Ken Follett - On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Ralph Boulware was met by Mary and the girls, Stacy and Kecia. He picked Kecia up and said: "Happy birthday!" Everything was as it should be, he thought as he embraced them. He had done what he was supposed to do, and the family was here, where they were supposed to be. He felt as though he had proved something, if only to himself. All those years in the air force, tinkering with instrumentation or sitting in a plane watching bombs drop, he had never felt his courage was being tested. His relations had medals for ground fighting, but he had always had the uncomfortable feeling that he had an easy role, like the guy in the war movies who slops out the food at breakfast time before the real soldiers go off to fight. He had always wondered whether he had the right stuff. Now he thought about Turkey, getting stuck in Adana, and driving through the blizzard in that damn '64 Chevy, and changing the wheel in Blood Alley with the sons of Mr. Fish's cousin; and he thought about Perot's toast, to the men who said what they were going to do, then went out and did it; and he knew the answer. Oh, yes. He had the right stuff.

Paul's daughters, Karen and Ann Marie, were wearing matching plaid skirts. Ann Marie, the littlest, got to him first, and he swept her up in his arms and squeezed her tight. Karen was too big to be picked up, but he hugged her just as hard. Behind them was Ruthie, his biggest little girl, all dressed in shades of honey and cream. He kissed her long and hard, then looked at her, smiling. He could not have stopped smiling if he had wanted to. He felt very mellow inside. It was the best feeling he had ever known.

Emily was looking at Bill as if she did not believe he was really there. "Gosh," she said lamely, "it's good to see you again, sweetie."

The bus went rather quiet as he kissed her. Rachel Schwebach began to cry.

Bill kissed the girls, Vicki, Jackie, and Jenny; then he looked at his son. Chris was very grown up in a blue suit he had been given for Christmas. Bill had seen that suit before. He remembered a photograph of Chris, standing in front of the Christmas tree in his new suit: that photograph had been above Bill's bunk, in a prison cell, long ago and far away ...

Emily kept touching him to make sure he was really there. "You look marvelous," she said.

Bill knew he looked absolutely terrible. He said: "I love you."

Ross Perot got on the bus and said: "Is everybody here?"

"Not my dad!" said a plaintive small voice. It was Sean Sculley.

"Don't worry," said Perot. "He'll be right out. He's our straight man."

Pat Sculley had been stopped by a customs agent and asked to open his suitcase. He was carrying all the money, and of course the agent had seen it. Several more agents were summoned, and Sculley was taken into an office to be interrogated.

The agents got out some forms. Sculley began to explain, but they did not want to listen; they only wanted to fill out the forms.

"Is the money yours?"

"No, it belongs to EDS."

"Did you have it when you left the States?"

"Most of it."

"When and how did you leave the States?"

"A week ago on a private 707."

"Where did you go?"

"To Istanbul, then to the Iranian border."

Another man came into the office and said: "Are you Mr. Sculley?"

"Yes."

"I'm terribly sorry you've been troubled like this. Mr. Perot is waiting for you outside." He turned to the agents. "You can tear up those forms."

Sculley smiled and left. He was not in the Middle East anymore. This was Dallas, where Perot was Perot.

Sculley got on the bus, and saw Mary, Sean, and Jennifer. He hugged and kissed them all, then said: "What's happening?"

"There's a little reception for you," said Mary.

The bus started to move, but it did not go far. It stopped again a few yards away at a different gate, and they were all ushered back into the airport and led to a door marked "Concorde Room."

As they walked in, a thousand people rose to their feet, cheering and clapping.

Someone had put up a huge banner reading:JOHN HOWELL

NO. 1

DADDY

Jay Coburn was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd and their reaction. What a good idea the buses had been, to give the men a chance to greet their families in private before coming in here. Who had arranged that? Stauffer, of course.

As he walked through the room toward the front, people in the crowd reached over to shake his hand, saying: Good to see you! Welcome back! He smiled and shook hands--there was David Behne, there was Dick Morrison, the faces blurred and the words melted into one big warm hello.

When Paul and Bill walked in with their wives and children, the cheering rose to a roar.

Ross Perot, standing at the front, felt tears come to his eyes. He was more tired than he had ever been in his life, but immensely satisfied. He thought of all the luck and all the coincidences that had made the rescue possible: the fact that he knew Simons, that Simons had been willing to go, that EDS had hired Vietnam veterans, that they had been willing to go, that the seventh floor knew how to get things achieved around the world because of their experience with the POW campaign, that T. J. had been able to rent a plane, that the mob had stormed the Gasr Prison...

And he thought of all the things that might have gone wrong. He recalled the proverb: success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. In a few minutes he would stand up and tell these people a little of what had happened and how Paul and Bill were brought home. But it would be hard to put into words the risks that had been taken, the awful cost if the thing had gone badly and ended in the criminal courts or worse. He remembered the day he left Tehran, and how he had superstitiously thought of luck as sand running through an hourglass. Suddenly he saw the hourglass again, and all the sand had run out. He grinned to himself, picked up the imaginary glass, and turned it upside down.

Simons bent down and spoke in Perot's ear. "Remember you offered to pay me?"

Perot would never forget it. When Simons gave you that icy look, you froze. "I sure do."

"See this?" said Simons, inclining his head.

Paul was walking toward them, carrying Ann Marie in his arms, through the crowd of cheering friends. "I see it," said Perot.

Simons said: "I just got paid." He drew on his cigar.

At last the room quieted down, and Perot began to speak. He called Rashid over and put his arm around the young man's shoulders. "I want you to meet a key member of the rescue team," he said to the crowd. "As Colonel Simons said, Rashid only weighs a hundred and forty pounds, but he has five hundred pounds of courage."

They all laughed and clapped again. Rashid looked around. Many times, many times he had thought about going to America; but in his wildest dreams he had never imagined that his welcome would be like this!

Perot began to tell the story. Listening, Paul felt oddly humble. He was not a hero. The others were the heroes. He was privileged. He belonged with just about the finest bunch of people in the whole world.

Bill looked around the crowd and saw Ron Sperberg, a good friend and a colleague for years. Sperberg was wearing a great big cowboy hat. We're back in Texas, Bill thought. This is the heartland of the U.S.A., the safest place in the world; they can't reach us here. This time, the nightmare is really over. We're back. We're safe.

We're home.

EPILOGUE

Jay and Liz Coburn were divorced. Kristi, the second daughter, the emotional one, chose to live with her father. Coburn was made Manager of Human Resources for EDS Federal. In September 1982 he and Ross Perot, Jr., became the first men to fly around the world in a helicopter. The aircraft they used is now in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It is called Spirit of Texas.