On Wings Of Eagles (1990) Read online

  They all stood up and, one by one, they left the room.

  I could get killed on Central Expressway, thought Joe Poche.

  He knew perfectly well what the dangerous project was: they were going to get Paul and Bill out of jail.

  He had suspected as much since two-thirty A.M., when he had been woken up, at his mother-in-law's house in San Antonio, by a phone call from Pat Sculley. Sculley, the world's worst liar, had said: "Ross asked me to call you. He wants you to come to Dallas in the morning to begin work on a study in Europe."

  Poche had said: "Pat, why in hell are you calling me at two-thirty in the morning to tell me that Ross wants me to work on a study in Europe?"

  "It is kind of important. We need to know when you can be here."

  Okay, Poche thought resignedly, it's something he can't talk about on the phone. "My first flight is probably around six or seven o'clock in the morning."

  "Fine."

  Poche had made a plane reservation, then gone back to bed. As he set his alarm clock for five A.M. he said to his wife: "I don't know what this is all about, but I wish somebody would be straight, just for once."

  In fact, he had a pretty good idea what it was all about, and his suspicions had been confirmed, later in the day, when Ralph Boulware had met him at the Coit Road bus station and, instead of taking him to EDS, had driven him to this hotel and refused to talk about what was going on.

  Poche liked to think everything through, and he had had plenty of time to consider the idea of busting Paul and Bill out of jail. It made him glad, glad as hell. It reminded him of the old days, when there were only three thousand people in the whole of EDS, and they had talked about the Faith. It was their word for a whole bunch of attitudes and beliefs about how a company ought to deal with its employees. What it boiled down to was: EDS took care of its people. As long as you were giving your maximum effort to the company, it would stand by you through thick and thin: when you were sick, when you had personal or family problems, when you got yourself into any kind of trouble ... It was a bit like a family. Poche felt good about that, although he did not talk about the feeling--he did not talk much about any of his feelings.

  EDS had changed since those days. With ten thousand people instead of three thousand, the family atmosphere could not be so intense. Nobody talked about the Faith anymore. But it was still there: this meeting proved it. And although his face was as expressionless as ever, Joe Poche was glad. Of course they would go in there and bust their friends out of jail. Poche was just happy to get the chance to be on the team.

  Contrary to Coburn's expectation, Ralph Boulware did not pour scorn on the idea of a rescue. The skeptical, independent-minded Boulware was as hot for the idea as anyone.

  He, too, had guessed what was going on, helped--like Poche--by Sculley's inability to lie convincingly.

  Boulware and his family were staying with friends in Dallas. On New Year's Day Boulware had been doing nothing much, and his wife had asked him why he did not go to the office. He said there was nothing for him to do there. She did not buy that. Mary Boulware was the only person in the world who could bully Ralph, and in the end he went to the office. There he ran into Sculley.

  "What's happening?" Boulware had asked.

  "Oh, nothing," Sculley said.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Making plane reservations, mostly."

  Sculley's mood seemed strange. Boulware knew him well--in Tehran they had ridden to work together in the mornings--and his instinct told him Sculley was not telling the truth.

  "Something's wrong," Boulware said. "What's going on?"

  "There's nothing going on, Ralph!"

  "What are they doing about Paul and Bill?"

  "They're going through all the channels to try and get them out. The bail is thirteen million dollars, and we have to get the money into the country--"

  "Bullshit. The whole government system, the whole judicial system, has broken down over there. There ain't no channels left. What are y'all going to do?"

  "Look, don't worry about it."

  "You guys ain't going to try to go in and get them out, are you?"

  Sculley said nothing.

  "Hey, count me in," Boulware said.

  "What do you mean, count you in?"

  "It's obvious you're going to try to do something."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Let's don't play games anymore. Count me in."

  "Okay."

  For him it was a simple decision. Paul and Bill were his friends, and it could as easily have been Boulware in jail, in which case he would have wanted his friends to come and get him out.

  There was another factor. Boulware was enormously fond of Pat Sculley. Hell, he loved Sculley. He also felt very protective toward him. In Boulware's opinion, Sculley really did not understand that the world was full of corruption and crime and sin: he saw what he wanted to see, a chicken in every pot, a Chevrolet on every driveway, a world of Mom and apple pie. If Sculley was going to be involved in a jailbreak, he would need Boulware to take care of him. It was an odd feeling to have about another man more or less your own age, but there it was.

  That was what Boulware had thought on New Year's Day, and he felt the same today. So he went back into the hotel room and said to Perot what he had said to Sculley: "Count me in."

  Glenn Jackson was not afraid to die.

  He knew what was going to happen after death, and he had no fears. When the Lord wanted to call him home, why, he was ready to go.

  However, he was concerned about his family. They had just been evacuated from Iran, and were now staying at his mother's house in East Texas. He had not yet had time even to start looking for a place for them all to live. If he got involved in this, he was not going to have time to go off and take care of family matters: it would be left to Carolyn. All on her own, she would have to rebuild the life of the family here in the States. She would have to find a house, get Cheryl, Cindy, and Glenn Junior into schools, buy or rent some furniture ...

  Carolyn was kind of a dependent person. She would not find it easy.

  Plus, she was already mad at him. She had come to Dallas with him that morning, but Sculley had told him to send her home. She was not permitted to check into the Hilton Inn with her husband. That had made her angry.

  But Paul and Bill had wives and families, too. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It was in the Bible twice: Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18; and Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 19. Jackson thought: If I were stuck in jail in Tehran, I'd sure love for somebody to do something for me.

  So he volunteered.

  Sculley had made his choice days ago.

  Before Perot started talking about a rescue, Sculley had been discussing the idea. It had first come up the day after Paul and Bill were arrested, the day Sculley flew out of Tehran with Joe Poche and Jim Schwebach. Sculley had been upset at leaving Paul and Bill behind, all the more so because Tehran had become dramatically more violent in the last few days. At Christmas two Afghanis caught stealing in the bazaar had been summarily hanged by a mob; and a taxi driver who tried to jump the queue at a gas station had been shot in the head by a soldier. What would they do to Americans, once they got started? It hardly bore thinking about.

  On the plane Sculley had sat next to Jim Schwebach. They had agreed that Paul's and Bill's lives were in danger. Schwebach, who had experience of clandestine commando-type operations, had agreed with Sculley that it should be possible for a few determined Americans to rescue two men from an Iranian jail.

  So Sculley had been surprised and delighted when, three days later, Perot had said: "I've been thinking the same thing."

  Sculley had put his own name on the list.

  He did not need time to think about it.

  He volunteered.

  Sculley had also put Coburn's name on the list--without telling Coburn.

  Until this moment, happy-go-lucky Coburn, who lived from day to day, had not even thought about being
on the team himself.

  But Sculley had been right: Coburn wanted to go.

  He thought: Liz won't like it.

  He sighed. There were many things his wife did not like, these days.

  She was clinging, he thought. She had not liked his being in the military, she did not like his having hobbies that took him away from her, and she did not like his working for a boss who felt free to call on him at all hours of the day or night for special tasks.

  He had never lived the way she wanted, and it was probably too late to start now. If he went to Tehran to rescue Paul and Bill, Liz might hate him for it. But if he did not go, he would probably hate her for making him stay behind.

  Sorry, Liz, he thought; here we go again.

  Jim Schwebach arrived later in the afternoon but heard the same speech from Perot.

  Schwebach had a highly developed sense of duty. (He had once wanted to be a priest, but two years in a Catholic seminary had soured him on organized religion.) He had spent eleven years in the army, and had volunteered for repeated tours in Vietnam, out of that same sense of duty. In Asia he had seen a lot of people doing their jobs badly, and he knew he did his well. He had thought: if I walk away from this, someone else will do what I'm doing, but he will do it badly, and in consequence a man will lose his arm, his leg, or his life. I've been trained to do this, and I'm good at it, and I owe it to them to carry on doing it.

  He felt much the same about the rescue of Paul and Bill. He was the only member of the proposed team who had actually done this sort of thing before. They needed him.

  Anyway, he liked it. He was a fighter by disposition. Perhaps this was because he was five and a half feet tall. Fighting was his thing, it was where he lived. He did not hesitate to volunteer.

  He couldn't wait to get started.

  Ron Davis, the second black man on the list and the youngest of them all, did hesitate.

  He arrived in Dallas early that evening and was taken straight to EDS headquarters on Forest Lane. He had never met Perot, but had talked to him on the phone from Tehran during the evacuation. For a few days, during that period, they had kept a phone line open between Dallas and Tehran all day and all night. Someone had to sleep with the phone to his ear at the Tehran end, and frequently the job had fallen to Davis. One time Perot himself had come on the line.

  "Ron, I know it's bad over there, and we sure appreciate your staying. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"

  Davis was surprised. He was only doing what his friends were doing, and he did not expect a special thank-you. But he did have a special worry. "My wife has conceived, and I haven't seen her for a while," he told Perot. "If you could have someone call her and tell her I'm okay and I'll be home as soon as possible, I'd appreciate it."

  Davis had been surprised to learn from Marva, later, that Perot had not had someone call her--he had called himself.

  Now, meeting Perot for the first time, Davis was once again impressed. Perot shook his hand warmly and said: "Hi, Ron, how are you?" just as if they had been friends for years.

  However, listening to Perot's speech about "loss of life," Davis had doubts. He wanted to know more about the rescue. He would be glad to help Paul and Bill, but he needed to be assured that the whole project would be well organized and professional.

  Perot told him about Bull Simons, and that settled it.

  Perot was just so proud of them.

  Every single one had volunteered.

  He sat in his office. It was dark outside. He was waiting for Simons.

  Smiling Jay Coburn; boyish Pat Sculley; Joe Poche, the man of iron; Ralph Boulware, tall, black, and skeptical; mild-mannered Glenn Jackson; Jim Schwebach the scrap-per; Ron Davis the comedian.

  Every single one!

  He was grateful as well as proud, for the burden they had shouldered was more his than theirs.

  One way and another it had been quite a day. Simons had agreed instantly to come and help. Paul Walker, an EDS security man who had (coincidentally) served with Simons in Laos, had jumped on a plane in the middle of the night and flown to Red Bay to take care of Simons's pigs and dogs. And seven young executives had dropped everything at a moment's notice and agreed to take off for Iran to organize a jailbreak.

  They were now down the hall, in the EDS boardroom, waiting for Simons, who had checked into the Hilton Inn and gone to dinner with T. J. Marquez and Merv Stauffer.

  Perot thought about Stauffer. Stocky, bespectacled, forty years old, an economics graduate, Stauffer was Perot's right-hand man. He could remember vividly their first meeting, when he had interviewed Stauffer. A graduate of some college in Kansas, Merv had looked right off the farm, in his cheap coat and slacks. He had been wearing white socks.

  During the interview, Perot had explained, as gently as he knew how, that white socks were not appropriate clothing for a business meeting.

  But the socks were the only mistake Stauffer had made. He impressed Perot as being smart, tough, organized, and used to hard work.

  As the years went by, Perot had learned that Stauffer had yet more useful talents. He had a wonderful mind for detail--something Perot lacked. He was completely unflappable. And he was a great diplomat. When EDS landed a contract, it often meant taking over an existing data-processing department, with its staff. This could be difficult: the staff were naturally wary, touchy, and sometimes resentful. Merv Stauffer--calm, smiling, helpful, soft-spoken, gently determined--could smooth their feathers like no one else.

  Since the late sixties he had been working directly with Perot. His specialty was taking a hazy, crazy idea from Perot's restless imagination, thinking it through, putting the pieces together, and making it work. Occasionally he would conclude that the idea was impracticable--and when Stauffer said that, Perot began to think that maybe it was impracticable.

  His appetite for work was enormous. Even among the workaholics on the seventh floor, Stauffer was exceptional. As well as doing whatever Perot had dreamed up in bed the previous night, he supervised Perot's real-estate company and his oil company, managed Perot's investments, and planned Perot's estate.

  The best way to help Simons, Perot decided, would be to give him Merv Stauffer.

  He wondered whether Simons had changed. It had been years since they last met. The occasion had been a banquet. Simons had told him a story.

  During the Son Tay Raid, Simons's helicopter had landed in the wrong place. It was a compound very like the prison camp, but some four hundred yards distant; and it contained a barracks full of sleeping enemy soldiers. Awakened by the noise and the flares, the soldiers had begun to stumble out of the barracks, sleepy, half-dressed, carrying their weapons. Simons had stood outside the door, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. Beside him was a burly sergeant. As each man came through the door, he would see the glow of Simons's cigar, and hesitate. Simons would shoot him. The sergeant would heave the corpse aside; then they would wait for the next one.

  Perot had been unable to resist the question: "How many men did you kill?"

  "Must have been seventy or eighty," Simons had said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  Simons had been a great soldier, but now he was a pig farmer. Was he still fit? He was sixty years old, and he had suffered a stroke even before Son Tay. Did he still have a sharp mind? Was he still a great leader of men?

  He would want total control of the rescue, Perot was certain. The colonel would do it his way or not at all. That suited Perot just fine: it was his way to hire the best man for the job, then let him get on with it. But was Simons still the greatest rescuer in the world?

  He heard voices in the outer office. They had arrived. He stood up, and Simons walked in with T. J. Marquez and Merv Stauffer.

  "Colonel Simons, how are you?" said Perot. He never called Simons "Bull"--he thought it was corny.

  "Hello, Ross," said Simons, shaking hands.

  The handshake was firm. Simons was dressed casually, in khaki pants. His shirt collar was open, showing the muscles of hi
s massive neck. He looked older: more lines in that aggressive face, more gray in the crewcut hair, which was also longer than Perot had ever seen it. But he seemed fit and hard. He still had the same deep, tobacco-roughened voice, with a faint but clear trace of a New York accent. He was carrying the folders Coburn had put together on the volunteers.

  "Sit down," said Perot. "Did y'all have dinner?"

  "We went to Dusty's," said Stauffer.

  Simons said: "When was the last time this room was swept for bugs?"

  Perot smiled. Simons was still sharp, as well as fit. Good. He replied: "It's never been swept, Colonel."

  "From now on I want every room we use to be swept every day."

  Stauffer said: "I'll see to that."

  Perot said: "Whatever you need, Colonel, just tell Merv. Now, let's talk business for a minute. We sure appreciate you coming here to help us, and we'd like to offer you some compensation--"

  "Don't even think about it," Simons said gruffly.

  "Well--"

  "I don't want payment for rescuing Americans in trouble," Simons said. "I never got a bonus for it yet, and I don't want to start now."

  Simons was offended. The force of his displeasure filled the room. Perot backed off quickly: Simons was one of the very few people of whom he was wary.

  The old warrior hasn't changed a bit, Perot thought.

  Good.

  "The team is waiting for you in the boardroom. I see you have the folders, but I know you'll want to make your own assessment of the men. They all know Tehran, and they all have either military experience or some skill that may be useful--but in the end the choice of the team is up to you. If for any reason you don't like these men, we'll get some more. You're in charge here." Perot hoped Simons would not reject anyone, but he had to have the option.

  Simons stood up. "Let's go to work."

  T. J. hung back after Simons and Stauffer left. He said in a low voice: "His wife died."