a half hours ahead of Dallas, there was never a time of day when both banks
were open. Furthermore, the Iranian banks were on strike a good deal of the
time. Consequently a two-word change could take a week to arrange.
The last people who had to approve the deal were the Iranian central bank.
Getting that approval was the task Howell and Taylor had set themselves for
Saturday, February 10.
The city was relatively quiet at eight-thirty in the morning when they
drove to Bank Orman. They met with Farhad Bakhtiar. To their surprise, he
said that the request for approval was ah-eady with the central bank.
Howell was delighted-for once something was happening ahead of time in
Iran! He left some documents with Farhad-including a signed letter of
agreementand he and Taylor drove farther downtown to the central bank.
The city was waking up now, the traffic even more nightmarish than usual,
but dangerous driving was Taylor's specialty, and he tore through the
streets, cutting across lanes of traffic, U-tuming in the middle of
freeways, and generally beating the Iranian drivers at their own game.
At the central bank they had a long wait to see Mr. Farhang,
254 Ken Follett
who would give approval. Eventually he stuck his head out of his office door
and said the deal had already been approved and the approval notified to
Bank Omran.
This was good news!
They got back into the car and headed for Bank Omran. Now they could tell
that there was serious fighting in parts of the city. The noise of gunfire
was continuous, and plumes of smoke rose from burning buildings. Bank Omran
was opposite a hospital, and the dead and wounded were being brought in
from the battle zones in cars, pickup trucks, and buses, all the vehicles
having white cloths tied to their radio antennae to signify emergency, all
hooting constantly. The street was jammed with people, some coniing to give
blood, others to visit the sick, still others to identify corpses.
They had resolved the bail problem not a moment too soon. Not only Paul and
Bill, but now Howell and Taylor and all of diem, were in grave danger. They
had to get out of Iran fast.
Howell and Taylor went into the bank and found Farhad.
"'Me central bank has approved the deal," Howell told him.
-1 know."
"Is the letter of agreement all right?"
"No problems."
"Then, if you give us the bank guarantee, we can go to the Ministry of
Justice with it right away."
"Not today."
"Why not?"
"Our lawyer, Dr. Emami, has reviewed the credit document and wishes to make
some small changes."
Taylor muttered: "Jesus Christ."
Farhad said: "I have to go to Geneva for five days."
Forever was more likely.
"My colleagues will look after you, and if you have any problems just call
me in Switzerland. "
Howell suppressed his anger. Farhad knew perfectly well that things were
not that simple: with him away, everything would be more difficult. But
nothing would be accomplished by an emotional outburst, so Howell just
said: "What are the changes?"
Farhad called in Dr. Emami.
"I also need the signatures of two more directors of the bank," Farhad
said. "I can get those at the board meeting tomorrow. And I need to check
the references of the National Bank of Commerce in Dallas."
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 255
"And how long will that take?"
"Not long. My assistants will deal with it while I am away."
Dr. Emarni showed Howell the changes he proposed in the language of the
credit letter. Howell was happy to agree to them, but the rewritten letter
would, have to go through the timeconsuming process of being transmitted
from Dallas to Dubai by Tested Telex and from Dubai to Tehran by telephone.
"Look," said Howell, "let's try to get all this done today., You could
check the references of the Dallas bank now. We could find those other two
bank directors, wherever in the city they are, and get their signatures
this aftemoon. We could call Dallas, give them the language changes, and
get them to send the telex now. Dubai could confirm to you this aftemoon.
You could issue the bank guarantee-"
"There is a holiday in Dubai today," said Farhad.
"All right, Dubai can confirm tomorrow morning-"
"There is a strike tomorrow. Nobody will be here at the bank. "
"Monday, then-"
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a siren. A secretary put
her head around the door and said something in Farsi. "There is an early
curfew," Farhad translated. "We must all leave now.'
Howell and Taylor sat there looking at each other. Two minutes later they
were alone in the office. They had failed yet again.
T
Mat evening Simons said to Coburn: "Tomorrow is the day."
Coburn thought he was full of shit.
2
In the morning on Sunday, February 11, the negotiating team went as usual to
the EDS office they called "Bucharest." John Howell left, taking Abolhasan
with him, for an eleven o'clock meeting with Dadgar at the Ministry of
Health. The othersKeane Taylor, Bill Gayden, Bob Young, and Rich Gallagher-
went up on the roof to watch the city bum.
Bucharest was not a high building, but it was located on a
256 Ken Folleu
slope of the hills that rose to the north of Tehran, so from the roof they
could see the city laid out like a tableau. To the south and east, where
modem skyscrapers rose out of the low-rise villas and slums, great palls of
smoke billowed up into the murky air, while helicopter gunships buzzed
around the fires like wasps at a barbecue. One of EDS's Iranian drivers
brought a transistor radio up to the roof and tuned it to a station that had
been taken over by the revolutionaries. With the help of the radio and the
driver's translation, they tried to identify the burning buildings.
Keane Taylor, who had abandoned his elegant vested suits for jeans and
cowboy boots, went downstairs to take a phone call. It was the Cycle Man.
"You need to get out of there," the Cycle Man told Taylor. "Get out of the
country as quickly as you can."
"You lmow we can't do that," Taylor said. "We can't leave without Paul and
Bill."
"It's going to be very dangerous for you."
Taylor could hear, at the other end of the line, the noise of a terrific
battle. "Where the hell are you, anyway?"
"Near the bazaar," said the Cycle Man. "I'm making Molotov cocktails. They
brought in helicopters this morning and we just figured out how to shoot
them down. We burned four tanks-"
The line went dead.
Incredible, Taylor thought as he cradled the phone. In the middle of a
battle, he suddenly thinks of his American friends, and calls to warn us.
Iranians will never cease to surprise me.
He went back up on the roof.
"Look at this," Bill Gayden said to him. Gayden, the jovial president of
EDS World, had also switched to off-duty clothes: nobody was even
pretending to do business anymore. He pointed to a column of smoke in
the
east. "If that isn't the Gasr Prison burning, it's damn close."
Taylor peered into the distance. It was hard to tell.
"Call Dadgar's office at the Ministry of Health," Gayden told Taylor.
"Howell should be there now. Get him to ask Dadgar to release Paul and Bill
to the custody of the Embassy, for their own safety. If we don't get them
out, they're going to burn to death.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 257
John Howell had hardly expected Dadgar to turn up. The city was a
battlefield, and an investigation into corruption under the Shah now seemed
an academic exercise. But Dadgar was there in his office, waiting for
Howell. Howell wondered what the hell was driving the man. Dedication?
Hatred of Americans? Fear of the incoming revolutionary government? He would
probably never know.
Dadgar had asked Howell about EDS's relationship with Abolfath Mahvi, and
Howell had promised a complete dossier. It seemed the information was
important to Dadgar's mysterious purposes, for a few days later he had
pressed Howell for the dossier, saying: "I can interrogate the people here
and get the information I need," which Howell took as a threat to arrest
more EDS executives.
Howell had prepared a twelve-page dossier in English, with a covering
letter in Farsi. Dadgar read the covering letter, then spoke. Abolhasan
translated: "Your company's helpfulness is laying the groundwork for a
change in my attitude toward Chiapparone and Gaylord. Our legal code
provides for such leniency toward those who supply information. "
It was farcical. They could all be killed in the next few hours, and here
was Dadgar still talking about applicable provisions of the legal code.
Abolhasan began to translate the dossier aloud into Farsi. Howell knew that
choosing Mahvi as an Iranian partner had not been the smartest move EDS
ever made: Mahvi had got the company its first, small contract in Iran, but
subsequently he had been blacklisted by the Shah and had caused trouble
over the Ministry of Health contract. However, EDS had nothing to hide.
Indeed, Howell's boss Tom Luce, in his eagerness to place EDS above
suspicion, had filed details of the EDS-Mahvi relationship with the
American Securities Exchange Commission, so that much of what was in the
dossier was already public knowledge.
The phone interrupted Abolhasan's translation. Dadgar picked it up, then
handed it to Abolhasan, who listened for a moment, then said: "It's Keane
Taylor."
A minute later he hung up and said to Howell: "Keane has been up on the
roof at Bucharest. He says there are fires down by Gasr Prison. If the mob
attacks the prison, Paul and Bill could get hurt. He suggested we ask
Dadgar to turn them over to the American Embassy."
258 Ken Follen
"Okay' " Howell said. "Ask him."
He waited while Abolhasan and Dadgar conversed in Farsi.
Finally Abolhasan said: "According to our laws, they have to be kept in an
lranian prison. He can't consider the U.S. Embassy to be an hanian prison."
Crazier and crazier. 7tbe whole country was falling apart, and Dadgir was
still consulting his book of rules. Howell said- "Ask him how he proposes
to guarantee the safety of two American citizens who have not been charged
with any crime."
Dadgar's reply was: "Don't be concerned. The worst that could happen is
that the prison might be overnin."
"And what if the mob decides to attack Americans.
' 'Chiapparone Will probably be Safe-.he could pass for h7anian.
"Terrific," said Howell. "And what about Gaylord?"
Dadgar just shrugged.
Rashid left his house early that morning.
His parents, his brother, and his sister planned to stay indoors all day,
and they had urged him to do the same, but he would not listen. He knew it
would be dangerous on the streets, but he could not hide at home while his
countrymen were making history. Besides, he had not forgotten his
conversation with Simons.
He was living by impulse. On Friday he had found himself at Farahabad Air
Base during the clash between the hornafars and the loyalist Javadan
Brigade. For no particular reason, he had gone into the armory and started
passing out rifles. After half an hour of that he got bored and left.
That same day he had seen a dead man for the first time. He had been at the
mosque when a bus driver who had been shot by soldiers had been brought in.
On impulse Rashid had uncovered the face of the corpse. A whole section of
the head was destroyed, a mixture of blood and brains: it had been
sickening. The incident seemed like a warning, but Rashid was in no mood to
heed warnings. The streets were where things were happening, and he had to
be there.
This morning the atmosphere was electric. Crowds were everywhere. Hundreds
of men and boys were toting automatic rifles. Rashid, wearing a flat
English cap and an open-neck shirt, mingled with them, feeling the
excitement. Anything could happen today.
He was vaguely heading for Bucharest. He still had duties: he
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 259
was negotiating with two shipping companies to transport the belongings of
the EDS evacuees back to the States, and he had to feed the abandoned dogs
and cats. The scenes on the streets changed his mind. Rumor said that the
Evin Prison had been stormed last night; today it might be the turn of the
Gasr Prison, where Paul and Bill were.
Rashid wished he had an automatic rifle like the others.
He passed an army building that appeared to have been invaded by the mob.
It was a six-story block containing an armory and a draft registration
office. Rashid had a friend who worked there, Malek. It occurred to him
that Malek might be in trouble. If he had come to work this nionfing, he
would be wearing his army umform-and that alone might be enough to get him
killed today. I could lend Malek my shirt, Rashid thought; and impulsively
he went into the building.
He pushed his way through the crowd on the ground floor and found the
staircase. The rest of the building seemed empty. As he climbed, he
wondered whether soldiers were hiding out on the upper floors: if so, they
might shoot anyone who came along. He went on regardless. He climbed to the
top floor. Malek was not there. Nobody was there. The army had abandoned
the place to the mob.
Rashid returned to the ground floor. The crowd had gathered around the
entrance to the basement armory, but no one was going in. Rashid pushed his
way to the front and said: "Is this door locked?"
"It might be booby-trapped," someone said.
Rashid looked at the door. All thoughts of going to Bucharest had now left
him. He wanted to go to the Gasr Prison, and he wanted to carry a gun.
"I don't think this armory is booby-trapped," he said, and he opened the
door.
He went down the staircase.
The basement consisted of two rooms divided by an archway. The place was
dimly lit by narrow strip windows high in the walls, just above street
level. The floor was of black mosaic tiles. In the first room were open
After a minute some of the crowd upstairs followed him down.
He grabbed three machine guns and a sack of magazines and left. As soon as
he got outside the building, people jumped all
260 Ken Folka
over him, asking for weapons: he gave away two of the guns and some of the
ammunition.
Then he walked away, heading for Gasr Square.
Some of the mob went with him.
On the way they had to pass a military garrison. A skirmish was going on
there. A steel door in the high brick wall around the garrison had been
smashed down, as if a tank had rolled through it, and the brickwork on
either side of the entrance had crumbled. A burning car stood across the
way in.
Rashid went around the car and through the entrance.
He found himself in a large compound. From where he stood, a bunch of
people were shooting haphazardly at a building a couple of hundred yards
away. Rashid took cover behind a wall. The people who had followed him
joined in the shooting, but he held his fire. Nobody was really aiming.
They were just tying to scare the soldiers in the building. It was a funny
kind of battle. Rashid had never imagined the revolution would be like
this: just a disorganized crowd with guns they hardly knew how to use,
wandering around on a Sunday morning, firing at walls, encountering
halfhearted resistance from invisible troops.
Suddenly a man near him fell dead.
It happened so quickly: Rashid did not even see him fall. At one moment the
man was standing four feet away fi-orn Rashid, firing his rifle; the next
moment he lay on the ground with his forehead blown away.
They carried the corpse out of the compound. Someone found a jeep. They put
the body in the jeep and drove off. Rashid reiuried to the skirmish.
Ten minutes later, for no apparent reason, a piece of wood with a white
undershirt tied to its end was waved out of one of the windows in the
building they had been shooting at. The soldiers had surrendered.
Just like that.
There was a sense of anticlimax.
This is my chance, Rashid thought.
It was easy to manipulate people if you understood the psychology of the
human being. You just had to study the people, comprehend their situation,
Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Page 34