

    jail was more civilized than the basement. It was relatively clean and

    light, with gray walls and gray carpeting. The cell doors were open and the

    prisoners were walking around freely. Daylight came in through the windows.

    They continued along a hall with two cells on the right and, on the left,

    what appeared to be a bathroom: Bill looked forward to a chance to get

    clean again after his night downstairs. Glancing

76 Ken Follen

through the last door on the right, he saw shelves of books. Then the guard

turned left and led them down a long, narrow corridor and into the last

cell.

There they saw someone they knew.

    It was Reza Neghabat, the Deputy Minister in charge of the Social Security

    Organization at the Ministry of Health. Both Paul and Bill knew him well

    and had worked closely with him before his arrest last September. They

    shook hands enthusiastically. Bill was relieved to see a familiar face, and

    someone who spoke English.

Neghabat was astonished. "Why are you in here?"

    Paul shrugged. "I kind of hoped you might be able to tell us that. -

"But what are you accused of?"

    "Nothing," said Paul. "We were interrogated yesterday by Mr. Dadgar, the

    magistrate who's investigating your former Minister, Dr. Sheik. He arrested

    us. No charges, no accusations. We're supposed to be 'material witnesses,'

    we understand."

    Bill looked around. On either side of the cell were paired stacks of bunks,

    three high, with another pair beside the window, making eighteen

    altogether. As in the cell downstairs, the bunks were furnished with thin

    fbam-rubber mattresses, the bottom bunk of the three being no more than a

    mattress on the floor, and gray wool blankets. However, here some of

    the-prisoners seemed to have sheets, as well. The window, opposite the

    door, looked out into the courtyard. Bill could see grass, flowers, and

    trees, as well as parked cars belonging, he presumed, to guards. He could

    also see the low building where they had just talked with Jordan and

    Sorenson.

    Neghabat introduced Paul and Bill to their cellmates, who seemed friendly

    and a good deal less villainous than the inmates of the basement. There

    were several free bunks-the cell was not as crowded as the one

    downstairs-and Paul and Bill took beds on either side of the doorway.

    Bill's was the middle bunk of three, but Paul was on the floor again.

    Neghabat showed them around. Next to their cell was a kitchen, with tables

    and chairs, where the prisoners could make tea and coffee or just sit and

    talk. For some reason it was called the Chattanooga Room. Beside it was a

    hatch in the wall at the end of the corridor: this was a commissary,

    Neghabat explained, where from time to time you could buy soap, towels, and

    cigarettes.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 77

    Walking back down the long corridor, they passed their own cell-Number

    5--and two more cells before emerging into the hall, which stretched away

    to their right. The room Bill had glanced into earlier turned out to be a

    combination guard's office and library, with books in English as well as

    Farsi. Next to it were two more cells. Opposite these cells was the

    bathroom, with sinks, showers, and toilets. The toilets were Persian style-

    like a shower tray with a drain hole in the middle. Bill learned that he

    was not likely to get the shower he longed for: normally there was no hot

    water.

    Beyond the steel door, Neghabat said, was a little office used by a

    visiting doctor and dentist. The library was always open and the TV was on

    all evening, although of course programs were in Farsi. Twice a week the

    prisoners in this section were taken out into the courtyard to exercise by

    walking in a circle for half an hour. Shaving was compulsory: the guards

    would allow mustaches, but not beards.

    During the tour they met two more people they knew. One was Dr. Towliati,

    the Ministry data-processing consultant about whom Dadgar had questioned

    them. The other was Hussein Pasha, who had been Neghabat's financial man at

    the Social Security Organization.

    Paul and Bill shaved with the electric razor brought in by Sorenson and

    Jordan. Then it was noon, and time for lunch. In the corridor wall was an

    alcove screened by a curtain. From there the prisoners took a linoleum mat,

    which they spread on the cell floor, and some cheap tableware. The meal was

    steamed rice with a little lamb, plus bread and yogurt, and tea or Pepsi-

    Cola to drink. They sat cross-legged on the floor to eat. For Paul and

    Bill, both gourmets, it was a poor lunch. However, Bill found he had an

    appetite: perhaps it was the cleaner surroundings.

    After lunch they had more visitors: their Iranian attorneys. The lawyers

    did not know why they had been arrested, did not know what would happen

    next, and did not know what they could do to help. It was a desultory,

    depressing conversation. Paul and Bill had no faith in them anyway, for it

    was these lawyers who had advised Lloyd Briggs that the bail would not

    exceed twenty thousand dollars. They returned no wiser and no happier.

    They spent the rest of the afternoon in the Chattanooga Room, talking to

    Neghabat, Towliati, and Pasha. Paul described his interrogation by Dadgar

    in detail. Each of the Iranians was highly interested in any mention of his

    own name during the

78 Ken Follett

'J'%r'W ve '0 Itl '11

    "vv \'O/ VI

    ~jy 4,j "MUJ

    A y \ol

    \ ~w - I w

    "I v W

    )v A)

    ty

    \j/ W

    'As

\Vt/ \*I N tvq t.

% I

~v vil \'06\v \it

VI OVI/

    VI \10

    tIVI

    \it )tv I

    '07 VI/

v I

    VV

19 k

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 79

    '.d'AW I.

    W

'11 wo 10

    I,

IV

    Jail Entrance

    "I y

    ow

    14, Iv

    Im

    I'V

    oufftin,

    mi -0

    ki \0 III Vj

    \PI "v P

    ONE SUTO JR.

    I

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

80 Ken Follett

interrogation. Paul told Dr. Towliati how his name had come up, in

connection with a suggested conflict of interest. Towliati described how he,

too, had been questioned by Dadgar in the same way before being thrown in

jail. Paul recollected that Dadgar had asked about a memorandum written by

Pasha. It had been a completely routine request for statistics, and nobody

could figure out what was supposed to be special about it.

    Neghabat had a theory as to why they were all in jail. "The Shah is making

    scapegoats of us, to show the masses that he really is cracking down on

    corruptio"ut he picked a project where there was no corruption. There is

    nothing to crack down on--but if he releases us, he will look weak. If he

    had looked instead at the construction business, he would have found an

    unbelievable amount of corruption. . . ."

    It was all very vague. Neghabat was just rationalizing. Paul and Bill

    wanted specifics: who ordered the crackdown, why pick on the Ministry of

    Health, what kind of corruption was supposed to have taken place, and where

    were the informants who had put the finger on the individuals who were now

    in jail? Neghabat was not being evasiv"e simply had no answers. His vague-

    ness was characteristically Persian: ask an Iranian what he had for

    breakfast and ten seconds later he would be explaining his philosophy of

    life.

    At six'o'clock they returned to their cell for supper. It was pretty

    grim-no more than the leftovers from lunch mashed into a dip to be spread

    on bread, with more tea.

    After supper they watched TV. Neghabat translated the news. The Shah had

    asked an opposition leader, Shahpour Bakhtiar, to form a civilian

    government, replacing the generals who had ruled han since November.

    Neghabat explained that Shahpour was leader of the Bakhtiar tribe, and that

    he had always refused to have anything to do with the regime of the Shah.

    Nevertheless, whether Bakhtiar's government could end the turmoil would

    depend on the Ayatollah Khomeini.

    The Shah had also denied rumors that he was leaving the country.

    Bill thought this sounded encouraging. With Bakhtiar as Prime Minister the

    Shah would remain and ensure stability,. but the rebels would at last have

    a voice in governing their own country.

    At ten o'clock the TV went off and the prisoners returned to their cells.

    The other inmates hung towels and pieces of cloth

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 81

across their bunks to keep out the light: here, as downstairs, the bulb

would shine all night. Neghabat said Paul and Bill could get their visitors

to bring in sheets and towels for them.

    Bill wrapped himself in the thin gray blanket and settled down to try to

    sleep. We're here for a while, he thought resignedly; we must make the best

    of it. Our fate is in the hands of others.

    2

Their fate was in the hands of Ross Perot, and in the next two days all his

high hopes came to nothing.

    At first the news had been good. Kissinger had called back on Friday,

    December 29, to say that Ardeshir Zahedi would get Paul and Bill released.

    First, though, U.S. Embassy officials had to hold two meetings: one with

    people from the Ministry of Justice, the other with representatives of the

    Shah's court.

    In Tehran the American Ambassador's deputy, Minister Counselor Charles

    Naas, was personally setting up those meetings.

    In Washington, Henry Precht at the State Department was also talking to

    Ardeshir Zahedi. Emily Gaylord's brother-in-law, Tim Reardon, had spoken to

    Senator Kennedy. Admiral Moorer was working his contacts with the Iranian

    military government. The only disappointment in Washington had been Richard

    Helms, the former U.S. Ambassador to Tehran: he had said candidly that his

    old friends no longer had any influence.

    EDS consulted three separate Iranian lawyers. One was an American who

    specialized in representing U.S. corporations in Tehran. The other two were

    Iramans: one had good contacts in pro-Shah circles, the other was close to

    the dissidents. AD three had agreed that the way Paul and Bill had been

    jailed was highly irregular and that the bail was astronomical. The

    American, John Westherg, had said that the highest bail he had ever heard

    of in Iran was a hundred thousand dollars. The implication was that the

    magistrate who had jailed Paul and Bill was on weak ground.

    Here in Dallas, EDS's chief financial officer Tom Walter, the slow-talking

    Alabaman, was working on how EDS might-if necessary-go about posting bail

    of $12,750,000. The lawyers had advised him that bail could be in one of

    three forms: cash; a letter of credit drawn on an Iranian bank; or a lien

    on property in

82 Ken Follett

Iran. EDS had no property worth that much in Tehran--the computers actually

belonged to the Ministry--and with the Iranian banks on strike and the

country in turmoil, it was not possible to send in thirteen million dollars

in cash; so Walter was organizing a letter of credit. T. J. Marquez, whose

job it was to represent EDS to the investment community, had warned Perot

that it might not be legal for a public company to pay that much money in

what amounted to ransom. Perot deftly sidestepped that problem: he would pay

the money personally.

    Perot had been optimistic that he would get Paul and Bill out of jail in

    one of the three ways-legal pressure, political pressure, or by paying the

    bail.