myself, in my own car, a big fat American automobile with air-conditioning and soft music. And when I go to the bathroom, instead of squatting over a hole in the damn floor, there will be a clean white American toilet.
As the plane touched down Perot said to him: 'Pat, you'll be last out. I want you to make sure everyone gets through the formalities and deal with any problems.'
'Sure.'
The plane taxied to a halt. The door was opened, and a woman came aboard. 'Where is the man?' she said.
'Here,' said Perot, pointing to Rashid.
Rashid was first off the plane.
Perot thought: Merv Stauffer has all
The others disembarked and went through customs.
On the other side, the first person Coburn saw was stocky, bespectacled Merv Stauffer, grinning from ear to ear. Coburn put his arms around Stauffer and hugged him. Stauffer reached into his pocket and pulled out Coburn's wedding ring.
Coburn was touched. He had left the ring with Stauffer for safekeeping. Since then, Stauffer had been the linchpin of the whole operation, sitting in Dallas with a phone to his ear making everything happen. Coburn had talked to him almost every day, relaying Simons's orders and demands, receiving information and advice: he knew better than anyone how important Stauffer had been, how they had all just relied on him to do whatever had to be done. Yet with all that happening, Stauffer had remembered the wedding band.
Coburn slipped it on. He had done a lot of hard thinking about his marriage, during the empty hours in Tehran; but now all that went out of his mind, and he looked forward to seeing Liz.
Merv told him to walk out of the airport and get on a bus that was waiting outside. Coburn followed directions. On the bus he saw Margot Perot. He smiled and shook hands. Then, suddenly, the air was filled with screams of joy, and four wildly excited children threw themselves at him: Kim, Kristi, Scott, and Kelly. Coburn laughed out loud and tried to hug them all at the same time.
Liz was standing behind the kids. Gently Coburn disentangled himself. His eyes filled with tears. He put his arms around his wife, and he could not speak.
When Keane Taylor got on the bus, his wife did not recognize him. Her normally elegant husband was wearing a filthy orange ski jacket and a knitted cap. He had not shaved for a week and he had lost fifteen pounds. He stood in front of her for several seconds, until Liz Coburn said: 'Mary, aren't you going to say hello to Keane?' Then his children, Mike and Dawn, grabbed him.
Today was Taylor's birthday. He was forty-one. It was the happiest birthday of his life.
John Howell saw his wife, Angela, sitting at the front of the bus, behind the driver, with Michael, eleven months, on her lap. The baby was wearing blue jeans and a striped rugby shirt. Howell picked him up and said: 'Hi, Michael, do you remember your daddy?'
He sat next to Angie and put his arms around her. It was kind of awkward, on the bus seat, and Howell was normally too shy for public displays of affection, but he kept right on hugging her because it felt so good.
Ralph Boulware was met by Mary and the girls, Stacy and Kecia. He picked Kecia up and said: 'Happy birthday!' Everything was as it should be, he thought as he embraced them. He had done what he was supposed to do, and the family was here, where they were supposed to be. He felt as though he had proved something, if only to himself. All those years in the air force, tinkering with instrumentation or sitting in a plane watching bombs drop, he had never felt his courage was being tested. His relations had medals for ground fighting, but he had always had the uncomfortable feeling that he had an easy role, like the guy in the war movies who slops out the food at breakfast time before the real soldiers go off to fight. He had always wondered whether he had the right stuff. Now he thought about Turkey, getting stuck in Adana, and driving through the blizzard in that damn '64 Chevy, and changing the wheel in Blood Alley with the sons of Mr. Fish's cousin; and he thought about Perot's toast, to the men who said what they were going to do, then went out and did it; and he knew the answer. Oh, yes. He had the right stuff.
Paul's daughters, Karen and Ann Marie, were wearing matching plaid skirts. Ann Marie, the littlest, got to him first, and he swept her up in his arms and squeezed her tight. Karen was too big to be picked up, but he hugged her just as hard. Behind them was Ruthie, his biggest little girl, all dressed in shades of honey and cream. He kissed her long and hard, then looked at her, smiling. He could not have stopped smiling if he had wanted to. He felt very mellow inside. It was the best feeling he had ever known.
Emily was looking at Bill as if she did not believe he was really there. 'Gosh,' she said lamely, 'it's good to see you again, sweetie.'
The bus went rather quiet as he kissed her. Rachel Schwebach began to cry.
Bill kissed the girls, Vicki, Jackie, and Jenny; then he looked at his son. Chris was very grown up in a blue suit he had been given for Christmas. Bill had seen that suit before. He remembered a photograph of Chris, standing in front of the Christmas tree in his new suit: that photograph had been above Bill's bunk, in a prison cell, long ago and far away ...
Emily kept touching him to make sure he was really there. 'You look marvelous,' she said.
Bill knew he looked absolutely terrible. He said: 'I love you.'
Ross Perot got on the bus and said: 'Is everybody here?'
'Not my dad!' said a plaintive small voice. It was Sean Sculley.
'Don't worry,' said Perot. 'He'll be right out. He's our straight man.'
Pat Sculley had been stopped by a customs agent and asked to open his suitcase. He was carrying all the money, and of course the agent had seen it. Several more agents were summoned, and Sculley was taken into an office to be interrogated.
The agents got out some forms. Sculley began to explain, but they did not want to listen; they only wanted to fill out the forms.
'Is the money yours?'
'No, it belongs to EDS.'
'Did you have it when you left the States?'
'Most of it.'
'When and how did you leave the States?'
'A week ago on a private 707.'
'Where did you go?'
'To Istanbul, then to the Iranian border.'
Another man came into the office and said: 'Are you Mr. Sculley?'
'Yes.'
'I'm terribly sorry you've been troubled like this. Mr. Perot is waiting for you outside.' He turned to the agents. 'You can tear up those forms.'
Sculley smiled and left. He was not in the Middle East anymore. This was Dallas, where Perot was Perot.
Sculley got on the bus, and saw Mary, Sean, and Jennifer. He hugged and kissed them all, then said: 'What's happening?'
'There's a little reception for you,' said Mary.
The bus started to move, but it did not go far. It stopped again a few yards away at a different gate, and they were all ushered back into the airport and led to a door marked 'Concorde Room.'
As they walked in, a thousand people rose to their feet, cheering and clapping.
Someone had put up a huge banner reading:JOHN HOWELL
NO. 1
DADDY
Jay Coburn was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and their reaction. What a good idea the buses had been, to give the men a chance to greet their families in private before coming in here. Who had arranged that? Stauffer, of course.
As he walked through the room toward the front, people in the crowd reached over to shake his hand, saying:
