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the departure lounge
    without being stopped.
        Another EDS family had adopted an Iranian baby and had not yet been able to
        get a passport for the child. Only a few months old, the baby would fall
        asleep, lying face down, on its mother's forearm. Another EDS wife, Kathy
        Marketos--of whom it was said that she would try anything once-put the
        sleeping baby on her own forearm, draped her raincoat over it, and carried
        it onto the plane.
        However, it was many hours before anyone got on a plane. Both flights were
        delayed. There was no food to be bought at the airport and the evacuees
        were famished, so just before curfew some of Coburn's team drove around the
        city buying anything edible they could find. They purchased the entire
        contents of several kuche stalls--streetcomer stands that sold candy,
        fruit, and cigarettes-and they went into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and did
        a deal for its stock of bread rolls. Back at the airport, passing food out
        to EDS people in the departure lounge, they were almost mobbed by the other
        hungry passengers waiting for the same flights. On the way back downtown
        two of the team were caught and arrested for being out after curfew-but the
        soldier who stopped them got distracted by another car, which tried to
        escape, and the EDS men drove off while he was shooting the other way.
        The Istanbul flight left just after midnight. The Frankfurt flight took off
        the next day, thirty-one hours late.
        Coburn and most of the team spent the night at Bucharest. They had no one
        to go home to.
     
    While Coburn was running the evacuation, Paul had been trying to find out
    who wanted to confiscate his passport and why.
        His administrative assistant, Rich Gallagher, was a young American who was
        good at dealing with the Iranian bureaucracy. Gallagher was one of those
        who had volunteered to stay in
        ON WINGS OF EAGLES 27
     
    Tehran. His wife, Cathy, had also stayed behind. She had a good job with the
    U.S. military in Tehran. The Gallaghers did not want to leave. Furthermore,
    they had no children to worry about-just a poodle called Buffy.
        The day Fara was asked to take the passports-December 5 --Gallagher visited
        the U.S. Embassy with one of the people whose passports had been demanded:
        Paul Bucha, who no longer worked in Iran but happened to be in town on a
        visit.
        They met with Consul General Lou Goelz. Goelz, an experienced consul in his
        fifties, was a portly, balding man with a fringe of white hair: he would
        have made a good Santa Claus. With Goelz was an Iranian member of the
        consular staff, Ali Jordan.
        Goelz advised Bucha to catch his plane. Fara had told the police-4n all
        innocence-4hat Bucha was not in Iran, and they had appeared to believe her.
        There was every chance that Bucha could sneak out.
        Goelz also offered to hold the passports and residence permits of Paul and
        Bill for safekeeping. That way, if the police made a formal demand for the
        documents, EDS would be able to refer them to the Embassy.
        Meanwhile, Ali Jordan would contact the police and try to find out what the
        hell was going on.
        Later that day the passports and papers were delivered to the Embassy.
        The next morning Bucha caught Ins plane and got out. Gallagher called the
        Embassy. Ali Jordan had talked to General Biglari of the Tehran Police
        Department. Biglari had said that Paul and Bill were being detained in the
        country and would be arrested if they tried to leave.
    Gallagher asked why.
        They were being held as "material witnesses in an investigation," Jordan
        understood.
    "What investigation?"
    Jordan did not know.
        Paul