On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

'What do you need it for?' asked one of the guards suspiciously. 'You don't have the cars anymore.'

'For the bus,' said Rashid as he stepped over the chain. 'The bus that's taking us to Van.'

He walked away, feeling their eyes on his back.

He did not look around until he was back inside the Turkish guardhouse.

A few minutes later they all heard the sound of a motor. They looked out of the windows. A bus was coming down the road.

They cheered all over again.

Pat Sculley, Jim Schwebach, Ron Davis, and Mr. Fish stepped off the bus and came into the guardhouse.

They all shook hands.

The latest arrivals had brought another bottle of scotch, so everyone had another celebratory drink.

Mr. Fish went into a huddle with Ilsman and the border guards.

Gayden put his arm around Pat Sculley and said: 'Have you noticed who's with us?' He pointed.

Sculley saw Rashid, asleep in a corner. He smiled. In Tehran he had been Rashid's manager, and then, during that first meeting with Simons in the EDS boardroom--was it only six weeks ago?--he had strongly argued that Rashid should be in on the rescue. Now it seemed Simons had come round to the same point of view.

Mr. Fish said: 'Pat Sculley and I have to go to Yuksekova and speak with the chief of police there. The rest of you wait here for us, please.'

'Now hold it,' Simons said. 'We waited for Boulware. Then we waited for you. Now what are we waiting for?'

Mr. Fish said: 'If we don't get clearance in advance, there will be trouble, because Paul and Bill have no passports.'

Simons turned to Boulware. 'Your guy Ilsman is supposed to have dealt with that problem,' he said angrily.

'I thought he did!' said Boulware. 'I thought he bribed them.'

'So what's happening?'

Mr. Fish said: 'It's better this way.'

Simons growled: 'Make it goddam fast.'

Sculley and Mr. Fish went off.

The others started a poker game. They all had thousands of dollars hidden in their shoes, and they were a little crazy. One hand Paul got a full house, with three aces in the hole, and the pot went over a thousand dollars. Keane Taylor kept raising him. Taylor had a pair of kings showing, and Paul guessed he had another king in the hole, making a full house with kings. Paul was right. He won fourteen hundred dollars.

A new shift of border guards arrived, including an officer who was mad as hell to find his guardhouse littered with cigarette butts, hundred-dollar bills, and poker-playing Americans, two of whom had entered the country without passports.

The morning wore on, and they all began to feel bad--too much liquor and not enough sleep. As the sun climbed in the sky, poker did not seem fun anymore. Simons got jittery. Gayden started giving Boulware a hard time. Boulware wondered where Sculley and Mr. Fish had got to.

Boulware was now sure he had made a mistake. They should all have left for Yuksekova as soon as he had arrived. He had made another mistake in letting Mr. Fish take charge. Somehow he had lost the initiative.

At ten A.M., having been away four hours, Sculley and Mr. Fish came back.

Mr. Fish told the officer that they had permission to leave.

The officer said something sharp, and--as if accidentally--let his jacket fall open to reveal his pistol.

The other guards backed away from the Americans.

Mr. Fish said: 'He says we leave when he gives permission.'

'Enough,' said Simons. He got to his feet and said something in Turkish. All the Turks looked at him in surprise: they had not realized he spoke their language.

Simons took the officer into the next room.

They came out a few minutes later. 'We can go,' said Simons.

They all went outside.

Coburn said: 'Did you bribe him, Colonel--or frighten him to death?'

Simons gave the ghost of a smile and said nothing.

Pat Sculley said: 'Want to come to Dallas, Rashid?'

For the last couple of days, Rashid reflected, they had been talking as if he would go all the way with them; but this was the first time anyone had asked him directly whether he wanted to. Now he had to make the most important decision of his life.

Want to come to Dallas, Rashid? It was a dream come true. He thought of what he was leaving behind. He had no children, no wife, not even a girlfriend--he had never been in love. But he thought of his parents, his sister, and his brothers. They might need him: life was sure to be rough in Tehran for some time. Yet what help could he give them? He would be employed for a few more days, or weeks, shipping the Americans' possessions back to the States, taking care of the dogs and cats--then nothing. EDS was finished in Iran. Probably computers were finished, too, for many years. Unemployed, he would be a burden to his family, just another mouth to feed in hard times.

But in America--

In America he could continue his education. He could put his talents to work, become a success in business--especially with the help of people like Pat Sculley and Jay Coburn.

Want to come to Dallas, Rashid?

'Yes,' he said to Sculley. 'I want to go to Dallas.'

'What are you waiting for? Get on the bus!'

They all got on the bus.

Paul settled into his seat with relief. The bus pulled away, and Iran disappeared into the distance: he would probably never see the country again. There were strangers on the bus: some scruffy Turks in improvised uniforms, and two Americans who--someone mumbled--were pilots. Paul was too exhausted to inquire further. One of the Turkish guards from the border station had joined the party: presumably he was just hitching a ride.

They stopped in Yuksekova. Mr. Fish told Paul and Bill: 'We have to talk to the chief of police. He has been here twenty-five years and this is the most important thing that has ever happened. But don't worry. It's all routine.'

Paul, Bill, and Mr. Fish got off the bus and went into the little police station. Somehow Paul was not worried. He was out of Iran, and although Turkey was not exactly a Western country, at least, he felt, it was not in the throes of a revolution. Or perhaps he was just too tired to be frightened.

He and Bill were interrogated for two hours, then released.

Six more people joined the bus at Yuksekova: a woman and a child who seemed to belong to the border guard, and four very dirty men--'Bodyguards,' said Mr. Fish--who sat behind a curtain at the back of the bus.

They drove off, heading for Van, where a charter plane was waiting. Paul looked out at the scenery. It was prettier than Switzerland, he thought, but incredibly poor. Huge boulders littered the road. In the fields ragged people were treading down the snow so that their goats could get at the frozen grass beneath. There were caves with wood fences across their mouths, and it seemed that was where the people lived. They passed the ruins of a stone fortress that might have dated back to the Crusades.

The bus driver seemed to think he was in a race. He drove aggressively on the winding road, apparently confident that nothing could possibly be coming at him the other way. A group of soldiers waved him down, and he drove right past them. Mr. Fish yelled at him to stop, but he yelled back and kept going.

A few miles farther on, the army was waiting for them in force, probably having heard that the bus had run the last checkpoint. The soldiers stood in the road with their rifles raised, and the driver was forced to stop.

A sergeant jumped on the bus and dragged the driver off with a pistol at his head.