On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

At midday on Friday, February 16, Lou Goelz called Joe Poche and told him to bring the EDS people to the U.S. Embassy that afternoon at five o'clock. Ticketing and baggage check-in would be done at the Embassy overnight, and they could leave on a Pan Am evacuation flight on Saturday morning.

John Howell was nervous. He knew, from Abolhasan, that Dadgar was still active. He did not know what had happened to the Dirty Team. If Dadgar were to find out that Paul and Bill had gone, or if he were simply to give up on them and take a couple more hostages, the Clean Team would be arrested. And where better to make the arrests than at the airport, where everyone had to identify himself by showing his passport?

He wondered whether it was wise for them to take the first available flight: there would be a series of flights, according to Goelz. Maybe they should wait, and see what happened to the first batch of evacuees, whether there was any kind of search for EDS personnel. At least then they would know in advance what the procedures were.

But so would the Iranians. The advantage of taking the first flight was that everything would probably be confused, and the confusion might help Howell and the Clean Team slip out unnoticed.

In the end he decided the first flight was best, but he remained uneasy. Bob Young felt the same way. Although Young no longer worked for EDS in Iran--he was based in Kuwait--he had been here when the Ministry contract was first negotiated, he had met Dadgar face-to-face, and his name might be on some list in Dadgar's files.

Joe Poche also favored the first flight, although he did not say much about it--he did not say much at all: Howell found him uncommunicative.

Rich and Cathy Gallagher were not sure they wanted to leave Iran. They told Poche quite firmly that, regardless of what Colonel Simons had said, Poche was not "in charge" of them, and they had the right to make their own decision. Poche agreed, but pointed out that if they decided to take their chances here with the Iranians, they should not rely on Perot sending another rescue team in for them if they got thrown in jail. In the end the Gallaghers also decided to go on the first flight.

That afternoon they all went through their documents and destroyed everything that referred to Paul and Bill.

Poche gave each of them two thousand dollars, put five hundred dollars in his own pocket, and hid the rest of the money in his shoes, ten thousand dollars in each. He was wearing shoes borrowed from Gayden, a size too large, to accommodate the money. He also had in his pocket a million rials, which he planned to give to Lou Goelz for Abolhasan, who would use the money to pay the remaining Iranian EDS employees their last wages.

A few minutes before five, they were saying goodbye to Goelz's houseman when the phone rang.

Poche took the call. It was Tom Walter. He said: "We have the people. Do you understand? We have the people."

"I understand," Poche said.

They all got into the car, Cathy carrying her poodle, Buffy. Poche drove. He did not tell the others about his cryptic message from Tom Walter.

They parked in a side street near the Embassy, and left the car: it would stay there until somebody decided to steal it.

There was no relief of tension for Howell as he walked into the Embassy compound. There were at least a thousand Americans milling about, but there were also scores of armed revolutionary guards. The Embassy was supposed to be American soil, inviolate; but clearly the Iranian revolutionaries did not take any notice of such diplomatic niceties.

The Clean Team was herded into a queue.

They spent most of the night waiting in line.

They queued to fill in forms, they queued to hand in their passports, and they queued for baggage checks. All the bags were put in a huge hall; then the evacuees had to find their own bags and put the claim checks on. Then they queued to open their bags so the revolutionaries could search them: every single piece was opened.

Howell learned that there would be two planes, both Pan Am 747s. One would go to Frankfurt, the other to Athens. The evacuees were organized by company, but the EDS people were included with Embassy personnel who were leaving. They would be on the Frankfurt flight.

At seven o'clock on Saturday morning they were boarded on buses to go to the airport.

It was a hell of a ride.

Two or three armed revolutionaries got on each bus. As they drove out of the Embassy gates, they saw a crowd of reporters and television crews: the Iranians had decided that the flight of the humiliated Americans would be a world television event.

The bus bumped along the road to the airport. Close to Poche was a guard about fifteen years old. He stood in the aisle, swaying with the motion of the bus, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. Poche noticed that the safety catch was off.

If he stumbled ...