Set against the background of the Iranian revolution, it tells a story based on the rescue of Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord from prison in Tehran by a team of Electronic Data Systems executives led by retired Col. Arthur D. Simons.

He recruits a team of volunteers from his executives, led by a retired United States Army officer, to break them out by force, if necessary.

Bill Gaylord and Paul Chiapparone, two U.S. citizens working in Iran for Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a Dallas-based computer services corporation, were jailed on December 28, 1978.

Stunned by these arbitrary arrests, H. Ross Perot, founder and chairman of EDS, mobilized both his and the company's resources to get the two employees out of jail.

A retired army colonel, Arthur D. "Bull" Simons was hired to train seven company volunteers to try to rescue the two jailed men.

Working from their experiences in Tehran, the men trained at Perot's weekend house at the shore of Lake Grapevine near Dallas.

Beginning January 3, 1979, they practiced assaults on a model of the Ministry of Justice prison in Tehran, where the EDS men were being held.

While the team had trained on Walther PPK handguns, and had luggage with false bottoms to smuggle them in, Simons decided to leave the guns behind as more likely to cause problems than solve them.

[3] They flew to Iran in mid-January, closely followed by Perot himself, who insisted on overseeing the operation personally and who hoped that his presence would improve the spirits of his jailed employees.

Loyal to his U.S. employers and eager to help them win the release of their jailed colleagues, Follett describes him as the instigator of the mob's attack on Qasr prison.

That the fugitive pair lacked passports and had entered Turkey illegally rendered even the Turkish portion of the journey somewhat risky.

On the same day the overland team reached Istanbul, the other EDS employees left Tehran by plane—barely escaping the same prosecutor who earlier had jailed their colleagues.

In 1986 a five-hour mini series of the same name was released, starring Burt Lancaster as Arthur D. "Bull" Simons and Richard Crenna as Ross Perot.