The Panther jc-6

by Nelson DeMille

  After admiring the cow pens and the piles of firewood, we stopped in the sporting goods department, where there were tables of fully automatic assault rifles sitting along a wall.

  Brenner said, “Most of these AK-47s are cheap knockoffs, some are better-made Chicoms-Chinese Communist-but a few are the real deal, made in Mother Russia. Those go for about five hundred bucks-a year’s pay for a working man.”

  But a good investment for the future.

  Brenner informed us, “I have one in my apartment.” He added, “It’s a good gun.” He picked up an AK-47 and stared at it a long time, then said, as if to himself, “A very good gun.”

  Right. And obviously it brought back some memories for Paul Brenner of another hellhole.

  He put the gun back on the table, and the proprietor said in English, “Five hundred for you. And I give a hundred rounds for free.”

  I said to him, “Throw in a cow and you got a deal.”

  We left sporting goods and headed through a gate that led toward the high wall of the Old City.

  Brenner speed-dialed his satellite phone and said, “Leaving the khat souk, entering the Old City.” He listened, then said, “Okay. Four-thirty at the al-Mahdi Mosque.” He hung up and said to us, “Our appointment at Ghumdan prison is for five P.M. We’ll meet Zamo at the mosque on the other side of the Old City, then drive to Ghumdan.” He also informed us, “Kate has to stay in the vehicle.”

  Girls miss all the fun around here.

  We passed through an opening in the city wall, and it was literally like stepping back in time. Huge tower houses with ornate facades blocked the sun from the narrow, alley-like streets, and the sound level went from loud internal combustion engines to the hushed murmur of people and animal-drawn carts.

  Brenner said to us, “This is the largest and most pristine walled city in the Mideast, covering an area of over one square kilometer. The old Jewish and Turkish quarters on the west side of the city cover another square kilometer.” He further informed us, “The east and west halves of the city are divided by Wadi as Sa’ila. When the wadi is dry, as it is now, it’s used for vehicle traffic.”

  “And when it’s wet, how do they paint the white line?”

  He smiled politely, then continued, “The Mahdi Mosque is near the wadi. If we get separated, our rendezvous point is there.”

  “Okay. Mahdi at the wadi.” My appetite had recovered from the shit souk, and I asked, “Where is lunch?”

  “Up ahead in a tower house converted into a guest house.”

  So we continued on through a maze of alleys and narrow, twisting streets, some of which led into souks that were crowded with people, animals, and motor scooters.

  We noticed the buildings that had been damaged or destroyed by the 1968 storming of the Old City by the tribes, and Brenner said, “The tribes could come again. Or maybe Al Qaeda this time. And that could be soon.”

  Right. But first, lunch.

  Anyway, I was sure we didn’t have a tail, and the place seemed safe enough, but I was happy to be packing heat and wearing a vest.

  Brenner motioned to the tower houses and said, “The first few floors as you can see are made of stone, and the upper floors are mud brick. The ground floor is used for animals and to collect human excrement from the upper floors.”

  “Sounds like 26 Federal Plaza.”

  Brenner continued, “Each tower house has a shaft for excrement, and another shaft that’s used to haul up well water.” He informed us, “This presents a sanitation problem.”

  “You think?” I asked Brenner, “Is this restaurant on the ground floor with the animals and excrement?”

  “No. Two floors up.” He explained, “That’s called the diwan, where guests are received.”

  And no one would know if you farted.

  He continued, “Above the diwan are the floors where the extended family lives, sharing a single kitchen.” He concluded, “The top floor is called the mafraj, literally, a room with a view-sort of the penthouse, and this is where honored male guests gather to chew khat and watch the sunset.”

  I need a room like that. Hey, guys, let’s go up to the mafraj and stare into the sun and get wasted. Then we can bungee jump down the excrement shaft.

  Anyway, Kate seemed overwhelmed by the experience, and she took lots of photos and asked Brenner lots of questions, and he was happy to share his knowledge with her, or make up answers. If he was a peacock, his tail feathers would be fully fanned out by now.

  We continued our walk without seeing much evidence of the twenty-first century. There were a few other Westerners wandering around on some of the streets, so we didn’t stop traffic. But these annoying kids kept following us asking for “baksheesh, baksheesh,” which I remembered from Aden meant either alms or get-the-fuck-out-of-here money. Brenner said to ignore them, but Kate wanted to engage them in playful conversation, or take their pictures, which cost five cents.

  Brenner also said, “If the kids suddenly disappear, we may be having a problem.”

  Gotcha. “Hey, Abdul, you want a piggyback ride?”

  Anyway, as a detective, I noticed what was missing. Women. I’d seen fewer women on the streets than I’d seen dead rats.

  I asked Brenner about that and he replied, “The women do their errands in the morning, usually with male escorts, then they stay indoors to cook, clean, and take care of the kids.”

  “Sounds grim,” said FBI Special Agent Kate Mayfield.

  Brenner had a joke and said, “But Thursday is wet burqua night at the wadi.” He added, “Bring your laundry.”

  Funny. But Kate didn’t laugh, so I didn’t either. You gotta be careful, even here.

  Sunday wasn’t the Sabbath around here so everyone who had a job was at work. But what I noticed, as I’d noticed last time in Aden, were hundreds, really thousands, of young men on the streets and in the souks, obviously unemployed and killing time. Their futures would probably take one of three paths: petty crime, emigration, or Al Qaeda. Or maybe someday they’d just revolt against the government, hoping that anything that came after would be better than this. Indeed, they were a demographic time bomb waiting to explode.

  Brenner said, “Here’s the restaurant.”

  Kate said, “That was fascinating.”

  Brenner offered, “If we don’t go to Aden tomorrow, I can show you the rest of the city.”

  I thought we’d already pushed our luck. But this was the guy who did a second tour in Vietnam. But hey, you gotta die somewhere.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The restaurant was called, appropriately, “Old Sana’a,” and so was the tower guest house in which it was located.

  I assumed Brenner had been here and he hadn’t died of E. coli or a gunshot wound, so we followed him through an open arch into a large, high-ceilinged space, lit only by sunlight coming through narrow windows in the stone walls. I was relieved to see that the space had been cleared of livestock and excrement, though a hint of all that remained in the air.

  We climbed a spiral staircase to the diwan level, where a white-robed man sat behind a table, on which was a stack of assault rifles. I guess you had to check your guns here. The man smiled, decided we were probably English speakers, and said, “Welcome. For lunch or room?”

  Brenner replied, “Restaurant, please.”

  The desk clerk/maitre d’armaments stood, grabbed three menus, and we followed him through one of those Casablanca-type archways with hanging beads into a large, sunlit dining room that took up the whole floor of the tower house. He escorted us to a low round table with beanbag chairs near an open window and said, “Good looking.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant the view, or if he meant me or Brenner. Kate was scarfed, so he didn’t mean her. I replied politely, “Thank you. This is a Christian Dior shirt.”

  “Yes?”

  So we sat cross-legged on these horrid stuffed cushions, and I looked around. It was a pleasant enough place, with ceiling fans, oil lamps on the tables, and car
pets on the floor-sort of a cross between Rick’s Place and the den of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

  I asked Brenner, “Come here often?”

  “Now and then.” He explained, “It’s not a good idea for a Westerner to be a regular anywhere in Sana’a.”

  “Right.” Except maybe the Russia Club.

  I looked out the window into the backyards of several tower houses. The yards were crowded with vegetable gardens, goats, and chickens. There were no play swings or slides, but a few barefoot kids were having fun chasing the poultry. A woman in a full black balto and veil was scrubbing clothes in a copper tub. In some weird way, this scene reminded me of the tenement I grew up in-sans goats. It was such an ordinary, peaceful scene that it was hard to believe the rest of the country was descending into violence and chaos.

  Brenner said, “That’s our emergency exit if we need one.”

  “Right.” About a twenty-foot drop into a pile of manure. How would I phrase that in my incident report?

  There was a weird, smoky smell in the air, which I commented on, and Brenner informed me, “That’s frankincense.”

  “Where’s he sitting?”

  “It’s an Arabic gum resin. Used in perfume or incense.”

  “Yeah? How about frankin-khat chewing gum? Yes?”

  Kate interjected, “Stop.”

  Brenner further informed us, “The Yemenis believe it was a Yemeni wise man who brought the gift of frankincense to the baby Jesus.”

  Better than fruitcake. Right?

  Anyway, the place was about half full on this Sunday afternoon, mostly young Westerners, male and female, but also some weird-looking dudes wearing daggers and white robes, with dark beards and black eyes, who were glancing at us. There were no Yemeni ladies lunching.

  Kate still had her scarf over her face, which limited her choices on the menu, but Brenner said to her, “You can uncover your face here, but I’d advise you to keep your hair covered.”

  Kate did that, and I said to her, “I forgot how beautiful you were.”

  Brenner also said to Kate, “It might be best if John or I gave your order to the waiter.” He explained, unnecessarily, “Men don’t take orders from women.”

  “Incredible,” Kate said.

  Brenner was right-this place could grow on you. But to show my sensitivity to women’s issues, I said, “Unbelievable.”

  Brenner agreed and said, “The male guest workers who return from Europe and America have seen the twenty-first century, and they’ve been subtly influenced by what they’ve seen in the West.”

  I thought about Nabeel, and also The Panther, and I wondered if this was true. Or, if they had been influenced by the West, it wasn’t in a positive way. Bottom line, the winds of change that were sweeping Islam were blowing backwards. They were happily miserable and rigid, and we should leave them alone-except for knocking off a few of them who fucked with us. Like Osama bin Laden. And The Panther.

  A waiter dressed in theme costume came over, and Brenner suggested the local fruit drink or the shai, a spiced tea. Kate said to Brenner, “Shai,” and Brenner repeated it to the guy and ordered one for himself. The menu was written in Arabic and bad English, and I saw that they had non-alcoholic beer, which possibly had fermented in the bottle, so I said to Kate, “Tell Paul to tell the waiter I want a beer.” Did I get that right?

  Anyway, we made small talk, and Kate asked Brenner, “Where are you from?”

  “South Boston.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “I don’t get there much. I live in Virginia now. Falls Church.” He added, “That’s where CID Headquarters is, and it was my last duty station before I left the Army.”

  Kate seemed to want to know more about Paul Brenner, and with some prodding, he gave her his history-drafted into the Army at eighteen, infantryman in Vietnam, decided to make the Army a career, went to military police school, second tour in Vietnam as an MP, then transferred to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, and served in various Army posts around the world. He had apparently been in a special CID unit that handled high-profile and/or sensitive cases, and his last case involved the murder of a female U.S. Army captain who was also the daughter of an Army general who had been highly decorated in the first Gulf War.

  I thought I remembered this case, because it had made the news at the time, a year or so after the Gulf War, and I had the impression that this case had somehow led to the early retirement of Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner.

  Brenner didn’t mention his clandestine mission to post-war Vietnam, either out of modesty or because he still wasn’t allowed to talk about it. This mission, though, must have redeemed his reputation or something, and maybe the Army’s equivalent of Tom Walsh asked him to name a job, and Brenner picked the Diplomatic Security Service. Fun and travel. In fact, Brenner told us that he’d served with the DSS in London, then Athens. I wonder what he did wrong to get sent here.

  Brenner concluded his edited history, and I noticed it was all professional, lacking any personal details, with no mention of marriage or divorce, kids, or the current lady back in the States.

  Kate didn’t prod him on that subject, and I certainly didn’t. All I wanted to know about Mr. Paul Brenner was if I could trust him, and whether or not he had a set of balls. He seemed okay in both categories. He also seemed bright, which was good, but I couldn’t determine if he had good or bad professional judgment, which was crucial. I myself display impressively bad judgment on occasion, but I always temper that with acts of irrational risk taking. Ask my wife. Brenner, I suspected, was a little like me in those respects, which is the sign of the alpha male. Most of us are dead by now, of course, or incarcerated, or permanently disabled, but some of us are lucky. I’m lucky. And smart.

  Anyway, I thought I could work with this guy, and I didn’t think he was going to get me killed-I could do that on my own, thank you.

  Kate, too, seemed impressed with Paul Brenner, though I doubt she’d analyzed why. Women’s intuition.

  Our cocktails arrived, and the waiter asked if we had made a choice for lunch. We hadn’t, but a quick scan of the menu showed me that my choices were limited to animals that I could see from the window.

  Kate said to Brenner, “Why don’t you order for us?”

  Brenner had to order for Kate anyway, so I agreed but warned him, “No organs.”

  Brenner ordered in Arabic, then asked us, “Do you want utensils? Or do you want to use your fingers?”

  We didn’t know one another that well, so we agreed on utensils, and when the waiter left I took the opportunity to speak to Brenner without Buck present. I asked, “Why do we need a CIA guy on the team?”

  “It’s their show. Also, they have all the information we need.”

  “Let’s get the information and leave the CIA guy in Aden.”

  Brenner asked me, “Why wouldn’t you want a CIA officer on the team?”

  Because the CIA wants to kill me and my wife. But that would sound silly if I said it out loud, so I replied, “They tend to complicate things. And they’re not team players.”

  “Neither are you from what I hear.”

  “If I’m on the team, I play with the team.”

  Kate said, “That’s true.” She remembered to add, “But John sometimes makes up his own rules.”

  You see why I love my wife.

  Brenner stayed quiet a moment, then said, “To further answer your question, it’s my understanding that Predator drones with video surveillance cameras are an important part of this operation. And as you may know, in Yemen only the CIA has operational control of the Predators. So that’s why we need a CIA officer with us when we go into the Badlands-to control the Predator drones on aerial reconnaissance missions.” He explained, “We can have real-time video surveillance transmitted directly to a video monitor on the ground.”

  “And then the Predator launches a Hellfire missile against the target.”

  He didn’t reply for a second, then sai
d, “I suppose that’s an option.” He added, “That has been very effective here and in Afghanistan. We’ve killed dozens of important Al Qaeda leaders that way.”

  “Right.” They leave their cave or mud hut to go take a leak, and next thing they know, they’re holding their dick in Paradise.

  I asked Brenner, “What about taking this suspect alive?”

  Brenner shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. I’m not sure what the actual goal is.”

  “That makes three of us.”

  He continued, “The way I see it, Washington would like to take this guy alive, but it’s easier to kill him. So maybe if the opportunity to capture him presents itself, then that’s what we’ll try to do. But if that seems impossible-or too dangerous-then we fix his location and call in the drones and Hellfires.”

  I nodded, and added, “Then we Ziploc some pieces for ID.”

  “Right. We have the suspect’s prints on file-and also DNA from his family.”

  Kate commented, “Maybe I don’t need my arrest warrant.”

  Brenner assured her, “We need you and your arrest warrant in case we have the opportunity to apprehend the suspect.”

  Kate nodded tentatively. Actually, Kate and her arrest warrant were cover for what was most likely the assassination of an American citizen. I had no problem with that, and I was happy to have the cover in case this thing came back to bite us in the ass vis-a-vis Mr. and Mrs. al-Darwish’s lawsuit, or some other silly legality. Fucked-up war.

  Kate also asked, “If we do apprehend the suspect, do we turn him over to the Yemeni authorities, then ask for extradition, or do we attempt to get the suspect out of the country?” She added, “In other words, extradition or rendition?”

  Brenner shrugged again and replied, “This is all beyond my pay grade.”