On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Everyone had gone to great lengths to hide Perot in Tehran, for fear that Dadgar--seeing a far more valuable hostage than Paul or Bill--would arrest him and throw him in jail. Yet here he was, heading for the jail of his own free will, with his own passport in his pocket for identification.

His hopes were pinned on the notorious inability of government everywhere to let its right hand know what its left was doing. The Ministry of Justice might want to arrest him, but it was the military who ran the jails, and the military had no interest in him.

Nevertheless, he was taking precautions. He would go in with a group of people--Rich Gallagher and Jay Coburn were on the bus, as well as some Embassy people who were going to visit an American woman in the jail--and he was wearing casual clothes and carrying a cardboard box containing groceries, books, and warm clothing for Paul and Bill.

Nobody at the prison would know his face. He would have to give his name as he went in, but why would a minor clerk or prison guard recognize it? His name might be on a list at the airport, at police stations, or at hotels; but the prison would surely be the last place Dadgar would expect him to turn up.

Anyway, he was determined to take the risk. He wanted to boost Paul's and Bill's morale, and to show them that he was willing to stick out his neck for them. It would be the only achievement of his trip: his efforts to get the negotiations moving had come to nothing.

The bus entered Gasr Square and he got his first sight of the new prison. It was formidable. He could not imagine how Simons and his little rescue team could possibly break in there.

In the square were scores of people, mostly women in chadors, making a lot of noise. The bus stopped near the huge steel doors. Perot wondered about the bus driver: he was Iranian, and he knew who Perot was ...

They all got out. Perot saw a television camera near the prison entrance.

His heart missed a beat.

It was an American crew.

What the hell were they doing there?

He kept his head down as he pushed his way through the crowd, carrying his cardboard box. A guard looked out of a small window set into the brick wall beside the gates. The television crew seemed to be taking no notice of him. A minute later a little door in one of the gates swung open, and the visitors stepped inside.

The door clanged shut behind them.

Perot had passed the point of no return.

He walked on, through a second pair of steel doors, into the prison compound. It was a big place, with streets between the buildings, and chickens and turkeys running around loose. He followed the others through a doorway into a reception room.

He showed his passport: The clerk pointed to a register. Perot took out his pen and signed "H. R. Perot" more or less legibly.

The clerk handed back the passport and waved him on.

He had been right. Nobody here had heard of Ross Perot.

He walked on into a waiting room--and stopped dead.

Standing there, talking to an Iranian in general's uniform, was someone who knew perfectly well who Ross Perot was.

It was Ramsey Clark, a Texan who had been U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Perot had met him several times and knew Clark's sister Mimi very well.

For a moment Perot froze. That explains the television cameras, he thought. He wondered whether he could keep out of Clark's sight. Any moment now, he thought, Ramsey will see me and say to the general: "Lord, there's Ross Perot of EDS," and if I look as if I'm trying to hide, it will be even worse.

He made a snap decision.

He walked over to Clark, stuck out his hand, and said: "Hello, Ramsey, what are you doing in jail?"

Clark looked down--he was six foot three--and laughed. They shook hands.

"How's Mimi?" Perot asked before Clark had a chance to perform introductions.

The general was saying something in Farsi to an underling.

Clark said: "Mimi's fine."

"Well, good to see you," Perot said, and walked on.

His mouth was dry as he went out of the waiting room and into the prison compound with Gallagher, Coburn, and the Embassy people. That had been a close shave. An Iranian in colonel's uniform joined them: he had been assigned to take care of them, Gallagher said. Perot wondered what Clark was saying to the general now ...

Paul was sick. The cold he had caught in the first jail had recurred. He was coughing persistently and had pains in his chest. He could not get warm, in this jail or in the old one: for three whole weeks he had been cold. He had asked his EDS visitors to get him warm underwear, but for some reason they had not brought any.

He was also miserable. He really had expected that Coburn and the rescue team would ambush the bus that brought him and Bill here from the Ministry of Justice, and when the bus had entered the impregnable Gasr Prison he had been bitterly disappointed.