around out there, and the mob attacking the jail might well be anti-American. On the other hand, if the authorities were somehow to regain control of the prison, Paul and Bill would have lost their last chance of escape ...
'I wonder where Gayden is now, the son of a bitch,' said Paul. 'The only reason I'm here is because he sent me to Iran.'
Bill looked at Paul and realized he was only joking.
The patients from the ground-floor hospital swarmed out into the courtyard: someone must have unlocked their doors. Bill could hear a tremendous commotion, like crying, from the women's cell block on the other side of the street. There were more and more people out in the compound, flocking toward the prison entrance. Looking that way, Bill saw smoke. Paul saw it at the same moment.
Bill said: 'If they're going to burn the place...'
'We'd better get out.'
The fire tipped the balance: their decision was made.
Bill looked around the cell. The two of them had few possessions. Bill thought of the diary he had kept faithfully for the last forty-three days. Paul had written lists of things he would do when he got back to the States, and had figured out, on a sheet of paper, the finance on the new house Ruthie was buying. They both had precious letters from home that they had read over and over again.
Paul said: 'We're probably better off not carrying anything that shows we're Americans.'
Bill had picked up his diary. Now he dropped it again. 'You're right,' he said reluctantly.
They put on their coats: Paul had a blue London Fog raincoat and Bill an overcoat with a fur collar.
They had about two thousand dollars each, money that Keane Taylor had brought in. Paul had some cigarettes. They took nothing else.
They went out of the building and crossed the little courtyard, then hesitated at the gate. The street was now a sea of people, like the crowd leaving a sports stadium, walking and running in one mass toward the prison gates.
Paul stuck out his hand. 'Hey, good luck, Bill.'
Bill shook his hand. 'Good luck to you.'
Probably we'll both die in the next few minutes, Bill thought, most likely from a stray bullet. I'll never see the kids grow up, he realized sadly. The thought that Emily would have to manage on her own made him angry.
Amazingly enough, he felt no fear.
They stepped through the little gate, and then there was no more time for reflection.
They were swept into the throng, like twigs dropped into a fast-flowing stream. Bill concentrated on sticking close to Paul and staying upright, not to get trampled. There was still a lot of shooting. One lone guard had stayed at his post and seemed to be firing into the crowd from his gun tower. Two or three people fell--one of them was the American woman they had seen before--but it was not clear whether they had been shot or had merely stumbled. I don't want to die yet, Bill thought; I've got plans, things I want to do with my family, in my career; this is not the time, not the place, for me to die; what a rotten hand of cards I've been dealt...
They passed the Officers' Club where they had met with Perot just three weeks ago--it seemed like years. Vengeful prisoners were smashing up the club and wrecking the officers' cars outside. Where was the sense in that? For a moment the whole scene seemed unreal, like a dream, or a nightmare.
The chaos around the main prison entrance was worse. Paul and Bill held back, and managed to detach themselves from the crowd, for fear of being crushed. Bill recalled that some of the prisoners had been here for twenty-five years: it was no wonder, after that length of time, that when they smelled freedom they went berserk.
It seemed that the prison gates must still be shut, for scores of people were trying to climb the immense exterior wall. Some were standing on cars and trucks that had been pushed up against the wall. Others were climbing trees and crawling precariously along overhanging branches. Still more had leaned planks against the brickwork and were trying to scramble up those. A few people had reached the top of the wall by one means or another and were letting down ropes and sheets to those below, but the ropes were not long enough.
Paul and Bill stood watching, wondering what to do. They were joined by some of the other foreign prisoners from Building Number 8. One of them, a New Zealander charged with drug smuggling, had a big grin all over his face as if he were enjoying the whole thing hugely. There was a kind of hysterical elation in the air, and Bill began to catch it. Somehow, he thought, we're going to get out of this mess alive.
He looked around. To the right of the gates the buildings were burning. To the left, some distance away, he saw an Iranian prisoner waving as if to say: This way! There had been some construction work on that section of the wall--a building seemed to be going up on the far side--and there was a steel door in the wall to allow access to the site. Looking more closely, Bill could see that the waving Iranian had got the steel door open.
'Hey--look over there!' said Bill.
'Let's go,' said Paul.
They ran over. Several other prisoners followed. They went through the door--and found themselves trapped in a kind of cell without doors or windows. There was a smell of new cement. Builders' tools lay around. Someone grabbed a pickaxe and swung it at the wall. The fresh concrete crumbled quickly. Two or three others joined in, hacking away with anything that came to hand. Soon the hole was big enough: they dropped their tools and crawled through.
They were now between the two prison walls. The inner wall, behind them, was the high one-twenty-five or thirty feet. The outer wall, which stood between them and freedom, was only ten or twelve feet high.
An athletic prisoner managed to get up onto the top of the wall. Another man stood at its foot and beckoned. A third prisoner went forward. The man on the ground pushed him up, the one on top pulled, and the prisoner went over the wall.
It happened very quickly then.
Paul took a run at the wall.
Bill was right behind him.
Bill's mind was a blank. He ran. He felt a push, helping him up; then a pull; then he was at the top, and he jumped.
He landed on the pavement.
He got to his feet.
Paul was right beside him.
We're free! thought Bill. We're free!
He felt like dancing.
Coburn put down the phone and said: 'That was Majid. The mob has overrun the prison.'
'Good,' said Simons. He had told Coburn, earlier that morning, to send Majid down to Gasr Square.
Simons was very cool, Coburn thought. This was it--this was the big day! Now they could get out of the apartment, get on the move, activate their plans for 'getting out of Dodge.' Yet Simons showed no signs of excitement.
'What do we do now?' said Coburn.
'Nothing. Majid is there, Rashid is there. If those two can't take care of Paul and Bill, we sure as hell won't be able to. If Paul and Bill don't turn up by nightfall, we'll do what we discussed: you and Majid will go out on a motorcycle and search.'
'And meanwhile?'
'We stick to the plan. We sit tight. We wait.'
There was a crisis at the U.S. Embassy.
Ambassador William Sullivan had got an emergency call for help from General Gast, head of the Military Assistance Advisory Group. MAAG Headquarters was surrounded by a mob. Tanks were drawn up outside the building and shots were being exchanged. Gast and his officers, together with most of the Iranian general staff, were in a bunker underneath the building.
Sullivan had every able-bodied man in the Embassy making phone calls, trying to find revolutionary leaders who might have the authority to call off the mob. The phone on Sullivan's desk was ringing constantly. In the middle of the crisis he got a call from Undersecretary Newsom in Washington.
