On Wings of Eagles

by Ken Follett

  The phone rang.

  He answered. "Ross Perot."

  "This is Ralph Boulware."

  "Hi, Ralph, where are you?"

  "I'm at the border."

  "Good!"

  "I've just seen Rashid."

  Perot's heart leaped. "Great! What did he say?"

  "They're safe."

  "Thank God!"

  "They're in a hotel thirty or forty miles from the border. Rashid is just scouting the territory in advance. He's gone back now. He says they'll probably cross tomorrow, but that's just his idea, and Simons may think otherwise. If they're that close I don't see Simons waiting until morning."

  "Right. Now, Pat Sculley and Mr. Fish and the rest of the guys are on their way to you. They're flying to Van; then they'll rent a bus. Now, where will they find you?"

  "I'm based in a village called Yuksekova, closest place to the border, at a hotel. It's the only hotel in the district."

  "I' ll tell Sculley."

  "Okay."

  Perot hung up. Oh, boy, he thought; at last things are beginning to go right!

  Pat Sculley's orders from Perot were to go to the border, ensure that the Dirty Team got across safely, and bring them to Istanbul. If the Dirty Team failed to reach the border, he was to go into Iran and find them, preferably in a plane stolen by Dick Douglas, or failing that, by road.

  Sculley and the Turkish Rescue Team took a scheduled flight from Istanbul to Ankara, where a chartered jet was waiting for them. (The charter plane would take them to Van and bring them back: it would not go anywhere they pleased. The only way of making the pilot take them into Iran would have been to hijack the plane.)

  The arrival of a jet seemed to be a big event in the town of Van. Getting off the plane, they were met by a contingent of policemen who looked ready to give them a hard time. But Mr. Fish went into a huddle with the police chief and came out smiling.

  "Now, listen," said Mr. Fish. "We're going to check into the best hotel in town, but I want you to know it's not the Sheraton, so please don't complain."

  They went off in two taxis.

  The hotel had a high central hall with three floors of rooms reached via galleries, so that every room door could be seen from the hall. When the Americans walked in, the hall was full of Turks, drinking beer and watching a soccer match on a black-and-white TV, yelling and cheering. As the Turks noticed the strangers, the room quieted down until there was complete silence.

  They were assigned rooms. Each bedroom had two cots and a hole in the corner, screened by a shower curtain, for a toilet. There were plank floors and whitewashed walls without windows. The rooms were infested with cockroaches. On each floor was one bathroom.

  Sculley and Mr. Fish went to get a bus to take them all to the border. A Mercedes picked them up outside the hotel and took them to what appeared to be an electrical appliance store with a few ancient TV sets in the window. The place was closed--it was evening by now--but Mr. Fish banged on the iron grille protecting the windows, and someone came out.

  They went into the back and sat at a table under a single lightbulb. Sculley understood none of the conversation, but by the end of it Mr. Fish had negotiated a bus and a driver. They returned to the hotel in the bus.

  The rest of the team were gathered in Sculley's room. Nobody wanted to sit on these beds, let alone sleep in them. They all wanted to leave for the border immediately, but Mr. Fish was hesitant. "It's two o'clock in the morning," he said. "And the police are watching the hotel."

  "Does that matter?" said Sculley.

  "It means more questions, more trouble."

  "Let's give it a try."

  They all trooped downstairs. The manager appeared, looking anxious, and started to question Mr. Fish. Then, sure enough, two policemen came in from outside and joined in the discussion.

  Mr. Fish turned to Sculley and said: "They don't want us to go."

  "Why not?"

  "We look very suspicious. Don't you realize that?"

  "Look, is it against the law for us to go?"

  "No, but--"

  "Then we're going. Just tell them."

  There was more argument in Turkish, but finally the policemen and the hotel manager appeared to give in, and the team boarded the bus.

  They left town. The temperature dropped rapidly as they drove up into the snow-covered hills. They all had warm coats, and blankets in their backpacks, and they needed them.

  Mr. Fish sat next to Sculley and said: "This is where it gets serious. I can handle the police, because I have ties with them; but I'm worried about the bandits and the soldiers--I have no connections there."

  "What d'you want to do?"

  "I believe I can talk my way out of trouble, so long as none of you have guns."

  Sculley considered. Only Davis was armed anyway; and Simons had always worried that weapons could get you into trouble more readily than they could get you out of it: the Walther PPKs had never left Dallas. "Okay," Sculley said.

  Ron Davis threw his .38 out of the window into the snow.

  A little later the headlights of the bus revealed a soldier in uniform standing in the middle of the road, waving. The bus driver kept right on going, as if he intended to run the man down, but Mr. Fish yelled and the driver pulled up.

  Looking out the window, Sculley saw a platoon of soldiers armed with high-powered rifles on the mountainside, and thought: if we hadn't stopped, we'd have been mown down.

  A sergeant and a corporal got on the bus. They checked all the passports. Mr. Fish offered them cigarettes. They stood talking to him while they smoked; then they waved and got off.

  A few miles farther on, the bus was stopped again, and they went through a similar routine.

  The third time, the men who got on the bus had no uniforms. Mr. Fish became very jumpy. "Act casual," he hissed at the Americans. "Read books, just don't look at these guys." He talked to the Turks for something like half an hour, and when the bus was finally allowed to proceed, two of them stayed on it. "Protection," Mr. Fish said enigmatically, and he shrugged.

  Sculley was nominally in charge, but there was little he could do other than follow Mr. Fish's directions. He did not know the country, nor did he speak the language: most of the time he had no idea what was going on. It was hard to have control under those circumstances. The best he could do, he figured, was to keep Mr. Fish pointed in the right direction and lean on him a little when he began to lose his nerve.

  At four o'clock in the morning they reached Yuksekova, the nearest village to the border station. Here, according to Mr. Fish's cousin in Van, they would find Ralph Boulware.

  Sculley and Mr. Fish went into the hotel. It was dark as a barn and smelled like the men's room at a football stadium. They yelled for a while, and a boy appeared with a candle. Mr. Fish spoke to him in Turkish, then said: "Boulware's not here. He left hours ago. They don't know where he went."

  Thirteen

  1____

  At the hotel in Rezaiyeh, Jay Coburn had that sick, helpless feeling again, the feeling he had had in Mahabad, and then in the courtyard of the schoolhouse: he had no control over his own destiny, his fate was in the hands of others--in this case, the hands of Rashid.

  Where the hell was Rashid?

  Coburn asked the guards if he could use the phone. They took him down to the lobby. He dialed the home of Majid's cousin, the professor, in Rezaiyeh, but there was no answer.

  Without much hope he dialed Gholam's number in Tehran. To his surprise he got through.

  "I have a message for Jim Nyfeler," he said. "We are at the staging area."

  "But where are you?" said Gholam.

  "In Tehran," Coburn lied.

  "I need to see you."

  Coburn had to continue the deception. "Okay, I'll meet you tomorrow morning."

  "Where?"

  "At Bucharest."

  "Okay."

  Coburn went back upstairs. Simons took him and Keane Taylor into one of the rooms. "If Rashid isn't back by ni
ne o'clock, we're leaving," Simons said.

  Coburn immediately felt better.

  Simons went on: "The guards are getting bored, their vigilance is slipping. We'll either sneak past them or deal with them the other way."

  "We've only got one car," said Coburn.

  "And we're going to leave it here, to confuse them. We'll walk to the border. Hell, it's only thirty or forty miles. We can go across country: we'll avoid roadblocks by avoiding roads."

  Coburn nodded. This was what he wanted. They were taking the initiative again.

  "Let's get the money together," Simons said to Taylor. "Ask the guards to take you down to the car. Bring the Kleenex box and the flashlight up here and take the money out of them."

  Taylor left.

  "We might as well eat first," Simons said. "It's going to be a long walk."

  Taylor went into an empty room and spilled the money out of the Kleenex box and the flashlight onto the floor.

  Suddenly the door was flung open.

  Taylor's heart stopped.

  He looked up and saw Gayden, grinning all over his face. "Gotcha!" Gayden said.

  Taylor was furious. "You bastard, Gayden," he said. "You gave me a fucking heart attack."

  Gayden laughed like hell.

  The guards took them downstairs to the dining room. The Americans sat at a big circular table, and the guards took another table across the room. Lamb with rice was served, and tea. It was a grim meal: they were all worried about what might have happened to Rashid, and how they would manage without him.

  There was a TV set on, and Paul could not take his eyes off the screen. He expected at any minute to see his own face appear like a "Wanted" poster.

  Where the hell was Rashid?

  They were only an hour from the border, yet they were trapped, under guard, and still in danger of being sent back to Tehran and jail.

  Someone said: "Hey, look who's here!"

  Rashid walked in.

  He came over to their table, wearing his self-important look. "Gentlemen," he said, "this is your last meal."

  They all stared at him, horrified.

  "In Iran, I mean," he added hastily. "We can leave."

  They all cheered.

  "I got a letter from the revolutionary committee," he went on. "I went to the border to check it out. There are a couple of roadblocks on the way, but I have arranged everything. I know where we can get horses to cross the mountains--but I don't think we need them. There are no government people at the border station--the place is in the hands of the villagers. I saw the head man of the village, and it will be all right for us to cross. Also, Ralph Boulware is there. I talked to him."

  Simons stood up. "Let's move," he said. "Fast."

  They left their meal half-eaten. Rashid talked to the guards, and showed them his letter from the deputy leader. Keane Taylor paid the hotel bill. Rashid had bought a stack of Khomeini posters, and he gave them to Bill to stick on the cars.

  They were out of there in minutes.

  Bill had done a good job with the posters. Everywhere you looked on the Range Rovers, the fierce, white-bearded face of the Ayatollah glared out at you.

  They pulled away, Rashid driving the first car.

  On the way out of town Rashid suddenly braked, leaned out of the window, and waved frantically at an approaching taxi.

  Simons growled: "Rashid, what the fuck are you doing?"

  Without answering, Rashid jumped out of the car and ran over to the taxi.

  "Jesus Christ," said Simons.

  Rashid talked to the cabdriver for a minute; then the cab went on. Rashid explained: "I asked him to show us a way out of town by the back streets. There is one roadblock I want to avoid because it is manned by kids with rifles and I don't know what they might do. The cabby has a fare already, but he's coming back. We'll wait."

  "We won't wait very goddam long," Simons said.

  The cab returned in ten minutes. They followed it through the dark, unpaved streets until they came to a main road. The cabby turned right. Rashid followed, taking the corner fast. On the left, just a few yards away, was the roadblock he had wanted to avoid, with teenage boys firing rifles into the air. The cab and the two Range Rovers accelerated fast away from the corner, before the kids could realize that someone had sneaked past them.

  Fifty yards down the road, Rashid pulled into a gas station.

  Keane Taylor said to him: "What the hell are you stopping for?"

  "We've got to get gas."

  "We've got three-quarters of a tankful, plenty to jump the border on--let's get out of here."

  "It may be impossible to get gas in Turkey."

  Simons said: "Rashid, let's go."

  Rashid jumped out of the car.

  When the fuel tanks had been topped up, Rashid was still haggling with the taxi driver, offering him a hundred rials--a little more than a dollar--for guiding them out of town.

  Taylor said: "Rashid, just give him a handful of money and let's go."

  "He wants too much," Rashid said.

  "Oh, God," said Taylor.

  Rashid settled with the cabby for two hundred rials and got back into the Range Rover, saying: "He would have got suspicious if I didn't argue."

  They drove out of town. The road wound up into the mountains. The surface was good and they made rapid progress. After a while the road began to follow a ridge, with deep wooded gulleys on either side. "There was a checkpoint around here somewhere this afternoon," Rashid said. "Maybe they went home."

  The headlights picked out two men standing beside the road, waving them down. There was no barrier. Rashid did not brake.

  "I guess we'd better stop," Simons said.

  Rashid kept going right past the two men.

  "I said stop!" Simons barked.

  Rashid stopped.

  Bill stared out through the windshield and said: "Would you look at that?"

  A few yards ahead was a bridge over a ravine. On either side of the bridge, tribesmen were emerging from the ravine. They kept coming--thirty, forty, fifty--and they were armed to the teeth.

  It looked very like an ambush. If the cars had tried to rush the checkpoint, they would have been shot full of holes.

  "Thank God we stopped," Bill said fervently.

  Rashid jumped out of the car and started talking. The tribesmen put a chain across the bridge and surrounded the cars. It rapidly became clear that these were the most unfriendly people the team had yet encountered. They surrounded the cars, glaring in and hefting their rifles, while two or three of them started yelling at Rashid.

  It was maddening, Bill thought, to have come so far, through so much danger and adversity, only to be stopped by a bunch of dumb farmers. Wouldn't they just like to take these two fine Range Rovers and all our money? he thought. And who would ever know?

  The tribesmen got meaner. They started pushing and shoving Rashid. In a minute they'll start shooting, Bill thought.

  "Do nothing," Simons said. "Stay in the car, let Rashid handle it."

  Bill decided Rashid needed some help. He touched his pocket rosary and started praying. He said every prayer he knew. We're in God's hands now, he thought; it will take a miracle to get us out of this mess.

  In the second car Coburn sat frozen while a tribesman outside pointed a rifle directly at his head.

  Gayden, sitting behind, was seized by a wild impulse, and whispered: "Jay! Why don't you lock the door!"

  Coburn felt hysterical laughter bubble up in his throat.

  Rashid felt he was on the cliff-edge of death.

  These tribesmen were bandits, and they would kill you for the coat on your back: they didn't care. The revolution was nothing to them. No matter who was in power, they recognized no government, obeyed no laws. They did not even speak Farsi, the language of Iran, but Turkish.

  They pushed him around, yelling at him in Turkish. He yelled right back in Farsi. He was getting nowhere. They're working themselves up to shoot us all, he thought.
r />   He heard the sound of a car. A pair of headlights approached from the direction of Rezaiyeh. A Land Rover pulled up and three men got out. One of them was dressed in a long black overcoat. The tribesmen seemed to defer to him. He addressed Rashid. "Let me see the passports, please."

  "Sure," said Rashid. He led the man to the second Range Rover. Bill was in the first, and Rashid wanted the overcoat man to get bored with looking at passports before he got to Bill's. Rashid tapped on the car window, and Paul rolled it down. "Passports."

  The man seemed to have dealt with passports before. He examined each one carefully, checking the photograph against the face of the owner. Then, in perfect English, he asked questions: Where were you born? Where do you live? What is your date of birth? Fortunately Simons had made Paul and Bill learn every piece of information contained in their false passports, so Paul was able to answer the overcoat man's questions without hesitation.

  Reluctantly, Rashid led the man to the first Range Rover. Bill and Keane Taylor had changed seats, so that Bill was on the far side, away from the light. The man went through the same routine. He looked at Bill's passport last. Then he said: "The picture is not of this man."

  "Yes, it is," Rashid said frantically. "He's been very sick. He's lost weight, his skin has changed color--don't you understand that he's dying? He has to get back to America as quickly as possible so he can have the right medical attention, and you are delaying him--do you want him to die because the Iranian people had no pity for a sick man? Is this how you uphold the honor of our country? Is--"

  "They're Americans," the man said. "Follow me."

  He turned and went into the little brick hut beside the bridge.

  Rashid followed him in. "You have no right to stop us," he said. "I have been instructed by the Islamic Revolution Commandant Committee in Rezaiyeh to escort these people to the border, and to delay us is a counterrevolutionary crime against the Iranian people." He flourished the letter written by the deputy leader and stamped with the library stamp.

  The man looked at it. "Still, that one American does not look like the picture in his passport."

  "I told you, he has been sick!" Rashid yelled. "They have been cleared to the border by the revolutionary committee! Now get these bandits out of my way!"

  "We have our own revolutionary committee," the man said. "You will all have to come to our headquarters."

  Rashid had no choice but to agree.