On Wings of Eagles (11 page)

    spend a night in that awful cell.

64 Ken FoUett

    They followed the guard upstairs and into a little room. He pointed at

    their shoes.

They understood they were to take their shoes off.

The guard handed them each a pair of plastic slippers.

    Paul realized with bitter disappointment that they were not about to be

    released; he did have to spend a night in the cell. He thought with anger

    of the Embassy staff they had arranged the meeting with Dadgar, they had

    advised Paul against taking lawyers, they had said Dadgar was "favorably

    disposed" . . . Ross Perot would say: "Some people can't organize a two-car

    ftmeral." Mmt applied to the U.S. Embassy staff. They were simply

    incompetent. Surely, Paul thought , after all the mistakes they have made,

    they ought to come here tonight and try to get us out?

    They put on the plastic slippers and followed the guard back downstairs.

    The other prisoners were getting ready for sleep, lying on the bunks and

    wrapping themselves in thin wool blankets. The cell boss, using sign

    language, showed Paul and Bill where to he down: Bill was on the middle

    bunk of a stack, Paul below him with just a thin mattress between his body

    and the floor.

    They lay down. The light stayed on, but it was so dim it hardly mattered.

    After a while Paul no longer noticed the smell, but he did not get used to

    the cold. With the concrete floor, the open vent, and no heating, it was

    almost like sleeping out of doors. What a terrible fife criminals lead,

    Paul thought, having to endure conditions such as these; I'm glad I'm not

    a criminal. One night of this will be more than enough.

    3

Ross Perot took a taxi from the Dallas/Fort Worth regional airport to EDS

corporate headquarters at 7171 Forest Lane. At the EDS gate he rolled down

the window to let the security guards see his face, then sat back again as

the car wound along the quarter-mile driveway through the park. The site had

once been a country club, and these grounds a golf course. EDS headquarters

loomed ahead, a seven-story office building, and

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 65

next to it a tomado-proof blockhouse containing the vast computers with

their thousands of miles of magnetic tape,

    Perot paid the driver, walked into the office building, and took the

    elevator to the fifth floor, where he went to Gayden's comer office.

    Gayden was at his desk. Gayden always managed to look untidy, despite the

    EDS dress code. He had taken his jacket off. His tie was loosened, the

    collar of his button-down shirt was open, his,Mr was mussed, and a

    cigarette dangled from the comer of his mouth. He stood up when Perot

    walked in.

"Ross, how's your mother?"

"She's in good spirits, thank you."

"That's good."

Perot sat down. "Now, where are we on Paul and Bill?"

    Gayden picked up the phone, saying: "Lemme get T.J. in here." He punched T.

    J. Marquez's number and said: "Ross is here . . . Yeah. My office." He hung

    up and said: "He'll be right down. Uh ... I called the State Department.

    The head of the Iran Desk is a man called Henry Precht. At first he

    wouldn't return my call. In the end I told his secretary, I said: 'If he

    doesn't call me within twenty minutes, I'm going to call CBS and ABC and

    NBC, and in one hour's time Ross Perot is going to give a press conference

    to say that we have two Americans-in trouble in Iran and our country won't

    help them.' He called back five minutes later."

"What did he say?"

    Gayden sighed. "Ross, their basic attitude up there is that if Paul and

    Bill are in jail they must have done something wrong.

"But what are they going to do?"

"Contact the Embassy, look into it, blah blah blah."

    "Well, we're going to have to put a firecracker under Precht's tail," Perot

    said angrily. "Now, Tom Luce is the man to do that." Luce, an aggressive

    young lawyer, was the founder of the Dallas firm of Hughes & Hill, which

    handled most of EDS's legal business. Perot had retained him as EDS's

    counsel years ago, mainly because Perot could relate to a young man who,

    like himself, had left a big company to start his own business and was

    struggling to pay the bills. Hughes & Hill, like EDS, had grown rapidly.

    Perot had never regretted hiring Luce.

Gayden said: "Luce is right here in the office somewhere."

"How about Tom Walter?"

I 'He's here, too."

66 Ken Follett

    Walter, a tall Alabaman with a voice like molasses, was EDS's chief

    financial officer and probably the smartest man, in terms of sheer brains,

    in the company. Perot said: "I want Walter to go to work on the bail. I

    don't want to pay it, but I will if we have to. Walter should figure out

    how we go about paying it. You can bet they won't take American Express."

"Okay," Gayden said.

A voice from behind said: "Hi, Ross!"

    Perot looked around and saw T. J. Marquez. "Hi, Tom." T.J, was a tall, slim

    man of forty with Spanish good looks: olive skin, short, curly black hair,

    and a big smile that showed lots of white teeth. The first employee Perot

    ever hired, he was living evidence that Perot had an uncanny knack of

    picking good men. T.J. was now a vice-president of EDS, and his personal

    shareholding in the company was worth millions of dollars. "The Lord has

    been good to us," T.J. would say. Perot knew that T.J.'s parents had really

    struggled to send him to college. Their sacrifices had been well rewarded.

    One of the best things about the meteoric success of EDS, for Perot, had

    been sharing the triumph with people like T.J.

T.J. sat down and talked fast. "I called Claude."

    Perot nodded: Claude Chappelear was the company's in-house lawyer.

    "Claude's friendly with Matthew Nimetz, counselor to Secretary of State

    Vance. I thought Claude might get Nimetz to talk to Vance himself. Nimetz

    called personally a little later: he wants to help us. He's going to send

    a cable under Vance's name to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, telling them to

    get off their butts; and he's going to write a personal note to Vance about

    Paul and Bill."

"Good."

    "We also called Admiral Moorer. He's up to speed on this whole thing

    because we consulted him about the passport problem. Moorer's going to talk

    to Ardeshir Zahedi. Now, Zahedi is not just the Iranian Ambassador in

    Washington but also the Shah's brother-in-law, and he's now back in

    Iran-running the country, some say. Moorer will ask Zahedi to vouch for

    Paul and Bill. Right now we're drafting a cable for Zahedi to send to the

    Ministry of Justice."

"Who's drafting it?"

"Tom Luce."

    "Good." Perot summed up: "We've got the Secretary of State, the head of the

    Iran Desk, the Embassy, and the Iranian

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 67

Ambassador all working on the case. That's good. Now let's talk about what

else we can do."

    T.J. said: "Tom Luce and Tom Walter have an appointment with Admiral Moorer

    in Washington tomorrow. Moorer also suggested we call Richard Helms-he used

    to be Ambassador to Iran after he quit the CIA."

    "I'll call Helms," Perot said. "And I'll call Al Haig and Henry Kissinger.

    I want you two to concentrate on getting all our people out of Iran."

Gayden said: "Ross, I'm not sure that's necessary-"

    "I don't want a discussion, Bill," said Perot. "Let's get it done. Now,

    Lloyd Briggs has to stay there and deal with the problem-he's the boss,

    with Paul and Bill in jail. Everyone else comes home."

    "You can't make them come home if they don't want to," Gayden said.

"Who'll want to stay?"

"Rich Gallagher. His wife-"

    "I know. Okay, Briggs and Gallagher stay. Nobody else." Perot stood up.

    "I'll get started on those calls."

    He took the elevator to the seventh floor and walked through his

    secretary's office. Sally Walther was at her desk. She had been with him

    for years, and had been involved in the prisonersof-war campaign and the

    San Francisco party. (She had come back from that weekend with a Son Tay

    Raider in tow, and Captain Udo Walther was now her husband.) Perot said to

    her: "Call Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, and Richard Helms."

    He went through to his own office and sat at his desk. The office, with its

    paneled walls, costly carpet, and shelves of antiquarian books, looked more

    like a Victorian library in an English country house. He was surrounded by

    souvenirs and his favorite art. For the house Margot bought Impressionist

    paintings, but in his office Perot preferred American art: Norman Rockwell

    originals and the Wild West bronzes of Frederic Remington. Through the

    window he could see the slopes of the old golf course.

    Perot did not know where Henry Kissinger might be spending the holidays: it

    could take Sally a while to find him. There was time to think about what to

    say. Kissinger was not a close friend. It would need all his salesmanship

    to grab Kissinger's attention and, in the space of a short phone call, win

    his sympathy.

68 Ken Follett

    The phone on his desk buzzed, and Sally called: "Henry Kissinger for you."

Perot picked it up. "Ross Perot."

"I have Henry Kissinger for you."

Perot waited.

    Kissinger had once been called the most powerful man in the world. He knew

    the Shah personally. But how well would he remember Ross Perot? The

    prisoners-of-war campaign had been big, but Kissinger's projects had been

    bigger: peace in the Middle East, rapprochement between the U.S. and China,

    the ending of the Vietnam War ...

    "Kissinger here." It was the familiar deep voice, its accent a curious

    mixture of American vowels and German consonants.

    "Dr. Kissinger, this is Ross Perot. I'm a businessman in Dallas, Texas,

    and-"

"Hell, Ross, I know who you are," said Kissinger.

    Perot's heart leaped. Kissinger's voice was warm, friendly, and informal.

    This was great! Perot began to tell him about Paul and Bill: how they had

    gone voluntarily to see Dadgar, how the State Department had let them down.

    He assured Kissinger they were innocent, and pointed out that they had not

    been charged with any crime, nor had the Iranians produced an atom of

    evidence against them. "These are my men, I sent them there, and I have to

    get them back," he finished.

"I'll see what I can do," Kissinger said.

Perot was exultant. "I sure appreciate it!"

"Send me a short briefing paper with all the details."

"We'll get it to you today."

"I'll get back to you, Ross."

"Thank you, sir."

The line went dead.

    Perot felt terrific. Kissinger had remembered him, had been friendly and

    willing to help. He wanted a briefing paper: EDS could send it today-

    Perot was struck by a thought. He had no idea where Kissinger had been

    speaking from-it might have been London, Monte Carlo, Mexico ...

I 'Sally?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you find out where Kissinger is?"

"Yes, sir."

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 69

Kissinger was in New York, in his duplex at the exclusive River House

apartment complex on East Fifty-second Street. From the window he could see

the East River.

    Kissinger remembered Ross Perot clearly. Perot was a rough diamond. He

    helped causes with which Kissinger was sympathetic, usually causes having

    to do with prisoners. In the Vietnam War Perot's campaign had been

    courageous, even though he had sometimes harassed Kissinger beyond the

    point of what was doable. Now some of Perot's own people were prisoners.

    Kissinger could readily believe that they were innocent. Iran was on the

    brink of civil war: justice and due process meant little over there now. He

    wondered whether he could help. He wanted to: it was a good cause. He was

    no longer in office, but he still had friends, He would call Ardeshir

    Zahedi, he decided, as soon as the briefing paper arrived from Dallas.

Perot felt good about the conversation with Kissinger. HeU, Ross, I know who

you are. That was worth more than money. The only advantage of being famous

was that it sometimes helped get important things done.

    T.J. came in. "I have your passport," he said. "It already has a visa for

    Iran, but, Ross, I don't think you should go. All of us here can work on

    the problem, but you're the key man. The last thing we need is for you to

    be out of contact-in Tehran or just up in a plane sornewhere--at a moment

    when we have to make a crucial decision."

    Perot had forgotten all about going to Tehran. Everything he

had heard in the last hour encouraged him to think it would not