On Wings of Eagles (27 page)

    follow his deepest instincts, and go? It was a moral dilemma. He had

    discussed it with his mother.

    She knew she was dying. And she knew that, even if Perot should come back

    alive and well after a few days, she might no longer be there. Cancer was

    rapidly destroying her body, but there was nothing wrong with her mind, and

    her sense of right and wrong was as clear as ever. "You don't have a

    choice, Ross," she had said. "They're your men. You sent them over

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 167

there. They didn't do anything wrong. Our government won't help them. You

are responsible for diem. It's up to you to get them out. You have to go."

    So here he was, feeling that he was doing the right thing, if not the smart

    thing.

    The Lew jet left the desert behind and climbed over the mountains of

    western Iran. Unlike Simons and Coburn and Poch6, Perot was a stranger to

    physical danger. He had been too young for World War R and too old for

    Vietnam, and the Korean War had finished while Ensign Perot was on his way

    there aboard the destroyer USS Sigourney. He had been shot at just once,

    during the prisoners-of-war campaign, landing in a jungle in Laos aboard an

    ancient DC3: he had heard pinging noises but had not realized the aircraft

    had been hit until after it landed. His most hightening experience, since

    the days of the Texarkana paper-route thieves, had been in another plane

    over Laos, when a door right next to his seat fell off. He had been asleep.

    When he woke up he looked for a light for a second, before realizing he was

    leaning out of the aircraft. Fortunately he had been strapped in.

He was not sitting next to a door today.

    He looked through the window and saw, in a bowl-shaped depression in the

    mountains, the city of Tehran, a mud-colored sprawl dotted with white

    skyscrapers. The plane began to lose height.

    Okay, he thought, now we're coming down. It's time to start thinking and

    using your head, Perot.

    As the plane landed he felt tense, wired, alert: he was pumping adrenaline.

    The plane taxied to a halt. Several soldiers with machine guns slung over

    their shoulders ambled casually across the tarmac.

    Perot got out. The pilot opened the baggage hold and handed him the net bag

    of tapes.

    Perot and the pilot walked across the tarmac. Howell and Young followed,

    carrying their suitcases.

    Perot felt grateful for his inconspicuous appearance. He thought of a

    Norwegian friend, a tall, blond Adonis who complained of looking too

    impressive. "You're lucky, Ross," he would say. "When you walk into a room

    no one notices you. When people see me, they expect too much-1 can't live

    up to their expectations." No one would ever take him for a messenger boy.

    But

168 Ken Folleu

Perot, with his short stature and homely face and off-the-rack clothes,

could be convincing in the part.

    They entered the terminal. Perot told himself that the military, which was

    running the airport, and the Ministry of Justice, for which Dadgar worked,

    were two separate government bureaucracies; and if one of them knew what

    the other was doing, or whom it was seeking, why, this would have to be the

    most efficient operation in the history of government.

He walked up to the desk and showed his passport.

It was stamped and handed back to him.

He walked on.

He was not stopped by customs.

    The pilot showed him where to leave the bag of television tapes. Perot put

    them down, then said goodbye to the pilot.

    He turned around and saw another tall, distinguished-looking friend: Keane

    Taylor. Perot liked Taylor.

"Hi, Ross, how did it go?" Taylor said.

    "Great," Perot said with a smile. "They weren't looking for the ugly

    American."

    They walked out of the airport. Perot said: "Are you satisfied that I

    didn't send you back here for any administrative b.s.?"

1.1 sure am," Taylor said.

They got into Taylor's car. Howell and Young got in the back.

    As they pulled away, Taylor said: "I'm going to take an indirect route. to

    avoid the worst of the riots."

Perot did not find this reassuring.

    The road was lined with tall, half-finished concrete buildings with cranes

    on top. Work seemed to have stopped. Looking closely, Perot saw that people

    were living in the shells. It seemed an apt symbol of the way the Shah had

    tried to modernize Iran too quickly.

    Taylor was m1king about cars. He had stashed all EDS's cars in a school

    playground and hired some Iranians to guard them, but he had discovered

    that the Iranians were busy running a used car lot, selling the damn

    things.

    There were long lines at every gas station, Perot noticed. He found that

    ironic in a country rich in oil. As well as cars, there were people in the

    queues, holding cans. "What are they doing?" Perot asked. "If they don't

    have cars, why do they need gas?"

    "They sell it to the highest bidder," Taylor explained. "Or you can rent an

    Iranian to stand in line for you."

They were stopped briefly at a roadblock. Driving on, they

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 169

passed several burning cars. A lot of civilians were standing around with

machine guns. The scene was peaceful for a mile or two, then Perot saw more

burning cars more machine guns, another roadblock. Such sights ought to

liave been frightening, but somehow they were not. It seemed to Perot that

the people were just enjoying letting loose for a change, now that the

Shah's iron grip was at last being relaxed. Certainly the military was doing

nothing to maintain order, as far as he could see.

    There was always something weird about seeing violence as a tourist. He

    recalled flying over Laos in a light plane and watching people fighting on

    the ground: he had felt tranquil, detached. He supposed that battle was

    like that: it might be fierce if you were in the middle of it, but five

    minutes away nothing was happening.

    They drove into a huge circle with a monument in its center that looked

    like a spaceship of the far future, towering over the traffic on four

    gigantic splayed legs. "What is that?" said Perot.

    "The Shahyad Monument," Taylor said. "There's a museum in the top."

    A few minutes later they pulled into the forecourt of the Hyatt Crown

    Regency. "This is a new hotel," Taylor said. "They just opened it, poor

    bastards. It's good for us, though-wonderful food, wine, music in the

    restaurant in the evenings ... We're living like kings in a city that's

    falling apart."

    They went into the lobby and took the elevator. "You don't have to check

    in," Taylor told Perot. "Your suite is in my name. No sense in having your

    name written down anywhere."

"Right."

    They got out, at the eleventh floor. "We've all got rooms along this hall,"

    Taylor said. He unlocked a door at the far end of the corridor.

    Perot walked in, glanced around, and smiled. "Would you look at this?" The

    sitting room was vast. Next to,it was a large bedroom. He looked into the

    bathroom: it was big enough for a cocktail party.

"Is it all right?" Taylor said with a grin.

    "If you'd seen the room I had last night in Amman, you wouldn't bother to

    ask. "

Taylor left him to settle in.

    Perot went to the window and looked out. His suite was at the front of the

    hotel, so he could look down and see the forecourt. I

170 Ken Follett

might hope to have warning, he thought, if a squad of soldiers or a

revolutionary mob comes for me.

But what would I do?

    He decided to map an emergency escape route. He left his suite and walked

    up and down the corridor. There were several empty rooms with unlocked

    doors. At either end was an exit to a staircase. He went down the stairs to

    the floor below. There were more empty rooms, some without furniture or

    decoration: the hotel was unfinished, like so many buildings in this town.

    I could take this staircase down, he thought, and if I heard them coming up

    I could duck back into one of the corridors and hide in an empty room. That

    way I could get to ground level.

    He walked all the way down the stairs and explored the ground floor.

    He wandered through several banqueting rooms that he supposed were unused

    most, if not all, of the time. There was a labyrinth of kitchens with a

    thousand hiding places: he particularly noted some empty food containers

    big enough for a small man to climb into. From the banqueting area he could

    reach the health club at the back of the hotel. It was pretty fancy, with

    a sauna and a pool. He opened a door at the rear and found himself outside,

    in the hotel parking lot. Here he could take an EDS car and disappear into

    the city, or walk to the next hotel, the Evin, or just run into the forest

    of unfinished skyscrapers that began on the far side of the parking lot.

    He reentered the hotel and took the elevator. As he rode up, he resolved

    always to dress casually in Tehran. He had brought with him khaki pants and

    some checkered flannel shirts, and he also had a jogging outfit. He could

    not help looking American, with his pale, clean-shaven face and blue eyes

    and ultra-short crewcut; but, if he should find himself on the run, he

    could at least make sure he did not look like an important American, much

    less the multimillionaire owner of Electronic Data Systems Corporation.

    He went to find Taylor's room and get a briefing. He wanted to go to the

    American Embassy and talk to Ambassador Sullivan; he wanted to go to the

    headquarters of MAAG, the U.S. Military Assistance and Advisory Group, and

    see General Huyser and General Gast; he wanted to get Taylor and John

    Howell hyped up to put a bomb under Dadgar's tail; he wanted to move, to

    go, to get this problem solved, to get Paul and Bill out, andfast.

    He banged on Taylor's door and walked in. "Okay, Keane," he said. "Bring me

    up to speed."

    S LX

John Howell was born in the ninth minute of the ninth hour of the ninth day

of the ninth month of 1946, his mother often said.

    He was a short, small man with a bouncy walk. His fine light brown hair was

    receding early, he had a slight squint, and his voice was faintly hoarse,

    as if he had a permanent cold. He spoke very slowly and blinked a lot.

    Thirty-two years old, he was an associate in Tom Luce's Dallas law firm.

    Like so many of the people around Ross Perot, Howell had achieved a

    responsible position at a young age. His greatest asset as a lawyer was

    stamina-"John wins by outworking the opposition," Luce would say. Most

    weekends Howell would spend either Saturday or Sunday at the office,

    tidying up loose ends, finishing tasks that had been interrupted by the

    phone, and preparing for the week ahead. He would get frustrated when

    family activities deprived him of that sixth working day. In addition, he

    often worked late into the evening and missed dinner at home, which

    sometimes made his wife, Angela, unhappy.

    Like Perot, Howell was born in Texarkana. Like Perot, he was short in

    stature and long on guts. Nevertheless, at midday on January 14 he was

    scared. He was about to meet Dadgar.

    The previous afternoon, immediately after arriving in Tehran, Howell had

    met with Ahmad Houman, EDS's new local attorney. Dr. Houman had advised him

    not to meet Dadgar, at least not yet: it was perfectly possible that Dadgar

    intended to arrest all the EDS Americans he could find, and that might

    include lawyers.

    Howell had found Hournan impressive. A big, rotund man in his sixties, well

    dressed by Iranian standards, he was a former president of the Iran Bar

    Association. Although his English was

    171

172 Ken Follett

not good-French was his second language-he seemed confident and

knowledgeable.

    Hournan's advice jelled with Howell's instinct. He always liked to prepare

    very thoroughly for any kind of confrontation. He believed in the old maxim

    of trial lawyers: never ask a question unless you already know the answer.

    Houman's advice was reinforced by Bunny Fleischaker. An American girl with

    Iranian friends in the Ministry of Justice, Bunny had warned Jay Coburn,

    back in December, that Paul and Bill were going to be arrested, but at the

    time no one had believed her. Events had given her retrospective

    credibility, and she was taken seriously when, early in January, she called

    Rich Gallagher's home at eleven o'clock one evening.

    The conversation had reminded Gallagher of the phone calls in the movie All