On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

But he was not a man to brood. He could do nothing for her today. Two years ago, when she had a stroke, he had turned Dallas upside down on a Sunday afternoon to find the best neurosurgeon in town and bring him to the hospital. He responded to a crisis with action. But if there was nothing to be done he was able to shut the problem out of his mind, forgetting the bad news and going on to the next task. He would not now spoil his family's holiday by walking around with a mournful face. He would enter into the fun and games, and enjoy the company of his wife and children.

The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts, and he stepped into the kitchen to pick it up.

'Ross Perot,' he said.

'Ross, this is Bill Gayden.'

'Hi, Bill.' Gayden was an EDS old-timer, having joined the company in 1967. In some ways he was the typical salesman. He was a jovial man, everyone's buddy. He liked a joke, a drink, a smoke, and a hand of poker. He was also a wizard financier, very good around acquisitions, mergers, and deals, which was why Perot had made him president of EDS World. Gayden's sense of humor was irrepressible--he would find something funny to say in the most serious situations--but now he sounded somber.

'Ross, we got a problem.'

It was an EDS catchphrase: We got a problem.It meant bad news.

Gayden went on: 'It's Paul and Bill.'

Perot knew instantly what he was talking about. The way in which his two senior men in Iran had been prevented from leaving the country was highly sinister, and it had never been far from his mind, even while his mother lay dying. 'But they're supposed to be allowed out today.'

'They've been arrested.'

The anger began as a small, hard knot in the pit of Perot's stomach. 'Now, Bill, I was assured that they would be allowed to leave Iran as soon as this interview was over. Now I want to know how this happened.'

'They just slung them in jail.'

'On what charges?'

'They didn't specify charges.'

'Under what law did they jail them?'

'They didn't say.'

'What are we doing to get them out?'

'Ross, they set bail at ninety million tomans. That's twelve million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.'

'Twelve million?'

'That's right.'

'Now how the devil has this happened?'

'Ross, I've been on the phone with Lloyd Briggs for half an hour, trying to understand it, and the fact is that Lloyd doesn't understand it either.'

Perot paused. EDS executives were supposed to give him answers, not questions. Gayden knew better than to call without briefing himself as thoroughly as possible. Perot was not going to get any more out of him right now; Gayden just didn't have the information.

'Get Tom Luce into the office,' Perot said. 'Call the State Department in Washington. This takes priority over everything else. I don't want them to stay in that jail another damn minute!'

Margot pricked up her ears when she heard Ross say damn: it was most unusual for him to curse, especially in front of the children. He came in from the kitchen with his face set. His eyes were as blue as the Arctic Ocean, and as cold. She knew that look. It was not just anger: he was not the kind of man to dissipate his energy in a display of bad temper. It was a look of inflexible determination. It meant he had decided to do something and he would move heaven and earth to get it done. She had seen that determination, that strength, in him when she had first met him, at the Naval Academy in Annapolis ... could it really be twenty-five years ago? It was the quality that cut him out from the herd, made him different from the mass of men. Oh, he had other qualities--he was smart, he was funny, he could charm the birds out of the trees--but what made him exceptional was his strength of will. When he got that look in his eyes you could no more stop him than you could stop a railway train on a downhill gradient.

'The Iranians put Paul and Bill in jail,' he said.

Margot's thoughts flew at once to their wives. She had known them both for years. Ruthie Chiapparone was a small, placid, smiling girl with a shock of fair hair. She had a vulnerable look: men wanted to protect her. She would take it hard. Emily Gaylord was tougher, at least on the surface. A thin blond woman, Emily was vivacious and spirited: she would want to get on a plane and go spring Bill from jail herself. The difference in the two women showed in their clothes: Ruthie chose soft fabrics and gentle outlines; Emily went in for smart tailoring and bright colors. Emily would suffer on the inside.

'I'm going back to Dallas,' Ross said.

'There's a blizzard out there,' said Margot, looking out at the snowflakes swirling down the mountainside. She knew she was wasting her breath: snow and ice would not stop him now. She thought ahead: Ross would not be able to sit behind a desk in Dallas for very long while two of his men were in an Iranian jail. He's not going to Dallas, she thought; he's going to Iran.

'I'll take the four-wheel drive,' he said. 'I can catch a plane in Denver.'

Margot suppressed her fears and smiled brightly. 'Drive carefully, won't you,' she said.

Perot sat hunched over the wheel of the GM Suburban, driving carefully. The road was icy. Snow built up along the bottom edge of the windshield, shortening the travel of the wipers. He peered at the road ahead. Denver was 106 miles from Vail. It gave him time to think.

He was still furious.

It was not just that Paul and Bill were in jail. They were in jail because they had gone to Iran, and they had gone to Iran because Perot had sent them there.

He had been worried about Iran for months. One day, after lying awake at night thinking about it, he had gone into the office and said: 'Let's evacuate. If we're wrong, all we've lost is the price of three or four hundred plane tickets. Do it today.'

It had been one of the rare occasions on which his orders were not carried out. Everyone had dragged their feet, in Dallas and in Tehran. Not that he could blame them. He had lacked determination. If he had been firm they would have evacuated that day; but he had not been firm, and the following day the passports had been called for.

He owed Paul and Bill a lot anyway. He felt a special debt of loyalty to the men who had gambled their careers by joining EDS when it was a struggling young company. Many times he had found the right man, interviewed him, got him interested, and offered him the job, only to find that, on talking it over with his family, the man had decided that EDS was just too small, too new, too risky.

Paul and Bill had not only taken the chance--they had worked their butts off to make sure their gamble paid. Bill had designed the basic computer system for the administration of Medicare and Medicaid programs that, used now in many American states, formed the foundation of EDS's business. He had worked long hours, spent weeks away from home, and moved his family all over the country in those days. Paul had been no less dedicated: when the company had too few men and very little cash, Paul had done the work of three systems engineers. Perot could remember the company's first contract in New York, with Pepsico; and Paul walking from Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge in the snow, to sneak past a picket line--the plant was on strike--and go to work.

Perot owed it to Paul and Bill to get them out.

He owed it to them to get the government of the United States to bring the whole weight of its influence to bear on the Iranians.

America had asked for Perot's help, once; and he had given three years of his life--and a bunch of money--to the prisoners-of-war campaign. Now he was going to ask for America's help.

His mind went back to 1969, when the Vietnam War was at its height. Some of his friends from the Naval Academy had been killed or captured: Bill Leftwich, a wonderfully warm, strong, kind man, had been killed in battle