On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett Read Free Book Online Page B

Bill felt sorry for the people in the cars, victims of
        circumstance who could do nothing but hope that things would get better. If
        Iranians are no longer safe, he thought, Americans must be in even more
        danger. We've got to get out of this country.
        Two Iranians were hanging about in the same corridor, watching the fracas
        on Eisenhower Avenue. They seemed as appalled as Bill at what they saw.
        Moming turned into afternoon. Bill got more tea and a sandwich for lunch.
        He wondered what was happening in the interrogation room. He was not
        surprised to be kept waiting: in Iran "an hour" meant nothing more precise
        than "later, maybe." But as the day wore on he became more uneasy. Was Paul
        in trouble in there?
        The two Iranians stayed in the corridor all afternoon, doing nothing. Bill
        wondered vaguely who they were. He did not speak to them.
        He wished the time would pass more quickly. He had a reservation on
        tomorrow's plane. Emily and the kids were in Washington, where both Emily's
        and Bill's parents lived. They had a big party planned for him on New
        Year's Eve. He could hardly wait to see them all again.
        He should have left Iran weeks ago, when the firebombing started. One of
        the people whose homes had been bombed was a girl with whom he had gone to
        high school in Washington. She was married to a diplomat at the U.S.
        Embassy. Bill had talked to them about the incident. Nobody had been hurt,
        luckily, but it
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    had been very scary. I should have taken heed, and got out then, he thought.
        At last Abolhasan opened the door and called: "Bill! Come in, please-11
    Bill looked at his watch. It was five o'clock. He went in.
    "It's cold," he said as he sat down.
        "It's warm enough in this seat," Paul said with a smained smile. Bill
        looked at Paul's face: he seemed very uncomfortable.
        Dadgar drank a glass of tea and ate a sandwich before he began to question
        Bill. Watching him, Bill thought: look out--this guy is trying to trap us
        so he won't have to let us leave the country. . Tbe interview started. Bill
        gave his full name, date and place of birth, schools attended,
        qualifications, and experience. Dadgar's face was blank as he asked the
        questions and wrote down the answers: he was like a machine, Bill thought.
        He began to see why the interview with Paul had taken so long. Each
        question had to be translated from Farsi into English and each answer from
        English into Farsi. Mrs. Nourbash did the translation, Abolhasan
        interrupting with clarification and corrections.
        Dadgar questioned Bill about EDS's performance of the Ministry contract.
        Bill answered at length and in detail, although the subject was both
        complicated and highly technical, and he was pretty sure that Mrs. Nourbash
        could not really understand what he was saying. Anyway, no one could hope
        to grasp the complexities of the entire project by asking a handful of
        general questions. What kind of foolishness was this? Bill wondered. Why
        did Dadgar want to sit all day in a freezing cold room and ask stupid
        questions? It was some kind of Persian ritual, Bill decided. Dadgar needed
        to pad out his records, show that he had explored every avenue, and protect
        himself in advance against possible criticism for letting them go. At the
        absolute worst, he might detain them in Iran a while longer. Either way, it
        was just a matter of time.
        Both Dadgar and Mrs. Nourbash seemed hostile. The interview became more
        like a courtroom cross-examination. Dadgar said that EDS's progress reports
        to the Ministry had been false, and EDS had used them to