On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Taylor got twenty-five thousand dollars in hundreds from Gayden, then called a carpet dealer he knew in the south of the city and agreed on an exchange rate.

Taylor's driver, Ali, was highly reluctant to take him downtown, especially after dark, but after some argument he agreed.

They went to the shop. Taylor sat down and drank tea with the carpet dealer. Two more Iranians came in: one was introduced as the man who would exchange Taylor's money; the other was his bodyguard, and looked like a hoodlum.

Since Taylor's phone call, the carpet dealer said, the exchange rate had changed rather dramatically--in the carpet dealer's favor.

"I'm insulted!" Taylor said angrily. "I'm not going to do business with you people!"

"This is the best exchange rate you can get," said the carpet man.

"The hell it is!"

"It's very dangerous for you to be in this part of the city, carrying all that money."

"I'm not alone," Taylor said. "I've got six people outside waiting for me."

He finished his tea and stood up. He walked slowly out of the shop and jumped into the car. "Ali, let's get out of here, fast."

They drove north. Taylor directed Ali to another carpet dealer, an Iranian Jew with a shop near the palace. The man was just closing up when Taylor walked in.

"I need to change some dollars for rials," Taylor said.

"Come back tomorrow," said the man.

"No, I need them tonight."

"How much?"

"Twenty-five thousand dollars."

"I don't have anything like that much."

"I've really got to have them tonight."

"What's it for?"

"It's to do with Paul and Bill."

The carpet dealer nodded. He had done business with several EDS people and he knew that Paul and Bill were in jail. "I'll see what I can do."

He called his brother from the back of the shop and sent him out. Then he opened his safe and took out all his rials. He and Taylor stood there counting money: the dealer counted the dollars and Taylor the rials. A few minutes later a kid came in with his hands full of rials and dumped them on the counter. He left without speaking. Taylor realized the carpet dealer was rounding up all the cash he could lay his hands on.

A young man came up on a motor scooter, parked outside, and walked in with a bag full of rials. While he was in the shop someone stole his motor scooter. The young man dropped the bag of money and ran after the thief, yelling at the top of his voice.

Taylor went on counting.

Just another normal business day in revolutionary Tehran.

John Howell was changing. With each day that went by he became a little less the upright American lawyer and a little more the devious Persian negotiator. In particular, he began to see bribery in a different light.

Mehdi, an Iranian accountant who had done occasional work for EDS, had explained things to him like this: "In Iran many things are achieved by friendship. There are several ways to become Dadgar's friend. Me, I would sit outside his house every day until he talked to me. Another way for me to become his friend would be to give him two hundred thousand dollars. If you like, I could arrange something like this for you."

Howell discussed this proposal with the other members of the negotiating team. They assumed that Mehdi was offering himself as a bribe intermediary, as Deep Throat had. But this time Howell was not so quick to reject the idea of a corrupt deal for Paul's and Bill's freedom.

They decided to play along with Mehdi. They might be able to expose the deal and discredit Dadgar. Alternatively, they might decide the arrangement was solid and pay up. Either way, they wanted a clear sign from Dadgar that he was bribable.

Howell and Keane Taylor had a series of meetings with Mehdi. The accountant was as jumpy as Deep Throat had been, and would not let the EDS people come to his office during normal working hours: he always met them early in the morning or late at night, or at his house or down back alleys. Howell kept pressing him for an unmistakable signal: Dadgar was to come to a meeting wearing odd socks, or with his tie on backward. Mehdi would propose ambiguous signals, such as Dadgar giving the Americans a hard time. On one occasion Dadgar did give them a hard time, as Mehdi had forecast, but that might have happened anyway.

Dadgar was not the only one giving Howell a hard time. Howell was talking to Angela on the phone every four or five days, and she wanted to know when he was coming home. He did not know. Paul and Bill were naturally pressing him for hard news, but his progress was so slow and indefinite that he could not possibly give them deadlines. He found this frustrating, and when Angela started questioning him on the same point he had to suppress his irritation.

The Mehdi initiative came to nothing. Mehdi introduced Howell to a lawyer who claimed to be close to Dadgar. The lawyer did not want a bribe--just normal legal fees. EDS retained him, but at the next meeting Dadgar said: "Nobody has any special relationship with me. If anybody tries to tell you differently, don't believe them."