On Wings of Eagles (47 page)

    out?"

    "No," said one of the generals. "We're grounded in Tehran. Our air base,

    Doshen Toppeh, is in the hands of the revolutionaries. General Gast is in

    the bunker beneath MAAG headquarters, surrounded by a mob. And we have no

    communications because the phone fines have been cut, "

    "Okay," said Perot. He had half-expected that answer. "I'm going to have to

    do it myself. "

    "It's on the other side of the world, and there's a revolution going on,"

    said a general. "It won't be easy."

Perot smiled. "I have Bull Simons over there."

    They broke up. "Dararnit, Perot!" said one of them. "You aren't giving the

    Iranians an even chance!"

    'Ptiglit." Perot grimieA. "I may have to fly in myself. Now, can you give

    me a list of all the airfields between Tehran and the Turkish border?"

"Sure. 11

    "Could you find out whether any of those airfields are obstructed?"

"We can just look at the satellite photographs."

    Now, what about radar? Is there a way to fly in there without appearing on

    the Iranians' radar screens?"

"Sure. We'll get you a radar map at five hundred feet."

"Goodl"

-Anything else?"

    Hell, Perot thought, this is just like going into McDonald's! "That'll do

    for now," he said.

The generals started pushing buttons.

T. J. Marquez picked up the phone. It was Perot.

    - I got your pilots," T.J. told him. "I called Larry Joseph, who used to be

    head of Continental Air Services in Vientiane, Laos-he's in Washington now.

    He found the guys~-Dick Douglas and Julian Kanauch. They'll be in

    Washington tomorrow."

    "I'liat's great," said Perot. "Now, I've been to the Pentagon and they

    can't fly the guys out--4hey're grounded in Tehran. But I have all kinds of

    maps and stuff so we can fly in ourselves. Now, this is what I need: a jet

    plane, capable of crossing the Atlantic, complete with a crew and equipped

    with a single-

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 287

sideband radio, like we used to have in Laos, so we can make phone calls

from the plane."

"I'll get right on it," said T.J.

"I'm at the Madison Hotel."

..C

    Tot it.-

    T.J. started calling. He contacted two Texas charter companies: neither of

    them had a transatlantic jet. The second, Jet Fleet, gave him the name of

    Executive Aircraft out of Columbus, Oluo. They could not help, and they did

    not know of anyone who could.

    T.J. thought of Europe. He called Carl Nilsson, an EDS executive who had

    been working on a proposal for Martinair. Nilsson called back and said

    Martinair would not fly into Iran, but had given him the name of a Swiss

    outfit who would. T.J. called Switzerland: that company had stopped flying

    into Iran as oftoday.

    T.J. dialed the number of Harry McKillop, a Braniff vicepresident who lived

    in Paris. McKillop was out.

T.J. called Perot and confessed failure.

    Perot had an idea. He seemed to remember that Sol Rogers, the president of

    Texas State Optical Company down in Beaumont, had either a BAC I I I or a

    Boeing 727, he was not sure which. Nor did he have the phone number.

    T.J. called information. The number was unlisted. He called Margot. She had

    the number. He called Rogers. He had sold his plane.

    Rogers knew of an outfit called Omni International, in Washington, which

    leased planes. He gave T.J. the home phone numbers of the president and

    vice-president.

T.J. called the president. He was out.

He called the vice-president. He was in.

"Do you have a transatlantic jet?" T.J. asked.

"Sure. We have two."

T.J. breathed a sigh of relief.

"We have a 707 and a 727," the man went on.

'IgVhere?' '

"The 707 is at Meachein Field in Forth Worth-"

    "Why, that's right here!" said T.J. "Now tell me, does it have a

    single-sideband radio?"

    Sure does.' 0

T.J. could hardly believe his luck.

288 Ken Folleu

    "This plane is rather luxuriously fitted out," the vice-president said. "It

    was done for a Kuwaiti prince who backed out."

    T.J. was not interested in the decor. He asked about the price. The

    vice-president said the president would have to make the final decision. He

    was out for the evening, but T.J. could call him first thing in the

    morning.

    T.J. had the plane checked out by Jeff Heller, an EDS vice-president and

    former Vietnam pilot, and two of Heller's friends, one an American Airlines

    pilot and the other a flight engineer. Heller reported that the plane

    seemed to be in good shape, as far as they could tell without flying it.

    The decor was kind of overripe, he said with a smile.

    At seven-thirty the following morning T.J. called the president of Omni and

    got him out of the shower. The president had talked to his vice-president

    and he was sure they could do business.

    "Good," said T.J. "Now what about crew, ground facilities, insurance---

    "We don't charter planes," said the president. "We lease them. "

"What's the difference?"

    "It's like the difference between taking a cab and renting a car. Our

    planes are for rent."

    -L,ook, we're in the computer business, we know nothing about airlines,"

    said T.J. "Even though you normally don't do it, will you make a deal with

    us where you supply all the extras, crew and so on? We'll pay you for it."

"It'll be complicated. The insurance alone .

'But you'll do it?"

"Yes, we'll do it."

    It was complicated, T.J. learned during the course of the day. The unusual

    nature of the deal did not appeal to the insurance companies, who also

    hated to be hurried. It was hard to figure out which regulations EDS needed

    to comply with, since they were not an airline. Omni required a deposit of

    sixty thousand dollars in an offshore branch of a U.S. bank. The problems

    were solved by EDS executive Gary Fernandes in Washington and EDS house

    lawyer Claude Chappelear in Dallas: the contract, which was executed at the

    end of the day, was a sales demonstration lease. Omni found a crew in

    California and sent them to Dallas to pick up the plane and fly it on to

    Washington.

By midnight on Monday the plane, the crew, the extra pilots,

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 289

and the remnants of the rescue team were all in Washington with Ross

Perot.

T.J. had worked a miracle.

'Mat was why it took so long.

    3

The negotiating team-Keane Taylor, Bill Gayden, John Howell, Bob Young, and

Rich Gallagher, augmented now by Rashid, Cathy Gallagher, and the dog,

Buffy-spent the night of Sunday, February 11, at the Hyatt. They got little

sleep. Close by, the mob was attacking an armory. It seemed part of the army

had now joined the revolution, for tanks were used in the attack. Toward

morning they blew a hole in the wall and got in. From dawn on, a stream of

orange cabs ferried weapons from the armory downtown to where the fighting

was still heavy.

    The team kept the line to Dallas open all night: John Howell lay on the

    couch in Gayden's sitting room with the phone to his ear.

    In the morning Rashid left early. He was not told where the others were

    gomg-no Iranians were to know the location of the hideout.

    The others packed their suitcases and left them in their rooms, just in

    case they should get a chance to pick them up later. This was not part of

    Simons's instructions, and he would certainly have disapproved, for the

    packed bags showed that the EDS people were no longer living here-but by

    morning they all felt Simons was overdoing his security precautions. They

    gathered in Gayden's sitting room a few minutes after the seven o'clock

    deadline. The Gallaghers; had several bags, and did not really look as if

    they were going to the office.

    In the foyer they met the hotel manager. "Where are you going?" he asked

    incredulously.

"To the office," Gayden told him.

    "Don't you know there's a civil war going on out there? All night long

    we've been feeding the revolutionaries out of our kitchen&. They asked if

    there were any Americans hem-1 told them there was nobody here. You must go

    back upstam and stay out of sight. I I

290 Ken Follen

"Life must go on," said Gayden, and they all walked out.

    Joe Pochd was waiting in a Range Rover, silently fuming because they were

    fifteen minutes late and he had instructions from Simons to be back at

    seven forty-five, with or without them.

    As they walked to the cars, Keane Taylor saw a hotel clerk drive in and

    park. He went over to speak to the man. "How are the streets?"

    "Roadblocks all over the place," said the clerk. "There's one right here,

    at the end of the hotel driveway. You shouldn't go (mt. 19

"Thank you," said Taylor.

    They all got into the cars and followed Pochd's Range Rover. The guards at

    the gate were preoccupied, trying to jam a banana clip into a machine

    pistol that did not take that kind of ammunition, and they paid no

    attention to the three cars.

    The scene outside was scary. Many of the weapons from the armory had found

    their way into the hands of teenage boys who had probably never handled

    firearms before, and the kids were running down the hill, yelling and

    waving their guns, and jumping into cars to tear off along the highway,

    shooting into the air.

    Poch6 headed north on Shahanshahi, following a roundabout route to avoid

    roadblocks. At the intersection with Pahlavi there was the remains of a

    barricad"umed cars and tree trunks across the road-but the people manning

    the roadblock were celebrating, chanting and firing into the air, and the

    three cars drove straight through.

    As they approached the hideout they entered a relatively quiet area. They

    turned into a narrow street; then, half a block down, they drove through

    gates into a walled garden with an empty swimming pool. The Dvoranchik

    place was the bottom half of a duplex, with the landlady living upstairs.

    They all went in.

During Monday, Dadgar continued to search for Paul and Bill.

    Bill Gayden called Bucharest, where a skeleton staff of loyal Iranians

    continued to man the phones. Gayden learned that Dadgar's men had called

    twice, speaking to two different secretaries, and asked where they could

    find Mr. Chiapparone and Mr. Gaylord. The first secretary had said she did

    not know the names of any of the Americans, which was a brave lie-she had

    been working for EDS for four years and knew everyone.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 291

The second secretary had said: "You will have to speak to Mr. Lloyd Briggs,

who is in charge of the office."

61"ere is he?"

"Out of the country."

"Well, who is in charge of the office in his absence?"

"Mr. Keane Taylor."

"Let me speak to him."

"He's not here right now."

7Ibe girls, bless them, had given Dadgar's men the runaround.

    Rich Gallagher was keeping in touch with his friends in the military (Cathy

    had a job as secretary to a colonel). He called the Evin Hotel, where most

    of the military were staying, and learned that "revolutionaries" had gone

    to both the Evin and the Hyatt showing photographs of two Americans for

    whom they were looking.

Dadgar's tenacity was almost incredible.

    Simons decided they could not stay at the Dvoranchik house more than

    forty-eight hours.

    The escape plan had been devised for five men. Now there were ten men, a

    woman, and a dog.

    They had only two Range Rovers. An ordinary car would never take those

    mountain roads, especially in snow. They needed another Range Rover. Coburn

    called Majid and asked him to try to get one.

    The dog worried Simons. Rich Gallagher was planning to carry Buffy in a

    knapsack. If they had to walk or ride horseback through the mountains to

    cross the border, a single yap could get them all killed-wd Buffy barked at

    everything. Simons said to Coburn and Taylor: "I want you two to lose that

    fucking dog."

    "Okay," Coburn said. "Maybe I'll offer to walk it, then just let it go. 09

"No," said Simons. "When I say lose it, I mean pernmerItly-11

    Cathy was the biggest problem. That evening she felt ill-"Feminine

    problems," Rich said. He was hoping that a day in bed would leave her

    feeling stronger; but Simons was not optimistic. He fumed at the Embassy.

    "There are so many ways the State Department could get someone out of the

    country and prow them if they wanted to," he said. "Put them in a case,

    ship them out as cargo ... if they were interested, it would be a snap-19