3_____
Paul had always been crazy about airplanes, and now he took the opportunity to sit on the flight deck of the Boeing 707.
As the plane flew across the north of England, he realized that pilot John Carlen, engineer Ken Lenz, and first officer Joe Fosnot were having trouble. On autopilot the plane was drifting, first to the left and then to the right. The compass had failed, rendering the inertial navigation system erratic.
'What does all that mean?' Paul asked.
'It means we'll have to hand-fly this thing all the way across the Atlantic,' said Carlen. 'We can do it--it's kind of exhausting, that's all.'
A few minutes later the plane became very cold, then very hot. Its pressurization system was failing.
Carlen took the plane down low.
'We can't cross the Atlantic at this height,' he told Paul.
'Why not?'
'We don't have enough fuel--an aircraft uses much more fuel at low altitudes.'
'Why can't we fly high?'
'Can't breathe up there.'
'The plane has oxygen masks.'
'But not enough oxygen to cross the Atlantic. No plane carries that much oxygen.'
Carlen and his crew fiddled with the controls for a while; then Carlen sighed and said: 'Would you get Ross up here, Paul?'
Paul fetched Perot.
Carlen said: 'Mr. Perot, I think we ought to take this thing and land it as soon as we can.' He explained again why they could not cross the Atlantic with a faulty pressure system.
Paul said: 'John, I'll be forever grateful to you if we don't have to land in Germany.'
'Don't worry,' said Carlen. 'We'll head for London, Heathrow.'
Perot went back to tell the others. Carlen called London Air Traffic Control on the radio. It was one in the morning, and he was told Heathrow was closed. This is an emergency, he replied. They gave him permission to land.
Paul could hardly believe it. An emergency landing, after all he had been through!
Ken Lenz began to dump fuel to reduce the plane below its maximum landing weight.
London told Carlen there was fog over southern England, but at the moment visibility was up to half a mile at Heathrow.
When Ken Lenz shut off the fuel-dump valves, a red light that should have gone out stayed on. 'A dump chute hasn't retracted,' said Lenz.
'I can't believe this,' said Paul. He lit a cigarette.
Carlen said: 'Paul, can I have a cigarette?'
Paul stared at him. 'You told me you quit smoking ten years ago.'
'Just give me a cigarette, would you?'
Paul gave him a cigarette and said: 'Now I'm really scared.'
Paul went back into the passenger cabin. The stewardesses had everyone busy stowing trays, bottles, and baggage, securing all loose objects, in preparation for landing.
Paul went into the bedroom. Simons was lying on the bed. He had shaved in cold water and there were bits of stickum tape all over his face. He was fast asleep.
Paul left him. He said to Jay Coburn: 'Does Simons know what's going on?'
'Sure does,' Coburn replied. 'He said he doesn't know how to fly a plane and there's nothing he can do, so he was going to take a nap.'
Paul shook his head in amazement. How cool could you get?
He returned to the flight deck. Carlen was as laid-back as ever, his voice calm, his hands steady; but that cigarette worried Paul.
A couple of minutes later the red light went out. The dump chute had retracted.
They approached Heathrow in dense cloud and began to lose height. Paul watched the altimeter. As it dropped through six hundred feet, then five hundred, there was still nothing outside but swirling gray fog.
At three hundred feet it was the same. Then, suddenly, they dropped out of the cloud and there was the runway, straight ahead, lit up like a Christmas tree. Paul breathed a sigh of relief.
They touched down, and the fire engines and ambulances came screaming across the tarmac toward the plane; but it was a perfect safe landing.
Rashid had been hearing about Ross Perot for years. Perot was the multimillionaire, the founder of EDS, the business wizard, the man who sat in Dallas and moved men such as Coburn and Sculley around the world like pieces on a chessboard. It had been quite an experience for Rashid to meet Mr. Perot and find he was just an ordinary-looking human being, rather short and surprisingly friendly. Rashid had walked into the hotel room in Istanbul, and this little guy with the big smile and the bent nose just stuck out his hand and said: 'Hi, I'm Ross Perot,' and Rashid had shaken hands and said: 'Hi, I'm Rashid Kazemi,' just as natural as could be.
Since that moment he had felt more than ever one of the EDS team. But at Heathrow Airport he was sharply reminded that he was not.
As soon as the plane taxied to a halt, a vanload of airport police, customs men, and immigration officials boarded and started asking questions. They did not like what they saw: a bunch of dirty, scruffy, smelly, unshaven men, carrying a fortune in various currencies, aboard an incredibly luxurious airplane with a Grand Cayman Islands tail number. This, they said in their British way, was highly irregular, to say the least.
However, after an hour or so of questioning, they could find no evidence that the EDS men were drug smugglers, terrorists, or members of the PLO. And as holders of U.S. passports, the Americans needed no visas or other documentation to enter Britain. They were all admitted--except for Rashid.
Perot confronted the immigration officer. 'There's no reason why you should know who I am, but my name is Ross Perot, and if you would just check me out, maybe with U.S. Customs, I believe you will conclude that you can trust me. I have too much to lose by trying to smuggle an illegal immigrant into Britain. Now, I will assume personal responsibility for this young man. We will be out of England in twenty-four hours. In the morning we will check with your counterparts at Gatwick Airport, and we will then get on the Braniff flight to Dallas.'
'I'm afraid we can't do that, sir,' said the official. 'This gentleman will have to stay with us until we put him on the plane.'
'If he stays, I stay,' said Perot.
Rashid was flabbergasted. Ross Perot would spend the night at the airport, or perhaps in a prison cell, rather than leave Rashid behind! It was incredible. If Pat Sculley had made such an offer, or Jay Coburn, Rashid would have been grateful but not surprised. But this was Ross Perot!
The immigration officer sighed. 'Do you know anyone in Great Britain who might vouch for you, sir?'
Perot racked his brains. Who do I know in Britain? he thought. 'I don't think--no, wait a minute.' Of course! One of Britain's great heroes had stayed with the Perots in Dallas a couple of times. Perot and Margot had been guests at his home in England, a place called Broadlands. 'I know Earl Mountbatten of Burma,' he said.
'I'll just have a word with my supervisor,' said the officer, and he got off the plane.
He was away a long time.
Perot said to Sculley: 'As soon as we get out of here, your job is to get us all first-class seats on that Braniff flight to Dallas in the morning.'
'Yes, sir,' said Sculley.
The immigration officer came back. 'I can give you twenty-four hours,' he said to Rashid.
Rashid looked at Perot. Oh, boy, he thought; what a guy to work for!
They checked in to the Post House Hotel near the airport, and Perot called Merve Stauffer in Dallas.
'Merv, we have one person here with an Iranian passport and no U.S. visa--you know who I'm talking about.'
