On Wings of Eagles (24 page)

    retaliate by deducting $12,750,000 from what they owed. Walter was still

    searching for a large bank that did no business with Iran.

So, unfortunately, Operation Hotfoot was still Perot's best bet.

    Perot left Stauffer in the car park and went into the oil company building.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 145

    He found Simons in the little office reserved for Perot. Simons was eating

    peanuts and listening to a portable radio. Perot guessed that the peanuts

    were his lunch and the radio was to swamp any eavesdropping devices that

    might be hidden in the room.

    They shook hands. Perot noticed that Simons was growing a beard. "How are

    things?" he said.

    "They're good," Simons answered. "The men are beginning to pull together as

    a team. "

    "Now," said Perot, "you realize you can reject any member of the team you

    find unsatisfactory." A couple of days earlier Perot bad proposed an

    addition to the team, a man who knew Tehran and had an outstanding military

    record, but Simons had turned him down after a short interview, saying:

    "That guy believes his own bullshit." Now Perot wondered whether Simons had

    found fault, during the training period, with any of the others. He went

    on: "You're in charge of the rescue, and--

    "There's no need," Simons said. "I don't want to reject anyone." He laughed

    softly. "They're easily the most intelligent squad I've ever worked with,

    and that does create a problem, because they think orders are to be

    discussed, not obeyed. But they're teaming to turn off their thinking

    switches when necessary. I've made it very clear to them that at some point

    in the game discussion ends and blind obedience is called for."

    Perot smiled. "Then you've achieved more in six days than I have in sixteen

    years."

    "There's no more we can do here in Dallas," Simons said. "Our next step is

    to go to Tehran."

    Perot nodded. This might be his last chance to call off Operation Hotfoot.

    Once the team left Dallas, they might be out of touch and they would be out

    of his control. The die would be cast.

    Ross, this is idiotic. You're going to destroy the company and you're going

    to destroy yourself.

    Hell, Ross, I can't make a list of the laws you're going to break.1

    Instead of two innocent employees in jail, you could have eight guilty

    employees dead.

    Well, we've got this boyfrom Texarkana who's been tryingfor years ...

"When do you want to leave?" Perot asked Simons.

. 'Tomorrow. 19

"Good luck," said Perot.

While Simons was talking to Perot in Dallas, Pat Sculley-the world's worst

liar-was in Istanbul, trying and failing to pull the wool over the eyes of

a wily Turk.

    Mr. Fish was a travel agent who had been "discovered" during the December

    evacuation by Merv Stauffer and T. J. Marquez. They had hired him to make

    arrangements for the evacuees' stopover in Istanbul, and he had worked

    miracles. He had booked them all into the Sheraton and organized buses to

    take them from the anport to the hotel. When they arrived there had been a

    meal waiting for diem. They left him to collect their baggage and clear it

    through customs, and it appeared outside their hotel rooms as if by magic.

    The next day there had been video movies for the children and sightseeing

    tours for the adults to keep everyone occupied while they waited for their

    flights to Now York. Mr. Fish achieved all this while most of the hotel

    staff were on strike-T.J. found out later that Mrs. Fish had made the beds

    in the hotel rooms. Once onward flights had been reserved, Merv Stauffer

    had wanted to duplicate a handout sheet with instructions for everyone, but

    the hotel's photocopier was broken: Mr. Fish got an electrician to mend it

    at five o'clock on a Sunday morning. Mr. Fish could make it happen.

    Simons was still worried about smuggling the Walther PPKs into Tehran, and

    when he heard how Mr. Fish had cleared the evacuees' baggage through

    Turkish customs he proposed that the same man be asked to solve the problem

    of the guns. Sculley had left for Istanbul on January 8.

    The following day he met Mr. Fish at the coffee shop in the Sheraton. Mr.

    Fish was a big, fat man in his late forties, dressed

    146

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 147

in drab clothes. But he was shrewd: Sculley was no, match for him.

    Sculley told him that EDS needed help with two problems. "One, we need an

    aircraft that can fly into and out of Tehran. Two, we want to get some

    baggage through customs without its being inspected. Naturally, we'll pay

    you anything reasonable for help with these problems. "

    Mr. Fish looked dubious. "Why do you want to do these things?"

    "Well, we've got some magnetic tapes for computer systems in Tehran,"

    Sculley said. "We've got to get them in there and we can't take any

    chances. We don't want anyone to X-ray those tapes or do anything that

    could damage them, and we can't risk having them confiscated by some petty

    customs official."

    "And for this, you need to hire a plane and get your bags through customs

    unopened?"

    "Yes, that's right." Sculley could see that Mr. Fish did not believe a word

    of it.

    Mr. Fish shook his head. "No, Mr. Sculley. I have been happy to help your

    friends before, but I am a travel agent, not a smuggler. I will not do

    this."

"What about the plane-can you get us a plane?"

    Mr. Fish shook his head again. "You will have to go to Amman, Jordan. Arab

    Wings run charter flights from there to Tehran. That is the best suggestion

    I can make."

Sculley shrugged. "Okay."

    A few minutes later he left Mr. Fish and went up to his room to call

    Dallas.

    His first assignment as a member of the rescue team had not gone well.

    When Simons got the news he decided to leave the Walther PPKs in Dallas.

    He explained his thinking to Coburn. "Let's not jeopardize the whole

    mission, right at the start, when we're not even sure we're going to need

    the handguns: that's a risk we don't have to take, not yet anyway. Let's

    get in the country and see what we're up against. If and when we need the

    guns, Schwebach will go back to Dallas and get 'em. "

    The guns were put in the EDS vault, together with a too] Simons had ordered

    for filing off the serial numbers. (Since that was against the law it would

    not be done until the last possible moment.)

148 Ken Follen

    However, they would take the false-bottomed suitcase and do a dry run. They

    would also take the Number 2 shot-Davis would carry it in his beanbag---and

    the equipment Simons needed for reloading the shot into birdshot

    cartridges-Simons would carry that himself.

    There was now no point in going via Istanbul, so Simons sent Sculley to

    Paris to book hotel rooms there and try to get reservations for the team on

    a flight into Tehran.

    The rest of the team took off from the Dallas/Fort Worth Regional Airport

    at 11:05 A.M. on January 10 aboard Braniff flight 341 to Miami, where they

    transferred to National 4 to Paris.

    They met up with Sculley at Orly Airport, in the picture gallery between

    the restaurant and the coffee shop, the following morning.

    Coburn noticed that Sculley was jumpy. Everyone was becoming infected with

    Simons's security-consciousness, he realized. Coming over from the States,

    although they had all been on the same plane, they had traveled separately,

    sitting apart and not acknowledging one another. In Paris Sculley had got

    nervous about the staff at the Orly Hilton and suspected that someone was

    listening to his phone calls, so Simons-who was always uneasy in hotels

    anyway-had decided they would talk in the picture gallery.

    Sculley had failed in his second assignment, to get onward reservations

    from Pans to Tehran for the team. "Half the airlines have just stopped

    flying to Iran, because of the political unrest and the strike at the

    airport," he said. "What flights there are are overbooked with Iranians

    trying to get home. All I have is a rumor that Swissair is flying in from

    Zurich."

    They split into two groups. Simons, Coburn, Poch6, and Boulware would go to

    Zurich and try for the Swissair flight. Sculley, Schwebach, Davis, and

    Jackson would stay in Paris.

    Simons's group flew Swissair first class to Zurich. Coburn sat next to

    Simons. They spent the whole of the flight eating a splendid lunch of

    shrimp and steak. Simons raved about how good the food was. Coburn was

    amused, remembering how Simons had said: "When you're hungry, you open a

    can."

    At Zurich Airport the reservations desk for the Tehran flight was mobbed by

    Iranians. The team could get only one seat on the plane. Which of them

    should go? Coburn, they decided. He would be the logistics man: as Director

    of Personnel and as

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 149

evacuation mastermind he had the most complete knowledge of EDS resources in

Tehran: 150 empty houses and apartments, 60 abandoned cars and jeeps, 200

Iranian employees-4hose who could be trusted and those who could not---and

the food, drink, and tools left behind by the evacuees. Going in first,

Coburn could arrange transport, supplies, and a hideout for the rest of the

team.

    So Coburn said good-bye to his friends and got on the plane, heading for

    chaos, violence, and revolution.

That same day, unknown to Simons and the rescue team, Ross Perot took

British Airways flight 172 from New York to London. He, too, was on his way

to Tehran.

The flight from Zurich to Tehran was all too short.

    Coburn spent the time anxiously running over in his mind the things he had

    to do. He could not make a list: Simons would not allow anything to be

    written down.

    His first job was to get through customs with the falsebottomed case. There

    were no guns in it: if the case was inspected and the secret compartment

    discovered, Coburn was to say that it was for carrying delicate

    photographic equipment.

    Next he had to select some abandoned houses and apartments for Simons to

    consider as hideouts. Then he had to find cars and make sure there was a

    supply of gasoline for them.

    His cover story, for the benefit of Keane Taylor, Rich Gallagher, and EDS's

    Iranian employees, was that he was arranging Shipment of evacuees' personal

    belongings back to the States. Coburn had told Simons that Taylor ought to

    be let in on the secret: he would be a valuable asset to the rescue team.

    Simons had said he would make that decision himself, after meeting Taylor.

Coburn wondered how to hoodwink Taylor.

He was still wondering when the plane landed.

    Inside the terminal all the airport staff were in army uniforms. That was

    how the airport had been kept open despite the strike, Coburn realized: the

    military was running it.

    He picked up the suitcase with the false bottom and walked through customs.

    No one stopped him.

    The arrivals hall was a zoo. The waiting crowds were more unruly than ever.

    The army was not running the airport on military lines.

He fought his way through the crowd to the cabstand. He

150 Ken FolkU

skirted two men who appeared to be fighting over a taxi, and took the next

in fine.

    Riding into town, he noticed a good deal of military hardware on the road,

    especially near the airport. There were many more tanks about than there

    had been when he left. Was that a sign that the Shah was still in control?

    In the press the Shah was still talking as if he were in control, but then

    so was Bakhtiar. So, for that matter, was the Ayatollah, who had just

    announced the formation of a Council of the Islamic Revolution to take over

    the government, just as if he were already in power in Tehran instead of

    sitting in a villa outside Paris at the end of a telephone line. In truth,

    nobody was in charge; and while that hindered the negotiations for the

    release of Paul and Bill, it would probably help the rescue team.

    The cab took him to the office they called Bucharest, where he found Keane

    Taylor. Taylor was in charge now, for Lloyd Briggs had gone to New York to

    brief EDS's lawyers in person. Taylor was sitting at Paul Chiapparone's

    desk, in an immaculate vested suit, just as if he were a million miles away

    from the nearest revolution instead of in the middle of it. He was aston-

    ished to see Coburn.

"Jay! When the hell did you get here?"

'Just arrived," Coburn said.

"What's with the beard-you trying to get yourself fired?"