On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

There was a shouted conversation in rapid Farsi; then the interpreter called: "What is your crime?"

"We haven't done anything," Paul said.

"What are you accused of?"

"Nothing. We're just ordinary American businessmen with wives and children, and we don't know why we're in jail."

This was translated. There was more rapid Farsi; then the interpreter said: "This one who is talking to me, he is the boss of your cell, because he is there the longest."

"We understand," Paul said.

"He will tell you where to sleep."

The tension eased as they talked. Paul took in his surroundings. The concrete walls were painted what might once have been orange but now just looked dirty. There was some kind of thin carpet or matting covering most of the concrete floor. Around the cell were six sets of bunks, stacked three high: the lowest bunk was no more than a thin mattress on the floor. The room was lit by a single dim bulb and ventilated by a grille in the wall that let in the bitterly cold night air. The cell was very crowded.

After a while a guard came down, opened the door of Cell Number 9, and motioned Paul and Bill to come out.

This is it, Paul thought; we'll be released now. Thank God I don't have to spend a night in that awful cell.

They followed the guard upstairs and into a little room. He pointed at their shoes.

They understood they were to take their shoes off.

The guard handed them each a pair of plastic slippers.

Paul realized with bitter disappointment that they were not about to be released; he did have to spend a night in the cell. He thought with anger of the Embassy staff: they had arranged the meeting with Dadgar, they had advised Paul against taking lawyers, they had said Dadgar was "favorably disposed" ... Ross Perot would say: "Some people can't organize a two-car funeral." That applied to the U.S. Embassy staff. They were simply incompetent. Surely, Paul thought, after all the mistakes they have made, they ought to come here tonight and try to get us out?

They put on the plastic slippers and followed the guard back downstairs.

The other prisoners were getting ready for sleep, lying on the bunks and wrapping themselves in thin wool blankets. The cell boss, using sign language, showed Paul and Bill where to lie down: Bill was on the middle bunk of a stack, Paul below him with just a thin mattress between his body and the floor.

They lay down. The light stayed on, but it was so dim it hardly mattered. After a while Paul no longer noticed the smell, but he did not get used to the cold. With the concrete floor, the open vent, and no heating, it was almost like sleeping out of doors. What a terrible life criminals lead, Paul thought, having to endure conditions such as these; I'm glad I'm not a criminal. One night of this will be more than enough.

3____

Ross Perot took a taxi from the Dallas/Fort Worth regional airport to EDS corporate headquarters at 7171 Forest Lane. At the EDS gate he rolled down the window to let the security guards see his face, then sat back again as the car wound along the quarter-mile driveway through the park. The site had once been a country club, and these grounds a golf course. EDS headquarters loomed ahead, a seven-story office building, and next to it a tornado-proof blockhouse containing the vast computers with their thousands of miles of magnetic tape.

Perot paid the driver, walked into the office building, and took the elevator to the fifth floor, where he went to Gayden's corner office.

Gayden was at his desk. Gayden always managed to look untidy, despite the EDS dress code. He had taken his jacket off. His tie was loosened, the collar of his button-down shirt was open, his hair was mussed, and a cigarette dangled from the comer of his mouth. He stood up when Perot walked in.

"Ross, how's your mother?"

"She's in good spirits, thank you."

"That's good."

Perot sat down. "Now, where are we on Paul and Bill?"

Gayden picked up the phone, saying: "Lemme get T. J. in here." He punched T. J. Marquez's number and said: "Ross is here ... Yeah. My office." He hung up and said: "He'll be right down. Uh ... I called the State Department. The head of the Iran Desk is a man called Henry Precht. At first he wouldn't return my call. In the end I told his secretary, I said: 'If he doesn't call me within twenty minutes, I'm going to call CBS and ABC and NBC, and in one hour's time Ross Perot is going to give a press conference to say that we have two Americans in trouble in Iran and our country won't help them.' He called back five minutes later."

"What did he say?"

Gayden sighed. "Ross, their basic attitude up there is that if Paul and Bill are in jail they must have done something wrong."

"But what are they going to do?"

"Contact the Embassy, look into it, blah blah blah."