Free Escapes! by Laura Scandiffio Page B

“I’d like to speak to Joseph or Kathy Stafford. I know they’re there.”
    Pat swallowed and answered steadily, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. There’s no one here by that name.” She glanced over at the Staffords, who had risen from their chairs and were standing nearby, watching wide-eyed.
    The stranger began to argue with her, but Pat insisted he was mistaken. The man hung up suddenly.
    Joe put an arm around his wife. This felt like the last straw in a series of scares that had tormented the Americans. Days before, a helicopter had mysteriously circled over the Sheardown home, terrifying Zena and the Americans hiding there.
    Pat quickly phoned the ambassador, who rushed home. “Don’t worry,” Taylor reassured the frantic Staffords. “We’re getting you out.”
    Taylor, together with officials in Ottawa and Washington, had worked out an escape plan. First of all, the fugitives would need new identities: Americans might not be let out of the country. But Canadians could still come and go.
    Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark had quickly issued six Canadian passports. For the next step, Ottawa turned to the Central Intelligence Agency in the U.S. They’d need the CIA’s expert help to forge Iranian stamps on the passports, showing that the “Canadians” had entered Iran. And they’d need fake visas allowing them to enter and exit the country.
    By mid-January the passports and visas arrived in a diplomatic pouch under the arm of a Canadian embassy courier. The CIA had also provided driver’s licenses and credit cards to make the identities seem more real. As hoped, the pouch was not checked at the airport. Luckily some diplomatic privileges were still respected!
    But when Taylor looked at the visas, he gasped. The dates were wrong! The CIA had followed the old calendar used by the Shah and not the Islamic calendar reintroduced by Khomeini. According to the visas, the Americans had arrived in Iran a month after they were leaving! Taylor said nothing to the hostages. His staff hastily doctored the date — and hoped it wouldn’t show.
    The last days before the escape ticked by in a nerve-wracking countdown. The plan was to leave during the national elections, when confusion throughout the city would help mask their departure.
    On January 26, 1980, the night before the escape, Taylor sat down with the six Americans and the few remaining Canadian diplomats. Taylor knew the Canadian embassy’s days in Iran were numbered, so staff had been leaving the country bit by bit, all the while keeping up the illusion that everything was business as usual.
    Huddled in a circle, the Americans were handed their passports and began studying their new identities.
    â€œYou are a group of Canadian business people in the oil industry,” Taylor explained to them as they eyed their new passports. “You came to Iran in early January, stayed with embassy staff, and are now returning home. Everyone ready? Let’s start.”
    The Canadians began drilling the Americans on their new identities. Together they rehearsed every kind of question that might come up at the airport. Where was your visa issued? Where were you born? What was your business in Iran? The slightest hesitation before answering, a little confusion over details — any number of small blunders could give them away.
    Next they studied a map of the airport terminal and its many checkpoints. Taylor showed them where they would run into police, guards, and immigration officials, and where their visas would be checked and double-checked. The toughest spot was about halfway through, at the third checkpoint — a barrier guarded by National Police and Revolutionary Guards.
    Finally, Taylor circled the waiting area where they’d stand before boarding. “But don’t relax once you’re there!” he warned them. “You can’t let your guard down until