Read On Wings of Eagles for Free Online

nothing for the EDS men to do, and Paul sent half of them home to
        the States for Christmas.
        Paul packed his bags, closed up his house, and moved into the Hilton, ready
        to go home at the first opportunity.
        The city was thick with rumors. Jay Coburn fished up most of them in his
        net and brought the interesting ones to Paul. One more disquieting than
        most came from Bunny Fleischaker, an American girl with friends at the
        Ministry of Justice. Bunny had worked for EDS in the States, and she kept
        in touch here in Tehran although she was no longer with the company. She
        called Coburn to say that the Ministry of Justice planned to arrest Paul
        and Bill.
        Paul discussed this with Coburn. It contradicted what they were hearing
        from the U.S. Embassy. The Embassy's advice
        ON WINGS OF EAGLES 31
     
    was surely better than Bunny Fleischaker's, they agreed. They decided to
    take no action.
        Paul spent Christmas Day quietly, with a few colleagues, at the home of Pat
        Sculley, a young EDS manager who had volunteered to return to Tehran.
        Sculley's wife, Mary, had also come back, and she cooked Christmas dinner.
        Paul missed Ruthie and the children.
        Two days after Christmas the Embassy called. They had succeeded in setting
        up a meeting for Paul and Bill with Examining Magistrate Hosain Dadgar. The
        meeting was to take place the following morning, December 28, at the
        Ministry of Health building on Eisenhower Avenue.
     
    Bill Gaylord came into Paul's office a little after nine, carrying a cup of
    coffee, dressed in the EDS uniform: business suit, white shirt, quiet tie,
    black brogue shoes.
        Like Paul, Bill was thirty-nine, of middle height, and stocky; but there
        the resemblance ended. Paul had dark coloring, heavy eyebrows, deepset
        eyes, and a big nose: in casual clothes he was often mistaken for an
        Iranian until he opened his mouth and spoke English with a New York accent.
        Bill had a flat, round face and very white skin: nobody would take him for
        anything but an Anglo.
        They had a lot in common. Both were Roman Catholic, although Bill was more
        devout. They loved good food. Both had trained as systems engineers and
        joined EDS in the n-dd-sixties, Bill in 1965 and Paul in 1966. Both had had
        splendid careers with EDS, but although Paul had joined a year later he was
        now senior to Bill. Bill knew the health-care business inside out, and he
        was a first-class "people manager," but he was not as pushy and dynamic as
        Paul. Bill was a deep thinker and a careful organizer. Paul would never
        have to worry about Bill making an important presentation: Bill would have
        prepared every word.
        They worked together well. When Paul was hasty, Bill would make him pause
        and reflect. When Bill wanted to plan his way around every bump in the
        road, Paul would tell him just to get in and drive.
        They had been acquainted in the States but had got to know one another well
        in the last nine months. When Bill had arrived in Tehran, last March, he
        had lived at the Chiapparones' house until his wife, Emily, and the
        children came over. Paul felt almost protective toward him: it was a shame
        that Bill had had nothing but problems here in Iran.
    32 Ken Follett
     
        Bill was much more worried by the rioting and the shooting than most of the
        others-perhaps because he had not been here long, perhaps because he was
        more of a worrier by nature. He also took the passport problem more
        seriously than Paul. At one time he had even suggested that the two of them
        take a train to the northeast of Iran and cross the border into Russia, on
        the grounds that nobody