On Wings of Eagles (49 page)

    Embassy flight."

"Rich will want to go with her," said Coburn.

"And that fucking dog," Simons added.

Bufly's life is saved, Coburn thought. He was rather glad.

    Simons said: "There's Keane Taylor, John Howell , Bob Yourig, and Bill

    Gayden. Here's the problem: Dadgar might pick people up at the airport, and

    we'll end up back where we started--with EDS men in jail. Who is at most

    risk?"

    "Gayden," said Cobm. "He's president of EDS World. As a hostage, he'd be

    better than Paul and Bill. In fact, when Dadgar arrested Bill Gaylord, we

    wondered whether it was a mistake, and he really wanted Bill Gayden, but

    got confused becaose of the similarity of the names."

"Gayden comes out overland with Paul and Bill, then."

    "John Howell is not even employed by EDS. And he's a lawyer. He should be

    all right."

"Howell goes out by air."

    "Bob Young is employed by EDS in Kuwait, not Iran. If Dadgar has a list of

    EDS names, Young won't be on it."

    "Young flies. Taylor drives. Now, one of us has to go on the evacuation

    flight with the Clean Tearn. Joe, that's you. You've

298 Ken Folleu

kept a lower profile, than Jay. He's been on the streets, at meetings at the

Hyatt-whereas nobody knows you're here."

    'Okay," said Poch6.

    "So the Clean Team is the Gallaghers, Bob Young, and John Howell, led by

    Joe. The Dirty Team is me, Jay, Keane Taylor, Bill Gayden, Paul, Bill, and

    two Iranian drivers. Let's go tell em. I I

    They went into the living room and everyone sat down. As Simons talked,

    Coburn admired how he announced his decision in such a way that they all

    thought they were being asked for their opinions rather than being told

    what to do.

    There was some discussion of who should be in which teamboth John Howell

    and Bob Young would have preferred to be in the Dirty Team, feeling

    themselves vulnerable to arrest by Dadgar--but in the end they all reached

    the decision Simons had already made.

    The Clean Team might as well move into the Embassy compound as soon as

    possible, Simons said. Gayden and Joe Poch6 went off to find Lou Goelz, the

    Consul General, and talk to him about it.

The Dirty Team would leave tomorrow morning.

    Coburn had to organize the Iranian drivers. These were to have been Majid

    and his cousin the professor, but the professor was in Rezaiyeh and could

    not get to Tehran, so Coburn had to find a replacement.

    He had already decided on Seyyed. Seyyed was a youtig Iranian systems.

    engineer like Rashid and the Cycle Man, but from a much wealthier family:

    relatives of his had been high in politics and the army under the Shah.

    Seyyed had been educated in England and spoke with a British accent. His

    great asset, from Coburn's point of view, was that he came from the

    northwest, so he knew the territory and he spoke Turkish.

    Coburn called Seyyed and they met at Seyyed's house. Coburn told him lies.

    "I need to gather intelligence on the roads between here and Khoy," Coburn

    said. "I'll need someone to drive me. Will you do it?"

"Sure," said Seyyed.

"Meet me at ten forty-five tonight at Argentine Square."

Seyyed agreed.

    Simons had instructed Coburn to go through all this. Coburn trusted Seyyed,

    but of course Simons did not; so Seyyed would not know where the team was

    staying until he got there, and he

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 299

would not know about Paul and Bill until he saw them; and from that moment

on he would not be out of Simons's sight.

    When Coburn returned to the Dvoranchik place, Gayden. and Poch6 were back

    from seeing Lou Goelz. They had told Goelz that a few EDS men were staying

    in Tehran to look for Paul and Bill, but the others wanted to leave on the

    first evacuation flight, and stay at the Embassy in the meantime. Goelz had

    said that the Embassy was full, but they could stay at his house.

    They all thought that was pretty damn good of Goelz. Most of them had got

    mad at him once or twice over the last two months, and had made it pretty

    clear that they blamed him and his colleagues for the arrest of Paul and

    Bill: it was big of him to open his house to them after all that. As

    everything came unglued in Iran, Goelz was becoming less of a bureaucrat

    and showing that his heart was in the right place.

    The Clean Team and the Dirty Team shook hands and wished each other luck,

    not knowing who needed it most; then the Clean Team left for Goelz's house.

    It was now evening. Coburn and Keane Taylor went to Majid's house to pick

    him up: he would spend the night at the Dvoranchik place like Seyyed.

    Coburn and Taylor also had to get a fifty-fivegallon drum of fuel that

    Majid had been keeping for them.

When they got to the house Majid was out.

    They waited, fretting. At last Majid came in. He greeted them, welcomed

    them to his home, called for tea, the whole nine yards. Eventually Coburn

    said: "We're leaving tomorrow morning. We want you to come with us now - "

    Majid asked Coburn to step into another room with him, then he said: "I

    can't go with you."

"Why not?"

"I have to kill Hoveyda."

"What?" said Coburn incredulously. "Who?"

"Amir Abbas Hoveyda, who used to be Prime Minister."

"Why do you have to kill him?"

    "It's a long story. The Shah had a land-reform program, and Hoveyda tried

    to take away my family's tribal lands, and we rebelled, and Hoveyda put me

    in jail ... I have been waiting all these years for my revenge."

"You have to kill him right away?" said Coburn, astonished.

    "I have the weapons and the opportunity. In two days' time all may be

    different."

300 Ken Follett

    Coburn was nonplussed. He did not know what to say. It was clear Majid

    could not be talked around.

    Coburn and Taylor manhandled the fuel drum into the back of the Range

    Rover, then took their leave. Majid wished them luck.

    Back at the Dvoranchik place, Coburn started trying to reach the Cycle Man,

    hoping he would replace Majid as driver. The Cycle Man was as elusive as

    Coburn himself. He could normally be reached at a certain phone number-some

    kind of revolutionary headquarters, Coburn suspected-just once a day. The

    regular time for him to drop by this place was now past--it was late in the

    evening--but Coburn tried anyway. The Cycle Man was not there. He tried a

    few more phone numbers without success.

At least they had Seyyed.

    At ten-thirty Coburn went out to meet Seyyed. He walked through the

    darkened streets to Argentine Square, a mile from the Dvoranchik place,

    then picked his way across a construction site and into an empty building

    to wait.

At eleven o'clock Seyyed had not arrived.

    Simons had told Coburn to wait fifteen minutes, no longer; but Coburn

    decided to give Seyyed a little more time.

He waited until eleven-thirty.

Seyyed was not coming.

    Coburn wondered what had happened: given Seyyed's family connections, it

    was quite possible he had fallen victim to the revolutionaries.

    For the Dirty Team this was a disaster. Now they had no Iranians to go with

    them. How the hell will we get through all those roadblocks? wondered

    Coburn. What a shitty break: the professor drops out, Majid drops out, the

    Cycle Man can't be found, then Seyyed drops out. Shit.

    He left the construction site and walked away. Suddenly he heard a car. He

    looked back, and saw a jeep full of armed revolutionaries swinging around

    the square. He ducked behind a convenient bush. They went by.

    He went on, hurrying now, wondering whether the curfew was in force

    tonight. He was almost home when the jeep came roaring back toward him.

    They saw me last time, he thought, and they've come back to pick me up.

    It was very dark. They might not have spotted him yet. He turned and ran

    back. There was no cover on this street. The noise of the jeep became

    louder. At last Coburn saw some

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 301

shrubbery and flung himself into it. He lay there listening to his heartbeat

as the jeep came closer. Were they looking for him? Had they picked up

Seyyed and tortured him, and made him confess that he had an appointment

with a capitalist American pig at Argentine Square at ten forty-five ... ?

The jeep went by without stopping.

Coburn picked himself up.

He ran all the way to the Dvoranchik place.

He told Simons they now had no Iranian drivers.

Simons cursed. "Is there another Iranian we can call?"

"Only one. Rashid."

    Simons did not want to use Rashid, Coburn knew, because Rashid had led the

    jailbreak, and if someone who remembered him from that should see him

    driving a carload of Americans, there might be trouble. But Coburn could

    not think of anyone else.

"Okay," said Simons. "Call him."

Coburn dialed Rashid's number.

He was at home!

"This is Jay Coburn. I need your help."

"Sure. 11

    Coburn did not want to give the address of the hideout over the phone, in

    case the line was wiretapped. He recalled that Bill Dvoranchik had a slight

    squint. He said: "You remember the guy with the funny eye?"

"With a funny eye? Oh, yeah-"

"Don't say his name. Remember where he used to live?"

"Sure.-"

"Don't say it. That's where I am. I need you here."

    "Jay, I live miles from there and I don't know how I'm going to get across

    the city-"

    "Just try," Coburn said. He knew how resourceful Rashid was. Give him a

    task and he just hated to fad. "You'll get here.11

- 'Okay.

"Thanks." Coburn hung up.

It was midnight.

    Paul and Bill had each picked a passport from the ones Gayden had brought

    from the States, and Simons had made them learn the names, dates of birth,

    personal details, and all the visas and country stamps. The photograph in

    Paul's passport looked more or less like Paul, but Bill's was a problem.

    None of them

302 Ken Follett

was right, and he ended up with the passport of Larry Humphreys, a blond,

rather Nordic type who really did not look like Bill.

    The tension mounted as the six men discussed details of the journey they

    would begin within the next few hours. There was fighting in Tabriz,

    according to Rich Gallagher's military contacts; so they would stick to the

    plan of taking the low road, south of Lake Rezaiyeh, passing through

    Mahabad. The story they would tell, if questioned, would be as close to the

    truth as possible,always Simons's preference when lying. They would say

    they were businessmen who wanted to get home to their families, the airport

    was closed, and they were driving to Turkey.

    In support of that story, they would carry no weapons. It was a difficult

    decision-they knew they might regret being unarmed and helpless in the

    middle of a revolution-but Simons and Coburn had found, on the

    reconnaissance trip, that the revolutionaries at the roadblocks always

    searched for weapons. Simons's instinct told him they would be better off

    talking their way out of trouble than trying to shoot their way out.

    They also decided to leave behind the fifty-five-gallon fuel drums, on the

    grounds that they made the team look too professional, too organized, for

    businessmen quietly driving home.

    They would, however, take a lot of money. Joe Poch6 and the Clean Team had

    gone off with fifty thousand dollars, but Simons's crew still had around a

    quarter of a million dollars, some of it in Iranian rials, deutschmarks,

    sterling, and gold. They packed fifty thousand dollars into kitchen

    baggies, weighted the bags with shot, and put them in a gas can. They hid

    some in a Kleenex box and more in the battery hold of a flashlight. They

    passed the rest out for each to conceal about his person.

    At one o'clock Rashid still had not arrived. Simons sent Coburn to stand at

    the street gate and watch for him.

    Coburn stood in the darkness, shivering, hoping Rashid would show up. They

    would leave tomorrow, with or without him, but without him they might not

    get far. The villagers in the countryside would probably detain Americans

    just on general principles. Rashid would be the ideal guide, despite

    Simons's worries: the kid had a silver tongue.

    Coburn's thoughts turned to home. Liz was mad at him, that he knew.'She had

    been giving Merv Stauffer a hard time, calling every day and asking where

    her husband was and what he was doing and when he was coming home.

Coburn knew he would have to make some decisions when he

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 303