On Wings of Eagles

by Ken Follett

  He decided that the best kind of car for the trip was a British Range Rover, a cross between a jeep and a station wagon. There were no dealerships or used car lots open in Tehran now, so Coburn gave the Cycle Man the job of getting hold of two Range Rovers. The Cycle Man's solution to the problem was characteristically ingenious. He had a notice printed with his telephone number and the message: "If you would like to sell your Range Rover, call this number." Then he went around on his motorcycle and put a copy under the windshield wipers of every Range Rover he saw parked on the streets.

  He got two vehicles for twenty thousand dollars each, and he also bought tools and spare parts for all but the most major repairs.

  Simons and Coburn took two Iranians with them: Majid, and a cousin of Majid's who was a professor at an agricultural college in Rezaiyeh. The professor had come to Tehran to put his American wife and their children on a plane to the States: taking him back to Rezaiyeh was Simons's cover story for the trip.

  They left Tehran early in the morning, with one of Keane Taylor's fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline in the back. For the first hundred miles, as far as Qazvin, there was a modern freeway. After Qazvin the road was a two-lane blacktop. The hillsides were covered with snow, but the road itself was clear. If it's like this all the way to the border, Coburn thought, we could get there in a day.

  They stopped at Zanjan, two hundred miles from Tehran and the same distance from Rezaiyeh, and spoke to the local chief of police, who was related to the professor. (Coburn could never quite work out the family relationships of Iranians: they seemed to use the word "cousin" rather loosely.) This part of the country was peaceful, the police chief said; if they were to encounter any problems it would happen in the area of Tabriz.

  They drove on through the afternoon, on narrow but good country roads. After another hundred miles they entered Tabriz. There was a demonstration going on, but it was nothing like the kind of battle they had got used to in Tehran, and they even felt secure enough to take a stroll around the bazaar.

  Along the way Simons had been talking to Majid and the professor. It seemed like casual conversation, but by now Coburn was familiar with Simons's technique, and he knew that the colonel was feeling these two out, deciding whether he could trust them. So far the prognosis seemed good, for Simons began to drop hints about the real purpose of the trip.

  The professor said that the countryside around Tabriz was pro-Shah, so before they moved on, Simons stuck a photograph of the Shah on the windshield.

  The first sign of trouble came a few miles north of Tabriz, where they were stopped by a roadblock. It was an amateur affair, just two tree trunks laid across the road in such a way that cars could maneuver around them but could not pass through at speed. It was manned by villagers armed with axes and sticks.

  Majid and the professor talked to the villagers. The professor showed his university identity card, and said that the Americans were scientists come to help him with a research project. It was clear, Coburn thought, that the rescue team would need to bring Iranians when and if they did the trip with Paul and Bill, to handle situations like this.

  The villagers let them pass.

  A little later Majid stopped and waved down a car coming in the opposite direction. The professor talked to the driver of the other car for a few minutes, then reported that the next town, Khoy, was anti-Shah. Simons took down the picture of the Shah from the windshield and replaced it with one of the Ayatollah Khomeini. From then on they would stop oncoming cars regularly and change the picture according to local politics.

  On the outskirts of Khoy there was another roadblock.

  Like the first one, it looked unofficial, and was manned by civilians; but this time the ragged men and boys standing behind the tree trunks were holding guns.

  Majid stopped the car and they all got out.

  To Coburn's horror, a teenage boy pointed a gun at him.

  Coburn froze.

  The gun was a 9mm Llama pistol. The boy looked about sixteen. He had probably never handled a firearm before today, Coburn thought. Amateurs with guns were dangerous. The boy was holding the gun so tightly that his knuckles showed white.

  Coburn was scared. He had been shot at many times, in Vietnam, but what frightened him now was the possibility that he would be killed by goddam accident.

  "Rooskie," the boy said. "Rooskie."

  He thinks I'm a Russian, Coburn realized.

  Perhpas it was because of the bushy red beard and the little black wool cap.

  "No, American," Coburn said.

  The boy kept his pistol leveled.

  Coburn stared at those white knuckles and thought: I just hope the punk doesn't sneeze.

  The villagers searched Simons, Majid, and the professor. Coburn, who could not take his eyes off the kid, heard Majid say: "They're looking for weapons." The only weapon they had was a little knife that Coburn was wearing in a scabbard behind his back, under his shirt.

  A villager began to search Coburn, and at last the kid lowered his pistol.

  Coburn breathed again.

  Then he wondered what would happen when they found his knife.

  The search was not thorough, and the knife was not found.

  The vigilantes believed the story about a scientific project. "They apologize for searching the old man," Majid said. The "old man" was Simons, who was now looking just like an elderly Iranian peasant. "We can go on," Majid added.

  They climbed back into the car.

  Outside Khoy they turned south, looping over the top end of the lake, and drove down the western shore to the outskirts of Rezaiyeh.

  The professor guided them into the town by remote roads, and they saw no roadblocks. The journey from Tehran had taken them twelve hours, and they were now an hour away from the border crossing at Sero.

  That evening they all had dinner--chella kebab, the Iranian dish of rice and lamb--with the professor's landlord, who happened to be a customs official. Majid gently pumped the landlord for information, and learned that there was very little activity at the Sero frontier station.

  They spent the night at the professor's house, a two-story villa on the outskirts of the town.

  In the morning Majid and the professor drove to the border and back. They reported that there were no roadblocks and the route was safe. Then Majid went into town to seek out a contact from whom he could buy firearms, and Simons and Coburn went to the border.

  They found a small frontier post with only two guards. It had a customs warehouse, a weighbridge for trucks, and a guardhouse. The road was barred by a low chain stretched between a post on one side and the wall of the guardhouse on the other. Beyond the chain were about two hundred yards of no-man's-land, then another, smaller frontier post on the Turkish side.

  They got out of the car to look around. The air was pure and bitingly cold. Simons pointed across the hillside. "See the tracks?"

  Coburn followed Simons's finger. In the snow, close behind the border station, was a trail where a small caravan had crossed the border, impudently close to the guards.

  Simons pointed again, this time above their heads. "Easy to cut the guards off." Coburn looked up and saw a single telephone wire leading down the hill from the station. A quick snip and the guards would be isolated.

  The two of them walked down the hill and took a side road, no more than a dirt track, into the hills. After a mile or so they came to a small village, just a dozen or so houses made of wood or mud brick. Speaking halting Turkish, Simons asked for the chief. A middle-aged man in baggy trousers, waistcoat, and headdress appeared. Coburn listened without understanding as Simons talked. Finally Simons shook the chief's hand, and they left.

  "What was all that about?" Coburn asked as they walked away.

  "I told him I wanted to cross the border on horseback at night with some friends."

  "What did he say?"

  "He said he could arrange it."

  "How did you know the people in that particular village were
smugglers?"

  "Look around you," Simons said.

  Coburn looked around at the bare, snow-covered slopes.

  "What do you see?" Simons said.

  "Nothing."

  "Right. There is no agriculture here, no industry. How do you think these people make a living? They're all smugglers."

  They returned to the Range Rover and drove back into Rezaiyeh. That evening Simons explained his plan to Coburn.

  Simons, Coburn, Poche, Paul, and Bill would drive from Tehran to Rezaiyeh in the two Range Rovers. They would bring Majid and the professor with them as interpreters. In Rezaiyeh they would stay at the professor's house. The villa was ideal: no one else lived there, it was detached from other houses, and from there quiet roads led out of the city. Between Tehran and Rezaiyeh they would be unarmed: judging by what had happened at the roadblocks, guns would get them into trouble. However, at Rezaiyeh they would buy guns. Majid had made a contact in the city who would sell them Browning 12-gauge shotguns for six thousand dollars apiece. The same man could also get Llama pistols.

  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, Poche, 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 single-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 Iranians came in: one was introduced as the man who would exchange Taylor's money; the other was his bodyguard, and looked like a hoodlum.

  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 is!"

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

  "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.

  John Howell was changing. With each day that went by he became a little less the upright 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 for 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's 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 Mehdi. The 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 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 Abolfath Mahvi, EDS's Iranian 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. Th
e 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. Houman'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."

  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 him. 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 tell 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 the phone.