On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Coburn would follow Davis over the fence. He was not in good shape, but his face was more familiar than any other to Paul and Bill, so they would know as soon as they saw him that they were being rescued.

Next, Boulware would lower a ladder into the courtyard.

Surprise might take them this far, if they were quick; but at this point the guards were sure to react. Simons and Boulware would now fire their shotguns into the air.

The prison guards would hit the dirt, the Iranian prisoners would run around in terrified confusion, and the rescuers would have gained a few more seconds.

What if there were interference from outside the jail, Simons asked--from police or soldiers in the street, revolutionary rioters or just public-spirited passersby?

There would be two flanking guards, they decided: one at either end of the street. They would arrive in a car a few seconds before the van. They would be armed with handguns. Their job was simply to stop anyone who came to interfere with the rescue. Jim Schwebach and Pat Sculley were nominated. Coburn was sure Schwebach would not hesitate to shoot people if necessary; and Sculley, although he had never in his life shot anyone, had become so surprisingly ice-cool during the discussion that Coburn supposed he would be equally ruthless.

Glenn Jackson would drive the car: the question of Glenn the Baptist shooting people would not arise.

Meanwhile, in the confusion in the courtyard, Ron Davis would provide close cover, dealing with any nearby guards, while Coburn cut Paul and Bill out of the herd and urged them up the ladder. They would jump from the top of the fence to the roof of the van, then from there to the ground, and finally inside the van. Coburn would follow, then Davis.

'Hey, I'm taking the biggest risk of all,' said Davis. 'Hell, I'm first in and last out--maximum exposure.'

'No shit,' said Boulware. 'Next question.'

Simons would get into the front of the van, Boulware would jump in the back and close the door, and Poche would drive them away at top speed.

Jackson, in the car, would pick up the flanking guards, Schwebach and Sculley, and follow the van.

During the getaway, Boulware would be able to shoot through the back window of the van, and Simons would cover the road ahead. Any really serious pursuit would be taken care of by Sculley and Schwebach in the car.

At a prearranged spot they would dump the van and split up in several cars, then head for the air base at Doshen Toppeh, on the outskirts of the city. A U.S. Air Force jet would fly them out of Iran: it would be Perot's job to arrange that somehow.

At the end of the evening they had the skeleton of a workable plan.

Before they left, Simons told them not to talk about the rescue--not to their wives, not even to each other--outside the lake house. They should each think up a cover story to explain why they would be going out of the U.S. in a week or so. And, he added, looking at their full ashtrays and their ample waistlines, each man should devise his own exercise program for getting in shape.

The rescue was no longer a zany idea in Ross Perot's mind: it was real.

Jay Coburn was the only one who made a serious effort to deceive his wife.

He went back to the Hilton Inn and called Liz. 'Hi, honey.'

'Hi, Jay! Where are you?'

'I'm in Paris ...'

Joe Poche also called his wife from the Hilton.

'Where are you?' she asked him.

'I'm in Dallas.'

'What are you doing?'

'Working at EDS, of course.'

'Joe, EDS in Dallas has been calling me to ask where you are!'

Poche realized that someone who was not in on the secret of the rescue team had been trying to locate him. 'I'm not working with those guys. I'm working directly with Ross. Somebody forgot to tell someone else, that's all.'

'What are you working on?'

'It has to do with some things that have to be done for Paul and Bill.'

'Oh ...'

When Boulware got back to the home of the friends with whom his family was staying, his daughters, Stacy Elaine and Kecia Nicole, were asleep. His wife said: 'How was your day?'

I've been planning a jailbreak, Boulware thought. He said: 'Oh, okay.'

She looked at him strangely. 'Well, what did you do?'

'Nothing much.'

'For someone who was doing nothing much, you've been pretty busy. I called two or three times--they said they couldn't find you.'

'I was around. Hey, I think I'd like a beer.'

Mary Boulware was a warm, open woman to whom deceit was foreign. She was also intelligent. But she knew that Ralph had some firm ideas about the roles of husband and wife. The ideas might be old-fashioned, but they worked in this marriage. If there was an area of his business life that he didn't want to tell her about, well, she wasn't about to fight him over it.

'One beer, coming up ...'

Jim Schwebach did not try to fool his wife, Rachel. She had already outguessed him. When Schwebach had got the original call from Pat Sculley, Rachel had asked: 'Who was that?'

'That was Pat Sculley in Dallas. They want me to go down there and work on a study in Europe.'

Rachel had known Jim for almost twenty years--they had started dating when he was sixteen, she eighteen--and she could read his mind. She said: 'They're going back over there to get those guys out of jail.'

Schwebach said feebly: 'Rachel, you don't understand, I'm out of that line of business. I don't do that anymore.'

'That's what you're going to do ...'

Pat Sculley could not lie successfully even to his colleagues, and with his wife he did not try. He told Mary everything.

Ross Perot told Margot everything.

And even Simons, who had no wife to pester him, broke security by telling his brother Stanley in New Jersey ...

It proved equally impossible to keep the rescue plan from other senior executives at EDS. The first to figure it all out was Keane Taylor, the tall, irritable, well-dressed ex-marine whom Perot had turned around in Frankfurt and sent back to Tehran.

Since that New Year's Day, when Perot had said: 'I'm sending you back to do something very important,' Taylor had been sure that a secret operation was being planned; and it did not take him long to figure out who was doing it.

One day, on the phone from Tehran to Dallas, he had asked for Ralph Boulware.

'Boulware's not here,' he was told.

'When will he be back?'

'We're not sure.'

Taylor, never a man to suffer fools gladly, had raised his voice. 'So, where has he gone?'

'We're not sure.'

'What do you mean, you're not sure?'

'He's on vacation.'

Taylor had known Boulware for years. It had been Taylor who gave Boulware his first management opportunity. They were drinking partners. Many times Taylor, drinking himself sober with Ralph in the early hours of the morning, had looked around and realized his was the only white face in an all-black bar. Those nights they would stagger back to whichever of their homes was nearest, and the unlucky wife who welcomed them would call