Their frustration boiled over on the night of February 5, in what would be the most terrifying night yet for the fifty-three American hostages.
John Limbert and the others in the chancery basement were awakened by a sudden clamor. Guards in black ski masks moved through the rooms with weapons, shouting in English, “SAVAK! SAVAK! Everybody up and out! Up and out now! Everybody! Move! Hurry! Now! Now!”
Limbert was awake anyway. He was reading War and Peace after listening to the news on the small radio tucked inside his pillow. He was accosted by two guards in masks.
“Okay!” one of them demanded. “Come on, get out! Get up!”
He stood and was blindfolded and then led down the corridor with the rest.
The scene in the Mushroom Inn across the compound was the same. A masked guard entered the room shared by Joe Hall and the ailing Richard Queen. “Get your hands up!” he shouted, waking them. “Do not speak! Stand up!” Out in the larger room, many of the captives, similarly roused from sleep and used to the rituals of their imprisonment, obligingly tied on their own blindfolds.
Chuck Scott asked for his hands to be unbound so that he could pull on a sweatshirt. “It’s cold,” he said.
“You will not need a shirt or sweater again ever!” one of the masked men said, pushing him out of his room.
Hall walked with his hands up as a guard propelled him along, shouting. One of them kicked him in the buttocks and pushed at his back with a gun.
Those in the Mushroom Inn were led to a cold, empty part of the warehouse basement and ordered to strip to their underwear. Because the numbness in his hand had worsened, Queen had to be helped with the buttons of his pants. It was very cold.
Bruce German felt betrayed. The embassy’s budget officer had sought assurances that Tehran would be safe before he had accepted the assignment just five weeks before the takeover, and he felt bitter about those who had encouraged him to come. Now he could hardly move he was so frightened. His legs were shaking.
In the chancery basement, the hostages stood as instructed, leaning forward with their hands extended over their heads, holding themselves off the wall by their fingertips. One by one, the guards moved down the line, forcing them to drop their pants to be searched. Bob Ode’s legs weren’t wide enough apart and one of the guards roughly rattled the butt of his weapon between the old man’s knees. They pulled on the waist of each captive’s underpants front and back to make sure they weren’t hiding anything. Kupke’s legs were shaking from the cold and from fright. Barry Rosen, whose nerves were shattered anyway, felt his heart pounding heavily. He assumed immediately that he and the others were going to be shot. Everyone was confused. Why were they suddenly doing this? It occurred to Roeder, one of the cooler heads, that the gunmen might be clearing everyone out so they could search the area for contraband.
Rosen heard one of the guards growl to another, “Don’t speak Farsi here,” warning him that the hostages spoke their language. This seemed to confirm Rosen’s worst suspicions. He was shaking so badly he was having a hard time keeping his arms raised against the wall, and when he stooped to pull his pants back up he couldn’t. He was both terrified and ashamed of his terror, of how he looked to the others. He put his arms back up against the wall and when one slipped down again the guard screamed at him.
Limbert thought it was unlikely they would be shot in the chancery basement. He assumed that if they were going to do it, they would take them out to the countryside somewhere, out of the city. The executions he had seen on TV in Iran had always taken place outdoors. He considered these young Iranians’ flair for the dramatic and decided this simply wasn’t for real. But the fear was there anyway; he couldn’t reason it away.
Kupke prayed. He thought about turning around to fight, not being led like a sheep to the slaughter, but saw the futility of it. He prayed that the bullets would kill him quickly, and that he not be left alive, wounded, and maybe paralyzed. Belk just felt numb, as though he was in shock. He did what he was told. Part of him refused to believe it was true, that they might shoot him, that this was it. Hohman didn’t stand close enough to the wall so one of the gunmen pushed his head hard into it. Belk was surprised that his roommate didn’t raise hell. Once he had seen Hohman take off after five guards, kicking and swinging. If Hohman was afraid, then this was for real.
In the warehouse basement, German also prayed. He hadn’t been particularly religious since his childhood but it seemed the only thing to do. He prayed for himself and for his wife and family. He imagined what a shock his execution would be to them.
When he and the others were told to face the wall, Navy Commander Sharer refused.
“If you are going to shoot me, you’re not going to shoot me in the back,” he said.
And, amazingly, the would-be executioners obliged him.
To the rest, one of the guards screamed, “Arms against the walls! Spread your legs! Don’t drop your arms! Do not lower them a centimeter or you will die right now!”
Bob Englemann thought, “Negotiations must have broken down.” Apparently they were going to finish this.
Because of his illness, Queen could not keep his left hand up, and one of the guards kept hitting him with his weapon.
“He can’t get his hand up!” Hall protested.
“Shut up! No speak!” one of the gunmen screamed at him.
Scott’s hands were bound so he could not spread his arms as far apart as demanded. A guard pushed his hands higher up the wall and kicked his legs wider apart. He heard the guards behind him clear their weapons for firing.
Hall was more frightened than he had ever been. Jesus, this is it! They’re going to kill us! He asked God to take care of his wife, Cheri. He felt terrible about leaving her and then thought, I hope I get hit in the back of the head and that it will be over quickly. “God, take care of Cheri. God, take care of Cheri,” Hall kept repeating quietly to himself, shaking. His knees were banging together and suddenly they stopped. His whole body stiffened, as if clenching to receive a final blow.
Queen clenched his teeth and said the Lord’s Prayer.
Scott felt dizzy and ill and began to pray.
Jimmy Lopez wondered what it was going to feel like. He had heard about Iranian executions where they machine-gunned the victim starting with his lower legs and working their way up the body, to prolong the pain. How long would it last? Would it hurt or would it happen too fast to feel anything? He hoped that when they shot they hit his head right away.
Bill Keough stood with his hands held high, filled with disbelief. Like many of the others, his mind raced involuntarily to find some last reason to hope. For one thing, the wall they were up against was made of thin plasterboard. There were plenty of places nearby where there were concrete or brick walls. If they are going to shoot us, wouldn’t they put us in front of one of those? Some foreign ambassadors had just come through, checking to make sure everyone was well. Why would they do that and then perform a mass execution? It didn’t make sense. Still, it was a perilous moment. If one of my colleagues panics and goes after one of them, they might start shooting and that would be the end.
Don Cooke was as frightened as he had ever been. In the first days, when he had been taken out to a residence in north Tehran for a few weeks, he was convinced on that drive that he was being taken away to be shot, and for some reason he had been perfectly calm. Now, he was shaking so badly that he could barely keep himself upright.