On Wings of Eagles (39 page)

    Browning 12-gauge shotguns for six thousand dollars apiece. The same man

    could also get Llama pistols.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 239

    Coburn would cross the border legitimately in one of the Range Rovers and

    link up with Boulware, who would also have a car, on the Turkish side.

    Simons, Pbch6, Paul, and Bill would cross on horseback with the smugglers.

    (That was why they needed the guns: in case the smugglers should decide to

    "lose" them in the mountains.) On the other side they would meet Coburn and

    Boulware. They would all drive to the nearest American Consulate and get

    new passports for Paul and Bill. Then they would fly to Dallas.

    it was a good plan, Coburn thought; and he now saw that Simons was right to

    insist on Sero rather than Barzagan, for it would be difficult to sneak

    across the border in a more civilized, heavily populated area.

    They returned to Tehran the next day. They left late and did most of the

    journey by night, so as to be sure to arrive in the morning, after curfew

    was lifted. They took the southerly route, passing through the small town

    of Mahabad. The road was a singk-lane dirt track through the mountains, and

    they had the worst possible weather: snow, ice, and high winds.

    Nevertheless, the road was passable, and Simons determined to use this

    route, rather than the northerly one, for the escape itself.

If it ever happened.

    3

One evening Coburn went to the Hyatt and told Keane Taylor he needed

twenty-five thousand dollars in Iranian rials by the following morning.

He didn't say why.

    Taylor got twenty-five thousand dollars in hundreds from Gayden, then

    called a carpet dealer he knew in the south of the city and agreed on an

    exchange rate.

    Taylor's driver, Ali, was highly reluctant to take him downtown, especially

    after dark, but after some argument he agreed.

    They went to the shop. Taylor sat down and drank tea with the carpet

    dealer. Two more Iramans came in: one was introduced as the man who would

    exchange Taylor's money; the other was his bodyguard, and looked like a

    hoodlum.

240 Ken Follett

    Since Taylor's phone call, the carpet dealer said, the exchange rate had

    changed rather dramatically-in the carpet dealer's favor.

    "I'm insulted!" Taylor said angrily. "I'm not going to do business with you

    people!"

    "This is the best exchange rate you can get," said the carpet man.

"The hell it isl"

    "It's very dangerous for you to be in this part of the city, carrying all

    that money."

    I 'I'm not alone," Taylor said. "I've got six people outside waiting for

    me."

    He finished his tea and stood up. He walked slowly out of the shop and

    jumped into the car. "Ali, let's get out of here, fast."

    They drove north. Taylor directed Ali to another carpet dealer, an Iranian

    Jew with a shop near the palace. The man was just closing up when Taylor

    walked in.

"I need to change some dollars for rials," Taylor said.

"Come back tomorrow," said the man.

"No, I need them tonight."

"How much?"

"Twenty-five thousand dollars."

"I don't have anything like that much."

"I've really got to have them tonight-,,

-What's it for?"

"It's to do with Paul and Bill."

    The carpet dealer nodded. He had done business with several EDS people and

    he knew that Paul and Bill were in jail. "I'll see what I can do. "

    He called his brother from the back of the shop and sent him out. Then he

    opened his safe and took out all his rials. He and Taylor stood there

    counting money: the dealer counted the dollars; and Taylor the rials. A few

    minutes later a kid came in with his hands full of rials and dumped them on

    the counter. He left without speaking. Taylor realized the carpet dealer

    was rounding up all the cash he could lay his hands on.

    A young man came up on a motor scooter, parked outside, and walked in with

    a bag full of rials. While he was in the shop someone stole his motor

    scooter. The young man dropped the bag of money and ran after the thief,

    yelling at the top of his voice.

Taylor went on counting.

Just another normal business day in revolutionary Tehran.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 241

John Howell was changing. With each day that went by he became a little less

the uptight American lawyer and a little more the devious Persian

negotiator. In particular, he began to see bribery in a different light.

    Mehdi, an Iranian accountant who had done occasional work fbr EDS, had

    explained things to him like this: "In Iran many things are achieved by

    friendship. There are several ways to become Dadgar's friend. Me, I would

    sit outside his house every day until he talked to me. Another way for me

    to become his friend would be to give him two hundred thousand dollars. If

    you like, I could arrange something like this for you."

    Howell discussed this proposal with the other members of the negotiating

    team. They assumed that Mehdi was offering himself as a bribe intermediary,

    as Deep Throat had. But this time Howell was not so quick to reject the

    idea of a corrupt deal for Paul and Bill's freedom.

    They decided to play along with Mehdi. They might be able to expose the

    deal and discredit Dadgar. Alternatively, they might decide the arrangement

    was solid and pay up. Either way, they wanted a clear sign from Dadgar that

    he was bribable.

    Howell and Keane Taylor had a series of meetings with MehdiThe accountant

    was as jumpy as Deep Throat had been, and would not let the EDS people come

    to his office during normal working hours: he always met them early in the

    morning or late at night, or at his house or down back alleys. Howell kept

    pressing him for an unmistakable signal: Dadgar was to come to a meeting

    wearing odd socks, or with his tie on backward. Mehdi would propose

    ambiguous signals, such as Dadgar giving the Americans a hard time. On one

    occasion Dadgar did give them a hard time, as Mehdi had forecast, but that

    might have happened anyway.

    Dadgar was not the only one giving Howell a hard time. Howell was talking

    to Angela on the phone every four or five days, and she wanted to know when

    he was coming home. He did not know. Paul and Bill were naturally pressing

    him for hard news, but his progress was so slow and indefinite that he

    could not possibly give them deadlines. He found this frustrating, and when

    Angela started questioning him on the same point he had to suppress his

    irritation.

    The Mehdi initiative came to nothing. Mehdi introduced Howell to a lawyer

    who claimed to be close to Dadgar. The lawyer

242 Ken Follett

did not want a bribe-just normal legal fees. EDS retained him, but at the

next meeting Dadgar said: "Nobody has any special relationship with me. If

anybody tries to tell you differently, don't believe them."

    Howell was not sure what to make of all this. Had there been nothing in it

    right from the start? Or had EDS's caution frightened Dadgar into dropping

    a demand for a bribe? He would never know.

    On January 30 Dadgar told Howell he was interested in Abolfkth Mahvi, EDS's

    h-drdan partner. Howell began to prepare a dossier on EDS's dealings with

    Mahvi.

    Howell now believed that Paul and Bill were straightforward commercial

    hostages. Dadgar's investigation into corruption might be genuine, but he

    knew by now that Paul and Bill were innocent; therefore, he must be holding

    them on orders from above. 'Me Iranians had originally wanted either their

    promised computerized welfare system or their money back. Giving them their

    welfare system meant renegotiating the contract-but the new government was

    not interested in renegotiating and in any case was unlikely to stay in

    power long enough to consummate a deal.

    If Dadgar could not be bribed, convinced of Paul's and Bill's innocence, or

    ordered by his superiors to release them on the basis of a new contract

    between EDS and the Ministry, there remained to Howell only one option: pay

    the bail. Dr. Hournan's efforts to get the amount reduced had come to

    nothing. Howell now concentrated on ways of getting thirteen million

    dollars from Dallas to Tehran.

    He had learned, bit by bit, that there was an EDS rescue team in Tehran. He

    was astonished that the head of an American corporation would set in motion

    something like that. He was also reassured, for if he could only get Paul

    and Bill out of jail, somebody else was standing by to get them out of

    Iran.

Liz Coburn was frantic with worry.

    She sat in the car with Toni Dvoranchik and Toni's husband, Bill. They were

    heading for the Royal Tokyo restaurant. It was on Greenville Avenue, not

    far from Recipes, the place where Liz and Toni had drunk Daiquiris with

    Mary Sculley and Mary had shattered Liz's world by saying, "They're all in

    Tehran, I guess. I I

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 243

    Since that moment Liz had been living in constant, stark terror.

    Jay was everything to her. He was Captain America, he was Superman, he was

    her whole life. She did not see how she could live without him. The thought

    of losing him. scared her to death.

    She called Tehran constantly but never reached turn. She called Merv

    Stauffer every day, asking, "When is Jay coming home? Is he all right? Will

    he get out alive?" Merv tried to soothe her, but he would not give her any

    information, so she would demand to speak to Ross Perot, and Merv would teR

    her that was not possible. Then she would call her mother and burst into

    tears and pour out all her anxiety and fear and frustration over die phone.

    The Dvoranchiks were kind. They were trying to take her mind off her

    worries.

"What did you do today?" Toni asked.

"I went shopping,- Liz said.

"Did you buy anything?"

    "Yes." Liz started to cry. "I bought a black dress. Because Jay isn't

    coming home."

During those days of waiting, Jay Coburn learned a good deal about Simons.

    One day Merv Stauffer called from Dallas to say that Simons's son Harry had

    been on the phone, worried. Harry had called his father's house and spoken

    to Paul Walker, who was minding the farm. Walker had said he did not know

    where Simons was, and had advised- Harry to call Merv Stauffer at EDS.

    Harry was naturally worried, Stauffer said. Simons called Harry from Tehran

    and reassured him.

    Simons told Coburn that Harry had had some problems, but he was a good boy

    at heart. He spoke of his son with a kind of resigned affection. (He never

    mentioned Bruce, and it was not until much later that Coburn realized

    Simons had two sons.)

    Simons talked a lot about his late wife, Lucille, and how happy the two of

    them had been after Simons retired. They had been very close during the

    last few years, Coburn gathered, and Simons seemed to regret that it had

    taken him so long to realize how much he loved her. "Hold on to your mate,"

    he advised Coburn. "She's the most important person in your life."

    Paradoxically, Simons's advice had the opposite effect on Coburn. He envied

    the companionship Simons and Lucille had

244 Ken Follett

had, and he wanted that for himself, but he was so sure he could never

achieve it with Liz that he wondered if someone else would be his true soul

mate.

    One evening Simons laughed and said: "You know, I wouldn't do this for

    anyone else."

    It was a characteristically cryptic Simons remark. Sometimes, Coburn had

    learned, you got an explanation; sometimes you did not. This time Coburn

    got an explanation: Simons told him why he felt indebted to Ross Perot.

    The aftermath of the Son Tay Raid had been a bitter experience for Simons.

    Although the Raiders had not brought back any American POWs, it had been a

    brave try, and Simons expected the American public to see it that way.

    Indeed, he had argued, at a breakfast meeting with Defense Secretary Melvin

    Laird, in favor of releasing the news of the raid to the press. "This is a

    perfectly legitimate operation," he had told Laird. "These are American

    prisoners. This is something Americans traditionally do for Americans. For

    Christ's sake, what is it we're afraid of here?"

    He soon found out. The press and the public saw the raid as a failure and

    yet another intelligence foul-up. The banner headline on the front page of

    the next day's Washington Post read: u.s. RAm To RmcuE Pows FAiLs. When

    Senator Robert Dole introduced a resolution praising the raid and said: