The Panther jc-6

by Nelson DeMille

  True, but sometimes you go look at the car because you want to steal it.

  Anyway, Buck gave Chet a quick briefing of what happened and Chet listened carefully, then again assured us, “Al Qaeda is just doing due diligence. They need to protect The Panther, and they always proceed on the assumption that a double cross is possible.” He reminded us, “This is the Middle East.”

  Right. Not the Midwest. Definitely not Kansas.

  Chet said to me, “So you knew this guy, Nabeel?”

  I replied, “He knew me before I knew him.” I explained about the leak in the Yemeni consulate in New York, and I suggested, “The State Department should declare the whole consulate staff persona non grata.”

  Buck, Mr. State Department Intelligence, said, “The leak could be in the Foreign Ministry office in Sana’a.” He informed me, “We like the Yemeni consulate staff in New York. They also sell information to us.”

  Right. It’s a game. Double-Dealing for Dollars.

  On a more important topic than me being pissed off about buying Nabeel a bagel in New York and him making me look silly, I said, “I think these Al Qaeda guys knew where they were taken.”

  Again, Chet didn’t seem to care, and he asked rhetorically, “What are they going to do about it?”

  But the question wasn’t rhetorical and I said, “They’re going to send a hundred jihadists to the Crow Fortress one night and kill everyone here.”

  Chet replied, “That would be war with Sheik Musa, and they do not want war with Sheik Musa.”

  Buck agreed and added, “It’s not these walls or our weapons that protect us. It’s the wrath of all the Bedouin tribes that protects us.”

  Chet added, “And the Predators.”

  “Okay.” But I suggested, “We could use another ten or twenty Bedouin here.”

  Chet informed me and all of us, “The last thing we want here are more armed Bedouin. If things go wrong, or turn around,” he explained, “we can handle these eight guys. We can’t handle any more.”

  I reminded Chet, “Sheik Musa is our trusted ally.”

  “He is,” agreed Chet. “But alliances shift.” He reassured us, however, “All that I said in Aden about Sheik Musa remains true. Unfortunately, with the Bedouin, they change their minds a lot.”

  Was that in the Aden briefing?

  Buck, Mr. Arabian guy, said, “There are no constants in the lives of the nomadic Bedouin. Even the desert that they travel changes with the shifting dunes. Their only constant is the tribe, and they will always do what is best for the survival of the tribe.” He added, “Fortunately, what’s best for Sheik Musa’s tribe at the moment is to ally themselves with the Americans. And it’s important that he keeps believing that.”

  Right up until the time we put a Hellfire up his golden shiwal.

  Chet said, “The critical time is now, when Musa’s tribal council speaks to The Panther’s council to determine if The Panther wants to buy the Americans, and if he will do the deal in person.” Chet added, “That discussion could produce a variety of possibilities, not all of them favorable to us.”

  “Did I miss that memo?”

  Chet said to me, Kate, and Brenner, “I’m being honest with you.”

  Kate responded, “Honesty that comes late is not honest or useful.”

  Chet advised us, “Keep an eye on the Bedouin here. They’re simple people and if you see a change in their attitude or demeanor, let me or Buck know.”

  Actually, I was more interested in a change in Chet’s demeanor.

  Chet changed the subject and turned back toward the monitors, saying, “You can see the three Land Cruisers heading north, toward Marib. See them? What’s going to happen is that the Bedouin drivers will drop off the five Al Qaeda men in Marib-where the Bedouin picked them up, and where, unfortunately, they will disappear in the crowds or the buildings. Then at some point they will leave Marib, individually, by truck, bus, or SUV, driven by an Al Qaeda operative or a sympathizer, or just somebody looking to make a few rials. They will be let off near the highlands here, and make their way on foot to the Al Qaeda camp-which is actually one of Musa’s Bedouin camps, located about forty kilometers from here.” He explained, “That is an effective way to escape Predator surveillance, because the Predators will have lost them in Marib, and five men traveling individually will not look like a target of interest to the Predators because every male here carries a weapon.” He continued, “Unfortunately for Al Qaeda, we know where their camp is, so they waste a lot of time and energy trying to elude aerial surveillance.” He looked at us and smiled.

  Chet, I think, was in love with his Predator drones. That’s what broke up his marriage.

  Chet turned in his seat and punched in a command on his console, saying, “I’m directing Predator One to go on station above the Al Qaeda camp.”

  We watched the monitor as the terrain slid by, showing the dry, rocky plateau west of here. Then the Predator began a counterclockwise turn, and on the monitor we could see tents, huts, and vehicles spread out across a flat expanse of the plateau that was surrounded by large rock formations.

  Chet said, “That’s the Al Qaeda camp.”

  We all moved closer to the monitor and I could now see people moving on the ground. There were also map grid coordinates on the screen, which I made a mental note of. Why? Because you never know what information you might need.

  Chet twisted a dial and the image grew larger. He said, “It was-and still looks like-a Bedouin camp. But there are clues that it’s not.” He explained, “First, most of the men in the camp are not dressed in traditional Bedouin robes. Second, they’re all men. No women, as you’d find in a Bedouin camp, and no children. Third, the men don’t sit around and chew khat or herd goats as the Bedouin do. In fact, they train with rifles. Also, we spotted a mortar and rocket launchers, which are not typical Bedouin armaments.”

  Chet concluded with a smile, “But the big clue is that Sheik Musa told us the location of this camp that he rented to Al Qaeda.”

  Right. Aerial reconnaissance analysis is impressive, but nothing beats someone on the ground telling you what you’re really seeing from the air.

  Brenner asked, “Why does Al Qaeda think we wouldn’t figure this out?”

  Chet shrugged, then said, “I don’t think they fully understand what we can see from the air, and that we can accurately analyze what we’re seeing. Also, they don’t know that we’ve dramatically increased the number of Predators in Yemen.”

  I watched the image on the screen and saw a few men in white foutehs walking around. So this is where Rahim ibn Hayyam lived for a few months before he was sent to attack the Hunt Oil facility. Even from the air, the place looked like a shithole. He’s better off in jail.

  Chet further informed us, “The camp once held about a hundred fifty men, but now we’re counting about fifty. About a hundred jihadists have left the camp-half on their way to the embassy and half on their way to the Sheraton in Aden.”

  Right. And maybe the other fifty were headed for the Crow Fortress. But Chet or the Predator pilots who were watching twenty-four hours a day would notice if more men started leaving the camp.

  Chet said, “It’s not a large camp, and it will be much smaller after the fighter-bombers level it.” He added, “There are about five more camps like this in Yemen, and this is when we need to start eliminating them-because if we don’t, there will be fifty, then a hundred, and then we have a real problem.”

  Right. Kill the beast in the cradle.

  Chet reminded us, “We still don’t know where The Panther’s personal hideout is, and as with bin Laden in Afghanistan-or maybe Pakistan-it’s almost impossible to locate a few individuals who are most likely living and hiding in caves. So we have to get The Panther out of his cave and kill him in the open.” He added, “They all come out in the open eventually, for one reason or another.” He looked at us and said, “And you, who have just been eyeball to eyeball with Al Qaeda, are a very good reason for Bulus i
bn al-Darwish to come out of his cave.”

  No one had anything to add to that, but I confessed, “We came close to wasting those assholes.”

  “Not a smart move,” said Chet.

  Brenner said, “A bird in the hand.”

  “Tempting, maybe. But we have a bigger animal to kill.”

  I asked Chet, “What’s the plan now?”

  “We wait.”

  “We’re out of tuna.”

  Chet didn’t even smile, and he said, “I can almost assure you that Bulus ibn al-Darwish will have an answer for Sheik Musa within two or three days.”

  Buck needed to speak to Yasir, Arab to Arab, so he left the van. Kate and Brenner volunteered to put our cozy quarters back together, so they, too, left. I said I’d be along shortly.

  Alone now in the van with Chet, we looked at each other for a few seconds, then he said to me, apropos our last private discussion, “There’s no problem. Never was.”

  Wonderful news. I really felt awful about being paranoid and threatening Chet’s life and all that.

  I said to him, however, “There was a problem. And if there’s still a problem, then I am still your problem.”

  He didn’t reply.

  I left Chet to watch his monitors and think about his problem.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  The A-team of Operation Clean Sweep, including Chet, gathered in the mafraj, whose high, open arches gave us an unobstructed view of the terrain for miles around. These watchtowers were the Predators of the last millennium. Hey, Abdul, there’s a bad guy-drop a rock on him.

  We all had our M4s and Kevlar, and Zamo did his march around the perimeter of the mafraj. The rest of us stood on the carpet of bird crap.

  Buck began, “Yasir had little to offer regarding whether or not the Al Qaeda delegation seemed suspicious about this kidnapping. Yasir did say, however, that he didn’t like these men, and especially didn’t like Nabeel, al-Amriki.”

  Well, if Nabeel al-Samad was an American, then I’m a Bedouin. But from the Bedouin’s perspective, Nabeel could have come from Mars.

  Buck also told us, “Yasir says he thinks that only Nabeel was a Yemeni. The rest, he believes, are from someplace else.” Buck added, “The Bedouin do not trust these people.”

  And the feeling is mutual. Recalling Chet’s newfound concerns regarding Sheik Musa, I asked, “So do you think we can still trust Musa and his men?”

  Buck replied, “The Bedouin practice a primitive democracy. Which means that even if their sheik wants to switch sides and make common cause with Al Qaeda, the tribesmen won’t necessarily go along with it.”

  We could use some primitive democracy in the ATTF.

  Anyway, it occurred to me that the Bedouin tribesmen might not actually know that The Panther and his retinue were going to be vaporized by Hellfire missiles, so I asked Buck and Chet about that.

  Buck replied, “Musa and his men who will be with him obviously know what’s going to happen at this meeting. And if one Bedouin knows something, they all know it. Also, the Bedouin know this was a sham kidnapping, so they all understand that the Americans aren’t really being offered to Al Qaeda.”

  Brenner said, as he did back in Aden, “That is a massive security breach. All it would take is one Bedouin to tip off Al Qaeda.”

  Chet replied, “We’re trusting that whatever the Bedouin know stays with the Bedouin.” He reminded us, “They are very clannish.”

  Let’s hope so. Otherwise we have a problem.

  Buck also told us, “From what I can gather from my conversations with them, the Bedouin think that one of the purposes of this meeting is to discuss important matters which need to be resolved between the tribes and Al Qaeda.” He added, “Sheik Musa is wise to take that approach, and it’s a compelling reason for The Panther to show up in person. The two warlords need to talk. And even if they can’t agree about the Americans, they have other pressing issues to discuss, man to man, chief to chief.”

  Right. Like the rent on the Al Qaeda camp. Musa is smart. Five million bucks makes you think.

  On another subject, Buck said, “As we also know, neither the Sheraton Hotel in Aden nor the embassy in Sana’a have been attacked, and I believe, as do my colleagues in the embassy, and Chet’s colleagues as well, that The Panther has put those attacks on hold until he makes his decision.”

  Good news for everyone in Aden and Sana’a, except people like Captain Mac who were looking for a fight.

  Chet added, “Those attacks could end in disaster for Al Qaeda, and they are signs of The Panther’s desperation or recklessness. The Panther, however, now sees an easier way to score a win.”

  Buck continued, “And The Panther knows he can still order those attacks after the deal is done with Musa.” He reminded us, “But of course he’ll be dead if he shows up at the meeting, and those attacks, we believe, will probably not be ordered by his successor.”

  Well, not right away. But someday.

  I thought the mafraj meeting was over, but then Buck, who saves the best for last as he did at the Bilqis ruins, said, “Yasir gave me a sealed envelope that was given to him by Nabeel.” He pulled a long white envelope from his pocket, and I saw that the logo on it was from the Bilqis Hotel. Our bill?

  Buck told us, “Nabeel told Yasir it was for Detective Corey, but I took the liberty of opening it.” He explained, “In case it contained anthrax, or a letter bomb.”

  Do I thank him for risking his life to open my mail?

  Buck slid a stack of photographs from the envelope and handed them to Chet, saying, “I warn you, some of these are not easy to look at.”

  Chet looked at the first photo, then passed it to me. It was a group shot, taken in front of the columns at the Bilqis ruins. It showed what I assumed were the Belgian tourists-two older couples, two younger couples, and a pretty young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, all smiling into the camera. In the center of the group was a tall, bearded Bedouin in robes wearing a shiwal, and also wearing a jambiyah. He, too, was smiling. And what was making this murderer smile?

  I passed the photo to Kate as Chet passed a second photo to me. This one was of the young woman standing close to the Bedouin-Bulus ibn al-Darwish, The Panther-and they were both smiling, though neither had their arm around the other. I passed the photo to Kate, who said, “That bastard.”

  The next few photos showed other posed shots with the couples and the man they thought was a Bedouin.

  I knew what was coming, of course, but even so, the next photograph was difficult to process immediately, but then I recognized a close-up of one of the older women lying on the brown paving stone, her throat cut from ear to ear, and a pool of red blood around her head and face.

  I stared at it. The woman’s eyes were open, and there was a look of terror on her face. She could have been alive.

  Kate, who was looking at me, asked, “What is it?”

  I passed the photo to her, and she stared at it, then said softly, “Oh my God… oh…”

  Brenner took the photo from her, looked at it and said, “Sick.”

  Buck asked, “Do you want to see the rest of them?”

  Chet took the photos from Buck’s hand, flipped through them quickly, then handed them to me.

  I, too, went through them quickly, noting that some of the long shots showed all nine Belgians dead with their wrists bound behind their backs, and around them were men dressed as Bedouin who were actually Al Qaeda jihadists.

  In one photograph I could see a man at the bottom of the steps who had been pushed or had tried to run. One close-up photograph was of a young man who looked Arabic-the guide, I assumed-who had probably taken the group photo of the Belgians with the tall Bedouin who turned out not to be a Bedouin.

  The last photograph was a close-up of the young woman. Her eyes were wide open, and her parted lips looked very dark against her white, bloodless skin.

  I passed the photos to Kate who passed them to Brenner without looking at them.


  Zamo had come over to see what was going on, and Brenner gave him the stack of photographs.

  Zamo slung his rifle, shuffled through the photos, and handed them back to Brenner without comment, then he walked to one of the arches and stared out into space.

  Buck said, “Obviously, we can identify the man in the posed shots dressed as a Bedouin.” He added, “There was no note with these photographs, but there was this…”

  He handed me a business card, and I saw it was my card, the one I’d given to Nabeel in Ben’s Kosher Deli a million years ago. On the back I saw where I’d written, Nabeel al-Samad to see Det. Corey. And someone, obviously Mr. al-Samad, had drawn a smiley face. Good cultural awareness, Nabeel. Asshole.

  I gave the card to Kate, who looked at it, then she asked of no one in particular, “Why did they give us these photographs?”

  It was Buck who replied, in Latin, no less, “Res ipsa loquitur.” He translated, “The thing speaks for itself.”

  Indeed it does. And I got the message.

  I said, “I think this answers our question about what The Panther is going to do. He is not showing us what he’s capable of doing, or what he’s done-he’s showing us what he is going to do. To us.” I concluded, “He’s made his decision. He will meet with Sheik Musa.”

  Everyone agreed, but I still wondered if The Panther would want to avoid that meeting and try the direct approach by storming this fortress.

  Either way, Bulus ibn al-Darwish had a lot of murders to answer for. And he would not answer for them in an American court of law. He would answer for them here, in Yemen, in an appropriate act of violence. He may not have been born here, but he was going to die here.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  The eight Bedouin again invited us to dine with them, which was a good sign that we were still their honored guests, because Bedouin hospitality demands that you don’t kill your guests. I mean, from their perspective this was all a big pain in the ass. Not only did the Bedouin have to share their daily goat with us, but they’d also had to deal with the five Al Qaeda assholes who, in some existential way, were a threat to their ancient way of life.