Read On Wings of Eagles Online
Authors: Ken Follett
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #Military, #Espionage, #General, #History, #Special Forces, #Biography & Autobiography
today, Perot: just straight talk. They must understand that they're free to
say: no, thanks, boss; count me out.
How many of them would volunteer?
One in five, Perot guessed.
If that were the case it would take several days to get a team together,
and he might end up with people who did not know Tehran.
What if none volunteered?
He pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton Inn and switched off the
engine.
Jay Coburn looked around. There were four other men in the room: Pat
Sculley, Glenn Jackson, Ralph Boulware, and Joe Poch6. Two more were on
their way: Jim Schwebach was coming from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Ron
Davis from Columbus, Ohio.
The Dirty Dozen they were not.
In their business suits, white shirts, and sober ties, with their short
haircuts and clean-shaven faces and well-fed bodies, they looked like what
they were: ordinary American business executives. It was hard to see them
as a squad of mercenaries -
Coburn and Sculley had made separate lists, but these five men had been on
both. Each had worked in Tehran-most had baen on Coburn's evacuation team.
Each had either military experience or some relevant skill. Each was a man
Coburn trusted completely.
While Sculley was calling them in the early hours of this morning, Coburn
had gone to the personnel files and put together a folder on each man,
detailing his age, height, weight, marital status, and knowledge of Tehran.
As they arrived in Dallas, each of them completed another sheet recounting
his military experience, military schools attended, weapons training, and
other special skills. The folders were for Colonel Simons, who was on his
way from Red Bay. But before Simons arrived, Perot had to ask these men
whether they were willing to volunteer.
For Perot's meeting With them, Coburn had taken three adjoining rooms. Only
the middle room would be used: the rooms on either side had been rented ag
a precaution against eavesdroppers.
It was all rather melodramatic.
Coburn studied the others, wondering what they were thinking. They still
had not been told what this was all about, but they had probably guessed.
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 101
He could not tell what Joe Poch6 was thinking: nobody ever could. A short,
quiet man of thirty-two, Poch6 kept his emotions locked away. His voice was
always low and even, his face generaRy blank. He had spent six years in the
army, and had seen action as commander of a howitzer battery in Vietnam. He
had fired just about every weapon the army possessed up to some level of
proficiency, and had killed time, in Vietnam, practicing with a .45. He had
spent two years with EDS in Tehran, first designing the enrollment
systeni--the computer program that listed the names of people eligible for
health-care benefits---and later as the programmer responsible for loading
the files that made up the data base for the whole system. Coburn knew him
to be a deliberate, logical thinker, a man who would not give his assent to
any idea or plan until he had questioned it from all angles and thought out
all its consequences slowly and carefully. Humor and intuition were not
among his strengths: brains and patience were.
Ralph Boulware was a full five inches taller than Pochd. One of the two
black men on the list, he had a chubby face and small, darting eyes, and he
talked very fast. He had spent nine years in the air force as a technician,
working on the complex inboard computer and radar systems of bombers. In
Tehran for only nine months, he had started as data-preparation manager and
had swiftly been promoted to data-center manager. Coburn knew him well and
liked him a lot. In Tehran they had got drunk together. Their children had
played together and their wives had become friends. Boulware loved his
family, loved his friends, loved his job, loved his life. He enjoyed living
more than anyone else Coburn could think of, with the possible exception of
Ross Perot. Boulware was also a highly independent-minded son of a gun. He
never had any trouble speaking out. Like many successful black men, he was
a shade oversensitive, and liked to make it clear he was not to be pushed
around. In Tehran over Ashura, when he had been in the high-stakes poker
game with Coburn and Paul, everyone else had slept in the house for safety,
as previously agreed; but Boulware had not. There had been no discussion,
no announcement: Boulware just went home. A few days later he had decided
that the work he was doing in Tehran did not justify the risk to his
safety, so he returned to the States. He was not a man to run with the pack
just because it was a pack: if he thought the pack was running the wrong
way, he would leave it. He was the most skeptical of the group assem-
102 Ken Follett
bling at the Hilton Inn: if anyone was going to pour scom on the idea of a
jailbreak, Boulware would.
Glenn Jackson looked less like a mercenary than any of them. A mild man
with spectacles, he had no military experience, but he was an enthusiastic
hunter and an expert shot. He knew Tehran well, having worked there for
Bell Helicopter as well as for EDS. He was such a straight, forthright,
honest guy, Coburn thought, that it was hard to imagine him getting
involved in the deception and violence that a jailbreak would entail.
Jackson was also a Baptist-the others were Catholic, except for Poch6 who
did not say what he was-and Baptists were famous for punching Bibles, not
faces. Coburn wondered haw Jackson would make out.
He had a similar concern about Pat Sculley. Sculley had a good military
record-he had been five years in the army, ending up as a Ranger instructor
with the rank of captain--but he had no combat experience. Aggressive and
outgoing in business, he was one of EDS's brightest up-and-coming young
executives. Like Coburn, Sculley was an irrepressible optimist, but whereas
Coburn's attitudes had been tempered by war, Sculley was youthfully naive.
If this thing gets violent, Coburn wondered, will Sculley be hard enough to
handle it?
Of the two men who had not yet arrived, one was the most qualified to take
part in a jailbreak, and the other perhaps the least.
Jim Schwebach knew more about combat than he did about computers. Eleven
years in the army, he had served with the 5th Special Forces Group in
Vietnam, doing the kind of commando work Bull Simons specialized in,
clandestine operations behind enemy lines; and he had even more medals than
Coburn. Because he had spent so many years in the military, he was still a
low-level executive, despite his age, which was thirty-five. He had been a
trainee systems engineer when he went to Tehran, but he was mature and
dependable, and Coburn had made him a team leader during the evacuation.
Only five feet six inches, Schwebach had the erect, chin-up posture of many
short men, and the indomitable fighting spirit that is the only defense of
the smallest boy in the class. No matter what the score, it could be 12-0,
ninth inning and two outs, Schwebach would be up on the edge of the dugout,
clawing away and trying to figure out how to get an extra hit. Coburn
admired him for volunteering-out of high-principled patriotism-for extra
tours in Vietnam. In battle,
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 103
Cobum thought, Schwebach would be the last guy you would want to take
prisoner-if you had your druthers, you would make sure you killed the little
son of a bitch before you captured him, he would make so much trouble.
However, Schwebach's feistiness was not immediately apparent. He was a very
ordinary-looking fellow. In fact, you hardly noticed him. In Tehran he had
lived farther south than anyone else, in a district where there were no
other Americans, yet he had often walked around the streets, wearing a
beat-up old field jacket, blue jeans, and a knit cap, and had never been
bothered. He could lose himself in a crowd of two-a talent that might be
useful in a jailbreak.
The other missing man was Ron Davis. At thirty he was the youngest on the
list. The son of a poor black insurance salesman, Davis had risen fast in
the white world of corporate America. Few people who started, as he had, in
operations ever made it to management on the customer side of the business.
Perot was especially proud of Davis: "Ron's career achievement is like a
moonshot," he would say. Davis had acquired a good knowledge of Farsi in a
year and a half in Tehran, working under Keane Taylor, not on the Ministry
contract but on a smaller, separate project to computerize Bank Omran, the
Shah's bank. Davis was cheerful, flippant, full of jokes, a juvenile
version of Richard Pryor, but without the profanity. Coburn thought he was
the most sincere of the men on the list. Davis found it easy to open up and
talk about his feelings and his personal life. For that reason Coburn
thought of him as vulnerable. On the other hand, perhaps the ability to
talk honestly about yourself to others was a sign of great inner confidence
and strength.
Whatever the truth about Davis's emotional toughness, physically he was as
hard as a nail. He had no military experience, but he was a karate black
belt. One time in Tehran three men had attacked him and attempted to rob
him: he had beaten them all up in a few seconds. Like Schwebach's ability
to be inconspicuous, Davis's karate was a talent that might become useful.
Like Coburn, all six men were in their thirties.
They were all married.
And they all had children.
The door opened and Perot walked in.
He shook hands, saying "How are you?" and "Good to see you!" as if he
really meant it, remembering the names of their wives and children. He's
good with people, Coburn thought.
104 Ken Follett
"Schwebach and Davis didn't get here yet," Coburn told him. "All right,"
Perot said, sitting down. "I'll have to see them later. Send them to my
office as soon as they arrive. " He paused. "I'll tell them exactly what I'm
going to tell y'all. "
He paused again, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he frowned and looked
hard at them. "I'm asking for volunteers for a project that might involve
loss of life. At this stage I can't tell you what it's about, although you
can probably guess. I want you to take five or ten minutes, or more, to
think about it, then come back and talk to me one at a time. Think hard. If
you choose, for any reason, not to get involved, you can just say so, and
no one outside this room will ever know about it. If you decide to
volunteer, I'll tell you more. Now go away and think."
They all stood up and, one by one, they left the room.
I could get killed on Central Expressway, thought Joe Poch6.
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 an a study
in Europe."
Poch6 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, Pochd 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. 11
Poch6 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.
Poch6 liked to think everything through, and he had had
ON WINGS OF EAGLES 105
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