Follett, Ken - On Wings of Eagles.txt Read online

  24 Ken Follett

  what to do. He just had to fill in the blanks with dates, times, and flight

  numbers, then have the leaflets duplicated and distributed.

  He had picked a lively and imaginative young Iranian systems

  engineer, Rashid, and given him the job of taking care of the

  homes, cars, and pets that would be left behind by the fleeing

  Americans and--eventually --- shipping their possessions to the

  U.S. He had appointed a small logistics group to organize plane

  tickets and transportation to the airport.

  Finally he had conducted a small-scale rehearsal of the evacuation with a

  few people. It had worked.

  Coburn got dressed and made coffee. There was nothing he could do for the

  next couple of hours, but he was too anxious and impatient to sleep.

  At four A.m. he called the half-dozen members of the logistics group, woke

  them, and told them to meet him at the "Bucharest" office immediately after

  curfew.

  Curfew began at nine each evening and ended at five in the morning. For an

  hour Coburn sat waiting, smoking and drinking a lot of coffee and going

  over his notes.

  When the cuckoo clock in the hall chirped five he was at the front door,

  ready to go.

  Outside there was a thick fog. He got into his car and headed for

  Bucharest, crawling along at fifteen miles per hour.

  Three blocks from his house, half a dozen soldiers leaped out of the fog

  and stood in a semicircle in front of his car, pointing their rifles at his

  windshield.

  "Oh, shit," Coburn said.

  One of the soldiers was still loading his gun. He was trying to put the

  clip in backward, and it would not fit. He dropped it and went down on one

  knee, scrabbling around on the ground looking for it. Coburn would have

  laughed if he had not been scared.

  An officer yelled at Coburn in Farsi. Coburn lowered the window. He showed

  the officer his wristwatch and said: "It's after five."

  The soldiers had a conference. The officer came back and asked Coburn for

  his identification.

  Coburn waited anxiously. This would be the worst possible day to get

  arrested. Would the officer believe that Coburn's watch was right and his

  was wrong?

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 25

  At last the soldiers got out of the road and the officer waved Coburn on.

  Coburn breathed a sigh of relief and drove slowly on. Iran was like that.

  2

  Coburn's logistics group went to work making plane reservations, chartering

  buses to take people to the airport, and photocopying handout leaflets. At

  ten A.M. Coburn got the team leaders into Bucharest and started them calling

  the evacuees.

  He got reservations for most of them on a Pan Am flight to Istanbul on

  Friday, December 8. The remainder-including Liz Coburn and the four

  children-would get a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt that same day.

  As soon as the reservations were confirmed, two top executives at EDS

  headquarters, Merv Stauffer and T. J. Marquez, left Dallas for Istanbul to

  meet the evacuees, shepherd them to hotels, and organize the next stage of

  their flight back home.

  During the day there was a small change in plan. Paul was still reluctant

  to abandon his work in Iran. He proposed that a skeleton staff of about ten

  senior men stay behind, to keep the office ticking over, in the hope that

  Iran would quiet down and EDS would eventually be able to resume working

  normally. Dallas agreed. Among those who volunteered to stay were Paul

  himself, his deputy Bill Gaylord, Jay Coburn, and most of Coburn's

  evacuation logistics group. Two people who stayed behind rehictantly were

  Carl and Vicki Commons: Vicki was nine months pregnant and would leave

  after her baby was born.

  On Friday morning Coburn's team, their pockets full of tenthousand-rial

  (about $140) notes for bribes, virtually took over a section of Mehrabad

  Airport in western Tehran. Coburn had people writing tickets behind the Pan

  Am counter, people at passport control, people in the departure lounge, and

  people running baggage-handling equipment. The plane was overbooked: bribes

  ensured that no one from EDS was bumped off the flight.

  There were two especially tense moments. An EDS wife with an Australian

  passport had been unable to get an exit visa because the Iranian government

  offices that issued exit visas

  26 Ken Follett

  were all on strike. (Her husband and children had American passports and

  therefore did not need exit visas.) When the husband reached the

  passport-control desk, he handed over his passport and his children's in a

  stack with six or seven other passports. As the 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 kuche stalls--streetcomer stands that sold candy,

  fruit, and cigarettes-and they went into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and did

  a deal for its stock of bread rolls. Back at the airport, passing food out

  to EDS people in the departure lounge, they were almost mobbed by the other

  hungry passengers waiting for the same flights. On the way back downtown

  two of the team were caught and arrested for being out after curfew-but the

  soldier who stopped them got distracted by another car, which tried to

  escape, and the EDS men drove off while he was shooting the other way.

  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

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 27

  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-4n all

  innocence-4hat 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 Ins 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.

  "What investigation?"

  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

  28 Ken Follett

  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 mean&-such as a

  U.S. military aircraft.

  The following day-December 8, the day of the evacuationLou Goetz 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 Goetz'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

  ON WINGS OF EAGLES 29

  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. Why had Goelz had to make any kind of deal with the

  police? He was under no obligation to tell them what he did with an

  American passport. It was not his job to help the police detain Paul and

  Bill in Iran, for God's sake! The Embassy was there to help Americans,

  wasn't it?

  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 troubleshooter who happened to be a Texan; Admiral Tom Moorer,

  a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who knew many of the

  generals now running Iran's military government; and Richard Helms, past

  Director of the CIA and a former U.S. Ambassador to Iran. As a result of

  the pressure they put on the State Department, the U.S. Ambassador in

  Tehran, William Sullivan, raised the case of Paul and Bill in a meeting

  with the Iranian Prime Minister, General Azhari.

  None of this brought any results.

  30 Ken Follett

  The thirty days that Paul had given the Iranians to pay their bill ran out,

  and o
n December 16 he wrote to Dr. Emrani formally terminating the

  contract. But he had not given up. He asked a handful of evacuated

  executives to come back to Tehran, as a sign of EDS's willingness to try to

  resolve its problems with the Ministry. Some of the returning executives,

  encouraged by the peaceful Ashura, even brought their families back.

  Neither the Embassy nor EDS's lawyers in Tehran had been able to find out

  who had ordered Paul and Bill detained. It was Majid, Fara's father, who

  eventually got the information out of General Biglari. The investigator was

  Examining Magistrate Hosain Dadgar, a midlevel functionary within the

  office of the public prosecutor, in a department that dealt with crimes by

  civil servants and had very broad powers. Dadgar was conducting the inquiry

  into Dr. Sheik, the jailed former Minister of Health.

  Since the Embassy could not persuade the Iranians to let Paul and Bill

  leave the country, and would not give back their passports quietly, could

  they at least arrange for this Dadgar to question Paul and Bill as soon as

  possible so that they could go home for Christmas? Christmas did not mean

  much to the Iranians, said Goelz, but New Year did, so he would try to fix

  a meeting before then.

  During the second half of December the rioting started again (and the first

  thing the returning executives did was plan for a second evacuation). The

  general strike continued, and petroleum exports-the government's most

  important source of income-ground to a halt, reducing to zero EDS's chances

  of getting paid. So few Iranians turned up for work at the Ministry that

  there was nothing for the EDS men to do, and Paul sent half of them home to

  the States for Christmas.

  Paul packed his bags, closed up his house, and moved into the Hilton, ready

  to go home at the first opportunity.

  The city was thick with rumors. Jay Coburn fished up most of them in his

  net and brought the interesting ones to Paul. One more disquieting than

  most came from Bunny Fleischaker, an American girl with friends at the

  Ministry of Justice. Bunny had worked for EDS in the States, and she kept

  in touch here in Tehran although she was no longer with the company. She

  called Coburn to say that the Ministry of Justice planned to arrest Paul