“I’m sure I don’t know.” She informed me, “If you really want to go direct, there is a military flight twice a week from Dover Air Force Base in Maryland. One to Sana’a, one to Aden.”
That was interesting. Sounded like we were getting our noses a little farther under the tent.
Kate said, “If we want to go that way, Mrs. Barrett will check it out. Departure times and days vary.”
“Yeah. Let’s check it out. Might be interesting to see who and what is going to Yemen.” Also, this was probably the way we’d sneak The Panther out of Yemen. Direct U.S. Air Force flight from Yemen to Guantanamo. The shithole to hellhole express.
I went back to my desk, and Al informed me that Nabeel had not shown. It was 12:15.
Al called Nabeel’s cell phone, but got his voice mail again and left a loud message. I phoned the deli, a place named George’s in Bay Ridge, and spoke to some guy with an accent who wasn’t helpful. Al took the phone and spoke sharply in Arabic, then discovered that the guy was Mexican. Funny. What a great country.
Al volunteered to drive us to George’s Deli, but I had lots to do and Brooklyn was not on that list. I suggested, “Find one of our guys in the area and ask him to check out the deli and Nabeel’s home address.”
“No, I’ll go. I could use a break here. What’s this guy look like?”
“Green teeth.” I described Nabeel’s other features and related a little of my short conversation with him in Ben’s Deli. I suggested, “See if this deli is under the eye for any reason. Maybe we have surveillance photos.”
“I did that. Nothing.”
“Okay. Thanks, Al. I owe you one.”
My next task was to go to a separate stand-alone computer where I could access the Internet. We can’t do that from our desk computers, or we’d be playing video games all day. I did a Google search on Al Qaeda in Yemen, and got a few hits on al-Numair, The Panther, and I actually got his real name from Wikipedia-Bulus ibn al-Darwish. No wonder he changed it.
Apparently some of this info was not as classified as Tom thought. In fact, there is little that is not available online if you know what you’re looking for.
I checked out the Wikipedia entry. Bulus ibn al-Darwish, a.k.a. The Panther, was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on May 8, 1965, making him thirty-nine years old in May, if he lived that long. So he was not a naturalized citizen-he was actually born here. Interesting.
His parents were both Yemenis who’d immigrated to America, but there was no further info on them. Dead? Alive? Living where?
Little Bulus attended public schools in New Jersey, then graduated from Columbia University in 1987 with a degree in economics-making him an Ivy League terrorist. He should have gone to Wall Street-same work, better pay.
At some point, according to the entry, Mr. al-Darwish became radicalized and went to Yemen in the early 1990s.
The remainder of the entry was a mix of facts and speculation about his activities in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps Iraq. He was identified as one of the planners of the attack on the USS
Additionally, the subject asshole had been implicated in two or three armed attacks on Westerners in Sana’a, Aden, and the surrounding areas, resulting in a number of deaths and kidnappings. Plus, while he was at it, he’d planned two rocket attacks-one on the American Embassy in Sana’a, one on the Sheraton Hotel in Aden. Both attacks had been thwarted. The planned attack on the Sheraton interested me, because that’s where I stayed with the other American personnel in Aden. We called the place Fort Apache.
And last but not least, Mr. al-Darwish and some friends had been involved in a shoot-out at the Saudi Arabian border last year, resulting in the deaths of six Saudi soldiers.
Bottom line, this was a bad guy. Maybe fearless, maybe nuts, and definitely angry about something. Maybe he got teased in school.
Also, I’d never heard of this guy. And I knew the names of lots of terrorists. So this guy was being kept under wraps. Why? Probably because this was strictly a CIA case, and they were not sharing the info with the FBI. Until now. The Agency only talks to you when they need you.
I clicked next onto the website of the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a and checked out Citizen Services and what’s called Warden Messages. The Department of State, I saw, was concerned about Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and had issued a Travel Warning for Yemen regarding “possible attacks by extremist individuals or groups against U.S. citizens, facilities, businesses, and perceived interests.”
I guess that included the embassy itself, not to mention everyone working or visiting there.
The embassy website further informed me that “travel on roads between cities throughout Yemen can be dangerous.” Really? “Travel outside Sana’a is restricted.” Right. That’s where those roads are. “Travel in tribal areas north and east of Sana’a is particularly dangerous, and kidnappings are common.” Best to avoid the whole country.
There was also a mention of the ongoing civil war that Kate and I had seen reported on BBC. This rebel leader, al-Houthi, was taking control of bigger parts of North Yemen. And that led me to wonder why anyone wanted to rule this fucked-up place.
So to recap, Yemen was ruled by a corrupt dictator, and the country was half overrun by a rebel leader, and the rest of the place was run by tribal warlords, except the areas that were infiltrated by Al Qaeda. Plus, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden were infested with pirates. The good news was that everyone was stoned on khat and didn’t give a shit.
I read a last entry on the embassy website, which advised, “From time to time, the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a may temporarily close or suspend public services as necessary to review its security posture and its adequacy.”
With luck, they’d shut down before I got there.
Anyway, I could have spent a week surfing the Internet, getting background on Yemen and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and The Panther, but why bother? By Saturday or Sunday I’d be in the belly of the beast.
I logged off the computer and went back to my desk.
CHAPTER NINE
Kate and I decided to have lunch at Fraunces Tavern, the place where Washington gave his farewell address to his officers, and where I would now give my farewell address to Washington.
We exited 26 Federal Plaza onto Duane Street, which since 9/11 has been blocked to vehicles between Broadway and Lafayette on the theory that someone might want to detonate a car bomb under my window.
In fact, all of Lower Manhattan has become a security zone since that day, and though it’s not too intrusive, it’s annoying. More to the point, it’s a constant reminder that these bastards have made America the front lines. So maybe taking the war to them is good quid pro quo.
We got to Fraunces Tavern, in business since about 1762, which is a lot of grog.
A hostess showed us to a table in the crowded main dining room. The clientele was mostly out-of-towners who wanted to tell the folks back in Peoria that they had lunch at the very table where George Washington dug his wooden choppers into a mutton chop.
Mindful of Nurse Annie’s warning about mixing alcohol and vaccine, I ordered club soda with a shot of scotch on the side. Does that work? Kate had a Coke, and we looked at the menus. Mostly traditional American fare. I said, “I think I’ll have the Yankee noodles.”
“Dandy.”
We ordered-sliced steak for me, a sissy salad for Kate.
There’s another piece of history here that you won’t find in most tour guides, but you will find on the Automated Case System-back in January 1975, a group of Puerto Rican separatists exploded a bomb here during lunch hour, killing four people and injuring more than fifty. I’m not sure what kind of statement they were trying to make, but the attack shocked the city and the nation, which was not then used to terrorism on American soil.
It was this attack, along with some other Puerto Rican separatist activities and the activities of the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers, that led to the formation of the Anti-Terrorist Task Force in New York in
