On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

As they pulled away, Ilsman spoke, and Charlie said: "Try not to stop for any more patrols."

"Why not?"

"They might rob us."

That's great, thought Boulware.

Near the town of Maras, a hundred miles from Adana and another four hundred from Van, the rain became heavy, making the mud-and-gravel road treacherous, and Boulware had to slow down even more.

Soon after Maras, the car died.

They all got out and lifted the hood. Boulware could see nothing wrong. The driver spoke, and Charlie translated: "He can't understand it--he has just tuned the engine with his own hands."

"Maybe he didn't tune it right," said Boulware. "Let's check a few things."

The driver got some tools and a flashlight out of the trunk, and the four men stood around the engine in the rain, trying to find out what had gone wrong.

Eventually they discovered that the points were incorrectly set. Boulware guessed that either the rain, or the thinner mountain air, or both, had made the fault critical. It took a while to adjust the points, but finally the engine fired. Cold and wet and tired, the four men got back into the old car and Boulware drove on.

The countryside grew more desolate as they traveled east--no towns, no houses, no livestock, nothing. The road became even worse: it reminded Boulware of a trail in a cowboy movie. Soon the rain turned to snow and the road became icy. Boulware kept glancing over the sheer drop at the side. If you go off this, sucker, he said to himself, you ain't going to get hurt--you're going to die.

Near Bingol, halfway to their destination, they climbed up out of the storm. The sky was clear and there was a bright moon, almost like daylight. Boulware could see the snow clouds and the flashing lightning in the valleys below. The mountainside was frozen white, and the road was like a bobsled run.

Boulware thought: Man, I'm going to die up here, and nobody's even going to know it, because they don't know where I am.

Suddenly the steering wheel bucked in his hands and the car slowed: Boulware had a moment of panic, thinking he was losing control, then realized he had a flat tire. He brought the car gently to a halt.

They all got out and the cabdriver opened the trunk. He hauled out the extra fuel tank to get at the spare wheel. Boulware was freezing: the temperature had to be way below zero. The cabby refused any help and insisted on changing the wheel himself. Boulware took off his gloves and offered them to the cabby: the man shook his head. Pride, I guess, thought Boulware.

By the time the job was done, it was four A.M. Boulware said: "Ask him if he wants to take over the driving--I'm bushed."

The driver agreed.

Boulware got into the back. The car pulled away. Boulware closed his eyes and tried to ignore the bumps and jerks. He wondered whether he would reach the border in time. Shit, he thought, nobody could say we didn't try.

A few seconds later he was asleep.

2_____

The Dirty Team blew out of Tehran like a breeze.

The city looked like a battlefield from which everyone had gone home. Statues had been pulled down, cars burned, and trees felled to make roadblocks; then the roadblocks had been cleared--the cars pushed to the curb, the statues smashed, the trees burned. Some of those trees had been hand-watered every day for fifty years.

But there was no fighting. They saw very few people and little traffic. Perhaps the revolution was over. Or perhaps the revolutionaries were having tea.

They drove past the airport and took the highway north, following the route Coburn and Simons had taken on their reconnaissance trip. Some of Simons's plans had come to nothing, but not this one. Still, Coburn was apprehensive. What was ahead of them? Did armies rage and storm in towns and hamlets still? Or was the revolution done? Perhaps the villagers had returned to their sheep and their plows.

Soon the two Range Rovers were bowling along at seventy miles an hour at the foot of a mountain range. On their left was a flat plain; on their right, steep green hillsides topped by snowy mountain peaks against the blue sky. Coburn looked at the car in front and saw Taylor taking photographs through the tailgate window with his Instamatic. "Look at Taylor," he said.

"What does he think this is?" said Gayden. "A package tour?"

Coburn began to feel optimistic. There had been no trouble so far: maybe the whole country was calming down. Anyway, why should the Iranians give them a hard time? What was wrong with foreigners leaving the country?

Paul and Bill had false passports and were being hunted by the authorities, that was what was wrong.

Thirty miles from Tehran, just outside the town of Karaj, they came to their first roadblock. It was manned, as they usually were, by machine-gun-toting men and boys in ragged clothes.