On Wings of Eagles (19 page)

    systems. Six times that day he had come out of the battle zone with a full

    load of troops. It had been a good day: not a shot had been fired at his

    helicopter.

The seventh time was different.

    A burst of 12.75 fire hit the aircraft and severed the tail-rotor drive

    shaft.

    When the main rotor of a helicopter turns, the body of the aircraft has a

    natural tendency to turn in the same directiQn. The function of the tail

    rotor is to counteract this tendency. If the tail rotor stops, the

    helicopter starts spinning.

    Immediately after takeoff, when the aircraft is only a few feet off the

    ground, the pilot can deal with tail-rotor loss by landing again before the

    spinning becomes too fast. Later, when the aircraft is at cruising height

    and normal flying speed, the flow of wind across the fuselage is strong

    enough to prevent the helicopter turning. But Coburn was at a height of 150

    feet, the worst possible position, too high to land quickly but not yet

    traveling fast enough for the wind flow to stabilize the fuselage.

    The standard procedure was a simulated engine stall. Coburn had learned and

    rehearsed the routine at flying school, and he went into it instinctively,

    but it did not work: the aircraft was already spinning too fast.

    Within seconds he was so dizzy he had no idea where he was. He was unable

    to do anything to cushion the crash landing. The helicopter came down on

    its right skid (he learned afterward) and one of the rotor blades flexed

    down under the impact, slicing through the fuselage and into the head of

    his copilot, who died instantly.

    Coburn smelled fuel and unstrapped himself. That was when he realized he

    was upside down, for he fell on his head. But he

116 Ken Follett

got out of the aircraft, his only injury a few compressed neck vertebrae.

His crew chief also survived.

    The crew had been belted in, but the seven troops in the back had not. The

    helicopter had no doors, and the centrifugal force of the spin had thrown

    them out at a height of more than a hundred feet. They were all dead.

Coburn was twenty years old at the time.

    A few weeks later he took a bullet in the calf, the most vulnerable part of

    a helicopter pilot, who sits in an armored seat but leaves his lower legs

    exposed.

    He had been angry before, but now he just had the ass. Pissed off with

    being shot at, he went in to his commanding officer and demanded to be

    assigned to gunships so that he could kill some of those bastards down

    there who were trying to kill him.

His request was granted.

    That was the point at which smiling Jay Coburn had turned into a

    cool-headed, cold-hearted professional soldier. He made no close friends in

    the army. If someone in the unit was wounded, Coburn would shrug and say:

    "Well, that's what he gets combat pay for." He suspected his comrades

    thought he was a little sick. He did not care. He was happy flying

    gunships. Every time he strapped himself in, he knew he was going out there

    to kill or be killed. Clearing out areas in advance of ground troops,

    knowing that women and children and innocent civilians were getting hurt,

    Coburn just closed his mind and opened fire.

    Eleven years later, looking back, he could think: I was an animal.

    Schwebach and Pochd, the two quietest men in the room, would understand:

    they had been there, they knew how it had been. The others did not:

    Sculley, Boulware, Jackson, and Davis. If this rescue turns nasty, Coburn

    wondered again, how will they make out?

The door opened, and Simons came in.

The room fell silent as Simons walked to the head of the conference table.

He's a big son of a bitch, Coburn thought.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 117

    T. J. Marquez and Merv Stauffer came in after Simons and sat near the door.

    Simons threw a black plastic suitcase into a comer, dropped into a chair,

    and lit a small cigar.

    He was casually dressed in a shirt and pants-no tie-and his hair was long

    for a colonel. He looked more like a farmer than a soldier, Coburn thought.

He said: "I'm Colonel Simons."

    Coburn expected him to say, I'm in charge, listen to me and do what I say,

    this is my plan.

Instead, he started asking questions.

    He wanted to know all about Tehran: the weather, the traffic, what the

    buildings were made of, the people in the streets, the numbers of policemen

    and how they were armed.

    He was interested in every detail. They told him that all the police were

    armed except the traffic cops. How could you distinguish them? By their

    white hats. They told him there were blue cabs and orange cabs. What was

    the difference? The blue cabs had fixed routes and fixed fares. Orange cabs

    would go anywhere, in theory, but usually when they pulled up there was

    already a passenger inside, and the driver would ask which way you were

    headed. If you were going his way you could get in, and note the amount

    already on the meter; then when you got out you paid the increase: the

    system was an endless source of arguments with cabbies.

    Simons asked where, exactly, the jail was located. Merv Stauffer went to

    find street maps of Tehran. What did the building look like? Joe Poch6 and

    Ron Davis both remembered driving past it. Poch6 sketched it on an easel

    pad.

    Coburn sat back and watched Simons work. Picking the men's brains was only

    half of what he was up to, Coburn realized. Coburn had been an EDS

    recruiter for years, and he knew a good interviewing technique when he saw

    it. Simons was sizing up each man, watching reactions, testing for common

    sense. Like a recruiter, he asked a lot of open-ended questions, often

    following with "Why?," giving people an opportunity to reveal themselves,

    to brag or bullshit or show signs of anxiety.

Coburn wondered whether Simons would flunk any of them.

At one point he said: "Who is prepared to die doing this?"

Nobody said a word.

    "Good," said Simons. "I wouldn't take anyone who was planning on dying."

118 Ken Follett

    Hyatt Crown

    Regan- 11--'...

    Mehrabad

    International

Z~Airport

ON WINGS OF EAGLES 119

120 Ken Follett

    The discussion went on for hours. Simons broke it up soon after midnight.

    It was clear by then that they did not know enough about the jail to begin

    planning the rescue. Coburn was deputized to find out more overnight: he

    would make some phone calls to Tehran.

    Simons said: "Can you ask people about the jail without letting them know

    why you want the information?"

"I'll be discreet," Coburn said.

    Simons turned to Merv Stauffer. "We'll need a secure place for us all to

    meet. Somewhere that isn't connected with EDS.-

"What about the hotel?"

"The walls ard thin."

    Stauffer considered for a moment. "Ross has a little house at Lake

    Grapevine, out toward DFW Airport. There won't be anyone out there swimming

    or fishing in this weather, that's for sure. 11

Simons looked dubious.

    Stauffer said: "Why don't I drive you out there in the morning so you can

    look it over?"

    "Okay." Simons stood up. "We've done all we can at this point in the game."

They began to drift out.

    As they were leaving, Simons asked Davis for a word in private.

"You ain't so goddam tough, Davis."

Ron Davis stared at Simons in surprise.

"What makes you think you're a tough guy?" Simons said.

    Davis was floored. All evening Simons had been polite, reasonable,

    quiet-spoken. Now he was making like he wanted to fight. What was

    happening?

    Davis thought of his martial arts expertise, and of the three muggers he

    had disposed of in Tehran, but he said: "I don't consider myself a tough

    guy."

    Simons acted as if he had not heard. "Against a pistol your karate is no

    bloody good whatsoever."

"I guess not-"

    "This team does not need any ba-ad black bastards spoiling for a fight."

    Davis began to see what this was all about. Keep cool, he told himself. "I

    did not volunteer for this because I want to fight people, Colonel, I--

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 121

"Then why did you volunteer?"

    "Because I know Paul and Bill and their wives and children and I want to

    help."

Simons nodded dismissively. "I'll see you tomorrow.

Davis wondered whether that meant he had passed the test.

In the afternoon on the next day, January 3, 1979, they all met at Perot's

weekend house on the shore of Lake Grapevine.

    The two or three other houses nearby appeared empty, as Merv Stauffer had

    predicted. Perot's house was screened by several acres of rough woodland,

    and had lawns running down to the water's edge. It was a compact woodframe

    building, quite small--the garage for Perot's speedboats was bigger than

    the house.

    The door was locked and nobody had thought to bring the keys. Schwebach

    picked a window lock and let them in.

    There was a living room, a couple of bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom.

    The place was cheerfully decorated in blue and white, with inexpensive

    furniture.

    The men sat around the living room with their maps and easel pads and magic

    markers and cigarettes. Coburn reported. Overnight he had spoken to Majid

    and two or three other people in Tehran. It had been difficult, trying to

    get detailed information about the jail while pretending to be only mildly

    curious, but he thought he had succeeded.

    The jail was part of the Ministry of Justice complex, which occupied a

    whole city block, he had learned. The jail entrance was at the rear of the

    block. Next to the entrance was a courtyard, separated from the street only

    by a twelve-foot-high fence of iron railings. This courtyard was the

    prisoners' exercise area. Clearly it was also the prison's weak point.

Simons agreed.

    All they had to do, then, was wait for an exercise period, get over the

    fence, grab Paul and Bill, bring them back over the fence, and get out of

    Iran.

They got down to details.

    How would they get over the fence? Would they use ladders, or climb on each

    other's shoulders?

    They would arrive in a van, they decided, and use its roof as a step.

    Traveling in a van rather than a car had another advantage: nobody would be

    able to see inside while they were driving to-and, more importantly, away

    from-the jail.

122 Ken Follett

    Joe PocM was nominated driver because he knew the streets of Tehran best.

    How would they deal with the prison guards? They did not want to kill

    anyone. They had no quarrel with the Iranian man in the street, or with the

    guards: it was not the fault of those people that Paul and Bill were

    unjustly imprisoned. Furthermore, if there was any killing" the subsequent

    hue and cry would be worse, making escape from Iran more hazardous.

But the prison guards would not hesitate to shoot them.

    'Me best defense, Simons said, was a combination of surprise, shock, and

    speed.

    They would have the advantage of surprise. For a few seconds the prison

    guards would not understand what was happening.

    Then the rescuers would have to do something to make the guards take cover.

    Shotgun fire would be best. A shotgun would make a big flash and a lot of

    noise, especially in a city street: the shock would cause the guards to

    react defensively instead of attacking the rescuers. That would give them

    a few more seconds.

With speed, those seconds might be enough.

And then they might not.

    The room filled with tobacco smoke as the plan took shape. Simons sat

    there, chain-smoking his little cigars, listening, asking questions,

    guiding the discussion. This was a very democratic army, Coburn thought. As

    they got involved in the plan, his friends were forgetting about their

    wives and children, their mortgages, their lawn mowers and station wagons;

    forgetting, too, how outrageous was the very idea of their snatching

    prisoners out of a jail. Davis stopped clowning; Sculley no longer seemed

    boyish but became very cold and calculating; Poch6 wanted to talk

    everything to death, as usual; Boulware was skeptical, as usual.

    Afternoon wore into evening. They decided the van would pull onto the

    sidewalk beside the iron railings. This sort of parking would not be in the

    least remarkable in Tehran, they told Simons. Simons would be sitting in

    the front seat, beside Poch6, with a shotgun beneath his coat. He would