The Panther

by Nelson DeMille

  “Because, Chet, this is the belly of the beast. And you are the beast. And I am here to talk to the beast, and if I have to, to kill the beast.”

  He had no reply to that.

  I advised him, “When I walk out of here, you will cable or speak to Langley, and you will let them know that you spoke to me, and that this problem better be finished.”

  Again he stayed silent, then said, “I’ll pass on our conversation.” He added, “But as far as I know, you and your wife being asked to come here has nothing to do with what happened to Ted Nash. It has to do with you and Kate being good Panther bait—because you killed The Lion. Nothing more, nothing less.” He further informed me, “I don’t like being threatened.”

  “I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you that if I smell a rat, or if something happens to Kate, you’re dead.”

  He was getting a little pissed off and snapped, “If something happened to Kate, you can be sure the same thing would happen to you.”

  “Not if I blow your fucking head off first.”

  He backed off a bit and said in a controlled voice, “I understand how you might come to the conclusion you came to… And you know what? You could be right. But I don’t think you are. But if you are, it has nothing to do with me. I’m not here to settle a score with your wife, or with you. I’m here to kill Bulus ibn al-Darwish.” He assured me, “I don’t assassinate American citizens… well, except for al-Darwish.”

  “I’m happy to hear that, Chet. And if you leave here alive, it’s because I didn’t kill you. So that evens the score. Tell the boys back in Langley.”

  He nodded, then said to me, “I need to send some cables. Are we finished?”

  I turned and left the van.

  Well, that was out of the way. Now Chet knew that I knew, and he could think about it and report it to whoever had the bright idea of sending me and Kate here to become unfortunate casualties of war.

  I mean, I always thought that there was a CIA contract out on us since Kate whacked Ted, and this seemed like a good time and place for the Agency to act on that. And nothing that Chet said made me believe I was wrong. So, to further answer Chet’s question of why I was here if I thought that, the answer was, “You can’t run from the beast forever.” You have to meet the beast. And you meet him on his turf. And you kill him. Or, because we’re civilized, and because the beast has friends, you might make a deal with him.

  I hope Chet understood the deal. If not, the Otter wouldn’t be carrying as many passengers on the return trip.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Without electricity—except in the van—there wasn’t too much to do after the sun went down. Also, I’ll never again take hot running water for granted. Or a chair to sit in, or a cold beer.

  I mean, I’m not a softie or a sissy; I’m an urban fighter. Urban is good. Comes from the Latin for city. As in electri-city. Right?

  Well, maybe this rustic experience will do me some good. I’ll get in touch with my inner Bedouin. But maybe I should rethink the warlord thing.

  Also, it could be worse; this could be a real kidnapping. I could be waiting to have my head sawed off.

  Anyway, we were all sleep-deprived, so it was no problem hitting the hay early. We posted a two-person guard for three-hour shifts—Brenner and Zamo first, me and Kate second, Buck and Chet last. That should take us to dawn. And Paul Brenner, I should point out, was fulfilling his desire to sleep with Kate—though probably not the way he envisioned it.

  Chet and I had not revisited our conversation at any point during the evening, which in any case was not really possible in a communal setting. But Chet did say to me, in a rare moment of privacy, at the door of the excrement shed, “I sent a cable relating your concerns.” He added, “No reply.”

  Bullshit.

  During my and Kate’s guard shift, as we looked out a window at the black night, I said to her, “I spoke to Chet about Ted Nash.”

  She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then reminded me, “I was going to do that.”

  “I handled it differently than you might have handled it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I shared with him my suspicion that you and I were asked to come to Yemen so that the CIA could even the score. Meaning you whacking Ted Nash.”

  She stayed silent for a while, then said, “I don’t necessarily agree with your suspicion.” She added, “It’s too… crazy.”

  “You think? Look, it’s not only about you terminating Ted, and you being cleared of any wrongdoing. It’s also about you and me screwing up the CIA’s plan to nuke Islam. That was a biggie. And we know about it.”

  “We’ve stayed silent—as per the deal.”

  “Right. But that’s not good enough for worried people in Langley. Dead is better.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “So that’s why we’re here.”

  Again, she didn’t respond, but asked me, “What else did you say to Chet?”

  “Well, I told him if anything happened to you, or if I even thought you or I were being set up, I was going to blow his head off.”

  “You shouldn’t have said that.”

  “All right. I’ll tell him it’s okay for him to kill us.”

  “What I mean, John, is that you may be wrong about this.”

  “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and there’s no harm done.”

  “You don’t threaten someone’s life without some harm done. Especially if that person has done nothing wrong—or knows nothing.”

  “Okay. But Chet took it well. He was even pleasant to me after he returned from the van. Did you notice?”

  “You may be as crazy as he is.”

  “Crazier, I assure you.” I reminded her, “You said to look for the triple cross.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I continued, “What’s in a name? Why is this called Operation Clean Sweep? Why are you and I here?”

  “All right. I get it. But… what did he say?”

  “He neither confirmed nor denied my suspicions. Actually, he said he could understand how I might come to such an erroneous and paranoid conclusion, and that I might actually be right, but he has nothing to do with whatever it was that I was wrongly suggesting.” I asked, “Follow?”

  “No.”

  “I guess you had to be there. Bottom line here, I let the cat out of the bag, and Chet cabled his people in Langley. Or maybe he actually spoke to them. So I think we now have less than a fifty-fifty chance of becoming victims of friendly fire—or winding up whacked by Musa or Al Qaeda.”

  Kate nodded, then said, “In this business, the past comes back to haunt you.”

  I’m not haunted by anything. My problem is when the past comes back to kill you. Like The Lion. Like Ted Nash. This business is a cycle of vendetta, an ever-widening circle without end. Someday, maybe when I’m old, sitting in a rocker, someone from the past will get me. But not today. Not this week.

  To make Kate feel better, I said, “It was self-defense. You saved our lives. Don’t replay it.”

  She nodded.

  So we finished our three hours of guard duty and woke Chet and Buck. Chet was actually already awake. Maybe he had a bad dream about someone cutting his throat while he slept.

  The five gentlemen of the A-team had breakfast with the eight gentlemen of the desert down in the courtyard, while Kate used the opportunity of privacy to wash up with bottled water.

  Breakfast was the same glop, except the Bedouin had added tuna.

  After breakfast, Chet, Buck, Brenner, and I went into the van and watched TV. Both screens had reruns of yesterday’s show—beautiful Yemen from the air. I felt like I was soaring.

  Chet did a commo check and a sit-rep, and ground control reported no unusual activity in the area. Just another routine day in the tribal lands, and a quiet day in Al Qaeda territory. But that could change quickly.

  We walked around the courtyard for exercise, the way convicts walk around the prison yard. I counted fourteen lizar
ds.

  Later I suggested to Buck, “Ask our Bedouin hosts if they can get us a soccer ball. Also some real food from Marib. I’ll buy.”

  Buck informed me, “They’ve told me they’re not allowed to leave here. And no one can come here unless the food and water runs out.” He explained, “We’re all in lockdown until further notice.”

  “When do we start killing and eating the camels?”

  “There are no camels. But there are goats outside the walls and our hosts seem to be killing one a day.”

  “How many are left?”

  “Enough for a long siege.”

  On that subject, Kate, Brenner, and I bugged Buck and Chet about getting some info about how Sheik Musa was doing in his talks with Al Qaeda.

  But Buck and Chet both agreed that it was premature to send a message to the sheik.

  Buck said, “It would be impolite to ask him now. Maybe in a few days.”

  Chet agreed. “Let it play out.” He added, “We need to appear trusting, unworried, and cool.”

  Who makes this shit up?

  Anyway, we had lunch on the diwan level where we lived. Tuna again. Buck explained away the poor provisions from Washington by saying, “We don’t want to accentuate the differences between us and our Bedouin allies.”

  “That’s idiotic, Buck. We should celebrate our differences. Like with pork chops.”

  Buck continued, “Also, we don’t want to look too good for the Al Qaeda men who come to see us. We’re supposed to be subsisting on goats and oats.” He smiled and added, “We can’t be getting fat in captivity.”

  I pictured another CIA committee discussing this. They really are into smoke and mirrors, and as I just discovered, they are believers in method acting. The A-team had to starve a little to look the part of kidnap victims. Not to mention we all needed a shower and shave.

  Anyway, there wasn’t a lot to talk about anymore, without saying stupid things, so we all sort of retreated into ourselves, and read, and did crossword puzzles. Kate exercised a lot, and Mr. Brenner joined her a few times, twisting and bending. I should call the Bedouin in to see this.

  We had a first-aid kit, and Brenner helped Zamo change his dressing, and later Brenner assured us that Zamo was okay. Maybe he was. But maybe we had to get him out of here.

  We also wrote out in longhand our required notes of assurance to friends, family, bookies, and whomever. These notes would be e-mailed to the parties we indicated.

  Buck had some suggested wording for the last paragraph, and it went something like this: I’ll be out of communication in a remote area for a week or two, but if you need to contact me, this is the U.S. Embassy e-mail address set up for this purpose. I may not be able to respond for a week or more, but be assured I will see your e-mail and I will contact you shortly.

  I said to Kate, “Tell your parents I miss them.”

  Chet and Buck gathered up the handwritten notes from Kate, me, Brenner, and Zamo, then took them down to the van for encrypted transmission to the embassy, or to Washington—they weren’t clear about that.

  I said to Kate, Brenner, and Zamo, “This is like the stupid postcards you had to send to your parents from camp.” Except there was something creepy about this.

  The day passed, the Bedouin answered all their calls to prayer, and all their cell phone calls. We walked around the courtyard, and we explored each floor of the six-story tower, which was all the same except for the open-arched mafraj level. Good view. Also, to break up the monotony, I took a leak from the mafraj down the excrement shaft—six stories to the ground floor, which was piled high with shit. Longest piss I ever took. TMI. The other highlight of my day was recharging my commo equipment in the van. It’s fascinating to watch the charge levels rise.

  The Bedouin, by the way, never seemed bored. They had an infinite capacity to sit around and bullshit. And when they weren’t talking to one another, they were talking on their cell phones. They made tea all day, prayed, and slept when they felt like it. They had some kind of washing ritual associated with the call to prayer, but it seemed more symbolic than rub-a-dub-dub.

  Now and then one of them would climb one of the stone platforms and peer out over the wall, but they didn’t seem to take guard duty too seriously. Probably because they didn’t take the Yemeni Army too seriously. And they didn’t yet understand the new boys on the block—Al Qaeda.

  Also, I don’t think the Bedouin really understood about the Predator drones watching us, or that we could see, on our monitors in the fish van, what the Predators saw from five or ten thousand feet.

  I asked Chet about this, and he said, “If I showed them the monitors, they’d understand the capabilities without understanding the technology. Just like with their cell phones.” He added, “They know it’s not magic, but the less they know, the better.”

  Right. But I’m sure Sheik Musa knew a little more about Predator drones carrying Hellfire missiles; he knew he didn’t want to appear on the video monitor with an X between his eyes.

  Anyway, I suppose I could wax poetic about the Bedouin, and maybe romanticize them the way most Westerners did—but basically they were just simple, uncomplicated, and understimulated people who took small pleasures in a cup of tea. And these eight guys in the courtyard were happy to be sitting around here and not busting their butts herding camels or goats, or scratching out an existence in the dead fields.

  As Chet said, they had their Korans to read—if they could read—their guns, and their faith. Also a little khat to help pass the time and elevate their mood.

  Speaking of which, Chet took about three trips a day to the mafraj and always came down with a smile. I had this mental image of him stumbling into the excrement hole and dropping six stories into a pile of shit. That could happen.

  On a completely different subject, getting laid is no big deal, but not getting laid is a very big deal. Capisce? Enough said.

  Evening came, and we dined al fresco with the Bedouin to do something different. Oats, groats, goats, tawwa, tea, and tuna. Canned fruit for dessert. The Bedouin liked the syrupy canned fruit and ate up most of our stock.

  Kate was allowed to join us if she wore her balto and hijab and sat by herself off to the side. Sounded reasonable to me, but Kate balked. Buck, however, urged her to have dinner with us at a distance. He explained, “This is a big break with custom and we should take advantage of the opportunity to bridge the cultural divide.”

  I agreed and suggested, “About forty feet should do it.”

  Kate agreed reluctantly, and it was good to have her at dinner.

  Anyway, early to bed, three guard shifts, restless sleep, and dawn. I never before appreciated the dawn. I can see why ancient people worshipped the sun. The sun was life. The night was death.

  On the third or maybe fourth day, as I was re-reading the mixed vegetables label, Kate asked me, “How are you holding up?”

  “Fine. I’ve named all the crows.” I asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Okay.” She added, “Physically, fine. But I’m developing Stockholm Syndrome.” She smiled. “I’m beginning to identify with the Bedouin.”

  “They’re great guys,” I agreed. “Even though they’ve never seen your face, they knew you’d make an attractive dinner companion.”

  She smiled again and said to me, “It’s very reassuring that you’re still an asshole.”

  “Thank you.” In fact, I knew that Kate would appreciate me more here in this manly country.

  Another thing I noticed is that I didn’t miss the news. Or the sports scores. When you’re cut off from the civilized world, you go through a few days of withdrawal, and then one day you realize it’s all bullshit. What difference does it make what’s going on in Washington, London, Moscow, New York, or Cairo? They don’t care what I’m doing. I would, however, like to know how the Yankees were doing in spring training. But someone could fill me in if I ever got back. And if I didn’t, it was sort of moot.

  On the subject of getting back alive
, neither Chet nor I mentioned our conversation in the van. There was nothing more to say, and he wasn’t going to tell me what his bosses in Langley said to him.

  Look, I could be way off base on this, in which case there was nothing more to say or do. But if I was right, Chet and his people were now trying to figure out if Operation Clean Sweep should include John and Kate.

  It would have occurred to them, too, that if John Corey knew or suspected a whack job way back in New York, then I would have left one of those “To Be Opened Only in the Event of My Death” notes with someone.

  Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. Maybe because I didn’t intend to get whacked here by the CIA. Or maybe because if Kate and I got killed by Al Qaeda or The Panther, I wouldn’t want the CIA to be suspected of a crime they didn’t commit. No matter how I felt about the Agency, in the end they are our first line of defense, and I am a dedicated and responsible professional.

  Early the next afternoon, after salat and after the last can of tuna had been eaten, Chet’s sat-phone rang. He went to the window where it was plugged into the antenna, and answered.

  He listened, then said, “Okay, thanks,” and informed us, “Predator reports three white Land Cruisers approaching from the north and heading toward this plateau.”

  Kate asked, “Who do you think they are?”

  Chet replied, “Could be re-supply… or it could be the men we’ve been waiting for.”

  Brenner asked, “Why didn’t Musa give us a heads-up?”

  Buck replied, “He would give his men a heads-up—not us.”

  And sure enough, we heard a commotion in the courtyard.

  We all went to the window, and I saw that our eight Bedouin were on their feet, AK-47s in hand, and one of them was on his cell phone. Then four armed Bedouin ran toward the tower and we could hear them coming up the stone stairs.

  Everyone grabbed their M4s and we spread ourselves strategically around the stairwell. Buck stood at the top of the stairs with his M4 slung.

  The four Bedouin were on the staircase now, shouting loudly and excitedly as they ran up the stairs.