On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

EDS had changed since those days. With ten thousand people instead of three thousand, the family atmosphere could not be so intense. Nobody talked about the Faith anymore. But it was still there: this meeting proved it. And although his face was as expressionless as ever, Joe Poche was glad. Of course they would go in there and bust their friends out of jail. Poche was just happy to get the chance to be on the team.

Contrary to Coburn's expectation, Ralph Boulware did not pour scorn on the idea of a rescue. The skeptical, independent-minded Boulware was as hot for the idea as anyone.

He, too, had guessed what was going on, helped--like Poche--by Sculley's inability to lie convincingly.

Boulware and his family were staying with friends in Dallas. On New Year's Day Boulware had been doing nothing much, and his wife had asked him why he did not go to the office. He said there was nothing for him to do there. She did not buy that. Mary Boulware was the only person in the world who could bully Ralph, and in the end he went to the office. There he ran into Sculley.

"What's happening?" Boulware had asked.

"Oh, nothing," Sculley said.

"What are you doing?"

"Making plane reservations, mostly."

Sculley's mood seemed strange. Boulware knew him well--in Tehran they had ridden to work together in the mornings--and his instinct told him Sculley was not telling the truth.

"Something's wrong," Boulware said. "What's going on?"

"There's nothing going on, Ralph!"

"What are they doing about Paul and Bill?"

"They're going through all the channels to try and get them out. The bail is thirteen million dollars, and we have to get the money into the country--"

"Bullshit. The whole government system, the whole judicial system, has broken down over there. There ain't no channels left. What are y'all going to do?"

"Look, don't worry about it."

"You guys ain't going to try to go in and get them out, are you?"

Sculley said nothing.

"Hey, count me in," Boulware said.

"What do you mean, count you in?"

"It's obvious you're going to try to do something."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's don't play games anymore. Count me in."

"Okay."

For him it was a simple decision. Paul and Bill were his friends, and it could as easily have been Boulware in jail, in which case he would have wanted his friends to come and get him out.

There was another factor. Boulware was enormously fond of Pat Sculley. Hell, he loved Sculley. He also felt very protective toward him. In Boulware's opinion, Sculley really did not understand that the world was full of corruption and crime and sin: he saw what he wanted to see, a chicken in every pot, a Chevrolet on every driveway, a world of Mom and apple pie. If Sculley was going to be involved in a jailbreak, he would need Boulware to take care of him. It was an odd feeling to have about another man more or less your own age, but there it was.

That was what Boulware had thought on New Year's Day, and he felt the same today. So he went back into the hotel room and said to Perot what he had said to Sculley: "Count me in."

Glenn Jackson was not afraid to die.

He knew what was going to happen after death, and he had no fears. When the Lord wanted to call him home, why, he was ready to go.

However, he was concerned about his family. They had just been evacuated from Iran, and were now staying at his mother's house in East Texas. He had not yet had time even to start looking for a place for them all to live. If he got involved in this, he was not going to have time to go off and take care of family matters: it would be left to Carolyn. All on her own, she would have to rebuild the life of the family here in the States. She would have to find a house, get Cheryl, Cindy, and Glenn Junior into schools, buy or rent some furniture ...

Carolyn was kind of a dependent person. She would not find it easy.

Plus, she was already mad at him. She had come to Dallas with him that morning, but Sculley had told him to send her home. She was not permitted to check into the Hilton Inn with her husband. That had made her angry.

But Paul and Bill had wives and families, too. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It was in the Bible twice: Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18; and Matthew's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 19. Jackson thought: If I were stuck in jail in Tehran, I'd sure love for somebody to do something for me.

So he volunteered.

Sculley had made his choice days ago.