On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

The professor guided them into the town by remote roads, and they saw no roadblocks. The journey from Tehran had taken them twelve hours, and they were now an hour away from the border crossing at Sero.

That evening they all had dinner--chella kebab, the Iranian dish of rice and lamb--with the professor's landlord, who happened to be a customs official. Majid gently pumped the landlord for information, and learned that there was very little activity at the Sero frontier station.

They spent the night at the professor's house, a two-story villa on the outskirts of the town.

In the morning Majid and the professor drove to the border and back. They reported that there were no roadblocks and the route was safe. Then Majid went into town to seek out a contact from whom he could buy firearms, and Simons and Coburn went to the border.

They found a small frontier post with only two guards. It had a customs warehouse, a weighbridge for trucks, and a guardhouse. The road was barred by a low chain stretched between a post on one side and the wall of the guardhouse on the other. Beyond the chain were about two hundred yards of no-man's-land, then another, smaller frontier post on the Turkish side.

They got out of the car to look around. The air was pure and bitingly cold. Simons pointed across the hillside. "See the tracks?"

Coburn followed Simons's finger. In the snow, close behind the border station, was a trail where a small caravan had crossed the border, impudently close to the guards.

Simons pointed again, this time above their heads. "Easy to cut the guards off." Coburn looked up and saw a single telephone wire leading down the hill from the station. A quick snip and the guards would be isolated.

The two of them walked down the hill and took a side road, no more than a dirt track, into the hills. After a mile or so they came to a small village, just a dozen or so houses made of wood or mud brick. Speaking halting Turkish, Simons asked for the chief. A middle-aged man in baggy trousers, waistcoat, and headdress appeared. Coburn listened without understanding as Simons talked. Finally Simons shook the chief's hand, and they left.

"What was all that about?" Coburn asked as they walked away.

"I told him I wanted to cross the border on horseback at night with some friends."

"What did he say?"

"He said he could arrange it."

"How did you know the people in that particular village were smugglers?"

"Look around you," Simons said.

Coburn looked around at the bare, snow-covered slopes.

"What do you see?" Simons said.

"Nothing."

"Right. There is no agriculture here, no industry. How do you think these people make a living? They're all smugglers."

They returned to the Range Rover and drove back into Rezaiyeh. That evening Simons explained his plan to Coburn.

Simons, Coburn, Poche, Paul, and Bill would drive from Tehran to Rezaiyeh in the two Range Rovers. They would bring Majid and the professor with them as interpreters. In Rezaiyeh they would stay at the professor's house. The villa was ideal: no one else lived there, it was detached from other houses, and from there quiet roads led out of the city. Between Tehran and Rezaiyeh they would be unarmed: judging by what had happened at the roadblocks, guns would get them into trouble. However, at Rezaiyeh they would buy guns. Majid had made a contact in the city who would sell them Browning 12-gauge shotguns for six thousand dollars apiece. The same man could also get Llama pistols.

Coburn would cross the border legitimately in one of the Range Rovers and link up with Boulware, who would also have a car, on the Turkish side. Simons, Poche, Paul, and Bill would cross on horseback with the smugglers. That was why they needed the guns: in case the smugglers should decide to "lose" them in the mountains. On the other side they would meet Coburn and Boulware. They would all drive to the nearest American Consulate and get new passports for Paul and Bill. Then they would fly to Dallas.

It was a good plan, Coburn thought; and he now saw that Simons was right to insist on Sero rather than Barzagan, for it would be difficult to sneak across the border in a more civilized, heavily populated area.

They returned to Tehran the next day. They left late and did most of the journey by night, so as to be sure to arrive in the morning, after curfew was lifted. They took the southerly route, passing through the small town of Mahabad. The road was a single-lane dirt track through the mountains, and they had the worst possible weather: snow, ice, and high winds. Nevertheless, the road was passable, and Simons determined to use this route, rather than the northerly one, for the escape itself.

If it ever happened.

3___

One evening Coburn went to the Hyatt and told Keane Taylor he needed twenty-five thousand dollars in Iranian rials by the following morning.

He didn't say why.