On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Neghabat showed them around. Next to their cell was a kitchen, with tables and chairs, where the prisoners could make tea and coffee or just sit and talk. For some reason it was called the Chattanooga Room. Beside it was a hatch in the wall at the end of the corridor: this was a commissary, Neghabat explained, where from time to time you could buy soap, towels, and cigarettes.

Walking back down the long corridor, they passed their own cell--Number 5--and two more cells before emerging into the hall, which stretched away to their right. The room Bill had glanced into earlier turned out to be a combination guard's office and library, with books in English as well as Farsi. Next to it were two more cells. Opposite these cells was the bathroom, with sinks, showers, and toilets. The toilets were Persian style--like a shower tray with a drain hole in the middle. Bill learned that he was not likely to get the shower he longed for: normally there was no hot water.

Beyond the steel door, Neghabat said, was a little office used by a visiting doctor and dentist. The library was always open and the TV was on all evening, although of course programs were in Farsi. Twice a week the prisoners in this section were taken out into the courtyard to exercise by walking in a circle for half an hour. Shaving was compulsory: the guards would allow mustaches, but not beards.

During the tour they met two more people they knew. One was Dr. Towliati, the Ministry data-processing consultant about whom Dadgar had questioned them. The other was Hussein Pasha, who had been Neghabat's financial man at the Social Security Organization.

Paul and Bill shaved with the electric razor brought in by Sorenson and Jordan. Then it was noon, and time for lunch. In the corridor wall was an alcove screened by a curtain. From there the prisoners took a linoleum mat, which they spread on the cell floor, and some cheap tableware. The meal was steamed rice with a little lamb, plus bread and yogurt, and tea or Pepsi-Cola to drink. They sat cross-legged on the floor to eat. For Paul and Bill, both gourmets, it was a poor lunch. However, Bill found he had an appetite: perhaps it was the cleaner surroundings.

After lunch they had more visitors: their Iranian attorneys. The lawyers did not know why they had been arrested, did not know what would happen next, and did not know what they could do to help. It was a desultory, depressing conversation. Paul and Bill had no faith in them anyway, for it was these lawyers who had advised Lloyd Briggs that the bail would not exceed twenty thousand dollars. They returned no wiser and no happier.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the Chattanooga Room, talking to Neghabat, Towliati, and Pasha. Paul described his interrogation by Dadgar in detail. Each of the Iranians was highly interested in any mention of his own name during the interrogation. Paul told Dr. Towliati how his name had come up, in connection with a suggested conflict of interest. Towliati described how he, too, had been questioned by Dadgar in the same way before being thrown in jail. Paul recollected that Dadgar had asked about a memorandum written by Pasha. It had been a completely routine request for statistics, and nobody could figure out what was supposed to be special about it.

Neghabat had a theory as to why they were all in jail. "The Shah is making scapegoats of us, to show the masses that he really is cracking down on corruption--but he picked a project where there was no corruption. There is nothing to crack down on--but if he releases us, he will look weak. If he had looked instead at the construction business, he would have found an unbelievable amount of corruption...."

It was all very vague. Neghabat was just rationalizing. Paul and Bill wanted specifics: who ordered the crackdown, why pick on the Ministry of Health, what kind of corruption was supposed to have taken place, and where were the informants who had put the finger on the individuals who were now in jail? Neghabat was not being evasive--he simply had no answers. His vagueness was characteristically Persian: ask an Iranian what he had for breakfast and ten seconds later he would be explaining his philosophy of life.

At six o'clock they returned to their cell for supper. It was pretty grim--no more than the leftovers from lunch mashed into a dip to be spread on bread, with more tea.

After supper they watched TV. Neghabat translated the news. The Shah had asked an opposition leader, Shahpour Bakhtiar, to form a civilian government, replacing the generals who had ruled Iran since November. Neghabat explained that Shahpour was leader of the Bakhtiar tribe, and that he had always refused to have anything to do with the regime of the Shah. Nevertheless, whether Bakhtiar's government could end the turmoil would depend on the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Shah had also denied rumors that he was leaving the country.