On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Before Perot started talking about a rescue, Sculley had been discussing the idea. It had first come up the day after Paul and Bill were arrested, the day Sculley flew out of Tehran with Joe Poche and Jim Schwebach. Sculley had been upset at leaving Paul and Bill behind, all the more so because Tehran had become dramatically more violent in the last few days. At Christmas two Afghanis caught stealing in the bazaar had been summarily hanged by a mob; and a taxi driver who tried to jump the queue at a gas station had been shot in the head by a soldier. What would they do to Americans, once they got started? It hardly bore thinking about.

On the plane Sculley had sat next to Jim Schwebach. They had agreed that Paul's and Bill's lives were in danger. Schwebach, who had experience of clandestine commando-type operations, had agreed with Sculley that it should be possible for a few determined Americans to rescue two men from an Iranian jail.

So Sculley had been surprised and delighted when, three days later, Perot had said: "I've been thinking the same thing."

Sculley had put his own name on the list.

He did not need time to think about it.

He volunteered.

Sculley had also put Coburn's name on the list--without telling Coburn.

Until this moment, happy-go-lucky Coburn, who lived from day to day, had not even thought about being on the team himself.

But Sculley had been right: Coburn wanted to go.

He thought: Liz won't like it.

He sighed. There were many things his wife did not like, these days.

She was clinging, he thought. She had not liked his being in the military, she did not like his having hobbies that took him away from her, and she did not like his working for a boss who felt free to call on him at all hours of the day or night for special tasks.

He had never lived the way she wanted, and it was probably too late to start now. If he went to Tehran to rescue Paul and Bill, Liz might hate him for it. But if he did not go, he would probably hate her for making him stay behind.

Sorry, Liz, he thought; here we go again.

Jim Schwebach arrived later in the afternoon but heard the same speech from Perot.

Schwebach had a highly developed sense of duty. (He had once wanted to be a priest, but two years in a Catholic seminary had soured him on organized religion.) He had spent eleven years in the army, and had volunteered for repeated tours in Vietnam, out of that same sense of duty. In Asia he had seen a lot of people doing their jobs badly, and he knew he did his well. He had thought: if I walk away from this, someone else will do what I'm doing, but he will do it badly, and in consequence a man will lose his arm, his leg, or his life. I've been trained to do this, and I'm good at it, and I owe it to them to carry on doing it.

He felt much the same about the rescue of Paul and Bill. He was the only member of the proposed team who had actually done this sort of thing before. They needed him.

Anyway, he liked it. He was a fighter by disposition. Perhaps this was because he was five and a half feet tall. Fighting was his thing, it was where he lived. He did not hesitate to volunteer.

He couldn't wait to get started.

Ron Davis, the second black man on the list and the youngest of them all, did hesitate.

He arrived in Dallas early that evening and was taken straight to EDS headquarters on Forest Lane. He had never met Perot, but had talked to him on the phone from Tehran during the evacuation. For a few days, during that period, they had kept a phone line open between Dallas and Tehran all day and all night. Someone had to sleep with the phone to his ear at the Tehran end, and frequently the job had fallen to Davis. One time Perot himself had come on the line.

"Ron, I know it's bad over there, and we sure appreciate your staying. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"

Davis was surprised. He was only doing what his friends were doing, and he did not expect a special thank-you. But he did have a special worry. "My wife has conceived, and I haven't seen her for a while," he told Perot. "If you could have someone call her and tell her I'm okay and I'll be home as soon as possible, I'd appreciate it."

Davis had been surprised to learn from Marva, later, that Perot had not had someone call her--he had called himself.

Now, meeting Perot for the first time, Davis was once again impressed. Perot shook his hand warmly and said: "Hi, Ron, how are you?" just as if they had been friends for years.

However, listening to Perot's speech about "loss of life," Davis had doubts. He wanted to know more about the rescue. He would be glad to help Paul and Bill, but he needed to be assured that the whole project would be well organized and professional.

Perot told him about Bull Simons, and that settled it.

Perot was just so proud of them.

Every single one had volunteered.

He sat in his office. It was dark outside. He was waiting for Simons.