On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

He was a dark-skinned, rather good-looking twenty-three-year-old from an affluent Tehran family. He had completed EDS's training program for systems engineers. He was intelligent and resourceful, and he had bags of charm. Coburn recalled the last time Rashid had demonstrated his talent for improvisation. Ministry of Health employees who were on partial strike had refused to key the data for the payroll system, but Rashid had got all the input together, taken it down to Bank Omran, talked someone there into keying the data, then run the program on the Ministry computer. The trouble with Rashid was that you had to keep an eye on him, because he never consulted anyone before implementing his unconventional ideas. Getting the data keyed the way he had constituted strikebreaking, and might have got EDS into big trouble--indeed, when Bill had heard about it he had been more anxious than pleased. Rashid was excitable and impulsive, and his English was not so good, so he tended to dash off and do his own crazy thing without telling anyone--a tendency that made his managers nervous. But he always got away with it. He could talk his way into and out of anything. At the airport, meeting people or seeing them off, he always managed to pass through all the "Passengers Only" barriers even though he never had a boarding card, ticket, or passport to show. Coburn knew him well, and liked him enough to have brought him home for supper several times. Coburn also trusted him completely, especially since the strike, when Rashid had been one of Coburn's informants among the hostile Iranian employees.

However, Simons would not trust Rashid on Coburn's say-so. Just as he had insisted on meeting Keane Taylor before letting him in on the secret, so he would want to talk to Rashid.

So Coburn arranged a meeting.

When Rashid was eight years old he had wanted to be President of the United States.

At twenty-three he knew he could never be President, but he still wanted to go to America, and EDS was going to be his ticket. He knew he had it in him to be a great businessman. He was a student of the psychology of the human being, and it had not taken him long to understand the mentality of EDS people. They wanted results, not excuses. If you were given a task, it was always better to do a little more than was expected. If for some reason the task was difficult, or even impossible, it was best not to say so: they hated to hear people whining about problems. You never said: "I can't do that because ..." You always said: "This is the progress I have made so far, and this is the problem I am working on right now ..." It so happened that these attitudes suited Rashid perfectly. He had made himself useful to EDS, and he knew the company appreciated it.

His greatest achievement had been installing computer terminals in offices where the Iranian staff were suspicious and hostile. So great was the resistance that Pat Sculley had been able to install no more than two per month: Rashid had installed the remaining eighteen in two months. He had planned to capitalize on this. He had composed a letter to Ross Perot, who--he understood--was the head of EDS, asking to be allowed to complete his training in Dallas. He had intended to ask all the EDS managers in Tehran to sign the letter: but events had overtaken him, most of the managers had been evacuated, and EDS in Iran was falling to pieces; and he never mailed the letter. So he would think of something else.

He could always find a way. Everything was possible for Rashid. He could do anything. He had even got out of the army. At a time when thousands of young middle-class Iranians were spending fortunes in bribes to avoid military service, Rashid, after a few weeks in uniform, had convinced the doctors that he was incurably ill with a twitching disease. His comrades and the officers over him knew that he was in perfect health, but every time he saw the doctor he twitched uncontrollably. He went before medical boards and twitched for hours--an absolutely exhausting business, he discovered. Finally, so many doctors had certified him ill that he got his discharge papers. It was crazy, ridiculous, impossible--but doing the impossible was Rashid's normal practice.

So he knew that he would go to America. He did not know how, but careful and elaborate planning was not his style anyway. He was a spur-of-the-moment man, an improviser, an opportunist. His chance would come and he would seize it.

Mr. Simons interested him. He was not like the other EDS managers. They were all in their thirties or forties, but Simons was nearer to sixty. His long hair and white whiskers and big nose seemed more Iranian than American. Finally, he did not come right out with whatever was on his mind. People like Sculley and Coburn would say: "This is the situation and this is what I want you to do and you need to have it done by tomorrow morning ..." Simons just said: "Let's go for a walk."