On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Simons and Coburn took two Iranians with them: Majid, and a cousin of Majid's who was a professor at an agricultural college in Rezaiyeh. The professor had come to Tehran to put his American wife and their children on a plane to the States: taking him back to Rezaiyeh was Simons's cover story for the trip.

They left Tehran early in the morning, with one of Keane Taylor's fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline in the back. For the first hundred miles, as far as Qazvin, there was a modern freeway. After Qazvin the road was a two-lane blacktop. The hillsides were covered with snow, but the road itself was clear. If it's like this all the way to the border, Coburn thought, we could get there in a day.

They stopped at Zanjan, two hundred miles from Tehran and the same distance from Rezaiyeh, and spoke to the local chief of police, who was related to the professor. (Coburn could never quite work out the family relationships of Iranians: they seemed to use the word "cousin" rather loosely.) This part of the country was peaceful, the police chief said; if they were to encounter any problems it would happen in the area of Tabriz.

They drove on through the afternoon, on narrow but good country roads. After another hundred miles they entered Tabriz. There was a demonstration going on, but it was nothing like the kind of battle they had got used to in Tehran, and they even felt secure enough to take a stroll around the bazaar.

Along the way Simons had been talking to Majid and the professor. It seemed like casual conversation, but by now Coburn was familiar with Simons's technique, and he knew that the colonel was feeling these two out, deciding whether he could trust them. So far the prognosis seemed good, for Simons began to drop hints about the real purpose of the trip.

The professor said that the countryside around Tabriz was pro-Shah, so before they moved on, Simons stuck a photograph of the Shah on the windshield.

The first sign of trouble came a few miles north of Tabriz, where they were stopped by a roadblock. It was an amateur affair, just two tree trunks laid across the road in such a way that cars could maneuver around them but could not pass through at speed. It was manned by villagers armed with axes and sticks.

Majid and the professor talked to the villagers. The professor showed his university identity card, and said that the Americans were scientists come to help him with a research project. It was clear, Coburn thought, that the rescue team would need to bring Iranians when and if they did the trip with Paul and Bill, to handle situations like this.

The villagers let them pass.

A little later Majid stopped and waved down a car coming in the opposite direction. The professor talked to the driver of the other car for a few minutes, then reported that the next town, Khoy, was anti-Shah. Simons took down the picture of the Shah from the windshield and replaced it with one of the Ayatollah Khomeini. From then on they would stop oncoming cars regularly and change the picture according to local politics.

On the outskirts of Khoy there was another roadblock.

Like the first one, it looked unofficial, and was manned by civilians; but this time the ragged men and boys standing behind the tree trunks were holding guns.

Majid stopped the car and they all got out.

To Coburn's horror, a teenage boy pointed a gun at him.

Coburn froze.

The gun was a 9mm Llama pistol. The boy looked about sixteen. He had probably never handled a firearm before today, Coburn thought. Amateurs with guns were dangerous. The boy was holding the gun so tightly that his knuckles showed white.

Coburn was scared. He had been shot at many times, in Vietnam, but what frightened him now was the possibility that he would be killed by goddam accident.

"Rooskie," the boy said. "Rooskie."

He thinks I'm a Russian, Coburn realized.

Perhpas it was because of the bushy red beard and the little black wool cap.

"No, American," Coburn said.

The boy kept his pistol leveled.

Coburn stared at those white knuckles and thought: I just hope the punk doesn't sneeze.

The villagers searched Simons, Majid, and the professor. Coburn, who could not take his eyes off the kid, heard Majid say: "They're looking for weapons." The only weapon they had was a little knife that Coburn was wearing in a scabbard behind his back, under his shirt.

A villager began to search Coburn, and at last the kid lowered his pistol.

Coburn breathed again.

Then he wondered what would happen when they found his knife.

The search was not thorough, and the knife was not found.

The vigilantes believed the story about a scientific project. "They apologize for searching the old man," Majid said. The "old man" was Simons, who was now looking just like an elderly Iranian peasant. "We can go on," Majid added.

They climbed back into the car.

Outside Khoy they turned south, looping over the top end of the lake, and drove down the western shore to the outskirts of Rezaiyeh.