On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

He left the construction site and walked away. Suddenly he heard a car. He looked back, and saw a jeep full of armed revolutionaries swinging around the square. He ducked behind a convenient bush. They went by.

He went on, hurrying now, wondering whether the curfew was in force tonight. He was almost home when the jeep came roaring back toward him.

They saw me last time, he thought, and they've come back to pick me up.

It was very dark. They might not have spotted him yet. He turned and ran back. There was no cover on this street. The noise of the jeep became louder. At last Coburn saw some shrubbery and flung himself into it. He lay there listening to his heartbeat as the jeep came closer. Were they looking for him? Had they picked up Seyyed and tortured him, and made him confess that he had an appointment with a capitalist American pig at Argentine Square at ten forty-five ... ?

The jeep went by without stopping.

Coburn picked himself up.

He ran all the way to the Dvoranchik place.

He told Simons they now had no Iranian drivers.

Simons cursed. "Is there another Iranian we can call?"

"Only one. Rashid."

Simons did not want to use Rashid, Coburn knew, because Rashid had led the jailbreak, and if someone who remembered him from that should see him driving a carload of Americans, there might be trouble. But Coburn could not think of anyone else.

"Okay," said Simons. "Call him."

Coburn dialed Rashid's number.

He was at home!

"This is Jay Coburn. I need your help."

"Sure."

Coburn did not want to give the address of the hideout over the phone, in case the line was wiretapped. He recalled that Bill Dvoranchik had a slight squint. He said: "You remember the guy with the funny eye?"

"With a funny eye? Oh, yeah--"

"Don't say his name. Remember where he used to live?"

"Sure--"

"Don't say it. That's where I am. I need you here."

"Jay, I live miles from there and I don't know how I'm going to get across the city--"

"Just try," Coburn said. He knew how resourceful Rashid was. Give him a task and he just hated to fail. "You'll get here."

"Okay."

"Thanks." Coburn hung up.

It was midnight.

Paul and Bill had each picked a passport from the ones Gayden had brought from the States, and Simons had made them learn the names, dates of birth, personal details, and all the visas and country stamps. The photograph in Paul's passport looked more or less like Paul, but Bill's was a problem. None of them was right, and he ended up with the passport of Larry Humphreys, a blond, rather Nordic type who really did not look like Bill.

The tension mounted as the six men discussed details of the journey they would begin within the next few hours. There was fighting in Tabriz, according to Rich Gallagher's military contacts; so they would stick to the plan of taking the low road, south of Lake Rezaiyeh, passing through Mahabad. The story they would tell, if questioned, would be as close to the truth as possible--always Simons's preference when lying. They would say they were businessmen who wanted to get home to their families, the airport was closed, and they were driving to Turkey.

In support of that story, they would carry no weapons. It was a difficult decision--they knew they might regret being unarmed and helpless in the middle of a revolution--but Simons and Coburn had found, on the reconnaissance trip, that the revolutionaries at the roadblocks always searched for weapons. Simons's instinct told him they would be better off talking their way out of trouble than trying to shoot their way out.

They also decided to leave behind the fifty-five-gallon fuel drum, on the grounds that they made the team look too professional, too organized, for businessmen quietly driving home.

They would, however, take a lot of money. Joe Poche and the Clean Team had gone off with fifty thousand dollars, but Simons's crew still had around a quarter of a million dollars, some of it in Iranian rials, deutsche marks, sterling, and gold. They packed fifty thousand dollars into kitchen Baggies, weighted the bags with shot, and put them in a gas can. They hid some in a Kleenex box and more in the battery hold of a flashlight. They passed the rest out for each to conceal about his person.

At one o'clock Rashid still had not arrived. Simons sent Coburn to stand at the street gate and watch for him.

Coburn stood in the darkness, shivering, hoping Rashid would show up. They would leave tomorrow, with or without him, but without him they might not get far. The villagers in the countryside would probably detain Americans just on general principles. Rashid would be the ideal guide, despite Simons's worries: the kid had a silver tongue.

Coburn's thoughts turned to home. Liz was mad at him, that he knew. She had been giving Merv Stauffer a hard time, calling every day and asking where her husband was and what he was doing and when he was coming home.