guard tried to sort them out, EDS people in the queue behind began to push forward and cause a commotion. Some of Coburn's team gathered around the desk asking loud questions and pretending to get angry about the delay. In the confusion the woman with the Australian passport walked through the departure lounge without being stopped.
Another EDS family had adopted an Iranian baby and had not yet been able to get a passport for the child. Only a few months old, the baby would fall asleep, lying face-down, on its mother's forearm. Another EDS wife, Kathy Marketos--of whom it was said that she would try anything once--put the sleeping baby on her own forearm, draped her raincoat over it, and carried it onto the plane.
However, it was many hours before anyone got on a plane. Both flights were delayed. There was no food to be bought at the airport and the evacuees were famished, so just before curfew some of Coburn's team drove around the city buying anything edible they could find. They purchased the entire contents of several
The Istanbul flight left just after midnight. The Frankfurt flight took off the next day, thirty-one hours late.
Coburn and most of the team spent the night at Bucharest. They had no one to go home to.
While Coburn was running the evacuation, Paul had been trying to find out who wanted to confiscate his passport and why.
His administrative assistant, Rich Gallagher, was a young American who was good at dealing with the Iranian bureaucracy. Gallagher was one of those who had volunteered to stay in Tehran. His wife, Cathy, had also stayed behind. She had a good job with the U.S. military in Tehran. The Gallaghers did not want to leave. Furthermore, they had no children to worry about--just a poodle called Buffy.
The day Fara was asked to take the passports--December 5--Gallagher visited the U.S. Embassy with one of the people whose passports had been demanded: Paul Bucha, who no longer worked in Iran but happened to be in town on a visit.
They met with Consul General Lou Goelz. Goelz, an experienced consul in his fifties, was a portly, balding man with a fringe of white hair: he would have made a good Santa Claus. With Goelz was an Iranian member of the consular staff, Ali Jordan.
Goelz advised Bucha to catch his plane. Fara had told the police--in all innocence--that Bucha was not in Iran, and they had appeared to believe her. There was every chance that Bucha could sneak out.
Goelz also offered to hold the passports and residence permits of Paul and Bill for safekeeping. That way, if the police made a formal demand for the documents, EDS would be able to refer them to the Embassy.
Meanwhile, Ali Jordan would contact the police and try to find out what the hell was going on.
Later that day the passports and papers were delivered to the Embassy.
The next morning Bucha caught his plane and got out. Gallagher called the Embassy. Ali Jordan had talked to General Biglari of the Tehran Police Department. Biglari had said that Paul and Bill were being detained in the country and would be arrested if they tried to leave.
Gallagher asked why.
They were being held as 'material witnesses in an investigation,' Jordan understood.
Jordan did not know.
Paul was puzzled, as well as anxious, when Gallagher reported all this. He had not been involved in a road accident, had not witnessed a crime, had no connections with the CIA ... Who or what was being investigated? EDS? Or was the investigation just an excuse for keeping Paul and Bill in Iran so that they would continue to run the social-security system's computers?
The police had made one concession. Ali Jordan had argued that the police were entitled to confiscate the residence permits, which were the property of the Iranian government, but not the passports, which were U.S. government property. General Biglari had conceded this.
The next day Gallagher and Ali Jordan went to the police station to hand the documents over to Biglari. On the way Gallagher asked Jordan whether he thought there was a chance Paul and Bill would be accused of wrongdoing.
'I doubt that very much,' said Jordan.
At the police station the general warned Jordan that the Embassy would be held responsible if Paul and Bill left the country by any means--such as a U.S. military aircraft.
The following day--December 8, the day of the evacuation--Lou Goelz called EDS. He had found out, through a 'source' at the Iranian Ministry of Justice, that the investigation in which Paul and Bill were supposed to be material witnesses was an investigation into corruption charges against the jailed Minister of Health, Dr. Sheikholeslamizadeh.
It was something of a relief to Paul to know, at last, what the whole thing was about. He could happily tell the investigators the truth: EDS had paid no bribes. He doubted whether anyone had bribed the Minister. Iranian bureaucrats were notoriously corrupt, but Dr. Sheik--as Paul called him for short--seemed to come from a different mold. An orthopedic surgeon by training, he had a perceptive mind and an impressive ability to master detail. In the Ministry of Health he had surrounded himself with a group of progressive young technocrats who found ways to cut through red tape and get things done. The EDS project was only part of his ambitious plan to bring Iranian health and welfare services up to American standards. Paul did not think Dr. Sheik was lining his own pockets at the same time.
Paul had nothing to fear--if Goelz's 'source' was telling the truth. But was he? Dr. Sheik had been arrested three months ago. Was it a coincidence that the Iranians had suddenly realized that Paul and Bill were material witnesses when Paul told them that EDS would leave Iran unless the Ministry paid its bills?
After the evacuation the remaining EDS men moved into two houses and stayed there, playing poker, during December 10 and 11, the holy days of Ashura. There was a high-stakes house and a low-stakes house. Both Paul and Coburn were at the high-stakes house. For protection they invited Coburn's 'spooks'--his two contacts in military intelligence--who carried guns. No weapons were allowed at the poker table, so the spooks had to leave their firearms in the hall.
Contrary to expectations, Ashura passed relatively peacefully: millions of Iranians attended anti-Shah demonstrations all over the country, but there was little violence.
After Ashura, Paul and Bill again considered skipping the country, but they were in for a shock. As a preliminary they asked Lou Goelz at the Embassy to give them back their passports. Goelz said that if he did that he would be obliged to inform General Biglari. That would amount to a warning to the police that Paul and Bill were trying to sneak out.
Goelz insisted that he had told EDS, when he took the passports, that this was his deal with the police; but he must have said it rather quietly, because no one could remember it.
Paul was furious.
Couldn't Goelz renege on his stupid agreement, and return the passports quietly, perhaps informing the police a couple of days later, when Paul and Bill were safely home? Absolutely not, said Goelz. If he quarreled with the police they would make trouble for everyone else, and Goelz had to worry about the other twelve thousand Americans still in Iran. Besides, the names of Paul and Bill were now on the 'stop list' held by the airport police: even with all their documents in order they would never get through passport control.
When the news that Paul and Bill were well and truly stuck in Iran reached Dallas, EDS and its lawyers went into high gear. Their Washington contacts were not as good as they would have been under a Republican administration, but they still had some friends. They talked to Bob Strauss, a high-powered White House
