On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

The other missing man was Ron Davis. At thirty he was the youngest on the list. The son of a poor black insurance salesman, Davis had risen fast in the white world of corporate America. Few people who started, as he had, in operations ever made it to management on the customer side of the business. Perot was especially proud of Davis: "Ron's career achievement is like a moonshot," he would say. Davis had acquired a good knowledge of Farsi in a year and a half in Tehran, working under Keane Taylor, not on the Ministry contract but on a smaller, separate project to computerize Bank Omran, the Shah's bank. Davis was cheerful, flippant, full of jokes, a juvenile version of Richard Pryor, but without the profanity. Coburn thought he was the most sincere of the men on the list. Davis found it easy to open up and talk about his feelings and his personal life. For that reason Coburn thought of him as vulnerable. On the other hand, perhaps the ability to talk honestly about yourself to others was a sign of great inner confidence and strength.

Whatever the truth about Davis's emotional toughness, physically he was as hard as a nail. He had no military experience, but he was a karate black belt. One time in Tehran three men had attacked him and attempted to rob him: he had beaten them all up in a few seconds. Like Schwebach's ability to be inconspicuous, Davis's karate was a talent that might become useful.

Like Coburn, all six men were in their thirties.

They were all married.

And they all had children.

The door opened and Perot walked in.

He shook hands, saying "How are you?" and "Good to see you!" as if he really meant it, remembering the names of their wives and children. He's good with people, Coburn thought.

"Schwebach and Davis didn't get here yet," Coburn told him.

"All right," Perot said, sitting down. "I'll have to see them later. Send them to my office as soon as they arrive." He paused. "I'll tell them exactly what I'm going to tell y'all."

He paused again, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he frowned and looked hard at them. "I'm asking for volunteers for a project that might involve loss of life. At this stage I can't tell you what it's about, although you can probably guess. I want you to take five or ten minutes, or more, to think about it, then come back and talk to me one at a time. Think hard. If you choose, for any reason, not to get involved, you can just say so, and no one outside this room will ever know about it. If you decide to volunteer, I'll tell you more. Now go away and think."

They all stood up and, one by one, they left the room.

I could get killed on Central Expressway, thought Joe Poche.

He knew perfectly well what the dangerous project was: they were going to get Paul and Bill out of jail.

He had suspected as much since two-thirty A.M., when he had been woken up, at his mother-in-law's house in San Antonio, by a phone call from Pat Sculley. Sculley, the world's worst liar, had said: "Ross asked me to call you. He wants you to come to Dallas in the morning to begin work on a study in Europe."

Poche had said: "Pat, why in hell are you calling me at two-thirty in the morning to tell me that Ross wants me to work on a study in Europe?"

"It is kind of important. We need to know when you can be here."

Okay, Poche thought resignedly, it's something he can't talk about on the phone. "My first flight is probably around six or seven o'clock in the morning."

"Fine."

Poche had made a plane reservation, then gone back to bed. As he set his alarm clock for five A.M. he said to his wife: "I don't know what this is all about, but I wish somebody would be straight, just for once."

In fact, he had a pretty good idea what it was all about, and his suspicions had been confirmed, later in the day, when Ralph Boulware had met him at the Coit Road bus station and, instead of taking him to EDS, had driven him to this hotel and refused to talk about what was going on.

Poche liked to think everything through, and he had had plenty of time to consider the idea of busting Paul and Bill out of jail. It made him glad, glad as hell. It reminded him of the old days, when there were only three thousand people in the whole of EDS, and they had talked about the Faith. It was their word for a whole bunch of attitudes and beliefs about how a company ought to deal with its employees. What it boiled down to was: EDS took care of its people. As long as you were giving your maximum effort to the company, it would stand by you through thick and thin: when you were sick, when you had personal or family problems, when you got yourself into any kind of trouble ... It was a bit like a family. Poche felt good about that, although he did not talk about the feeling--he did not talk much about any of his feelings.