Argo Page #3

JORDAN:

No. Just the pricks on our side.

So all our other pricks on their

prick thrones know, when they get

run out on a rail, they won.’t be

getting their spleens out by a

camel vet in the Sinai.

TITTERTON:

The six with the Canadians.

Now Jordan is looking at a monitor showing footage of a

BLINDFOLDED HOSTAGE in front of the Embassy. AL

GOLACINSKI being prodded and led down the front stairs of

the embassy.

JORDAN:

We.’ve got 60 in the embassy with

guns to their heads right now --

TITTERTON:

The eyes of the world are on the *

embassy. That makes them safer *

than the six on the street. *

ANALYST:

(coming to the door)

Bani-Sadr.’s saying it.’ll be over

in 24 hours.

JORDAN:

Leave the six where they are. *

I.’ll go brief the president. *

CUT TO BLACK.

FADE IN:

49A EXT. OLD DOMINION DRIVE (VIRGINIA) - AFTERNOON 49A

A LONE ribbon sags in the f.g. -- the CAPITOL BUILDING

behind.

Yellow ribbons tied to lampposts. A Catholic church with

a sign on the lawn that says PRAY FOR OUR HOSTAGES. A

dry cleaner with a large American flag in the window and

yellow ribbons drawn by kids around it.

The exterior of a neighborhood bar, O.’Tooles. More

ribbons.

SUPERIMPOSE:
McLEAN, VIRGINIA - 69 DAYS LATER

ARGO - Final 13.

49 CONTINUED:
49

49B INT. MENDEZ APARTMENT - BEFORE DAWN 49B *

A television connected to a faraway wall with an *

extension cord sits on a coffee table. The t.v. shows *

color test patterns. *

We move over the coffee table, a mess of Chinese food *

containers and beer bottles, to find TONY MENDEZ, 40, *

asleep in his clothes from the day before. *

The phone rings. He answers it, half awake. *

MENDEZ *

Yeah. *

He listens for a moment, then sits up, suddenly wide- *

awake. *

49E 49E *

50 EXT. CANAL ROAD - MORNING 50

Mendez.’s car speeds by yellow ribbons along trees on

Canal Road.

51 EXT. CIA - PARKING LOT - EARLY MORNING 51

Mendez gets out of his car and hurries toward a white

building that looks like a college campus.

NEWSCASTER (V.O.)

Prime Minister Bani-Sadr today restated

demands for the hostages.’

release...

52 INT. CIA DIRECTORATE OF OPERATIONS - MORNING 52

As we watch him hurry out of his car and into the CIA, we

start to pick up TVs as we go by them -- all tuned to

some version of the same story.

He enters the front doors and crosses the famous EMBLEM

on the ground.

He moves past the STARS ON THE WALL, signifying fallen

CIA officers (and there were fewer stars then than now).

He passes the SECURITY GUARD at the desk, holds up his

badge. The guard nods.

ARGO - Final 14.

(CONTINUED)

A young Tom Brokaw in a yellow, sleeveless sweater and

teal tie plays on the television, intoning on the .“Today

Show..” ANGELA BELK, young wife of hostage WILLIAM BELK,

has a soft Southern voice and fights back tears. (*ABC,

11/23/79)

BROKAW (V.O.)

Week ten of a hostage

crisis that seems without

end. A glimmer of hope

after the release of some

women and Afro-Americans

but little activity in the

weeks since, and the images

of bound Americans under

armed guard have many

losing hope --

ANGELA BELK (V.O.)

I.’m so afraid that I won.’t

see him again. That he

won.’t get out from over

there, because everything --

it seems like everything

they.’re trying to do is

just backfiring, it.’s not

working --

Under these images we hear an undulating drone -- the

constant accompaniment of life then -- coverage of the

hostage crisis.

PRESIDENT CARTER (V.O.)

The United States shall not

purchase oil from Iran. Iranian

assets shall be frozen and the

U.S. shall engage in a forceful

campaign of international

diplomacy against the Iranians...

MENDEZ (V.O.)

Ten weeks State.’s sitting on this?

53-55 OMITTED 53-55

56 INT. D.O. FLOOR - HALLWAY - LANGLEY - AFTERNOON 56

O.’Donnell, frantically grabbing documents and tossing

them into an accordion folder.

O.’DONNELL

The six of them went out a back

exit. Brits turned them away,

Kiwis turned them away. The

Canadians took them in. They.’ve

been there since.

O.’Donnell hands Mendez pages with STAFF PHOTOGRAPHS of

SIX PEOPLE -- the escaped embassy employees -- as he

continues to toss stuff into his folder.

ARGO - Final 15.

52 CONTINUED:
52

(CONTINUED)

O.’DONNELL

Traffic calls them The

Houseguests. Haven.’t left the

Canadian ambassador.’s house since

it happened.

MENDEZ:

Compromised? *

O.’DONNELL

(shakes his head)

Just a matter of time. We.’ve got

Revolutionary Guards going door-todoor

like Jehovah.’s Witnesses,

looking for escapees. They.’re out

for blood, Tony. Half of them

think Khomeini.’s been too lenient

with the ones in the embassy.

Walking out of his office, Mendez following.

MENDEZ:

White House?

56A INT. CIA - THE PIT - CONTINUOUS ACTION 56A

They walk through an open floor of cubicles lined with

offices, we get a look at the 1979 CIA headquarters:

nothing sleek or sexy about the interior. An open area

of desks where Woodward and Bernstein might be spilling

coffee on their thick .‘70s ties. Papers and files

everywhere. Trash emptying happens only once a week.

Cigarette and cigar butts in ashtrays. Everything is

perpetually a mess. And typewriters. The constant

percussive sound of telexes and typing is the metronome

that beats out the day here.

O.’DONNELL

Carter.’s shitting enough bricks to

build the pyramids. He wants the *

six of them out.

MENDEZ:

Who else knows?

O.’DONNELL

Just the families. Meanwhile,

some genius in the embassy was

keeping a mug book of everybody

who worked there.

MENDEZ:

Jesus Christ.

ARGO - Final 16.

56 CONTINUED:
56

(CONTINUED)

O.’DONNELL

We think it got shredded before

they got in, but the f***ers have

sweat-shop kids in there reassembling

the shreds.

O.’DONNELL

They.’re gonna make an example of

the ones who escaped. Standingroom-

only for beheadings in the

square.

MENDEZ:

Who.’s handling?

They walk through a door and out of the Pit.

57 INT. D.O. FLOOR - HALLWAY - AFTERNOON 57

-- into a HALLWAY WITH POP ART on the walls. People with

laminated badges and folders with red stripes walk with

purpose. *

O.’DONNELL

State.’s coordinating in-house.

MENDEZ:

They don.’t do exfils. *

O.’DONNELL

They do now. They want to run it

by us, strictly as consultants.

Off his look.

O.’DONNELL

Engell.’s saying it.’s lose-lose.

These people die, they die badly.

Publicly. .‘State wants the blame,

he.’ll give it to them.

MENDEZ:

Then why.’s he want me?

O.’DONNELL

So he can tell State he ran it by

his best exfil guy.

They stop in front of a conference room. Jack looks at

him.

O.’DONNELL

Tony. This isn.’t the kind of

meeting where you talk.

ARGO - Final 17.

56A CONTINUED:
56A

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