All was quiet outside, but for the heavy rain. They dashed down the wet street, the sounds of protest faint in the background.
“Where to now?” Breathless, Joe Stafford voiced the question on everyone’s minds. The nearby British embassy was the safest bet, they agreed. But to avoid the protesters they’d have to stick to the back streets — a confusing maze of alleys in the ancient city. They’d be lost in minutes.
Most of the Iranians in the group were already out of sight, but one woman had stayed behind. “I can show you the way,” she bravely offered. The Americans nodded, grateful. Picking up some newspapers to protect their heads from the rain, they began to weave their way through the alleys, turning their faces away whenever they passed anyone.
Coming out of a lane, they stopped across from the square that separated them from the British embassy. Their hearts sank: it was full of protesters.
The Americans slunk back into the alley. They thanked their Iranian guide, and she slipped away. One of the men urged them all to go to the house of the consul general. But Anders shook his head. It was too obvious a hiding place. And it would mean backtracking toward the American embassy, something no one wanted to do.
Unable to agree, the group split up. Five of them — Anders, the Staffords, and the Lijeks — began a long walk across the city to Anders’s apartment. Creeping through the alleys, they arrived there by mid-afternoon, drenched and exhausted.
Anders quickly got on the phone, calling the homes of other embassy staff in the city — surely someone else had slipped out. But no one answered.
“Does that mean we’re the only ones who got away?” Cora Lijek asked.
Growing frantic, Anders called every contact he could think of. Then, in the middle of a call, the telephone line clicked and went dead.
Anders slowly replaced the receiver. “Calls always get cut off in Tehran, it could mean nothing,” he told the others. But they looked unconvinced.
Joe Stafford pulled out a radio, one that all the diplomats carried, and tried to contact the embassy. But on the crackling line they heard only shouting in Farsi, the Iranian language. The embassy was under the students’ control.
Why hasn’t the government sent in troops? Anders wondered. A sudden realization made him turn cold. Because they support the takeover, that’s why. Or else they know they’re powerless to do anything.
The five Americans looked at each other in silence. They were far from home in a hostile place, and a revolution had stripped away their last shreds of protection. Everyone was thinking the same thing: Where can we go?
Robert Anders was running out of ideas. The American fugitives had been on the run for days, moving from place to place. Revolutionary Guards were combing the city, picking up Americans on the streets and in offices. Anders and the others had spent a few days hiding with British diplomats, but their hosts grew uneasy, so they left. Servants had let them into the empty apartments of Americans trapped on the compound. But everywhere they had sensed they were being watched. At night they lay awake, jumping at every little sound. Sometimes they felt sure the servants were whispering about them.
Within hours of taking over the embassy — or the “Den of Spies” as the militants called it — the armed students released their demands to the media. They would hold the 60-odd trapped Americans hostage until the United States returned the exiled Shah to Iran to stand trial. If not, they would put the hostages on trial for spying.
To make matters worse, Iran’s moderate prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, had resigned. The country was now being run by the Revolutionary Council and the Islamic clergy it looked to for guidance — in particular, the Ayatollah Khomeini. There would be no help from such a government.
Anders knew the American government was in a tough position. Agreeing to the demands would not only mean handing over their ally for certain execution. It would be saying to the world, If you seize our embassies, we’ll do what you want.
And where did that leave the five of them? Was it just a matter of time before they were dragged back to the compound to join the rest? That’s what must have happened to Lopez and the others who’d split from their group. Anders was sure of that by now.
Desperate, Anders called an old friend — John Sheardown, Canada’s chief immigration officer in Tehran.
“Why did you wait so long to call me?” Sheardown blurted out before Anders could finish his story.
The next day a car pulled into Sheardown’s driveway, and inside the five fugitives sighed with relief. Finally a safe haven — for the moment, at least.
Sheardown quickly ushered them inside, where his wife Zena was waiting. Within seconds Canada’s ambassador, Ken Taylor, arrived as well. When Sheardown had told Taylor about Anders’s phone call, the ambassador had responded without hesitating: “Okay, where will we hide them?”
It was the kind of reaction Sheardown expected from his boss, who was energetic and unconventional, eager to cut through red tape to get to the heart of a matter. After a speedy coded message to the Ministry of External Affairs in Ottawa, Taylor got the official go-ahead to help the Americans.
As the fugitives gathered in Sheardown’s living room, the Canadian ambassador went over the situation with them.
“We can’t hide you at the embassy — downtown is too dangerous. So we’ll be splitting you up. The Staffords will come to my house in the north of the city. The Lijeks and Bob Anders will stay here with the Sheardowns. No one will expect you to hide in our homes.”
“How about extra security? Can any Canadian military be posted to the houses?” Sheardown asked.
Taylor shook his head. “No, that would only draw attention. It would give us away in a second. Life has to go on normally. No changes.”
“But you must have Iranian staff at your homes — servants. Can we trust them?” Joe Stafford asked.
“We’ll tell them you’re Canadian tourists, friends of mine,” Taylor said. “But you’ll have to stay inside, especially during the day. You mustn’t be spotted by the komitehs, the patrols who make the rounds of the neighborhood. Remember — stay out of sight.”
After some hurried goodbyes, the Staffords left for the Taylor residence, and the Lijeks and Anders followed Zena Sheardown to their rooms. Cora carried all they’d brought with them in one small suitcase. They’d fled their last hiding place in such a panic, the clothes were still running in the washing machine.
Mark Lijek sat chin in hand, drumming his fingers on his cheek and staring at the Scrabble board. Now and then he glanced up at Cora, who sat across the coffee table, waiting for his move. Nearby, Anders was sunk in an armchair, reading a magazine. The silence in the house seemed to wrap around them.
I can’t take much more of this, Mark thought. Reading, playing cards — it was all they could do to pass the long hours trapped inside the Sheardowns’ house. For the first weeks they slept in, but still the days seemed endless. Mark and Cora were playing three hours of Scrabble a day! Cora had started running up and down the stairs to blow off steam. Anders had told them to pretend they were at a luxury resort, with a storm keeping them inside. But it hadn’t helped. It’s feeling so helpless and nervous, Mark thought, with nothing to take your mind off the fear — that’s what’s unbearable.
At Ken Taylor’s house, the Staffords had the same cabin fever. Joe, who spoke some Farsi, listened all day to local radio, desperate for information on the hostages at the embassy and what — if anything — was being done to free them. What if the American government doesn’t give in? he wondered. Will the militants start executing the hostages for spying?
Worst of all, he knew the Iranian staff at the Taylor home were getting suspicious. He’d overheard questions from the head servant and the cook — Why would tourists have so little luggage and never go out? They like to travel light, Taylor’s wife, Pat, had answered. They’re resting before they start sightseeing. But even to Joe the excuses sounded lame.
Then, a few weeks into their hiding, Taylor s
prung some good news on them. Someone else had slipped through the students’ fingers. Lee Schatz, an American attaché who leased space at the Swedish embassy, had been there when the takeover happened. He’d been hiding with the Swedes ever since.
The Swedish ambassador had called Taylor. Sounding apologetic, he asked if Canada could possibly hide Schatz — he wasn’t likely to pass as a Swede, but he might have better luck posing as a Canadian. Taylor, with his mischievous sense of humor, had savored the moment. No problem, he’d told the shocked Swedish ambassador, we’re already hiding five!
Schatz’s arrival at the Sheardowns’ gave everyone something new to talk about. As American Thanksgiving approached at the end of November, Taylor decided it was worth the risk to sneak Schatz and the Staffords over for a reunion dinner with the Lijeks and Anders. It would help keep everyone’s spirits up. When the turkey was finished, someone joked, “Let’s hope we’re not all here for Christmas!”
There was silence around the table. That was a possibility no one wanted to talk about.
Ken Taylor went about his daily business, but it was getting harder with so much weighing on his mind. All through December he’d watched the Americans growing more restless and desperate. How much longer could he keep them a secret?
Some North American journalists had noticed that the original number of staff at the American embassy was greater than the number of hostages announced by the students. Where were the others? they asked. Government officials had asked them to keep it quiet, since lives were at stake, but sooner or later it was bound to leak out.
And rumors were spreading of a rescue operation. The U.S. military might storm the compound and whisk the hostages out by helicopter.
Then what would become of the six left behind? Taylor knew there’d be only one chance for an airlift — they couldn’t fly back for the others. And the Iranian militants could argue that since the Canadians had been hiding them, the six must be spies, and as such had no diplomatic protection. They’d stay and stand trial, along with their Canadian accomplices!
Clearly, it was time for them all to get out.
Christmas came and went as Taylor weighed the options for escape. They could drive the Americans northwest to the city of Tabriz, then over the border to Turkey, where a helicopter could pick them up. Or take them west to the Persian Gulf and get them on a British tanker.
Both plans were risky, and they meant traveling through dangerous areas — some parts of the country had been plunged into even greater turmoil by the revolution than Tehran. Plus they would need safe houses along the way, and a Farsi-speaking guide they could trust.
No, Taylor realized, there was only one way. Confront the Iranians head-on. Take the Americans straight through Tehran’s airport and onto a jet to Europe. It was the boldest option, but the swiftest, and the only one that stood a chance.
“Who is this?” A man’s voice demanded over the telephone at the Taylor residence.
“Pat Taylor. And who is speaking, please?” Pat didn’t recognize the voice, and an uneasy feeling told her to be careful what she said.
The man’s reply turned her blood cold. “I’d like to speak to Joseph or Kathy Stafford. I know they’re there.”
Pat swallowed and answered steadily, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. There’s no one here by that name.” She glanced over at the Staffords, who had risen from their chairs and were standing nearby, watching wide-eyed.
The stranger began to argue with her, but Pat insisted he was mistaken. The man hung up suddenly.
Joe put an arm around his wife. This felt like the last straw in a series of scares that had tormented the Americans. Days before, a helicopter had mysteriously circled over the Sheardown home, terrifying Zena and the Americans hiding there.
Pat quickly phoned the ambassador, who rushed home. “Don’t worry,” Taylor reassured the frantic Staffords. “We’re getting you out.”
Taylor, together with officials in Ottawa and Washington, had worked out an escape plan. First of all, the fugitives would need new identities: Americans might not be let out of the country. But Canadians could still come and go.
Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark had quickly issued six Canadian passports. For the next step, Ottawa turned to the Central Intelligence Agency in the U.S. They’d need the CIA’s expert help to forge Iranian stamps on the passports, showing that the “Canadians” had entered Iran. And they’d need fake visas allowing them to enter and exit the country.
By mid-January the passports and visas arrived in a diplomatic pouch under the arm of a Canadian embassy courier. The CIA had also provided driver’s licenses and credit cards to make the identities seem more real. As hoped, the pouch was not checked at the airport. Luckily some diplomatic privileges were still respected!
But when Taylor looked at the visas, he gasped. The dates were wrong! The CIA had followed the old calendar used by the Shah and not the Islamic calendar reintroduced by Khomeini. According to the visas, the Americans had arrived in Iran a month after they were leaving! Taylor said nothing to the hostages. His staff hastily doctored the date — and hoped it wouldn’t show.
The last days before the escape ticked by in a nerve-wracking countdown. The plan was to leave during the national elections, when confusion throughout the city would help mask their departure.
On January 26, 1980, the night before the escape, Taylor sat down with the six Americans and the few remaining Canadian diplomats. Taylor knew the Canadian embassy’s days in Iran were numbered, so staff had been leaving the country bit by bit, all the while keeping up the illusion that everything was business as usual.
Huddled in a circle, the Americans were handed their passports and began studying their new identities.
“You are a group of Canadian business people in the oil industry,” Taylor explained to them as they eyed their new passports. “You came to Iran in early January, stayed with embassy staff, and are now returning home. Everyone ready? Let’s start.”
The Canadians began drilling the Americans on their new identities. Together they rehearsed every kind of question that might come up at the airport. Where was your visa issued? Where were you born? What was your business in Iran? The slightest hesitation before answering, a little confusion over details — any number of small blunders could give them away.
Next they studied a map of the airport terminal and its many checkpoints. Taylor showed them where they would run into police, guards, and immigration officials, and where their visas would be checked and double-checked. The toughest spot was about halfway through, at the third checkpoint — a barrier guarded by National Police and Revolutionary Guards.
Finally, Taylor circled the waiting area where they’d stand before boarding. “But don’t relax once you’re there!” he warned them. “You can’t let your guard down until the plane is in the air. Even when you’re sitting on the runway, Revolutionary Guards could board the plane for one last check of papers.” The Americans nodded.
“Remember,” Taylor added. “If one of you is arrested, the rest of you mustn’t panic. Walk away — slowly — to the exit. Two cars will be waiting for you outside.”
It was late and they all needed rest. Taylor stood up, wishing them luck. He wouldn’t be with them the next day — if they all left together, it would raise suspicions.
He smiled on his way out, but silently he worried about the Americans. They’d done well in the mock interrogations. But they’d been cooped up for three months. They’re healthy, Taylor thought, but dazed. Are they still sharp enough to react quickly to the unexpected? Because, as he knew, something unexpected was bound to come up.
At dawn the Americans piled into a car and prepared to face the many roadblocks on the way to the airport for their 7:35 a.m. flight to Frankfurt, Germany. They arrived at the terminal without incident, but Anders was nervous. He had processed visas for so many Iranians at the consulate. What if someone recognized him?
One by one the travelers checked in
their bags, then headed for the first of the security stations. At a distance, two Canadian diplomats strolled around the airport, watching their progress.
When the group reached the third checkpoint, the official stared at Schatz’s passport, looked up at him, then back down. Suddenly he snatched it up and slipped out of sight into an office.
Don’t panic, Schatz told himself. As moments passed and the man didn’t return, Schatz raised his sleeve to mop the sweat on his brow. He sensed the others standing nervously behind him, but didn’t dare make eye contact.
The official abruptly returned and held out the passport, his face expressionless. Schatz reached for it, tensing his hand to stop it shaking.
Mark and Cora’s hearts were pounding as they strode toward the final checkpoint, where their visas would be examined. But no one was there. Mark and Cora hesitated. Should they just walk through? Mark eyed the departure gate, and was tempted to sprint toward it.
But Anders grabbed his arm to hold him back. If anyone spotted them, guards would be all around them in a second. Mark groaned as Anders went in search of help. I can’t believe it: we’re actually going out of our way to talk to guards, he thought.
But Anders had done the right thing. A nearby guard found the missing official, who apologized and waved them through.
The minutes ticked by slowly as they strolled around the waiting area. It’s not over yet, Anders told himself.
A voice blared over the loudspeakers. Joe quickly translated the Farsi announcement — mechanical difficulties were delaying the Swissair flight. Panic spread through the group.
“What if it’s just a ploy to stall us?”
“We’re like sitting ducks here.”
Twenty minutes went by. In low mutters, the Americans ran through Taylor’s back-up plans. They could split up and catch other planes — each of them had a ticket for another flight, just in case. Or they could slip out of the airport and make a run for the safe house Taylor had rented as a last resort. It would buy them a couple of days, or at least a few hours.
Escapes! Page 6