On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

"He said: 'I'm coming,' then he hung up."

"Shit." Gayden turned to Howell. "Give me the phone." Howell was sitting with the phone to his ear, saying nothing: they were keeping the line to Dallas open. At the other end an EDS switchboard operator was listening, waiting for someone to speak. Gayden said: "Let me talk to Tom Walter again, please."

As Gayden told Walter about Rashid's call, Taylor wondered what it meant. Why would Rashid imagine Paul and Bill might be at the Hyatt? They were in jail--weren't they?

A few minutes later Rashid burst into the room, dirty, smelling of gunsmoke, with clips of G3 ammunition falling out of his pockets, talking a mile a minute so that nobody could understand a word. Taylor calmed him down. Eventually he said: "We hit the prison. Paul and Bill were gone."

Paul and Bill stood at the foot of the prison wall and looked around.

The scene in the street reminded Paul of a New York parade. In the apartment buildings across from the jail everyone was at the windows, cheering and applauding as they watched the prisoners escape. At the street corner a vendor was selling fruit from a stall. There was gunfire not far away, but in the immediate vicinity nobody was shooting. Then, as if to remind Paul and Bill that they were not yet out of danger, a car full of revolutionaries raced by with guns sticking out of every window.

"Let's get out of here," said Paul.

"Where do we go? The U.S. Embassy? The French Embassy?"

"The Hyatt."

Paul started walking, heading north. Bill walked a little behind him, with his coat collar turned up and his head bent to hide his pale American face. They came to an intersection. It was deserted: no cars, no people. They started across. A shot rang out.

Both of them ducked and ran back the way they had come.

It was not going to be easy.

"How are you doing?" said Paul.

"Still alive."

They walked back past the prison. The scene was the same: at least the authorities had not yet got organized enough to start rounding up the escapees.

Paul headed south and east through the streets, hoping to circle around until he could go north again. Everywhere there were boys, some only thirteen or fourteen, with automatic rifles. On every corner was a sandbagged bunker, as if the streets were divided up into tribal territories. Farther on they had to push their way through a crowd of yelling, chanting, almost hysterical people: Paul carefully avoided meeting people's eyes, for he did got want them to notice him, let alone speak to him--if they were to learn there were two Americans in their midst they might turn ugly.

The rioting was patchy. It was like New York, where you had only to walk a few steps and turn a corner to find the character of the district completely changed. Paul and Bill went through a quiet area for half a mile, then ran into a battle. There was a barricade of overturned cars across the road and a bunch of youngsters with rifles shooting across the barricade toward what looked like a military installation. Paul turned away quickly, fearful of being hit by a stray bullet.

Each time he tried to turn north he ran into some obstruction. They were now farther from the Hyatt than they had been when they started. They were moving south, and the fighting was always worse in the south.

They stopped outside an unfinished building. "We could duck in there and hide until nightfall," Paul said. "After dark nobody will notice that you're American."

"We might get shot for being out after curfew."

"You think there's still a curfew?"

Bill shrugged.

"We're doing all right so far," Paul said. "Let's go on a little longer."

They went on.

It was two hours--two hours of crowds and street battles and stray sniper fire--before at last they could turn north. Then the scene changed. The gunfire receded, and they found themselves in a relatively affluent area of pleasant villas. They saw a child on a bicycle, wearing a T-shirt that said something about southern California.

Paul was tired. He had been in jail for forty-five days, and during most of that time he had been sick: he was no longer strong enough to walk for hours. "What do you say we hitchhike?" he asked Bill.

"Let's give it a try."

Paul stood at the roadside and waved at the next car that came along. (He remembered not to stick out his thumb the American way--this was an obscene gesture in Iran.) The car stopped. There were two Iranian men in it. Paul and Bill got in the back.

Paul decided not to mention the name of the hotel. "We're going to Tajrish," he said. That was a bazaar area to the north of the city.

"We can take you part of the way," said the driver.

"Thanks." Paul offered them cigarettes, then sat back gratefully and lit one for himself.

The Iranians dropped them off at Kurosh-e-Kabir, several miles south of Tajrish, not far from where Paul had lived. They were in a main street, with plenty of traffic and a lot more people around. Paul decided not to make himself conspicuous by hitchhiking here.