On Wings of Eagles Read Free

edge over his contemporaries in business life. It
        had also given him a healthy respect for the sound of gunfire.
        But most of his colleagues did not feel that way, nor did their wives.
        Whenever evacuation was discussed they resisted the idea. They had time,
        work, and pride invested in EDS Corporation Iran, and they did not want to
        walk away from it. Their wives had turned the rented apartments into real
        homes, and they were making p1m for Christmas. The children had their
        schools, their friends, their bicycles, and their pets. Surely, they were
        telling themselves, if we just lie low and hang on, the trouble will blow
        over.
        ON WINGS OF EAGLES 17
     
        Coburn had tried to persuade Liz to take the kids back to the States, not
        just for their safety, but because the time might come when he would have
        to evacuate some 350 people all at once, and he would need to give that job
        his complete undivided attention, without being distracted by private
        anxiety for his own family. Liz had refused to go.
        He sighed when he thought of Liz. She was funny and feisty and everyone
        enjoyed her company, but she was not a good corporate wife. EDS demanded a
        lot from its executives: if you needed to work all night to get the job
        done, you worked all night. Liz resented that. Back in the Stite~, working
        as a recruiter, Coburn had often been away from home Monday to Friday,
        traveling all over the country, and she had hated it. She was happy in
        Tehran because he was home every night. If he was going to stay here, she
        said, so was she. The children liked it here, too. It was the first time
        they had lived outside the United States, and they were intrigued by the
        different language and culture of Iran. Kim, the eldest at eleven, was too
        full of confidence to get worried. Kristi, the eight-year-old, was somewhat
        anxious, but then she was the emotional one, always the quickest to
        overreact. Both Scott, seven, and Kelly, the baby at four, were too young
        to comprehend the danger. ,
        So they stayed, like everyone else, and waited for things to get better--or
        worse.
        Coburn's thoughts were interrupted by a tap at the door, and Majid walked
        in. A short, stocky man of about fifty with a luxuriant mustache, he had
        once been wealthy: his tribe had owned a great deal of land and had lost it
        in the land reform of the sixties. Now he worked for Coburn as an
        administrative assistant, dealing with the Iranian bureaucracy. He spoke
        fluent English and was highly resourceful. Coburn liked him a lot: Majid
        had gone out of his way to be helpful when Coburn's family arrived in Iran.
    "Come in," Coburn said. "Sit down. What's on your mind?"
    "It's about Fara."
        Coburn nodded. Fara was Majid's daughter, and she worked with her father-
        Her job was to make sure that all American employees always had up-to-date
        visas and work permits. "Some problem?" Coburn said.
        "The police asked her to take two American passports from our files without
        telling anyone."
    Coburn frowned. "Any passports in particular?"
    18 Ken Follett
     
    "Paul Chiapparone's and Bill Gaylord's.-
        Paul was Coburn's boss, the head of EDS Corporation Iran. Bill was
        second-in-command and manager of their biggest project, the contract with
        the Ministry of Health. "What the hell is going on?" Coburn said.
        "Fara is in great danger," Majid said. "She was instructed not to tell
        anyone about this. She came to me for advice. Of course I had to tell you,
        but I'm afraid she will get into very serious trouble."
        "Wait a minute, let's back up," Coburn said. "How did this happen?"
        "She got