On Wings of Eagles (3 page)

    escalated, and seventy people were killed in two more days of disturbances.

    The clergy organized a memorial procession for the dead forty days later in

    accordance with Islamic tradition. There was more violence during the

    procession, and the dead were commemorated in another memorial forty days

    later.... The processions continued, and grew larger and more violent,

    through the first six months of the year.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 21

    With hindsight Paul could see that calling these marches "funeral

    processions" had been a way to circumvent the Shah's ban on political

    demonstrations. But at the time he had had no idea that a massive political

    movement was building. Nor had anyone else.

    In August 1978 Paul went home to the States on leave. (So did William

    Sullivan, the U.S. Ambassador to Iran.) Paul loved all kinds of water

    sports, and he had gone to a sports fishing tournament in Ocean City, New

    Jersey, with his cousin Joe Porreca. Paul's wife, Ruthie, and the children,

    Karen and Ann Marie, went to Chicago to visit Ruthie's parents. Paul was a

    little anxious because the Ministry of Health still had not paid EDS's bill

    for the month of June; but it was not the first time they had been late

    with a payment, and Paul had left the problem in the hands of his

    second-in-command, Bill Gaylord, and he was fairly confident Bill would get

    the money in.

    While Paul was in the U.S. the news from Iran was bad. Martial law was

    declared on September 7, and the following day more than a hundred people

    were killed by soldiers during a demonstration in Jaleh Square in the heart

    of Tehran.

    When the Chiapparone fan-dly came back to Iran the very air seemed

    different. For the first time Paul and Ruthie could hear shooting in the

    streets at night. They were alarmed: suddenly they realized that trouble

    for the Iranians meant trouble for them. There was a series of strikes. The

    electricity was continually being cut off, so they dined by candlelight and

    Paul wore his topcoat in the office to keep warm. It became more and more

    difficult to get money out of the banks, and Paul started a check-cashing

    service at the office for employees. When they got low on heating oil for

    their home Paul had to walk around the streets until he found a tanker,

    then bribe the driver to come to the house and deliver.

    His business problems were worse. The Minister of Health and Social

    Welfare, Dr. Sheikholeslamizadeh, had been arrested under Article 5 of

    martial law, which permitted a prosecutor to jail anyone without giving a

    reason. Also in jail was Deputy Minister Reza Neghabat, with whom Paul had

    worked closely. The Ministry still had not paid its June bill, nor any

    since, and now owed EDS more than four million dollars.

    For two months Paul tried to get the money. The individuals he had dealt

    with previously had all gone. Their replacements usually did not return his

    calls. Sometimes someone would promise to look into the problem and call

    back: after waiting a

22 Ken Follett

week for the call that never came, Paul would telephone once again, to be

told that the person he had spoken to last week had now left the Ministry.

Meetings would be arranged, then canceled. The debt mounted at the rate of

$1.4 million a month.

    On November 14 Paul wrote to Dr. Heidargholi Emrani, the Deputy Minister in

    charge of the Social Security Organization, giving formal notice that if

    the Ministry did not pay up within a month EDS would stop work. The threat

    was repeated on December 4 by Paul's boss, the president of EDS World, at

    a personal meeting with Dr. Emrani.

That was yesterday.

    If EDS pulled out, the whole Iranian social-security system would collapse.

    Yet it was becoming more and more apparent that the country was bankrupt

    and simply could not pay its bills. What, Paul wondered, would Dr. Emrani

    do now?

    He was still wondering when Jay Coburn walked in with the answer.

At first, however, it did not occur to Paul that the attempt to steal his

passport might have been intended to keep him, and therefore EDS, in Iran.

    When Coburn had given him the facts he said: "What the hell did they do

    that for?"

"I don't know. Majid doesn't know, and Fara doesn't know."

    Paul looked at him. The two men had become close in the last month. For the

    rest of the employees Paul was putting on a brave face, but with Coburn he

    had been able to close the door and say, Okay, what do you really think?

    Coburn said: "The first question is, What do we do about Fara? She could be

    in trouble."

"She has to give them some kind of an answer."

"A show of cooperationT I

    "She could go back and tell them that Nyfeler and Bucha are no longer

    resident . . . "

"She already told them."

"She could take their exit visas as proof."

    "Yeah," Coburn said dubiously. "But it's you and Bill they're really

    interested in now."

"She could say that the passports aren't kept in the office."

    "They may know that's not true-Fara may even have taken passports down

    there in the past."

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 23

    "Say senior executives don't have to keep their passports in the office."

"'Mat might work."

    "Any convincing story to the effect that she was physically unable to do

    what they asked her."

    "Good. I'll discuss it with her and Majid.- Coburn thought for a moment.

    "You know, Bucha has a reservation on a flight out tomorrow. He could just

    go. "

"He probably should--they think he's not here anyway."

"You could do the same."

    Paul reflected. Maybe he should get out now. What would the Iranians do

    then? They might just try to detain someone else. "No, " he said. " If

    we're going, I should be the last to leave.

"Are we going?" Coburn asked.

    "I don't know." Every day for weeks they had asked each other that

    question. Coburn had developed an evacuation plan that could be put into

    effect instantly. Paul had been hesitating, with his finger on the button.

    He knew that his ultimate boss, back in Dallas, wanted him to evacuate-but

    it meant abandoning the project on which he had worked so hard for the last

    sixteen months. "I don't know," he repeated. "I'll call Dallas."

That night Coburn was at home, in bed with Liz, and fast asleep when the

phone rang.

He picked it up in the dark. "Yeah?"

"This is Paul."

    "Hello." Coburn turned on the light and looked at his wristwatch. It was

    two A.M.

"We're going to evacuate," Paul said.

"You got it.-

    Coburn cradled the phone and sat on the edge of the bed. In a way it was a

    relief. There would be two or three days of frantic activity, but then he

    would know that the people whose safety had been worrying him for so long

    were back in the States, out of reach of these crazy Iranians.

    He ran over in his mind the plans he had made for just this moment. First

    he had to inform 130 families that they would be leaving the country

    within. the next 48 hours. He had divided the city into sectors, with a

    team leader for each sector: he would call the leaders, and it would be

    their job to call the families. He had drafted leaflets for the evacuees

    telling them where to go and

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