The Panther

by Nelson DeMille

  Buck had a dopey smile on his face, and I knew he had a lot of tolerance for screwy behavior as long as the screwball was a colleague and a peer. I mean, I had the feeling, based partly on their preppy accents, that Buck and Chet had gone to the same schools or similar schools and came from the same social stratum. Chet was the bad-boy frat brother who was always on double-secret probation, and everyone loved him as long as he didn’t actually get anyone killed. Later in life, however, what had been funny and zany behavior progressed into something less entertaining.

  Also, with these CIA guys, they all cultivated eccentric behavior, which became part of their self-created legend. They wanted their peers to tell stories about them and to spread the word of their unique flamboyance.

  Kate’s aforementioned pal, Ted Nash, was a good example of all this. Plus Ted was an arrogant prick. But now he was dead, and you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Even if they were assholes. Which brought me to another thought: Did Chet Morgan know Ted Nash? Probably. But this wasn’t the time to ask.

  Anyway, Chet Morgan had set the stage for his entry into the show, and as they say in the theater world, if you show a gun in the first act, you need to use it in the final act.

  We rounded the peninsula and Chet set a course for the middle of Aden Harbor. I knew where we were going.

  We sailed into the setting sun for about ten minutes, then Chet killed the engine but didn’t drop anchor, and the boat drifted out with the tide.

  Chet said, “This is where the Cole was moored.”

  I informed him, “I’ve been here.”

  He nodded.

  In fact, nearly everyone who worked this case had been taken out to this spot where seventeen American sailors had been murdered.

  Chet lit another cigarette and stared into the blue water. He said, “The USS Cole, a Navy destroyer, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, sailed into Aden Harbor for a routine refueling. The mooring was completed at nine-thirty A.M., and refueling started at ten-thirty.”

  Everyone knew this, but this is the way you begin—at the beginning.

  Chet continued, “At around eleven-twenty, a small craft, like this one, with two men aboard—two suicide bombers—approached the port side of the destroyer. A minute or two later, the small craft exploded, putting a forty-by-forty-foot hole in the side of the armored hull.” He added, “It’s estimated that four to seven hundred pounds of TNT and RDX were used.” He asked rhetorically, “Where the hell did they get that much high-grade explosive?”

  The answer was, just about anywhere these days. The real question had to do with the two Al Qaeda guys who woke up that morning knowing they were going to die. They worked hard to load the boat with the explosives that were going to kill them, then sailed the boat into the sunny harbor. I sort of pictured them watching the gulls flying overhead, and I wondered what they said to each other or what they were thinking in the last few minutes of their lives.

  “Asymmetric warfare,” Chet said. “A small boat like this one, worth maybe a few hundred dollars, two guys who probably had no military training, and they crippled a billion-dollar, sixty-eight-hundred-ton state-of-the-art warship, built to take on any enemy warship in the world. Except the boat that attacked them.” He flipped his cigarette over the side and said, “Fucking amazing. Fucking ridiculous.”

  Fucking right.

  “And how were they able to do this?” asked Chet, and answered his own question. “Because the Navy’s Rules of Engagement were rewritten by some committee of politically correct, ball-less wonders in the bowels of the Pentagon.”

  Right. Worse yet, the Cole’s crew and commander actually followed the new Rules of Engagement. I wouldn’t have. But I’m not military.

  Chet informed us, “For hundreds of years, naval rules called for challenging an approaching ship by voice or signal to identify itself. If the ship keeps coming, you sound the alarm for battle stations and fire a shot across its bow. And if it still keeps coming, you blow it the hell out of the water.” He reminded us, “The Cole did none of that, even though this is known as a potentially hostile port. They let an unidentified ship come alongside, right here, and blow them up.” He added, “Because internationally recognized rules of the sea had been changed, for no reason except political correctness.”

  The only good news is that the Navy has re-evaluated its new, sensitive Rules of Engagement after seventeen men died on the Cole, and we’ve all re-evaluated the rules of war after 9/11. As for poor Commander Lippold, he was officially exonerated of any fault—he was just following stupid rules—but unofficially his career was finished and he was passed over for promotion and retired. I’ll bet he wished he had that ten minutes to live over again.

  Chet continued, “To make this attack even more incomprehensible, Al Qaeda had tried the very same thing nine months earlier in January of 2000 as part of the millennium attack plots.” He reminded us, “The USS The Sullivans, right here in Aden Harbor. A refueling stop, just like the Cole. A boat approached The Sullivans, but it was so overloaded with explosives that it sank before it reached the ship.”

  Right. In my former business, that’s a clue that somebody wants to kill you, and you know they’ll try again. Same with the February 1993 truck bombing at the World Trade Center. A cop on the street can see the pattern, but the geniuses in Washington were whistling in the dark through the graveyard with their heads up their asses. Well, we all woke up after we lost three thousand people on 9/11. But that wasn’t going to bring back the dead.

  Chet continued, “The enemy are not the brightest bulbs in the room, but they only have to get it right once. We have to get it right every time.”

  Chet lit another cigarette and looked toward Aden. “See that brown apartment building on the hill? Five Al Qaeda operatives were in there on the morning of the attack and they were supposed to get over to the Al-Tawahi clock tower and videotape the explosion.”

  I looked at the clock tower, a tall Victorian structure built by the British over a hundred years ago. I’d been in the top of the tower, and from there you had a good view of the harbor. But the videotape guys never saw that view.

  Chet continued, “Unfortunately, the idiots were asleep in the apartment and missed the whole show.” He commented, “Total fuckups. But even fuckups get lucky once in a while.”

  I’d also been in that apartment, which had been sealed off as a crime scene when I was here and maybe it still was. Hard to believe that five jihadists had slept through the big moment. I mean, total assholes. They were probably sleeping off a big khat chew. But as Chet said, even fuckups get lucky, and the two guys in the boat got very lucky that day—if lucky is the right word for blowing yourself up—helped a bit by the Pentagon.

  We were drifting with the outgoing tide and a small land breeze had come up and was pushing us farther out into the open gulf. Around us were a few dozen fishing boats, and like most men in Yemen, including fishermen, the guys on board were probably packing AK-47s. I mean, I wasn’t concerned per se, but I don’t like to get myself in exposed situations for no good reason. Chet, however, seemed unconcerned or unaware, so maybe he had some backup out here on the water. Or he was, as I suspected, crazy. Maybe arrogant, too.

  Chet said to us, “The place on the hull where the jihadists detonated the explosives was the ship’s galley where crew members were lining up for lunch, which is why there were seventeen dead and thirty-nine injured.” He thought a moment and continued, “So it would seem that Al Qaeda knew the location of the galley and knew it was the first lunch shift.”

  I thought about that. A hundred or more crew members clustered in the galley for lunch. And right on the other side of the armored hull was a boat filled with maybe seven hundred pounds of explosives. The question was, Did Al Qaeda know—or did The Panther know—where and when to detonate those explosives? Or, like most of their successes, was it just dumb luck?

  Chet concluded his briefing, “The crew fought the flooding and had the damage under
control by nightfall. Divers on board inspected the hull and reported that the keel was not damaged, so the billion-dollar ship was salvageable.” He continued, “Because we have no military base in this part of the world, the Cole was on its own for a while. But there was a Royal Navy frigate in the area, the HMS Marlborough, that proceeded at top speed and provided medical and other assistance. Eleven of the most injured sailors were flown by medevac to the French military hospital in Djibouti for surgery before being flown to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. The rest of the injured—and the dead—were flown directly to Landstuhl.” He added, “Fortunately, none of the thirty-nine injured died, but many are disabled for life.”

  No one had anything to say, but then Chet surprised us by suggesting, “Let’s say a silent prayer for the dead and injured.” He bowed his head, so we all did the same and said a silent prayer.

  I’m not good at this, but I did pray that the two suicide bombers were burning in hell with their dicks blown off and not getting any wine or sex in Paradise. Amen.

  “Amen,” said Chet, then he started the engine and we headed back.

  I looked at Chet Morgan, who was staring off into space with those glassy blue eyes. This guy was either very good at what he did, or very nuts. Maybe both. In any case, he needed close watching.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Chet opened the throttle, and we were making good time around the peninsula and back toward Elephant Rock.

  There were a lot of big dorsal fins gliding around close to the boat, and if Kate and I had been alone now with Chet and his Glock, I might have been a little concerned. But then I remembered that we were here to be Panther bait, not shark bait.

  Chet said to his captive audience, “If you recall, we weren’t certain that Al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole attack. This was pre-9/11 and Al Qaeda was only one of many terrorist groups that were causing us problems.”

  Right. And Al Qaeda never claimed responsibility for the attack. But on the Arab street, the word was out that Al Qaeda was behind the Cole attack, and Al Qaeda recruitment went way up, just as it did after 9/11.

  Chet continued, “By August 2001, right before 9/11—about the time Mr. Corey was here—we identified Bulus ibn al-Darwish, al-Numair, The Panther, as one of the three main plotters. That’s when a lot of this started to make sense.” He asked rhetorically, “Who else could have thought of this, organized it, and executed it so perfectly? It had to be an American.” He reminded us, “Most of these so-called jihadists are too stupid to even think of something like this, and too inept to pull it off.”

  I partly agreed, but I said to him, “Some of the top guys are very smart and very sophisticated.”

  “True,” replied Chet, “but I see a Western-educated head behind this attack. Not someone like bin Laden who’s really a country bumpkin and a clueless fundamentalist and two-bit philosopher who has his head in the clouds when it’s not up his ass.”

  Interesting, and maybe true. At least the CIA thought so.

  Chet continued, “No, it was someone who understood us. Someone who had knowledge about our idiotic Rules of Engagement, and someone who may have had some knowledge of the Cole’s layout and the time and date that the Cole would put into Aden Harbor, and the time of the refueling and the first lunch shift. Also someone who understood the psychological impact of an attack on an American warship that caused the death of so many American sailors.” He added, “This bastard, Bulus ibn al-Darwish, has a big hate toward America and this attack was a manifestation of that hate—a humiliating kick in our balls.”

  No argument there, and I’d add that Chet Morgan had a big hate, too. I guess we all did, but Chet seemed to be taking it more personally than most of us. I mean, we’re not supposed to get into the hate game, which can screw up your judgment and your performance. You need to be cool, and most people in this business are cool to the point of cold-blooded. Hot is not cool.

  But Chet had been here a long time, and he was probably frustrated and under pressure to get results. Plus he had more info than we did about The Panther, including the asshole’s psychological profile. As sometimes happens in a long investigation, the case officer starts to obsess on the fugitive and begins to see him as the cause of all his problems. It’s kind of complex, but I’ve been there. The other thing that struck me was that Chet, who had initially come across as a bit burned out, was now very animated, like a switch had been turned on. Or maybe the khat had kicked in. Or the hate.

  Chet continued, “This attack has not been fully avenged. But it will be. These bastards, including Mr. al-Darwish, have to learn that there is a price to pay.”

  “They know that,” Kate assured him, “and they are ready to pay it.”

  “And we’re ready to make them keep paying.”

  Chet was into revenge, which was good regarding terrorists, but maybe not so good regarding Ms. Mayfield whacking Chet’s colleague. But that was another subject, and probably not on today’s agenda.

  I wasn’t sure I had a good take on this guy, but I was certain that Buck knew about him, though Buck doesn’t always share.

  Chet had said he’d been here since the Cole was bombed, but I didn’t remember him. On the other hand, the spooks were in and out, flying off to Sana’a, Djibouti, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. And even when they were in the Sheraton in Aden, they were nearly invisible. Part of their mystique.

  It must be a lonely job, and I often compared CIA officers to vampires who only hung out with other vampires and had no human friends. That’s not nice. Maybe I have CIA envy.

  Chet continued his history of the Cole incident and said, “The first FBI agents sent to Yemen in response to the Cole attack worked in a very hostile environment. They were met at Aden Airport by Yemeni soldiers pointing AK-47s at them when they got off the plane.” He confided to us, “I was with the FBI that day, and I can tell you, we thought we were going to get into a firefight right there on the tarmac.” He added, “Assholes.”

  So, another ugly American who didn’t like the Yemenis. How are we going to win this war on terrorism if we don’t win the hearts, minds, and confidence of our Islamic allies? Right? I mean, true, they were assholes. But they were our assholes.

  Also, I was sure that Chet had been very frightened that day when he was threatened by Yemeni Army guys with lots of firepower. And when you let something or someone frighten you, you get very angry later. And you want to redeem your manhood—by killing someone. Same as on the mean streets of New York. Maybe that’s what some of this was about.

  Chet continued, “Speakers in the Yemeni Parliament were calling for jihad against America, like it was us who did something wrong, and this was broadcast live on radio and TV every day.” He added, “Most of the Americans here—tourists, oil workers, and businesspeople—left the country quickly.”

  Buck informed us, “The embassy was in lockdown and we sent all nonessential staff to Oman or Riyadh.”

  Chet nodded, then went on, “The Yemeni government was sending us mixed signals. They said it was okay to bring our people in, but when we got here, we were threatened.”

  Buck explained, “There was a lot of confusion and panic within the government.”

  Ours or theirs?

  Chet then related another scary story, one I’d heard when I was here. “The American response team was given the two floors of the Sheraton, but one night the hotel was surrounded by a few hundred men wearing traditional dress, though they had military jeeps and were armed with military weapons, so we knew they were Yemeni soldiers and maybe PSO men in disguise.” He stayed silent a moment, undoubtedly recalling that night, then said, “We organized defensive positions on the roof and on the ground floor, and we wouldn’t let any of the Arab guests leave the hotel.” He added, “There were still a few Western tourists in the hotel, and they were afraid to leave, so we gave them handguns for self-defense.” He let us know, “We all thought we were going to die that night… The officer in charge of
the Marine unit issued a single order—‘Take a few of them with you.’ ”

  Right. No surrender. No American hostages. And when I was here in the Sheraton, that order still stood. Take a few of them with you.

  No one spoke for a while and the boat continued on toward the Sheraton beach. I looked at Kate, who appeared to have acquired a new appreciation of the situation here, and maybe a new appreciation of her husband who’d spent a month in this dangerous place. It wasn’t all beach volleyball, sweetheart.

  To Buck and Brenner, Chet’s stories were nothing new, but it probably reinforced their resolve to get the job done and get the hell out of here. There comes a time in every hazardous tour of duty when you realize you’ve used up your quota of luck. Buck, Brenner, and Chet were past that time, but the goal was finally in sight; just a few hundred kilometers from here, in Marib.

  Chet continued, “By dawn, all these assholes surrounding the hotel had disappeared. But we were ordered to get out of the hotel, and we were ferried by boat to U.S. naval vessels in the harbor. Two days later, the Yemeni government said it was safe to return to the Sheraton, so we took Navy helicopters back to the beach. But on the way in, the helicopters got radar lock-ons from SA-7 ground-to-air missiles, the pilots had to drop down to sea level, and we came in over the water ready for a shoot-out.” He looked out at the water and the approaching beach as though this scene brought back that memory, and continued, “But there weren’t any hostile forces on the beach—I think the Yemeni military probably thought we’d turn around when the choppers got the missile lock-ons, and when we kept coming they beat it out of there. So we retook our two shitty floors in the Sheraton and we’ve been there ever since.”

  Right. And Mr. Chet Morgan, a privileged child of a superpower country, had had a lot of time since then to reflect on the poor reception he’d received in Yemen. He came here to help—well, not really, but officially—and the Yemenis treated him like a piece of crap, and threatened to kill him, and he wasn’t leaving here until he evened the score. Of course by now he was nuts, so even M-16 therapy wasn’t going to make him a happy man—but it would help.