On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Ralph Boulware was a full five inches taller than Poche. One of the two black men on the list, he had a chubby face and small, darting eyes, and he talked very fast. He had spent nine years in the air force as a technician, working on the complex inboard computer and radar systems of bombers. In Tehran for only nine months, he had started as data-preparation manager and had swiftly been promoted to data-center manager. Coburn knew him well and liked him a lot. In Tehran they had got drunk together. Their children had played together and their wives had become friends. Boulware loved his family, loved his friends, loved his job, loved his life. He enjoyed living more than anyone else Coburn could think of, with the possible exception of Ross Perot. Boulware was also a highly independent-minded son of a gun. He never had any trouble speaking out. Like many successful black men, he was a shade oversensitive, and liked to make it clear he was not to be pushed around. In Tehran over Ashura, when he had been in the high-stakes poker game with Coburn and Paul, everyone else had slept in the house for safety, as previously agreed; but Boulware had not. There had been no discussion, no announcement: Boulware just went home. A few days later he had decided that the work he was doing in Tehran did not justify the risk to his safety, so he returned to the States. He was not a man to run with the pack just because it was a pack: if he thought the pack was running the wrong way, he would leave it. He was the most skeptical of the group assembling at the Hilton Inn: if anyone was going to pour scorn on the idea of a jailbreak, Boulware would.

Glenn Jackson looked less like a mercenary than any of them. A mild man with spectacles, he had no military experience, but he was an enthusiastic hunter and an expert shot. He knew Tehran well, having worked there for Bell Helicopter as well as for EDS. He was such a straight, forthright, honest guy, Coburn thought, that it was hard to imagine him getting involved in the deception and violence that a jailbreak would entail. Jackson was also a Baptist--the others were Catholic, except for Poche, who did not say what he was--and Baptists were famous for punching Bibles, not faces. Coburn wondered how Jackson would make out.

He had a similar concern about Pat Sculley. Sculley had a good military record--he had been five years in the army, ending up as a Ranger instructor with the rank of captain--but he had no combat experience. Aggressive and outgoing in business, he was one of EDS's brightest up-and-coming young executives. Like Coburn, Sculley was an irrepressible optimist, but whereas Coburn's attitudes had been tempered by war, Sculley was youthfully naive. If this thing gets violent, Coburn wondered, will Sculley be hard enough to handle it?

Of the two men who had not yet arrived, one was the most qualified to take part in a jailbreak, and the other perhaps the least.

Jim Schwebach knew more about combat than he did about computers. Eleven years in the army, he had served with the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam, doing the kind of commando work Bull Simons specialized in, clandestine operations behind enemy lines; and he had even more medals than Coburn. Because he had spent so many years in the military, he was still a low-level executive, despite his age, which was thirty-five. He had been a trainee systems engineer when he went to Tehran, but he was mature and dependable, and Coburn had made him a team leader during the evacuation. Only five feet six inches, Schwebach had the erect, chin-up posture of many short men, and the indomitable fighting spirit that is the only defense of the smallest boy in the class. No matter what the score--it could be 12--0, ninth inning and two outs--Schwebach would be up on the edge of the dugout, clawing away and trying to figure out how to get an extra hit. Coburn admired him for volunteering--out of high-principled patriotism--for extra tours in Vietnam. In battle, Coburn thought, Schwebach would be the last guy you would want to take prisoner--if you had your druthers, you would make sure you killed the little son of a bitch before you captured him, he would make so much trouble.

However, Schwebach's feistiness was not immediately apparent. He was a very ordinary-looking fellow. In fact, you hardly noticed him. In Tehran he had lived farther south than anyone else, in a district where there were no other Americans, yet he had often walked around the streets, wearing a beat-up old field jacket, blue jeans, and a knit cap, and had never been bothered. He could lose himself in a crowd of two--a talent that might be useful in a jailbreak.