The Panther jc-6

by Nelson DeMille

  Buck assured us, “There are a number of places like this in the hills.”

  That’s good. I hope the Bedouin drivers were smart enough to drive these assholes in circles for a few hours.

  Anyway, we watched as the five hooded Al Qaeda guys were walked across the courtyard toward the tower. Don’t bump into that Predator van.

  So now it was time for us to look like five prized Amriki worth a hundred thousand bucks.

  We all sat on the bare wooden floor. From left to right it was Brenner, Zamo, Buck, me, and Kate on the far right. The four Bedouin produced three chained ankle shackles and keys. We refused their kind offer to shackle us and did it ourselves-Brenner and Zamo shared a set of shackles, as did Buck and I. Kate, being a woman, had her own set of shackles. We kept the keys. Last thing, we pulled off our shoes and socks, and the Bedouin put them under the straw.

  Buck reminded us, “Scuff the soles of your feet on the floor.”

  Right. Never underestimate the intelligence or the perceptive powers of the enemy. They’re not as dumb as they look. In fact, these guys probably knew what prisoners were supposed to look like.

  This could be a setup, of course, and we could be real prisoners in about five minutes, or real dead. But Musa and his Bedouin had other opportunities to double-cross us. And bottom line, our hands were free and our guns were ready to be drawn.

  Someone called out in Arabic from the stairwell and our buddy, Yasir, called back.

  I asked Kate, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Buck reminded her, “Keep your head and eyes down.”

  A few seconds later, the five hooded Al Qaeda guys with three Bedouin guiding them came up the stone stairs and into the tower room.

  The Bedouin placed the five Al Qaeda guys in a line, shoulder to shoulder, about five feet in front of us, then one by one they pulled off the black hoods. And we were face-to-face with the enemy.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  The Al Qaeda delegation looked like a firing squad, lined up with their rifles slung on their shoulders.

  Also, five men were more than they needed to ID the Americans, so this was a power play or a show of force, and the Bedouin shouldn’t have allowed it. But they did, so I expected the Al Qaeda guys to throw their weight around.

  Four Bedouin remained in the diwan, including Yasir, who seemed to be hosting this occasion.

  The Amriki were supposed to look frightened, nervous, tired, and dejected, which meant mostly just looking down and keeping our mouths shut, unless spoken to. On the other hand, Al Qaeda knew we were not tourists, so we could show a little defiance now and then.

  I looked at the five Al Qaeda fighters standing in front of us. They were on the young side-maybe early to mid-twenties, though their faces appeared weather-beaten and old beyond their years. They were beardless, but not exactly clean-shaven, and they looked pretty grim, though they should have been enjoying this.

  The guy on the far right, however, was smiling and looking at me, which seemed strange. And then I recognized him.

  Nabeel al-Samad said to me, “Hello. You remember me?”

  My teammates all turned their heads toward me, and the four Bedouin, who spoke no English, seemed confused that the Al Qaeda guy was smiling and speaking to the American captive. Hey, we had bagels together.

  I was supposed to just nod, but I said, so my teammates understood who this guy was, “Nabeel and I had a breakfast meeting in New York.” I added, “He had some important information for me.”

  Nabeel thought that was funny and he translated for his compatriots, who also thought that was funny.

  What wasn’t so funny was Nabeel saying to me, “Jewish deli for me not funny. You not funny. You not go home ever.”

  Nabeel needed help with his verbs, but I got that I was supposed to appreciate the moment and the message, which in better English was, “So, Detective Corey, we meet again, and this time the situation is reversed, is it not, Detective Corey?” Hee-hee-hee. Fuck you.

  Anyway, I played the game and looked down at the floor.

  Bottom line here, soon after the State Department applied for my and Kate’s visas, that information had gotten to Al Qaeda in Yemen. Happens all the time and it’s not usually a problem for American tourists, businesspeople, or diplomats heading to Sana’a-unless their names happen to be on the Al Qaeda kill list.

  Anyway, the fun part was over and it was time for business.

  Nabeel said something to Yasir, who handed Nabeel our five non-diplomatic passports.

  Nabeel had sheets of paper in his hand, which I was certain were the photostats of these passports gotten from the Bilqis Hotel. Nabeel passed the five passports and photostats around to his four buddies, who studied the passport photos and looked at us.

  Nabeel, who had seemed to me like a pleasant putz in New York, had another side to him, and he said to the Amriki sharply, “Look up! Look to me!”

  We all looked at Nabeel as the other A.Q. assholes glanced between us, the photostats, and the passports.

  Nabeel, of course, made a positive ID on Detective John Corey, and the other Al Qaeda geniuses seemed to agree that Buck, Brenner, and Zamo were the Amriki in the passport pictures. The problem was Kate, wrapped in her scarf, and Nabeel said to her, “Take off hijab.”

  So Kate pulled her scarf away from her face, and the five Al Qaeda assholes stared at her a long time. I mean, how many women’s faces had they seen in their lives?

  They all seemed to agree that Kate’s photo matched her face, and Yasir collected the passports.

  Nabeel said to Kate, “Put on hijab!”

  Nabeel then produced two more sheets of paper, which he showed to Yasir. Yasir nodded, then said something to Buck in Arabic. Buck replied in Arabic, and said to us, “They also have copies of John and Kate’s diplomatic passports-probably from the Yemeni consulate in New York. And they want to know where-”

  “Shut up!” shouted Nabeel. Then to all of us he asked, “Where diplomatic passports?”

  Buck replied in English, “At the embassy.”

  “You lie.”

  But Yasir jumped in and said something, maybe assuring Nabeel that the Bedouin had searched us and not found any diplomatic passports in the possession of the Americans.

  So Yasir, Nabeel, and the other four Al Qaeda assholes got into an argument, and Buck, sotto voce, was translating snippets, saying, “They want to search us… and search the bedding… and search the diwan.”

  Right. These things never go the way you want or expect. I asked Buck, “Who the hell is in charge here?”

  Buck said to us, “Yasir seems to be losing control.”

  Great.

  Nabeel interrupted his argument long enough to tell me and Buck to shut up.

  But Buck, understanding these people, said something to Yasir in Arabic, and his voice was firm. I heard the word “Musa.”

  Yasir seemed to find his balls and backbone, and he shouted at Nabeel and at the other Al Qaeda shitheads, who shut up.

  I mean, what’s the pecking order here? You tell ’em, Yasir. Meanwhile, I glanced at my compatriots, and I could see they were a bit uneasy. While Nabeel and Yasir were talking, I said in a low voice to Brenner, Zamo, and Kate, “If I say pull, on the count of three, you know what to do.”

  They nodded.

  As Kate likes to point out, I sometimes change the plan. But only when Plan A is not going well. I mean, bottom line here, The Panther’s prize was right in front of his jihadists, and I wouldn’t put it past them to get the drop on the Bedouin and re-kidnap us. Or just blow us away.

  So if we had to, we would draw on these five bastards and waste them all before they even got their AK-47s unslung. And that would be the end of the negotiations and the end of Operation Clean Sweep, and unfortunately the end of any chance we had of vaporizing The Panther with a Hellfire. But sometimes you gotta think of yourself first, and you have to take what you can get-like five jihadists who were getting a littl
e too aggressive.

  Nabeel and Yasir seemed to have settled down a bit, and they were still jabbering away.

  Meanwhile, I noticed that the other four Al Qaeda guys were eyeballing us as if trying to determine if we looked like real guests instead of kidnapped guests.

  The Al Qaeda delegation was also eyeballing the big tower room, and they all glanced out the windows to try to figure out where they were. Crow Fortress? Or some other tower in the hills?

  The tip-off would have been the window behind them that overlooked the courtyard, and more importantly overlooked the fish van. Hey, Abdul, what’s that doing here?

  The other three Bedouin were standing directly behind the Al Qaeda guys, to keep them literally in line, head and eyes straight ahead. But then one of the Al Qaeda assholes tried to sneak a look over his shoulder, and I was surprised and pleased to see one of the Bedouin smack his head with the barrel of his AK-47. Like, “I said no peeking, asshole. Try that again and your brains will be on the floor.” Good. It’s your show, boys, and your fort.

  More importantly, I could see there was no love lost between these two groups. The Bedouin ruled and have ruled for two thousand years; Al Qaeda was tolerated, as long as they understood whose land this was. Nabeel, however, had spent a little time in Amrika and he’d forgotten his manners. Interestingly, it was Buck who had to remind Yasir that Al Qaeda was not top dog here. Not yet.

  But back to business.

  Nabeel shouted at me, “What you do here? Why you here?”

  It was Buck who replied-Buck does the talking, I do the shooting-“We are embassy personnel on a visit to see the ruins.”

  Nabeel, of course, said, “You lie! Why you go to Aden?”

  “Embassy business.”

  “You lie! How you come to Marib?”

  “By car.”

  “You say to hotel you come from Sana’a.”

  “You know we came from Aden.”

  Nabeel, perhaps realizing his English was too limited to get at the essential truth, took advantage of Buck’s Arabic and continued his questions in that language. I heard the words al-Numair, Al Qaeda, Amrika, Sana’a, Aden, and Marib, and even the word Ghumdan.

  Obviously Nabeel strongly suspected that we were here to find al-Numair. And the answer was, Why else would we be here, stupid? But Buck wasn’t going to give them anything. I couldn’t understand what Buck was saying, of course, but I trusted the old Cold Warrior to just stick to the story, no matter how implausible it sounded.

  Also, I was certain that Nabeel and his compatriots, as well as their boss, al-Numair, were very pissed off about the Hellfire attack that killed their buddies. Not to mention getting their asses kicked at the Hunt Oil installation. So obviously the Al Qaeda guys were not in a good mood. In fact, they’d like to kill us. But first they had to buy us.

  Nabeel, on the instructions of his boss, I’m sure, was trying to determine if the Amriki knew or suspected that The Panther was in Marib-and maybe Nabeel was trying to figure out if this was a trap set by the Amriki with the help of Sheik Musa. And that was the real issue. But Nabeel was not going to get that information from the Amriki, unless we were prisoners of Al Qaeda, which we were not-yet.

  It’s not easy questioning someone else’s prisoners, as I discovered last time I was here, and more recently at the Ghumdan prison, and Nabeel seemed frustrated with Buck’s replies, so he ended the conversation, then said something to Yasir.

  Buck said to us, “Nabeel now wants to see whatever weapons we were carrying when we were kidnapped.”

  That was my cue to say, “One, two, three-pull!” and show them the weapons. But maybe I should see how Yasir handled it.

  Yasir and Nabeel seemed to be getting heated again, and Buck took advantage of the shouting to say to us, “Yasir refuses to show these gentlemen anything-except us.” He added, “John’s New York acquaintance may be smelling a rat.”

  Right. Al Qaeda is not stupid. I wish Chet was here to see and hear all of this. He might learn something-like how unpredictable people are.

  Yasir, too, was getting the impression that Nabeel was smelling a rat, so he did a smart thing and shouted at Buck, probably telling him to shut up. Then Yasir did a smarter thing and kicked Buck in the chest, knocking him on his back. It was all an act-I think. Buck didn’t seem to be hurt by Yasir’s half-hearted sandal kick to his chest, and he sat up again. I would have kicked Buck in the balls-just to make it look real, of course.

  Nabeel, taking his cue from Yasir, took a step toward Buck as though he intended to kick or hit him, but Yasir went ballistic and shoved Nabeel back and shouted at him.

  The other four Al Qaeda guys looked like they were ready to get into a fight, but the three Bedouin behind them stepped back and leveled their rifles. One of them shouted, probably saying, “Make my day, suckers.”

  Anyway, Yasir seemed to be tired of his visitors, and he shouted, “Imshee!” Go away.

  The Bedouin began slipping the black hoods over the Al Qaeda dickheads, but before Nabeel was hooded, he looked at me and said, “In Yemen, you die.” Then to my compatriots, he also promised, “You die. But maybe not die. Maybe wish to die.”

  Well, Nabeel, you’re not getting an American work visa.

  Anyway, I wasn’t sure now if we were going to lure The Panther into a meeting with Sheik Musa, so why shouldn’t I yell “Pull!” and bag these bastards? Right?

  I glanced at Brenner, who was looking at me, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Zamo actually had his right hand behind his back, ready for the count.

  But Buck, the voice of reason, who could sense that the A-team was on the verge of some messy business, said softly, “Let it go.”

  Did he say, “Pull”?

  The Al Qaeda delegation was all hooded now, and whacking them would be easy, but not fun or sporting. And maybe not a good idea. I mean, I didn’t think the Bedouin would like that, and I suppose there was still a chance that The Panther would schedule the meeting with Musa-if Chet was right about Bulus ibn al-Darwish taking chances. But for now, it was Kate who’d been right about Al Qaeda smelling a rat. As for Brenner not trusting the Bedouin, he seemed to be wrong about that so far. But this deal hadn’t played itself out yet.

  The four Bedouin marched the five hooded Al Qaeda guys down the stairs, and we were alone.

  Kate was the first to unlock her shackles, which she threw across the room, saying, “Damn it!”

  Then, showing her feminine side, she asked Buck, “Are you all right?”

  Buck assured us all that he was fine, saying, “Yasir pulled his kick.”

  Yasir has more self-control than I do.

  Anyway, we all freed ourselves from our shackles and stood.

  Okay, this had all been a sham, but the five Al Qaeda fighters standing in front of us were real, and their AK-47s were real, and I think all of us were a little tense for a while there. I’m sure there’s a better way to earn a living.

  Anyway, we all went to the window.

  The Al Qaeda delegation was being walked across the courtyard, and within a minute they were inside the three Land Cruisers, which headed toward the gate. Arrivederci, assholes.

  Buck said, “It could have gone better.”

  You think?

  Zamo said, “We shoulda fuckin’ wasted them.”

  And possibly that would have been the right thing to do.

  But Kate, who’d grown up hunting game with her nutty parents, said, “Sometimes you let the does go and wait for the buck.”

  Agreed. Let’s shoot Buck. Sorry.

  Kate said, “I assume that was the informant you were looking for in New York.”

  “Yeah. Sorry I bought him a bagel.”

  Buck said, “Al Qaeda’s organization in America is sometimes more extensive than we realize.”

  Right. But with a few million Muslims in America, we shouldn’t be too surprised. Still, it was creepy that Nabeel had set me up for a look-see. Next time I see him, I’ll kill him.


  Anyway, Chet was not getting out of his van, so he was probably watching his video monitors.

  Brenner asked Buck the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “Do you think they suspected a setup?”

  “I don’t know,” replied the wise man. “But we will know soon enough.”

  Brenner suggested, “If they did suspect a setup, and if The Panther still wants to meet with Sheik Musa, then it’s possible that The Panther is going to kill Musa-and us.”

  That was not a happy thought, but it was a possible outcome of what just happened. Another possibility was that The Panther and Sheik Musa would work out another deal between themselves. In Yemen, any deal is possible.

  Anyway, if Chet Morgan was not coming to us, then we had to go to Chet Morgan. I suggested, “Let’s get some air.”

  So we put on our shoes and Kevlar vests, and we took our M4s, which we always carried when we went down to the courtyard. But this time we took extra magazines. The situation had changed, and I don’t think we fully understood how it had changed, or what the Bedouin were thinking now. Zamo stayed in the tower and covered the courtyard with his rifle.

  So Buck would speak to Yasir, and we’d all speak to Chet, the mastermind of Operation Clean Sweep, and we’d decide on our next move. But I already knew what Chet was going to say: We wait. The next move belongs to The Panther.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  Buck, Kate, Brenner, and I stepped into the van.

  Chet was sitting at his console, watching the three Land Cruisers on his monitors, and he glanced over his shoulder and asked, “How did it go?”

  Buck replied, “Not very well.”

  Chet pulled himself away from his screens, swiveled his chair, and asked, “Why not?”

  Buck explained, “I think they’re suspicious.”

  Chet replied, “Of course they are. They’re not stupid.”

  I reminded him, “You said they were stupid.”

  “Yes. But they’re also cunning and paranoid.” Chet reassured us, “If The Panther wasn’t interested in getting his hands on you, he wouldn’t have even sent that delegation.” He explained, “You don’t make an appointment to see a car you’re not interested in buying.”