On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

The Consul said: 'Mr. Perot, we're here to help American citizens, and I'm going to try to get you an aircraft. I'll pull whatever strings I can. But I'll tell you now that my chance of success is close to zero.'

'Well, I appreciate it.'

The Consul got up to go.

Perot said: 'It's very important that my presence in Turkey be kept secret. Right now the Iranian authorities have no idea where my men are. If they should learn that I'm here, they will be able to figure out how my men are getting out, and that would be a catastrophe. So please be very discreet.'

'I understand.'

The Consul left.

A few minutes later the phone rang. It was T. J. Marquez calling from Dallas.

'Perot, you're on the front page of the paper today.'

Perot's heart sank: the story was out.

T. J. said: 'The governor just appointed you chairman of the Drug Commission.'

Perot breathed again. 'Marquez, you scared me.'

T. J. laughed.

'You shouldn't do that to an old man,' Perot said. 'Boy, you really caught my attention there.'

'Wait a minute, Margot's on the other line,' said T. J. 'She just wants to wish you a happy Valentine's Day.'

Perot realized it was February 14. He said: 'Tell her I'm completely safe, and being guarded at all times by two blondes.'

'Wait a minute, I'll tell her.' T. J. came back on the line a minute later, laughing. 'She says, isn't it interesting that you need two to replace her?'

Perot chuckled. He had walked into that one: he should have known better than to try to score points off Margot. 'Now, did you get through to Tehran?'

'Yes. The international operator got us a line, and we blew it on a wrong number. Then A.T. and T. got us a line and we reached Gholam.'

'And?'

'Nothing. He hasn't heard from them.'

Perot's temporary cheerfulness vanished. 'What did you ask him?'

'We just said: 'Are there any messages?' and he said there weren't.'

'Damn.' Perot almost wished the Dirty Team had called to say they were in trouble, for then at least he would have known their location.

He said goodbye to T. J. and got ready for bed. He had lost the Clean Team, he had lost Boulware, and now he had lost the Dirty Team. He had failed to get hold of an aircraft in which to go looking for them. The whole operation was a mess--and there was not a thing he could do about it.

The suspense was killing him. He realized that never in his life had he experienced this much tension. He had seen men crumble under stress but he had never really been able to relate to their suffering because it had never happened to him. Stress did not upset him, normally--in fact, he thrived on it. But this was different.

He broke his own rule, and allowed himself to think about all the bad things that could happen. What was at stake here was his freedom, for if this rescue were to go wrong he would end up in jail. Already he had assembled a mercenary army, connived at the misuse of American passports, arranged the forgery of U.S. military identity cards, and conspired to effect an illegal border crossing. He hoped he would go to jail in the U.S. rather than in Turkey. The worst would be if the Turks sent him to Iran to be tried for his 'crimes' there.

He lay awake on his hotel bed, worrying about the Clean Team, about the Dirty Team, about Boulware, and about himself. There was nothing he could do but endure it. In the future he would be more sympathetic to the men he put under stress. If he had a future.

5____

Coburn was tense, watching Simons.

They all sat in a circle on the Persian carpet, waiting for the 'judge.' Simons had told Coburn, before they left Tehran:

'Keep your eye on me.' So far Simons had been passive, rolling with the punches, letting Rashid do the talking, allowing the team to be arrested. But there might come a moment when he changed his tactics. If he decided to start a fight, he would let Coburn know a split second before it happened.

The judge arrived.

Aged about fifty, he wore a dark blue jacket with a light tan sweater underneath, and an open-neck shirt. He had the air of a professional man, a doctor or a lawyer. He had a .45 stuck in his belt.

Rashid recognized him. His name was Habib Bolourian, and he was a leading Communist.

Bolourian sat in the space Simons had intended for him.

He said something in Farsi, and the young man in the suit--who now took on the role of interpreter--asked for their passports.

This is it, Coburn thought; this is where we get into trouble. He will look at Bill's passport and realize it belongs to someone else.

The passports were piled up on the carpet in front of Bolourian. He looked at the top one. The interpreter began to write down details. There was some confusion about surnames and given names: Iranians often got the two mixed up, for some reason. Rashid was handing the passports to Bolourian, and Gayden was leaning over and pointing out things; and it dawned on Coburn that between the two they were making the confusion worse. Rashid was giving Bolourian the same passport more than once, and Gayden, in leaning over to point out things in a passport, was covering up the photograph. Coburn admired their nerve. In the end the passports were handed back, and it seemed to Coburn that Bill's had never actually been opened.

Bolourian began to interrogate Rashid in Farsi. Rashid seemed to be telling the official cover story, about their being ordinary American businessmen trying to go home, with some embellishments about family members on the point of death back in the States.

Eventually the interpreter said in English: 'Would you tell us exactly what you're doing here?'

Rashid said: 'Well, you see--' then a guard behind him slammed in the bolt on his machine gun and stuck the barrel into the back of Rashid's neck. Rashid fell silent. Clearly the interpreter wanted to hear what the Americans had to say, to see whether their story matched Rashid's; the guard's action was a brutal reminder that they were in the power of violent revolutionaries.

Gayden, as the senior EDS executive there, replied to the interpreter. 'We all work for a data-processing company called PARS Data Systems, or PDS,' he said. In fact, PDS was the Iranian company jointly owned by EDS and Abolfath Mahvi. Gayden did not mention EDS because, as Simons had pointed out before they left Tehran, Dadgar might put out a blanket arrest order on anyone connected with EDS. 'We had a contract with Bank Omran,' Gayden went on, telling the truth but by no means the whole truth. 'We weren't getting paid, people were throwing rocks at our windows, we had no money, we missed our families, and we just wanted to go home. The airport was closed, so we decided to drive.'

'That's right,' said the interpreter. 'The same thing happened to me--I wanted to fly to Europe but the airport was closed.'

We may have an ally here, Coburn thought.

Bolourian asked, and the interpreter translated: 'Did you have a contract with ISIRAN?'

Coburn was astonished. For someone who had spent twenty-five years in jail, Bolourian was remarkably well informed. ISIRAN--Information Systems Iran--was a data-processing company that had once been owned by Abolfath Mahvi and had subsequently been bought by the government. The company was widely believed to have close links with the secret police, SAVAK. Worse, EDS did have a contract with ISIRAN: in partnership, the two companies had created a document-control system for the Iranian Navy back in 1977.

'We have absolutely nothing to do with ISIRAN,' Gayden lied.

'Can you give us some proof of whom you work for?'

That was a problem. Before leaving Tehran they had all destroyed any papers connected with EDS, under Simons's instructions. Now they all searched their pockets for anything they might have overlooked.