was the high one-twenty-five or thirty feet. The outer wall, which stood
between them and freedom, was only ten or twelve feet high.
An athletic prisoner managed to get up onto the top of the wall. Another
man stood at its foot and beckoned. A third prisoner went forward. The man
on the ground pushed him up, the one on top pulled, and the prisoner went
over the wall.
It happened very quickly then.
Paul took a run at the wall.
Bill was right behind him.
Bill's mind was a blank. He ran. He felt a push, helping him up; then a
pull; then he was at the top, and he jumped.
He landed on the pavement.
He got to his feet.
Paul was right beside him.
We're free! thought Bill. We're free!
He felt like dancing.
Coburn put down the phone and said: "That was Majid. The mob has overrun the
prison."
"Good," said Simons. He had told Coburn, earlier that morning, to send
Majid down to Gasr Square.
Simons was very cool, Coburn thought. This was it-this was the big day! Now
they could get out of the apartment, get on the move, activate their plans
for "getting out of Dodge. - Yet Simons showed no signs of excitement.
"What do we do now?" said Coburn.
"Nothing. Majid is there, Rashid is there. If those two can't take care of
Paul and Bill, we sure as hell won't be able to. If Paul and Bill don't
turn up by nightfall, we'll do what we discussed: you and Majid will go out
on a motorcycle and search. 11
"And meanwhile?"
"We stick to the plan. We sit tight. We wait."
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 269
'Mere was a crisis it the U - S . Embassy .
Ambassador William Sullivan had got an emergency call for help from General
Gast, head of the Military Assistance Advisory Group. MAAG Headquarters was
surrounded by a mob. Tanks were drawn up outside the budding and shots were
being exchanged. Gast and his officers, together with most of the kanian
general staff, were in a bunker underneath the budding.
Sullivan had every able-bodied man in the Embassy making phone calls,
trying to find revolutionary leaders who might have the authority to call
off the mob. The phone on Sullivan's desk was ringing constantly. In the
middle of the crisis he got a call from Undersecretary Newsom in
Washington.
Newsom was calling from the Situation Room in the White House, where
Zbigniew Brzezinski was chairing a meeting on Iran. He asked for Sullivan's
assessment of the current position in Tehran. Sullivan gave it to him in a
few short phrases, and told him that right at that moment he was
preoccupied with saving the life of the senior American military officer in
Iran.
A few minutes later Sullivan got a call from an Embassy official who had
succeeded in reaching lbralum Yazdi, a Khornemi sidekick. The official was
telling Sullivan that Yazdi might help when the call was overridden and
Newsom came on the line again.
Newsom said: "The National Security Advisor has asked for your view of the
possibility of a coup d'6tat by the Iranian military to take over from the
Bakhtiar goverrunent, winch is clearly faltering."
The question was so ridiculous that Sullivan blew his cool. "Tell
Brzezinski to fuck off," he said.
-That,s m a very helpful comment," said Newsom.
-You want it translated into Polish?" Sullivan said, and he hung up the
phone.
On the roof of Bucharest, the negotiating team could see the fires spreading
uptown. The noise of shooting was also coming closer to where they stood.
John Howell and Abolhasan returned from their meeting with Dadgar. "Well?"
Gayden said to Howell. "What did that bastard say?"
"He won't let them go."
"Bastard."
A few minutes later they all heard a noise that sounded
270 Ken Folleff
distinctly like a bullet whistling by. A moment later the noise came again.
They decided to get off the roof.
They went down to the offices and watched from the windows. They began to
see, in the street below, boys and young men with rifies. It seemed the mob
had broken into a nearby armory. This was too close for comfort: it was
time to abandon Bucharest and go to the Hyatt, which was farther uptown.
They went out and jumped into two cars, then headed up the Shahanshahi
Expressway at top speed. The streets were packed, and there was a carnival
atmosphere. People were leaning out of their windows yelling "Allahar
Akbar!" God is great! Most of the traffic was headed downtown, toward the
fighting. Taylor drove straight through three roadblocks, but nobody mmded:
they were all dancing.
They reached the Hyatt and assembled in the sitting room of the
eleventh-floor comer suite that Gayden had taken over from Perot. They were
joined by Rich Gallagher's wife, Cathy, and her white poodle, Buffy.
Gayden had stocked the suite with booze from the abandoned homes of EDS
evacuees, and he now had the best bar in Tehran; but no one felt much
likedrinking.
"What do we do next?" Gayden asked.
Nobody had any ideas.
Gayden got on the phone to Dallas, where it was now six A.M. He reached Tom
Walter and told him about the fires, the fighting, and the kids on the
streets with their automatic rifles.
"That's all I got to report," he finished.
In his slow Alabama drawl, Walter said: "Other than that a quiet day, hub?"
They discussed what they would do if the phone lines went down. Gayden said
he would try to get messages through via the U.S. military: Cathy Gallagher
worked for the army and she thought she could swing it.
Keane Taylor went into the bedroom and lay down. He thought about his wife,
Mary. She was in Pittsburgh, staying with his parents. Taylor's mother and
father were both past eighty and in failing health. Mary had called to tell
him his mother had been rushed to the hospital: it was her heart. Mary
wanted Taylor to come home. He had spoken to his father, who had said
ambiguously: "You know what you have to do." It was true: Taylor knew he
had to stay here. But it was not easy, not for him or for Mary.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 271
He was dozing on Gayden's bed when the phone rang. He reached out to the
bedside table and picked it up. "Hello?" he said sleepily.
A breathless Iranian voice said: "Are Paul and Bill there?"
"What?" said Taylor. "Rashid-is that you?"
"Are Paul and Bill there?" Rashid repeated.
"No. What do you mean?"
"Okay, I'm coming, I'm coming."
Rashid hung up.
Taylor got off the bed and went into the sitting room. "Rashid just
called," he told the others. "He asked me if Paul and Bill were here. "
"What did he mean?" said Gayden. "Where was he calling from? I I
"I couldn't get anything else out of him. He was all excited, and you know
how bad his English is when he gets wound up.
"Didn't he say any more?"
"He said: 'I'm coming,' then he hung up.
"Shit." Gayden turned to Howell. "Give me the phone." Howell was sitting
with the pho
ne to his ear, saying nothing: they were keeping the line to
Dallas open. At the other end an EDS switchboard operator was listening,
waiting for someone to speak. Gayden said: "Let me talk to Tom Walter
again, please."
As Gayden told Walter about Rashid's call, Taylor wondered what it meant.
Why would Rashid imagine Paul and Bill might be at the Hyatt? They were in
jail-weren't they? , ty, smell-
A few minutes later Rashid burst into the room du
ing of gunsmoke, with clips of G3 ammunition falling out of his pockets,
talking a mile a minute so that nobody could understand a word. Taylor
calmed him down. Eventually he said: "We hit the prison. Paul and Bill were
gone."
Paul and Bill stood at the foot of the prison wall and looked around.
The scene in the street reminded Paul of a New York parade. in the
apartment buildings across from the jail everyone was at the windows,
cheering and applauding as they watched the prisoners escape. At the
streetcorner a vendor was selling fruit from a stall. There was gunfire not
far away, but in the immediate vicinity nobody was shooting. Then, as if
ti) remind Paul and Bill that they were not yet out of danger, a car full
of revolutionaries raced by with guns sticking out of every window.
272 Ken Follett
"Let's get out of here," said Paul.
"Where do we go? The U.S. Embassy? The French Embassy?" 'Me Hyatt. -
Paul started walking, heading north. Bill walked a little behind him, with
his coat collar turned up and his head bent to hide his pale American face.
They came to an intersection. It was deserted: no cars, no people. They
started across. A shot rang out.
Both of them ducked and ran back the way they had come.
It was not going to be easy.
"How are you doing?" said Paul.
I'Still alive.It
They walked back past the prison. The scene was the same: at least the
authorities had not yet got organized enough to start rounding up the
escapers.
Paul headed south and east through the streets, hoping to circle around
until he could go north again. Everywhere there were boys, some only
thirteen or fourteen, with automatic rifles. On every comer was a
sandbagged bunker, as if the streets were divided up into tribal
territories. Farther on they had to push their way through a crowd of
yelling, chanting, almost hysterical people: Paul carefully avoided meeting
people's eyes, for he did not want them to notice him, let alone speak to
hini-if they were to learn there were two Americans in their midst they
might turn ugly.
The rioting was patchy. It was like New York, where you had only to walk a
few steps and turn a comer to find the character of the district completely
changed. Paul and Bill went through a quiet area for half a mile, then ran
into a battle. There was a barricade of overturned cars across the road and
a bunch of youngsters with rifles shooting across the barricade toward what
looked like a military installation. Paul turned away quickly, fearful of
being hit by a stray bullet.
Each time he tried to turn north he ran into some obstruction. They were
now farther from the Hyatt than they had been when they started. They were
moving south, and the fighting was always worse in the south.
They stopped outside an unfinished building. "We could duck in them and
hide until nightfall," Paul said. "After dark nobody will notice that
you're American."
"We might get shot for being out after curfew."
"You think there's still a curfew?"
Bill shrugged.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 273
"We're doing all right so far," Paul said. "Let's go on a little longer. "
They went on.
It was two hours-4wo hours of crowds and street battles and stray sniper
fire-before at last they could turn north. Then the scene changed. The
gunfire receded, and they found themselves in a relatively affluent area of
pleasant villas. They saw a child on a bicycle, wearing a T-shirt that said
something about southern California.
Paul was tired. He had been in jail for forty-five days, and during most of
that time he had been sick: he was no longer strong enough to walk for
hours. "What do you say we hitchhike?" he asked Bill.
"Let's give it a try."
Paul stood at the roadside and waved at the next car that came along. (He
remembered not to stick out his thumb the American way---this was an
obscene gesture i Iran.) The car stopped. There were two Iranian men in it.
Paul and Bill got in the back.
Paul decided not to mention the name of the hotel. "We're going to TaJrish,
" he said. That was a bazaar area to the north of the city.
"We can take you part of the way," said the driver.
"Thanks." Paul offered them cigarettes, then sat back gratefully and lit
one for himself.
The Iranians dropped them off at Kurosh-e-Kabir, several miles south of
Tajrish, not far from where Paul had lived. They were in a main street,
with plenty of traffic and a lot more people around. Paul decided not to
make himself conspicuous by hitchhiking here.
"We could take refuge in the Catholic Mission," Bill suggested.
Paul considered. The authorities presumably knew that Father Williams had
visited them in Gasr Prison just two days ago. "The Mission might be the
first place Dadgar looks for us."
Maybe. "
"We should go to the Hyatt."
"The guys may not be there any longer."
"But there'll be phones, some way to get plane tickets .
"And hot showers."
'Right. "
They walked on.
Suddenly a voice called: "Mr. Paul! Mr. Bill!"
Paul's heart stopped. He looked around. He saw a car full of
274 Ken Folleu
people moving slowly along the road beside him. He recognized one of the
passengers: it wa's a guard from the Gasr Prison.
The guard had changed into civilian clothes, and looked as if he had joined
the revolution. His big smile seemed to say: don't tell who I am, and I
won't tell who you are.
He waved, then the car gathered speed and passed on.
Paul and Bill laughed with a mixture of amusement and relief.
They turned into a quiet street, and Paul started to hitchhike again. He
stood in the road waving while Bill stayed on the sidewalk, so that
motorists might think there was only one man, an Iranian.
A young couple stopped. Paul got into the car and Bill jumped in after him.
"We're headed north," Paul said.
The woman looked at her man.
The man said: "We could take you to Niavron Palace."
-Mank YOU. 11
The car pulled away.
The scene in the streets changed again. They could hear much more gunfire,
and the traffic became heavier and more frantic, with all the cars honking
continually. They saw press cameramen and television crews standing on car
roofs taking pictures. The mob was burning the police stations near where
Bill had lived. The Iranian couple looked nervous as the car inched through
the crowd: having two Americans in their car could get them into trouble in
ft began to get dark.
Bill leaned forward. "Boy, it's getting a bit late," he said. "It sure
would be nice if y'all could take us to the Hyatt Hotel. We'd be happy to,
you know, thank you and give you something for taking us there."
"Okay," said the driver.
He did not ask how much.
They passed the Niavron Palace, the Shah's winter residence. 17here were
tanks outside, as always, but now they had white flags attached to their
antennae: they had surrendered to the revolution.
The car went on, past wrecked and burning buildings, turned back every now
and again by street barricades.
At last they saw the Hyatt.
"Oh, boy," Paul said feelingly. "An American hotel."
They drove into the forecourt.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 275
Paul was so grateful that he gave the Iranian couple two hundred dollars.
The car drove off. Paul and Bill waved, then walked into the hotel.
Suddenly Paul wished he were wearing his EDS uniform of business suit and
white shirt, instead of prison dungarees and a dirty raincoat.
The magnificent lobby was deserted.
They walked to the reception desk. After a moment someone came out from an
office.
Paul asked for Bill Gayden's room number.
The clerk checked, then told him there was no one of that name registered.
"How about Bob Young?"
'No. -
"Rich Gallagher?"
"No. 1~
"Jay Coburn?"
"No. 91
I've got the wrong hotel, Paul thought. How could I have made a mistake
like that?
"What about John Howell?" he said, remembering the lawyer.
"Yes," the clerk said at last, and he gave them a room number on the
eleventh floor.
They went up in the elevator.
They found Howell's mom and knocked. There was no answer.
"What do you think we ought to do?" Bill said.
"I'm going to check in," said Paul. "I'm fired. Why don't we check in, have
a meal. We'll call the States, tell them we're out of jail, everything will
be fine."
"Okay. "
They walked back to the elevator.
Bit by bit, Keane Taylor got the story out of Rashid.
He had stood just inside the prison gates for about an hour. The scene was
a shambles; eleven thousand people were trying to get out through a small
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