On Wings of Eagles (64 page)

    or killed?

    Coburn did not know whether there was any real chance of Paul and Bill

    getting into trouble hem in Frankfurt, but he did know the value of

    Simons's elaborate precautions. Much of what Simons had planned, over the

    past seven weeks, had come to nothing: the attack on the fust jail, the

    idea of snatching Paul and Bill from house arrest, the route out via

    Kuwait. But then, some of the contingencies for which Simons planned had

    come to pus, often the most farfetched ones: the Gasr Prison had been

    stormed and Rashid was there; the road to Sero, which Simons and Coburn had

    carefully reconnoitered, had in the end been their route out; even making

    Paul and Bill learn all the inforniation on their false passports had

    turned out to be crucial when the man in the long black overcoat started

    asking questions. Coburn needed no convincing: whatever Simons said was

    okay with him.

    They went down to the movie house. There were three films: two were prono

    movies and the third was Jaws 11. Bill and Taylor got Jaws 11. Paul and

    Coburn went in to see something about naked South Sea maidens.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 393

    Paul sat staring at the screen, bored and fired. The movie was in German,

    not that the dialogue appeared to count for much. What could be worse, he

    thought, than a bad X-rated movie? Suddenly he heard a loud snort. He

    looked at Coburn.

Coburn was fast asleep, snoring.

When John Howell and the rest of the Clean Team landed at Frankfurt, Simons

had everything set up for a quick turnaround.

    Ron Davis was at the arrival gate, waiting to pun the Clean Team out of the

    line and direct them to another gate where the Boeing 707 was parked. Ralph

    Boulware was watching from a distance: as soon as he saw the first member

    of the Clean Team arrive, he would go down to the movie theater and tell

    Sculley to round up the guys inside. Jim Schwebach was in the roped-off

    press area, where reporters were waiting to see the American evactWes. He

    was sitting next to writer Pierre Salinger (who did not know how close he

    was to a realty good story) and pretending to read a furniture

    advertisement in a German newspaper. Schwebach's job was to tail the Clean

    Team from one gate to the other, just to make sure no one was following

    them. If there was trouble, Schwebach and Davis would start a disturbance.

    It would not matter much if they were arrested by the Germans, for there

    was no reason for them to be extradited to Iran.

    The plan went like clockwork. There was only one hitch: Rich and Cathy

    Gallagher did not want to go to Dallas. They had no friends or farmly

    there, they were not sure what their future would be, they did not know

    whether the dog, Buffy, would be allowed to enter the U.S.A., and they did

    not want to get on another plane. They said goodbye and went off to make

    their own arrangements.

    The rest of the Clean Team---John Howell, Bob Young, and Joe

    Poch6--followed Ron Davis and boarded the Boeing 707. Jim Schwebach tailed

    them. Ralph Boulware rounded up everyone else, and they all got on board

    for the flight home.

    Merv Stauffer in Dallas had called Frankfurt Airport and ordered food for

    the flight. He had asked for thirty superdeluxe meals, each including fish,

    fowl, and beef, six seafood trays with sauce, horseradish and lemon; six

    hors d'oeuvre trays; six sandwich trays with ham-and-cheese, roast beef,

    turkey, and Swiss cheese; six dip trays with raw vegetables and

    blue-cheese-andvinaigrette dip; three cheese trays with assorted breads and

    crackers; four deluxe pastry trays; four fresh-fruit trays; four bottles of

394 Ken FoUett

brandy; twenty Seven-Ups and twenty ginger ales; ten club sodas and ten

tonics; ten quarts of orange juice; fifty cartons of milk; four gallons of

freshly brewed coffee in Thermos bottles; one hundred sets of plastic

cutlery consisting of knife, fork, and spoon; six dozen paper plates in two

sizes; six dozen plastic glasses; six dozen Styrofoam cups; two cartons each

of Kent, Marlboro, Kool, and Salem Light cigarettes; and two boxes of

chocolates.

    There had been a mix-up, and the airport caterers had delivered the order

    double.

    Takeoff was delayed. An ice storm had dropped out of nowhere, and the

    Boeing 707 was last in the queue for de-icing--commercial flights had

    priority. Bill began to worry. The airport was going to close at midnight,

    and they might have to get off the plane and return to the hotel. Bill did

    not want to spend the night in Germany. He wanted American soil beneath his

    feet.

    John Howell, Joe Poch6, and Bob Young told the story of their flight from

    Tehran. Both Paul and Bill were chilled to hear how implacably determined

    Dadgar had been to prevent their leaving the country.

    I At last the plane was de-ice"ut then its Number I engine would not start.

    Pilot John Carlen traced the problem to the start valve. Engineer Ken Lenz

    got off the plane and held the valve open manually while Carlen started the

    engine.

    Perot brought Rashid to the flight deck. Rashid had never flown until

    yesterday, and he wanted to sit with the crew. Perot said to Carlen: "Let's

    have a really spectacular takeoff."

    "You got it," said Carlen. He taxied to the runway, then took off in a very

    steep climb.

    In the passenger cabin Gayden was laughing: he had just heard that, after

    six weeks in jail with all-male company, Paul had been forced to sit

    through an X-rated movie; and he thought it was funny as hell.

    Perot popped a champagne cork and proposed a toast. "Here's to the men who

    said what they were going to do, then went out and did it."

    Ralph Boulware sipped his champagne and felt a warm glow. That's right, he

    thought. We said what we were going to do, then we went out and did it.

    Right.

    He had another reason to be happy. Next Monday was Kecia's birthday: she

    would be seven. Every time he had called Mary she

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 395

had said: "Get home in time for Kecia's birthday. " It looked like he was

going to make it.

    Bill began to relax at last. Now there's nothing but a plane ride between

    me and America and Emily and the kids, he thought. Now I'm safe.

    He had imagined himself safe before: when he reached the Hyatt in Tehran,

    when he crossed the border into Turkey, when he took off from Van, and when

    he landed in Frankfurt. He had been wrong each time.

And he was wrong now.

    3

Paul had always been crazy about airplanes, and now he took the opportunity

to sit on the flight deck of the Boeing 707.

    As the plane flew across the north of England, he realized that pilot John

    Carlen, engineer Ken Lenz, and first officer Joe Fosnot were having

    trouble. On autopilot the plane was drifting, first to the left and then to

    the right. The compass had failed, rendering the inertial navigation system

    erratic.

"What does all that mean?" Paul asked.

    "It means we'll have to hand-fly this thing all the way across the

    Atlantic," said Carlen. "We can do it-4t's kind of exhausting, that's all."

    A few minutes later the plane became very cold, then very hot. Its

    pressurization system was failing.

Carlen took the plane down low.

"We can't cross the Atlantic at this height," he told Paul.

"Why not?"

    "We don't have enough fuel---an aircraft uses much more fuel at low

    altitudes."

"Why can't we fly high?"

"Can't breathe up there."

"ne plane has oxygen masks."

    "But not enough oxygen to cross the Atlantic. No plane carries that much

    oxygen."

    Carlen and his crew fiddled with the controls for a while, then Carlen

    sighed and said: "Would you get Ross up here, Paul?"

Paul fetched Perot.

396 Ken Follett

    Carlen said: "Mr. Perot, I think we ought to take this thing and land it as

    soon as we can. " He explained again why they could not cross the Atlantic

    with a faulty pressure system.

    Paul said: "John, I'll be forever grateful to you if we don't have to land

    in Germany."

    "Don't worry," said Carlen. "We'll head for London, Heathrow. "

    Perot went back to tell the others. Carlen called London Air Traffic

    Control on the radio. It was one in the morning, and he was told Heathrow

    was closed. This is an emergency, he replied. They gave him permission to

    land.

    Paul could hardly believe it. An emergency landing, after all he had been

    through!

    Ken Lenz began to dump fuel to reduce the plane below its maximum landing

    weight.

    London told Carlen there was fog over southern England, but at the moment

    visibility was up to half a mile at Heathrow.

    When Ken Lenz shut off the fuel-dump valves, a red light that should have

    gone out stayed on. "A dump chute hasn't retracted," said Lenz.

"I can't believe this," said Paul. He lit a cigarette.

Carlen said: "Paul, can I have a cigarette?"

    Paul stared at him. "You told me you quit smoking ten years ago. "

"Just give me a cigarette, would you?"

Paul gave him a cigarette and said: "Now I'm really scared."

    Paul went back into the passenger cabin. The stewardesses had everyone busy

    stowing trays, bottles, and baggage, securing all loose objects, in

    preparation for landing.

    Paul went into the bedroom. Simons was lying on the bed. He had shaved in

    cold water and there were bits of stickum tape all over his face. He was

    fast asleep.

    Paul left him. He said to Jay Coburn: "Does Simons know what's going on?"

    "Sure does," Coburn replied. "He said he doesn't know how to fly a plane

    and there's nothing he can do, so he was going to take a nap."

Paul shook his head in amazement. How cool could you get?

    He returned to the flight deck. Carlen was as laid-back as ever, his voice

    calm, his hands steady; but that cigarette worried Paul.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 397

    A couple of minutes later the red fight went out. The dump chute had

    retracted.

    They approached Heathrow in dense cloud and began to lose height. Paul

    watched the altimeter. As it dropped through six

,hundred feet, then five hundred, there was still nothing outside but

swirling gray fog.

    At three hundred feet it was the same. Then, suddenly, they dropped out of

    the cloud and there was the runway, straight ahead, fit up like a Christmas

    tree. Paul breathed a sigh of relief.

    They touched down, and the fire engines and ambulances came screaming

    across the tarmac toward the plane; but it was a perfect safe landing.

Rashid had been hearing about Ross Perot for years. Perot was the

multimillionaire, the founder of EDS, the business wizard, the man who sat

in Dallas and moved men such as Coburn and Sculley around the world like

pieces on a chessboard. It had been quite an experience for Rashid to meet

W. Perot and find he was just an ordinary-looking human being, rather short

and surprisingly friendly. Rashid had walked into the hotel room in

Istanbul, and this little guy with the big smile and the bent nose just

stuck out his hand and said: "Hi, I'm Ross Perot," and Rashid had shaken

hands and said: "Hi, I'm Rashid Kazemi," just as natural as could be.

    Since that moment he had felt more than ever one of the EDS team. But at

    Heathrow Airport he was sharply reminded that he was not.

    As soon as the plane taxied to a halt, a vanload of airport police, customs

    men, and immigration officials boarded and started asking questions. They

    did not like what they saw: a bunch of dirty, scruffy, smelly, unshaven

    men, carrying a fortune in various currencies, aboard an incredibly

    luxurious airplane with a Grand Cayman Islands tail number. This, they said

    in their British way, was highly irregular, to say the least.

    However, after an hour or so of questioning, they could find no evidence

    that the EDS men were drug smugglers, terrorists, or members of the PLO.

    And as holders of U.S. passports, the Americans needed no visas or other

    documentation to enter Britain. They were all admitted--except for Rashid.

    Perot confronted the immigration officer. "There's no reason why you should

    know who I am, but my name is Ross Perot, and if you would just check me

    out, maybe with U.S. Customs,

398 Ken Follett

I believe you will conclude that you can trust me. I have too much to lose

by trying to smuggle an illegal immigrant into Britain. Now, I will assume

personal responsibility for this young man. We will be out of England in