Ken Follett - On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

"Just give me a cigarette, would you?"

Paul gave him a cigarette and said: "Now I'm really scared."

Paul went back into the passenger cabin. The stewardesses had everyone busy stowing trays, bottles, and baggage, securing all loose objects, in preparation for landing.

Paul went into the bedroom. Simons was lying on the bed. He had shaved in cold water and there were bits of stickum tape all over his face. He was fast asleep.

Paul left him. He said to Jay Coburn: "Does Simons know what's going on?"

"Sure does," Coburn replied. "He said he doesn't know how to fly a plane and there's nothing he can do, so he was going to take a nap."

Paul shook his head in amazement. How cool could you get?

He returned to the flight deck. Carlen was as laid-back as ever, his voice calm, his hands steady; but that cigarette worried Paul.

A couple of minutes later the red light went out. The dump chute had retracted.

They approached Heathrow in dense cloud and began to lose height. Paul watched the altimeter. As it dropped through six hundred feet, then five hundred, there was still nothing outside but swirling gray fog.

At three hundred feet it was the same. Then, suddenly, they dropped out of the cloud and there was the runway, straight ahead, lit up like a Christmas tree. Paul breathed a sigh of relief.

They touched down, and the fire engines and ambulances came screaming across the tarmac toward the plane; but it was a perfect safe landing.

Rashid had been hearing about Ross Perot for years. Perot was the multimillionaire, the founder of EDS, the business wizard, the man who sat in Dallas and moved men such as Coburn and Sculley around the world like pieces on a chessboard. It had been quite an experience for Rashid to meet Mr. Perot and find he was just an ordinary-looking human being, rather short and surprisingly friendly. Rashid had walked into the hotel room in Istanbul, and this little guy with the big smile and the bent nose just stuck out his hand and said: "Hi, I'm Ross Perot," and Rashid had shaken hands and said: "Hi, I'm Rashid Kazemi," just as natural as could be.

Since that moment he had felt more than ever one of the EDS team. But at Heathrow Airport he was sharply reminded that he was not.

As soon as the plane taxied to a halt, a vanload of airport police, customs men, and immigration officials boarded and started asking questions. They did not like what they saw: a bunch of dirty, scruffy, smelly, unshaven men, carrying a fortune in various currencies, aboard an incredibly luxurious airplane with a Grand Cayman Islands tail number. This, they said in their British way, was highly irregular, to say the least.

However, after an hour or so of questioning, they could find no evidence that the EDS men were drug smugglers, terrorists, or members of the PLO. And as holders of U.S. passports, the Americans needed no visas or other documentation to enter Britain. They were all admitted--except for Rashid.

Perot confronted the immigration officer. "There's no reason why you should know who I am, but my name is Ross Perot, and if you would just check me out, maybe with U.S. Customs, I believe you will conclude that you can trust me. I have too much to lose by trying to smuggle an illegal immigrant into Britain. Now, I will assume personal responsibility for this young man. We will be out of England in twenty-four hours. In the morning we will check with your counterparts at Gatwick Airport, and we will then get on the Braniff flight to Dallas."

"I'm afraid we can't do that, sir," said the official. "This gentleman will have to stay with us until we put him on the plane."

"If he stays, I stay," said Perot.

Rashid was flabbergasted. Ross Perot would spend the night at the airport, or perhaps in a prison cell, rather than leave Rashid behind! It was incredible. If Pat Sculley had made such an offer, or Jay Coburn, Rashid would have been grateful but not surprised. But this was Ross Perot!

The immigration officer sighed. "Do you know anyone in Great Britain who might vouch for you, sir?"

Perot racked his brains. Who do I know in Britain? he thought. "I don't think--no, wait a minute." Of course! One of Britain's great heroes had stayed with the Perots in Dallas a couple of times. Perot and Margot had been guests at his home in England, a place called Broadlands. "I know Earl Mountbatten of Burma," he said.

"I'll just have a word with my supervisor," said the officer, and he got off the plane.

He was away a long time.

Perot said to Sculley: "As soon as we get out of here, your job is to get us all first-class seats on that Braniff flight to Dallas in the morning."

"Yes, sir," said Sculley.

The immigration officer came back. "I can give you twenty-four hours," he said to Rashid.

Rashid looked at Perot. Oh, boy, he thought; what a guy to work for!

They checked in to the Post House Hotel near the airport, and Perot called Merve Stauffer in Dallas.

"Merv, we have one person here with an Iranian passport and no U.S. visa--you know who I'm talking about."

"Yes, sir."

"He has saved American lives and I won't have him hassled when we get to the States."

"Yes, sir."

"Call Harry McKillop. Have him fix it."

"Yes, sir."

Sculley woke them all at six A.M. He had to drag Coburn out of bed. Coburn was still suffering the aftereffects of Simons's stay-awake pills: ill-tempered and exhausted, he did not care whether he caught the plane or not.

Sculley had organized a bus to take them to Gatwick Airport, a good two-hour journey from Heathrow. As they went out, Keane Taylor, who was struggling with a plastic bin containing some of the dozens of bottles of liquor and cartons of cigarettes he had bought at Istanbul Airport, said: "Hey, do any of you guys want to help me carry this stuff?"

Nobody said anything. They all got on the bus.

"Screw you, then," said Taylor, and he gave the whole lot to the hotel doorman.

On the way to Gatwick they heard over the bus radio that China had invaded North Vietnam. Someone said: "That'll be our next assignment."

"Sure," said Simons. "We could be dropped between the two armies. No matter which way we fired, we'd be right."

At the airport, walking behind his men, Perot noticed other people backing away, giving them room, and he suddenly realized how terrible they all looked. Most of them had not had a good wash or a shave for days, and they were dressed in a weird assortment of ill-fitting and very dirty clothes. They probably smelled bad, too.

Perot asked for Braniff's passenger-service officer. Braniff was a Dallas airline, and Perot had flown with them to London several times, so most of the staff knew him.

He asked the officer: "Can I rent the whole of the lounge upstairs in the 747 for my party?"

The officer was staring at the men. Perot knew what he was thinking: Mr. Perot's party usually consisted of a few quiet, well-dressed businessmen, and now here he was with what looked like a crowd of garage mechanics who had been working on a particularly filthy engine.

The officer said: "Uh, we can't rent you the lounge, because of international airline regulations, sir, but I believe if your companions go up into the lounge, the rest of our passengers won't disturb you too much."

Perot saw what he meant.

As Perot boarded, he said to a stewardess: "I want these men to have anything they want on this plane."

Perot passed on, and the stewardess turned to her colleague, wide-eyed. "Who the hell is he?"

Her colleague told her.

The movie was Saturday Night Fever, but the projector would not work. Boulware was disappointed: he had seen the movie before and he had been looking forward to seeing it again. Instead, he sat and chewed the fat with Paul.