On Wings of Eagles (35 page)

    The form had his name at the top-

    The girl took the yellow sheet, opened his passport, stamped it, and handed

    it back without looking at him. She returned to her book immediately.

Perot walked into the departure lounge.

The flight was delayed.

    He sat down. He was on tenterhooks. At any moment the girl could finish her

    book, or just get bored with it, and start checking the stop list against

    the names on the yellow forms. Then, he imagined, they would come for him,

    the police or the military or Dadgar's investigators, and he would go to

    jail, and Margot would be like Ruthie and Emily, not knowing whether she

    would ever see her husband again.

    He checked the departures board every few seconds: it just said "Delayed. -

He sat on the edge of his chair for the first hour.

    Then he began to feel resigned. If they were going to catch him they would,

    and there was nothing he could do about it. He started to read a magazine.

    Over the next hour he

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 217

read everything in his briefcase. Then he started talking to the man sitting

next to him. Perot learned that the man was an English engineer working in

Iran on a project for a large British company. They chatted for a while,

then swapped magazines.

    In a few hours, Perot thought, r1l be in a beautiful hotel suite with

    Margot-.or in an Iranian jail. He pushed the thought from his mind.

    Lunchtime went by, and the afternoon wore on. He began to believe they were

    not going to come for him.

The flight was finally called at six o'clock.

Perot stood up. If they come for me now ...

    He joined the crowd and approached the departure gate. There was a security

    check. He was frisked, and waved through.

    I've almost made it, he thought as he boarded the plane. He sat between two

    fat people in an economy seat-it was an all-economy flight. I think I've

    made it.

The doors were closed and the plane began to move.

It taxied onto the runway and gathered speed.

The plane took off.

He had made it.

He had always been lucky.

    His thoughts turned to Margot. She was handling this crisis the way she had

    handled the prisoners-of-war adventures: she understood her husband's

    concept of duty and she never complained. That was why he could stay

    focused on what he had to do, and block out negative thoughts that would

    excuse inaction. He was lucky to have her. He thought of all the lucky

    things that had happened to him: good parents, getting into the Naval

    Academy, meeting Margot, having such fine children, starting EDS, getting

    good people to work for him, brave people like the volunteers he had left

    behind in Iran ...

    He wondered superstitiously whether an individual had a certain limited

    quantity of luck in his life. He saw his luck as sand in an hourglass,

    slowly but steadily running out. What happens, he thought, when it's all

    gone?

    The plane descended toward Kuwait. He was out of Iranian airspace-he had

    escaped.

    While the plane was refueling he walked to the open door and stood there,

    breathing the fresh air and ignoring the stewardess who kept asking him to

    return to his seat. There was a nice

218 Ken Follen

breeze blowing across the tarmac, and it was a relief to get away from the

fat people sitting on either side of him. The stewardess eventually gave

up and went to do something else. He watched the sun go down. Luck, he

thought; I wonder how much I've got left?

    EiGHT

The rescue team in Tehran now consisted of Simons, Coburn, Pocht, Sculley,

and Schwebach. Simons decided that Boulware, Davis, and Jackson would not

come to Tehran. The idea of rescuing Paul and Bill by frontal assault was

now dead, so he did not need such a big team. He sent Glenn Jackson to

Kuwait, to investigate that end of the southerly route out of Iran. Boulware

and Davis went back to the States to await further orders.

    Majid reported to Coburn that General Mohari , the man in charge of the

    Gasr Prison, was not easily corruptible, but had two daughtm at school in

    the United States. The team briefly discussed kidnappirig the girls and

    forcing Mohan to help Paul and Bill escape; but they rejected the idea.

    (Perot hit the roof when he learned they had even discussed it.) The idea

    of sneaking Paul and Bill out in the hunk of a car was put on the back

    burner for a while.

    For two or three days they concentrated on what they would do if Paul and

    Bill were released under house arrest. They went to look at the houses the

    two men had occupied before the arrest. The snatch would be easy unless

    Dadgar put Paul and Bill under surveillance. The team would use two cars,

    they decided. The first car would pick up Paul and Bill. The second,

    following at a distance, would contain Sculley and Schwebach , who would be

    responsible for elimmating anyone who tried to tail the first car. Once

    again, the deadly duo would do the killing.

    The two cars would keep in touch by shortwave radio, they decided. Coburn

    called Merv Stauffer in Dallas and ordered the equipment. Boulware would

    take the radios to London: Schwebach and Sculley went to London to meet him

    and pick them up. While in London, the deadly duo would try to get hold of

    some

    219

220 Ken Follett

good maps of Iran, for use during the escape from the country, should the

team have to leave by road. (No good maps of the Fountry were to be found in

Tehran, as the Jeep Club had learned in happier days: Gayden said Persian

maps were at the "Turn left by the dead horse" level.)

    Simons wanted also to prepare for the third possibility--4hat Paul and Bill

    would be released by a mob storming the prison. What should the team do in

    that eventuality? Coburn was continuously monitoring the situation in the

    city, calling his contacts in U.S. military intelligence and several

    trustworthy Iranian employees: if the prison were overrun he would know

    very quickly. What then? Someone would have to look for Paul and Bill and

    bring them to safety. But a bunch of Americans driving into the middle of

    a riot would be asking for trouble: Paul and Bill would be safer mingling

    inconspicuously with the crowd of escaping prisoners. Simons told Coburn to

    speak to Paul about this possibility the next time he visited the jail, and

    instruct Paul to head for the Hyatt Hotel.

    However, an Iranian could go looking for Paul and Bill in the riots. Simons

    asked Coburn to recommend an Iranian employee of EDS who was really

    street-smart.

Coburn thought immediately of Rashid.

    He was a dark-skinned, rather good-looking twenty-three-yearold from an

    affluent Tehran family. He had completed EDS's training program for systems

    engineers. He was intelligent and resourceful, and he had bags of charm.

    Coburn recalled the last time Rashid had demonstrated his talent

    forimprovisation. Ministry of Health employees who were on partial strike

    had refused to key the data for the payroll system, but Rashid had got all

    the input together, taken it down to Bank Omran, talked someone there into

    keying the data, then run the program on the Ministry computer. The trouble

    with Rashid was that you had to keep an eye on him, because he never

    consulted anyone before implementing his unconventional ideas. Getting the

    data keyed the way he had constituted strikebreaking, and might have got

    EDS into big trouble-indeed, when Bill had heard about it he had been more

    anxious than pleased. Rashid was excitable and impulsive, and his English

    was not so good, so he tended to dash off and do his own crazy thing

    without telling anyone-a tendency that made his managers nervous. But he

    always got away with it. He could talk his way into and out of anything. At

    the airport, meeting people or seeing them off, he always managed

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 221

to pass through all the "Passengers Only" barriers even though he never had

a boarding card, ticket, or passport to show. Coburn knew him. well, and

liked him enough to have brought him home for supper several times. Coburn

also trusted him completely, especially since the strike, when Rashid had

been one of Coburn's informants among the hostile Iranian employees.

    However, Simons would not trust Rashid on Coburn's say-so. Just as he had

    insisted on meeting Keane Taylor before letting him in on the secret, so he

    would want to talk to Rashid.

So Coburn arranged a meeting.

When Rashid was eight years old he had wanted to be President of the United

States.

    At twenty-three he knew he could never be President, but he stili wanted to

    go to America, and EDS was going to be his ticket. He knew he had it in him

    to be a great businessman. He was a student of the psychology of the human

    being, and it had not taken him long to understand the mentality of EDS

    people. They wanted results, not excuses. If you were given a task, it was

    always better to do a little more than was expected. If for some reason the

    task was difficult, or even impossible, it was best not to say so: they

    hated to hear people whining about problems. You never said: "I can't do

    that because . You always said: "This is the progress I have made so far,

    and this is the problem I am working on right now . . ." It so happened

    that these attitudes suited Rashid perfectly. He had made himself useful to

    EDS, and he knew the company appreciated iL

    His greatest achievement had been installing computer terimnals in offices

    where the Iranian staff were suspicious and hostile. So great was the

    resistance that Pat Sculley had been able to install no more than two per

    month: Rashid had installed the remaining eighteen in two months. He had

    planned to capitalize on this. He had composed a letter to Ross Perot,

    who--he understood--was the head of EDS, asking to be allowed to complete

    his training in Dallas. He had intended to ask all the EDS managers in

    Tehran to sip the letter. but events had overtaken him, most of the

    managers had been evacuated, and EDS in Iran was falling to pieces; and he

    never mailed the letter. So he would think of something else.

    He could always find a way . Everything was possible for Rashid. He could

    do anything. He had even got out of the army. At a time when thousands of

    young middle-class Iranians were

222 Ken FolkU

spending fortunes in bribes to avoid military service, Rashid, after a few

weeks in uniform, had convinced the doctors that he was incurably ill with

a twitching disease. His comrades and the officers over him knew that he was

in perfect health, but every time he saw the doctor he twitched

uncontrollably. He went before medical boards and twitched for hours-an

absolutely exhausting business, he discovered. Finally, so many doctors had

certified him M that he got his discharge papers. It was crazy, ridiculous,

impossible--but doing the impossible was Rashid's normal practice.

    So he bjew that he would go to America. He did not know how, but careful

    and elaborate planning was not his style anyway. He was a

    spur-of-the-moment man, an unproviser, an opportunist. ths chance would

    come and he would seize it.

    Mr. Simons interested him. He was not like the other EDS managers. They

    were all in their thirties or forties, but Simons was nearer to sixty. His

    long hair and white whiskers and big nose seemed more Iranian than

    American. Finally, he did not come right out with whatever was on his mind.

    People like Sculley and Coburn would say: "This is the situation and this

    is what I want you to do and you need to have it done by tomorrow morning

    . . . " Simons just said: "Let's go for a walk."

    They strolled around the streets of Tehran. Rashid found himself talking

    about his family, his work at EDS, and his views on the psychology of the

    human being. They could hear continual shooting, and the streets were alive

    with people marching and chanting. Everywhere they saw the wreckage of past

    battles, overturned cars and burned-out buildings. "The Marxists smash up

    expensive cars and the Muslims trash the liquor stores,

Rashid told Simons.

"Why is this happening?" Simons asked him.

    "This is the time for Iranians to prove themselves, to accomplish tbeir

    ideas, and to gain their freedom."

    They found themselves in Gasr Square, facing the prison. Rashid said:

    "There are many Iranians in these jails simply because they ask for

    freedom. "

    Simons pointed at the crowd of women in chadors. "What are they doing?"