On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

by Ken Follett

  So, in return for past favors, the Cycle Man drove to the Persian Gulf.

  He came back a few days later and reported that anything was possible if you had enough money. You could get to the Gulf and you could buy or rent a boat.

  He had no idea what would happen when you disembarked in Kuwait.

  That question was answered by Glenn Jackson.

  As well as being a hunter and a Baptist, Glenn Jackson was a Rocket Man. His combination of a first-class mathematical brain and the ability to stay calm under stress had got him into Mission Control at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston as a flight controller. His job had been to design and operate the computer programs that calculated trajectories for in-flight maneuvering.

  Jackson's unflappability had been severely tested on Christmas Day 1968, during the last mission he worked on, the lunar flyby. When the spacecraft came out from behind the moon, astronaut Jim Lovell had read down the list of numbers, called residuals, which told Jackson how close the craft was to its planned course. Jackson had got a fright: The numbers were way outside the acceptable limits of error. Jackson asked CAPCOM to have the astronaut read them down again, to double-check. Then he told the flight director that if those numbers were correct, the three astronauts were as good as dead: there was not enough fuel to correct such a huge divergence.

  Jackson asked for Lovell to read the numbers a third time, extra carefully. They were the same. Then Lovell said: "Oh, wait a minute, I'm reading these wrong ... "

  When the real numbers came through, it turned out that the maneuver had been almost perfect.

  All that was a long way from busting into a prison.

  Still, it was beginning to look like Jackson would never get the chance to perpetrate a jailbreak. He had been cooling his heels in Paris for a week when he got instructions from Simons, via Dallas, to go to Kuwait.

  He flew to Kuwait and moved into Bob Young's house. Young had gone to Tehran to help the negotiating team, and his wife, Kris, and her new baby were in the States on vacation. Jackson told Malloy Jones, who was Acting Country Manager in Young's absence, that he had come to help with the preliminary study EDS was doing for Kuwait's central bank. He did a little work for the benefit of his cover story, then started looking around.

  He spent some time at the airport, watching the immigration officers. They were being very tough, he soon learned. Hundreds of Iranians without passports were flying into Kuwait: they were being handcuffed and put on the next flight back. Jackson concluded that Paul and Bill could not possibly fly into Kuwait.

  Assuming they could get in by boat, would they later be allowed to leave without passports? Jackson went to see the American Consul, saying that one of his children seemed to have lost a passport, and asking what was the procedure for replacing it. In the course of a long and rambling discussion the Consul revealed that the Kuwaitis had a way of checking, when they issued an exit visa, whether the person had entered the country legally.

  That was a problem, but perhaps not an insoluble one: once inside Kuwait, Paul and Bill would be safe from Dadgar, and surely the U.S. Embassy would then give them back their passports. The main question was: assuming the fugitives could reach the south of Iran and embark on a small boat, would they be able to land unnoticed in Kuwait? Jackson traveled the sixty-mile length of the Kuwait coast, from the Iraqi border in the north to the Saudi Arabian border in the south. He spent many hours on the beaches, collecting seashells in winter. Normally, he had been told, coastal patrols were very light. But the exodus from Iran had changed everything. There were thousands of Iranians who wanted to leave the country almost as badly as Paul and Bill did; and those Iranians, like Simons, could look at a map and see the Persian Gulf to the south with friendly Kuwait just across the water. The Kuwait Coast Guard was wise to all this. Everywhere Jackson looked, he saw, out at sea, at least one patrol boat; and they appeared to be stopping all small craft.

  The prognosis was gloomy. Jackson called Merv Stauffer in Dallas and reported that the Kuwait exit was a no-no.

  That left Turkey.

  Simons had favored Turkey all along. It involved a shorter drive than Kuwait. Furthermore, Simons knew Turkey. He had served there in the fifties as part of the American military and program, training the Turkish Army. He even spoke a little of the language.

  So he sent Ralph Boulware to Istanbul.

  Ralph Boulware grew up in bars. His father, Benjamin Russell Boulware, was a tough and independent black man who had a series of small businesses: a grocery store, real-estate rentals, bootlegging, but mostly bars. Ben Boulware's theory of child-raising was that if he knew where they were, he knew what they were doing, so he kept his boys mostly within his sight, which meant mostly in the bar. It was not much of a childhood, and it left Ralph feeling that he had been an adult all his life.

  He had realized he was different from other boys his age when he went to college and found his contemporaries getting all excited about gambling, drinking, and going with women. He knew all about gamblers, drunks, and whores already: he dropped out of college and joined the air force.

  In nine years in the air force he had never seen action, and while he was on the whole glad about that, it had left him wondering whether he had what it took to fight in a shooting war. The rescue of Paul and Bill might give him the chance to find out, he had thought; but Simons had sent him from Paris back to Dallas. It looked as though he was going to be ground crew again. Then new orders came.

  They came via Merv Stauffer, Perot's right-hand man, who was now Simons's link with the scattered rescue team. Stauffer went to Radio Shack and bought six five-channel two-way radios, ten rechargers, a supply of batteries, and a device for running the radios off a dashboard cigar lighter. He gave the equipment to Boulware and told him to meet Sculley and Schwebach in London before going on to Istanbul.

  Stauffer also gave him forty thousand dollars in cash, for expenses, bribes, and general purposes.

  The night before Boulware left, his wife started giving him a hard time about money. He had taken a thousand dollars out of the bank, without telling her, before he went to Paris--he believed in carrying cash money--and she had subsequently discovered how little was left in their account. Boulware did not want to explain to her why he had taken the money and how he had spent it. Mary insisted that she needed money. Boulware was not too concerned about that: she was staying with good friends and he knew she would be looked after. But she didn't buy his brush-off, and--as often happened when she was really determined--he decided to make her happy. He went into the bedroom, where he had left the box containing the radios and the forty thousand dollars, and counted out five hundred. Mary came in while he was doing it, and saw what was in the box.

  Boulware gave her the five hundred and said: "Will that hold you?"

  "Yes," she said.

  She looked at the box, then at her husband. "I'm not even going to ask," she said; and she went out.

  Boulware left the next day. He met Schwebach and Sculley in London, gave them five of the six radio sets, kept one for himself, and flew on to Istanbul.

  He went from the airport straight to the office of Mr. Fish, the travel agent.

  Mr. Fish met him in an open-plan office with three or four other people sitting around.

  "My name is Ralph Boulware, and I work for EDS," Boulware began. "I think you know my daughters, Stacy Elaine and Kecia Nicole." The girls had played with Mr. Fish's daughters during the evacuees' stopover in Istanbul.

  Mr. Fish was not very warm.

  "I need to talk to you," Boulware said.

  "Fine, talk to me."

  Boulware looked around the room. "I want to talk to you in private."

  "Why?"

  "You'll understand when I talk to you."

  "These are all my partners. There are no secrets here."

  Mr. Fish was giving Boulware a hard time. Boulware could guess why. There were two reasons. First, after all that Mr. Fish had done during the evacuat
ion, Don Norsworthy had tipped him $150, which was derisory, in Boulware's opinion. ("I didn't know what to do!" Norsworthy had said. "The man's bill was twenty-six thousand dollars. What should I have tipped him--ten percent?")

  Secondly, Pat Sculley had approached Mr. Fish with a transparent tale about smuggling computer tapes into Iran. Mr. Fish was neither a fool nor a criminal, Boulware guessed; and of course he had refused to have anything to do with Sculley's scheme.

  Now Mr. Fish thought EDS people were (a) cheapskates and (b) dangerously amateurish lawbreakers.

  But Mr. Fish was a small businessman. Boulware understood small businessmen--his father had been one. They spoke two languages: straight talk, and cash money. Cash money would solve problem (a), and straight talk, problem (b).

  "Okay, let's start again," Boulware said. "When EDS was here you really helped those people, treated the children nice, and did a great deal for us. When they left there was a mix-up about showing you our appreciation. We're embarrassed that this was not handled properly and I need to settle that score."

  "It's no big deal--"

  "We're sorry," Boulware said, and he gave Mr. Fish a thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills.

  The room went very quiet.

  "Well, I'm going to check in to the Sheraton," Boulware said. "Maybe we can talk later."

  "I'll come with you," said Mr. Fish.

  He personally checked Boulware into the hotel and ensured that he got a good room, then agreed to meet him for dinner that night in the hotel coffee shop.

  Mr. Fish was a high-class hustler, Boulware thought as he unpacked. The man had to be smart to have what appeared to be a very prosperous business in this dirt-poor country. The evacuees' experience showed that he had the enterprise to do more than issue plane tickets and make hotel bookings. He had the right contacts to oil the wheels of bureaucracy, judging by the way he had got everyone's baggage through customs. He had also helped solve the problem of the adopted Iranian baby with no passport. EDS's mistake had been to see that he was a hustler and overlook the fact that he was high class--deceived, perhaps, by his unimpressive appearance: he was rather fat and dressed in drab clothes. Boulware, learning from past mistakes, thought he could handle Mr. Fish.

  That night over dinner Boulware told him he wanted to go to the Iran-Turkey border to meet some people coming out.

  Mr. Fish was horrified. "You don't understand," he said. "That is a terrible place. The people are Kurds and Azerbaijanis--wild mountain men, they don't obey any government. You know how they live up there? By smuggling, robbery, and murder. I personally would not dare to go there. If you, an American, go there, you will never come back. Never."

  Boulware thought he was probably exaggerating. "I have to go there, even if it's dangerous," he said. "Now, can I buy a light plane?"

  Mr. Fish shook his head. "It is illegal in Turkey for individuals to own airplanes."

  "A helicopter?"

  "Same thing."

  "All right, can I charter a plane?"

  "It is possible. Where there is no scheduled flight, you can charter."

  "Are there scheduled flights to the border area?"

  "No."

  "All right."

  "However, chartering is so unusual that you will surely attract the attention of the authorities ..."

  "We have no plans to do anything illegal. All the same, we don't need the hassle of being investigated. So let's set up the option of chartering. Find out about price and availability, but hold off from making any kind of booking. Meanwhile, I want to know more about getting there by land. If you don't want to escort me, fine; but maybe you can find somebody who will."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  They met several times over the next few days. Mr. Fish's initial coolness totally disappeared, and Boulware felt they were becoming friends. Mr. Fish was alert and articulate. Although he was no criminal, he would break the law if the risks and rewards were proportionate, Boulware guessed. Boulware had some sympathy with that attitude--he, too, would break the law under the right circumstances. Mr. Fish was also a shrewd interrogator, and bit by bit Boulware told him the full story. Paul and Bill would probably have no passports, he admitted; but once in Turkey they would get new ones at the nearest American Consulate. Paul and Bill might have some trouble getting out of Iran, he said, and he wanted to be prepared to cross the border himself, perhaps in a light aircraft, to bring them out. None of this fazed Mr. Fish as much as the idea of traveling in bandit country.

  However, a few days later he introduced Boulware to a man who had relatives among the mountain bandits. Mr. Fish whispered that the man was a criminal, and he certainly looked the part: he had a scar on his face and little beady eyes. He said he could guarantee Boulware safe passage to the border and back, and his relatives could even take Boulware across the border into Iran, if necessary.

  Boulware called Dallas and told Merv Stauffer about the plan. Stauffer relayed the news to Coburn, in code; and Coburn told Simons. Simons vetoed it. If the man is a criminal, Simons pointed out, we can't trust him.

  Boulware was annoyed. He had gone to some trouble to set it up--did Simons imagine it was easy to get these people? And if you wanted to travel in bandit country, who else but a bandit would escort you? But Simons was the boss, and Boulware had no option but to ask Mr. Fish to start all over again.

  Meanwhile, Sculley and Schwebach flew into Istanbul.

  The deadly duo had been on a flight from London to Tehran via Copenhagen when the Iranians had closed their airport again, so Sculley and Schwebach joined Boulware in Istanbul. Cooped up in the hotel, waiting for something to happen, the three of them got cabin fever. Schwebach reverted to his Green Beret role and tried to make them all keep fit by running up and down the hotel stairs. Boulware did it once and then gave up. They became impatient with Simons, Coburn, and Poche, who seemed to be sitting in Tehran doing nothing: why didn't those guys make it happen? Then Simons sent Sculley and Schwebach back to the States. They left the radios with Boulware.

  When Mr. Fish saw the radios he had a fit. It was highly illegal to own a radio transmitter in Turkey, he told Boulware. Even ordinary transistor radios had to be registered with the government, for fear their parts would be used to make transmitters for terrorists. "Don't you understand how conspicuous you are?" he said to Boulware. "You're running up a phone bill of a couple of thousand dollars a week, and you're paying cash. You don't appear to be doing business here. The maids are sure to have seen the radios and talked about it. By now you must be under surveillance. Forget your friends in Iran--you are going to end up in jail."

  Boulware agreed to get rid of the radios. The snag about Simons's apparently endless patience was that further delay caused new problems. Now Sculley and Schwebach could not get back into Iran, yet still nobody had any radios. Meanwhile, Simons kept saying no to things. Mr. Fish pointed out that there were two border crossings from Iran to Turkey, one at Sero and the other at Barzagan. Simons had picked Sero. Barzagan was a bigger and more civilized place, Mr. Fish pointed out; everyone would be a little safer there. Simons said no.

  A new escort was found to take Boulware to the border. Mr. Fish had a business colleague whose brother-in-law was in the Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, or MIT, the Turkish equivalent of the CIA. The name of this secret policeman was Ilsman. His credentials would secure for Boulware army protection in bandit country. Without such credentials, Mr. Fish said, the ordinary citizen was in danger not only from bandits but also from the Turkish Army.

  Mr. Fish was very jumpy. On the way to meet Ilsman, he took Boulware through a whole cloak-and-dagger routine, changing cars and switching to a bus for part of the journey, as if he were trying to shake off a tail. Boulware could not see the need for all that if they were really going to visit a perfectly upright citizen who just happened to work in the intelligence community. But Boulware was a foreigner in a strange country, and he just had to go along with Mr. Fish and trust the man.

&nbs
p; They ended up at a big, run-down apartment building in an unfamiliar section of the city. The power was off--just like Tehran!--so it took Mr. Fish a while to find the right apartment in the dark. At first he could get no answer. His attempt to be secretive fell apart at this point, for he had to hammer on the door for what seemed like half an hour, and every other inhabitant of the building got a good look at the visitors in the meantime. Boulware just stood there feeling like a white man in Harlem. At last a woman opened up, and they went in.

  It was a small, drab apartment crowded with ancient furniture and dimly lit by a couple of candles. Ilsman was a short, fat man of about Boulware's age, thirty-five. Ilsman had not seen his feet for many years--he was gross. He made Boulware think of the stereotyped fat police sergeant in the movies, with a suit too small and a sweaty shirt and a wrinkled tie wrapped around the place where his neck would have been if he had had a neck.