On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

by Ken Follett

  Thirty miles from Tehran, just outside the town of Karaj, they came to their first roadblock. It was manned, as they usually were, by machine-gun-toting men and boys in ragged clothes.

  The lead car stopped, and Rashid jumped out even before Paul had brought the second car to a halt, making sure that he, rather than the Americans, would do the talking. He immediately began speaking loud and rapid Farsi, with many gestures. Paul wound down the window. From what they could understand, it seemed Rashid was not giving the agreed story: he was saying something about journalists.

  After a while Rashid told them all to get out of the cars. "They want to search us for weapons."

  Coburn, remembering how many times he had been frisked on the reconnaissance trip, had concealed his little Gerber knife in the Range Rover.

  The Iranians patted them down, then perfunctorily searched the cars: they did not find Coburn's knife, nor did they come across the money.

  A few minutes later Rashid said: "We can go."

  A hundred yards down the road was a filling station. They pulled in: Simons wanted to keep the fuel tanks as full as possible.

  While the cars were being fueled Taylor produced a bottle of Cognac, and they all took a swig except Simons, who disapproved, and Rashid, whose beliefs forbade him to take alcohol. Simons was mad at Rashid. Instead of saying the group were businessmen trying to go home, Rashid had said they were journalists going to cover the fighting in Tabriz. "Stick to the goddam story," Simons said.

  "Sure," said Rashid.

  Coburn thought Rashid would probably continue to say the first thing that came into his head at the time. That was how he operated.

  A small crowd gathered at the filling station, watching the foreigners. Coburn looked at the bystanders nervously. They were not exactly hostile, but there was something vaguely menacing about their quiet surveillance.

  Rashid bought a can of oil.

  What now?

  He took the fuel can, which contained most of the money in weighted plastic bags, out of the back of the car, and poured oil into it to conceal the money. It's not a bad idea, Coburn thought, but I would have mentioned it to Simons before doing it.

  He tried to read the expressions on the faces in the crowd. Were they idly curious? Resentful? Suspicious? Malevolent? He could not tell, but he wanted to get away.

  Rashid paid the bill and the two cars pulled slowly out of the filling station.

  They had a clear run for the next seventy miles. The road, the new Iranian State Highway, was in good condition. It ran through a valley, alongside a single-track railroad, with snowcapped mountains above. The sun was shining.

  The second roadblock was outside Qazvin.

  It was an unofficial one--the guards were not in uniform--but it was bigger and more organized than the last. There were two checkpoints, one after another, and a line of cars waiting.

  The two Range Rovers joined the queue.

  The car in front of them was searched methodically. A guard opened the trunk and took out what looked like a rolled-up sheet. He unrolled it and found a rifle. He shouted something and waved the rifle in the air.

  Other guards came running. A crowd gathered. The driver of the car was questioned. One of the guards knocked him to the ground.

  Rashid pulled his car out of the line.

  Cobum told Paul to follow.

  "What's he doing?" Gayden said.

  Rashid inched through the crowd. The people made way as the Range Rover nudged them--they were interested in the man with the rifle. Paul kept the second Range Rover right on the tail of the first. They passed the first checkpoint.

  "What the fuck is he doing?" said Gayden.

  "This is asking for trouble," said Coburn.

  They approached the second checkpoint. Without stopping, Rashid yelled at the guard through the window. The guard said something in reply. Rashid accelerated. Paul followed.

  Coburn breathed a sigh of relief. That was just like Rashid: he did the unexpected, on impulse, without thinking through the consequences; and somehow he always got away with it. It just made life a little tense for the people with him.

  Next time they stopped, Rashid explained that he had simply told the guard the two Range Rovers had been cleared at the first checkpoint.

  At the next roadblock Rashid persuaded the guards to write a pass on his windshield in magic marker, and they were waved through another three roadblocks without being searched.

  Keane Taylor was driving the lead car when, climbing a long, winding hill, they saw two heavy trucks, side by side and filling the whole width of the road, coming downhill fast toward them. Taylor swerved off the road and bumped to a halt in the ditch, and Paul followed. The trucks went by, still side by side, and everyone said what a lousy driver Taylor was.

  At midday they took a break. They parked at the roadside near a ski lift and lunched on dry crackers and cupcakes. Although there was snow on the mountainsides, the sun was shining and they were not cold. Taylor got out his bottle of Cognac, but it had leaked and was empty: Coburn suspected that Simons had surreptitiously loosened the cork. They drank water.

  They passed through the small, neat town of Zanjan, where on the reconnaissance trip Coburn and Simons had talked to the chief of police.

  Just beyond Zanjan the Iranian State Highway ended--rather abruptly. In the second car, Coburn saw Rashid's Range Rover suddenly disappear from view. Paul slammed on the brakes and they got out to look.

  Where the tarmac ended, Rashid had gone down a steep slope for about eight feet and landed nose-down in mud. Off to the right, their route continued up an unpaved mountain road.

  Rashid restarted the stalled engine and put the car into four-wheel drive and reverse gear. Slowly he inched back up the bank and onto the road.

  The Range Rover was covered with mud. Rashid turned on the wipers and washed the windshield. When the mud splashes were gone, so was the pass that had been written on with magic marker. Rashid could have rewritten it, but nobody had a magic marker.

  They drove west, heading for the southern tip of Lake Rezaiyeh. The Range Rovers were built for rough roads, and they could still do forty miles per hour. They were climbing all the time: the temperature dropped steadily, and the countryside was covered with snow, but the road was clear. Coburn wondered whether they might even make the border tonight, instead of tomorrow as planned.

  Gayden, in the backseat, leaned forward and said: "Nobody's going to believe it was this easy. We better make up some war stories to tell when we get home."

  He spoke too soon.

  As daylight faded they approached Mahabad. Its outskirts were marked by a few scattered huts, made of wood and mud brick, along the sides of the winding road. The two Range Rovers swept around a bend and pulled up sharply: the road was blocked by a parked truck and a large but apparently disciplined crowd. The men were wearing the traditional baggy trousers, black vest, red-and-white checkered headdress and bandolier of Kurdish tribesmen.

  Rashid jumped out of the lead car and went into his act.

  Coburn studied the guns of the guards, and saw both Russian and American automatic weapons.

  "Everyone out of the cars," said Rashid.

  By now it was routine. One by one they were searched. This time the search was a little more thorough, and they found Keane Taylor's little switchblade knife, but they let him keep it. They did not find Coburn's knife, or the money.

  Coburn waited for Rashid to say: "We can go." It was taking longer than usual. Rashid argued with the Kurds for a few minutes, then said: "We have to go and see the head man of the town."

  They got back into the cars. A Kurd with a rifle joined them in each car and directed them into the little town.

  They were ordered to stop outside a small whitewashed building. One of the guards went in, came out again a minute later, and got back into the car without explanation.

  They stopped again outside what was clearly a hospital. Here they picked up a passenger, a young
Iranian in a suit.

  Coburn wondered what the hell was going on.

  Finally they drove down an alley and parked outside what looked like a small private house.

  They went inside. Rashid told them to take off their shoes.

  Gayden had several thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills in his shoes. As he took them off he frantically stuffed the money up into the toes of the shoes.

  They were ushered into a large room furnished with nothing but a beautiful Persian carpet. Simons quietly told everyone where to sit. Leaving a space in the circle for the Iranians, he put Rashid on the right of the space. Next to Rashid was Taylor, then Coburn, then Simons himself opposite the space. On Simons's right Paul and Bill sat, back a little from the line of the circle, where they would be least conspicuous. Gayden, completing the circle, sat on Bill's right.

  As Taylor sat down he saw that he had a big hole in the toe of his sock, and hundred-dollar bills were poking through the hole. He cursed under his breath and hastily pushed the money back toward his heel.

  The young man in the suit followed them in. He seemed educated and spoke good English. "You are about to meet a man who has just escaped after twenty-five years in jail," he said.

  Bill almost said: Well, how about that, I've just escaped from jail myself!--but he stopped himself just in time.

  "You are to be put on trial, and this man will be your judge," the young Iranian went on.

  The words on trial hit Paul like a blow, and he thought: We've come all this way for nothing.

  3______

  The Clean Team spent Wednesday at Lou Goelz's house in Tehran.

  Early in the morning a call came through from Tom Walter in Dallas. The line was poor and the conversation confused, but Joe Poche was able to tell Walter that he and the Clean Team were safe, would move into the Embassy as soon as possible, and would leave the country whenever the Embassy got the evacuation flights finally organized. Poche also reported that Cathy Gallagher's condition had not improved, and she had been taken to the hospital the previous evening.

  John Howell called Abolhasan, who had another message from Dadgar. Dadgar was willing to negotiate a lower bail. If EDS located Paul and Bill, the company should turn them in and post the lower bail. The Americans should realize that it would be hopeless for Paul and Bill to try to leave Iran by regular means and very dangerous for them to leave otherwise.

  Howell took that to mean that Paul and Bill would not have been allowed to get out on an Embassy evacuation flight. He wondered again whether the Clean Team might be in more danger than the Dirty Team. Bob Young felt the same. While they were discussing it, they heard shooting. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the U.S. Embassy.

  The National Voice of Iran, a radio station broadcasting from Baku across the border in the Soviet Union, had for several days been issuing "news" bulletins about clandestine American plans for a counterrevolution. On Wednesday the National Voice announced that the files of SAVAK, the Shah's hated secret police force, had been transferred to the U.S. Embassy. The story was almost certainly invented, but it was highly plausible: the CIA had created SAVAK and was in close contact with it, and everyone knew that U.S. embassies--like all embassies--were full of spies thinly disguised as diplomatic attaches. Anyway, some of the revolutionaries in Tehran believed the story, and--without consulting any of the Ayatollah's aides--decided to take action.

  During the morning they entered the high buildings surrounding the Embassy compound and took up position with automatic weapons. They opened fire at ten-thirty.

  Ambassador William Sullivan was in his outer office, taking a call at his secretary's desk. He was speaking to the Ayatollah's Deputy Foreign Minister. President Carter had decided to recognize the new, revolutionary government in Iran, and Sullivan was making arrangements to deliver an official note.

  When he put the phone down, he turned around to see his press attache, Barry Rosen, standing there with two American journalists. Sullivan was furious, for the White House had given specific instructions that the decision to recognize the new government was to be announced in Washington, not Tehran. Sullivan took Rosen into the inner office and chewed him out.

  Rosen told him that the two journalists were there to make arrangements for the body of Joe Alex Morris, the Los Angeles Times correspondent who had been shot during the fighting at Doshen Toppeh. Sullivan, feeling foolish, told Rosen to ask the journalists not to reveal what they had learned in overhearing Sullivan on the phone.

  Rosen went out. Sullivan's phone rang. He picked it up. There was a sudden tremendous crash of gunfire, and a hail of bullets shattered his windows.

  Sullivan hit the floor.

  He slithered across the room and into the next office, where he came nose-to-nose with his deputy, Charlie Naas, who had been holding a meeting about the evacuation flights. Sullivan had two phone numbers that he could use, in an emergency, to reach revolutionary leaders. He now told Naas to call one, and the army attache to call the other. Still lying an the floor, the two men pulled telephones off a desk and started dialing.

  Sullivan took out his walkie-talkie and called for reports from the marine units in the compound.

  The machine-gun attack had been covering fire for a squad of about seventy-five revolutionaries who had come over the front wall of the Embassy compound and were now advancing on the ambassadorial residence. Fortunately most of the staff were with Sullivan in the chancery building.

  Sullivan ordered the marines to fall back, not to use their rifles, and to fire their sidearms only in self-defense.

  Then he crawled out of the executive suite and into the corridor.

  During the next hour, as the attackers took the residence and the cafeteria building, Sullivan got all the civilians in the chancery herded into the communications vault upstairs. When he heard the attackers breaking down the steel doors of the building, he ordered the marines inside to join the civilians in the vault. There he made them pile their weapons in a corner, and ordered everyone to surrender as soon as possible.

  Eventually Sullivan himself went into the vault, leaving the army attache and an interpreter outside.

  When the attackers reached the second floor, Sullivan opened the vault door and walked out with his hands over his head.

  The others--about a hundred people--followed him.

  They were all herded into the waiting room of the executive suite and frisked. There was a confused dispute between two factions of Iranians, and Sullivan realized that the Ayatollah's people had sent a rescue force--presumably in response to the phone calls by Charlie Naas and the army attache--and the rescuers had arrived on the second floor at the same time as the attackers.

  Suddenly a shot came through the window.

  All the Americans dropped to the floor. One of the Iranians seemed to think the shot had come from within the room, and he swung his AK-47 rifle wildly at the tangle of prisoners on the floor; then Barry Rosen, the press attache, yelled in Farsi: "It came from outside! It came from outside!" At that moment Sullivan found himself lying next to the two journalists who had been in his outer office. "I hope you're getting all this down in your notebooks," he said.

  Eventually they were taken out into the courtyard, where Ibrahim Yazdi, the Ayatollah's new Deputy Prime Minister, apologized to Sullivan for the attack.

  Yazdi also gave Sullivan a personal escort, a group of students who would henceforth be responsible for the safety of the U.S. Ambassador. The leader of the group explained to Sullivan that they were well qualified to guard him. They had studied him, and were familiar with his routine, for until recently their assignnent had been to assassinate him.

  Late that afternoon Cathy Gallagher called from the hospital. She had been given some medication that solved her problem, at least temporarily, and she wanted to rejoin her husband and the others at Lou Goelz's house.

  Joe Poche did not want any more of the Clean Team to leave the house, but he also did not want any Iranians to kn
ow where they were; so he called Gholam and asked him to pick up Cathy at the hospital and bring her to the corner of the street, where her husband would meet her.

  She arrived at around seven-thirty that evening. She was feeling better, but Gholam had told her a horrifying story. "They shot up our hotel rooms yesterday," she said.

  Gholam had gone to the Hyatt to pay EDS's bill and pick up the suitcases they had left behind, Cathy explained. The rooms had been wrecked, there were bullet holes everywhere, and the luggage had been slashed to ribbons.

  "Just our rooms?" Howell asked.

  "Yes."

  "Did he find out how it happened?"

  When Gholam went to pay the bill, the hotel manager had said to him: "Who the hell were those people--the CIA?" Apparently, on Monday morning, shortly after all the EDS people left the hotel, the revolutionaries had taken it over. They had harassed all the Americans, demanding their passports, and had shown pictures of two men whom they were seeking. The manager had not recognized the men in the photographs. Nor had anyone else.

  Howell wondered what had so enraged the revolutionaries that they had smashed up the rooms. Perhaps Gayden's well-stocked bar offended their Muslim sensibilities. Also left behind in Gayden's suite were a tape recorder used for dictation, some suction microphones for taping phone conversations, and a child's walkie-talkie set. The revolutionaries might have thought this was CIA surveillance gear.

  Throughout the day, vague and alarming reports of what was happening at the Embassy reached Howell and the Clean Team through Goelz's houseman, who was calling friends. But Goelz returned as the others were having dinner, and after a couple of stiff drinks he was none the worse for his experience. He had spent a good deal of time lying on his ample belly in a corridor. The next day he went back to his desk, and he came home that evening with good news: evacuation flights would start on Saturday, and the Clean Team would be on the first.

  Howell thought: Dadgar may have other ideas about that.