The Panther

But Brenner, either avoiding the topic of my paranoia, or maybe testing it, asked, “So do you think Buck is in on this?”

That was a tough call. The answer was that Buckminster Harris had been in the deception business so long, he really didn’t know what was real and what he was making up. Right and wrong was a little blurry, too. Plus, he just enjoyed the game. I was sure he liked me, Kate, and all of us, but if Chet presented him with a national security problem and a solution, then Buck would work with Chet on both. Nothing personal.

Finally, I replied, “Buck has to be in on it.”

Well, by now, Paul Brenner was waiting for me to announce that I’d been abducted by space aliens. But he was smart enough to be concerned, and he was still enough of a cop to want all the info. He said to me, “Even if you’re right… I mean, you’re giving Chet a lot of credit for being some kind of genius…”

“He’s out of his fucking mind,” I assured everyone. “But he’s smart. I, however, am smarter.” I asked my seatmate, “Right?”

She didn’t reply. Clearly Kate was upset, and she was obviously worried that I’d slipped over the edge.

Brenner, in fact, said, “Look, we’ve all been under a lot of stress-”

“All right,” I said, “drive on.” I promised everyone, “We’ll see what happens.”

But Brenner didn’t drive. He asked me, “What do you think is going to happen?”

I replied, “I think that a Predator drone, under the command of the Central Intelligence Agency, and under the operational control of Chet Morgan in his fish van, is going to launch a Hellfire missile at this vehicle and kill everyone inside it.” I added, “The Predator pilot, wherever he is, will be clueless, or at least unsure, but he’ll do what the operational control guy on the scene-Chet-tells him to do.”

It was Zamo who spoke first. “Yeah. That could happen.”

It sure could. I also said, “The Company has picked this method of a friendly fire accident to send a clear message that it wasn’t friendly and it wasn’t an accident.”

Brenner stayed quiet awhile, then said to me, “Okay… what are we supposed to do?”

“What we’re not going to do is drive down that slope and head cross-country toward the Marib road, because if we do, we’re not going to get to the Marib road.”

Brenner asked, “Then why are we even in this Land Cruiser? Why didn’t you tell us this back in the Crow Fortress?”

“If I had, what would we have done?”

“Tell Chet and Buck what you just told us.”

I replied, “At least they would believe me. But here’s the deal-the mission comes first. Chet is poised to kill The Panther. And we will let him do that. But we will not let him have a friendly fire accident on our way to Marib.”

Brenner sort of nodded.

I said to him, “Let’s go.”

As we moved toward the rock pile and the Bedouin guarding the approach to the plateau, I said, “Chet has not directed a Predator to watch us because the Predator pilot and other ground controllers would see that it was us who got into this Land Cruiser, and they would not fire on it.” I explained, “Chet will get a Predator on station when he thinks we’re traveling cross-country toward the Marib road. He will tell the pilot to keep us in his sight, then at some point he will inform the pilot that the Land Cruiser is a confirmed target. And then Chet will execute the assassination stage of the flight and order the pilot to take out the target.” I added, “Kate’s balto and our shiwals will be mentioned in the incident report as one reason for the misidentification of the people in the Land Cruiser as a target.” I added, “Souvenirs can be dangerous.”

No one had anything to say about that, so I asked, “Would anyone have a problem with asking one of those Bedouin to drive this vehicle down the slope and toward the Marib road?”

Zamo replied in a heartbeat, “Not me.”

Brenner said, “I would have a problem with that… but…”

Kate didn’t reply, and I said to her, “If nothing happens, then you’re right and I’m crazy.”

She hesitated, then replied, “I… would not want to see an innocent person killed…”

I pointed out, “You said I was wrong.”

“I’m not making that decision.”

“Okay. I’ll make it.”

The Bedouin around the rocks were watching us, and Brenner pulled close to them.

I said to him, “I need your Arabic.”

Brenner and I got out of our Land Cruiser and everyone did their peace thing.

There were five Bedouin with AK-47s and they had one white Land Cruiser with them.

I said to Brenner, “Tell them we will give them mucho rials if one of them will take our vehicle to the airstrip and pick up an Amriki who is waiting there for us.”

Brenner glanced at me, hesitated, then began speaking in halting Arabic.

The five Bedouin nodded in understanding, and Brenner said to me, “This gentleman”-he pointed to a bearded guy in his thirties or forties-“will go for us.”

I nodded and smiled at the guy.

“He says he’ll take his own vehicle.”

“No.” I took Brenner’s arm and we stepped onto a small flat rock. I said, “See that?”

Brenner stared at the roof of our Land Cruiser, whose dusty white paint was smeared with what looked like blood, probably goat blood. He kept staring at the smear, then said, “Jesus…” He looked at me.

I stepped down off the rock and asked him, “So what do you think, Paul?”

He seemed at a loss for words, but then reminded me, “Yasir told us to take any vehicle.”

“Right. Pick a card. Any card.” At the risk of stating the obvious, I said, “They’re all marked.”

He nodded.

I said to him, “We can wipe the red target off, or since all the Bedouin vehicles are communal, we can swap cars with these gentlemen, and we can proceed to the Marib airstrip, and hopefully not get vaporized on the way. But I don’t think there’s anything or anyone waiting for us at the airstrip. So I suggest we go back to the Crow Fortress and deal with this.” I checked my watch. “We should be there about the time The Panther is in Chet’s sights.”

Brenner, who has seen lots of death, has probably not seen lots of treachery and double crosses, and he still looked a little out of it. Hello, Paul?

Kate and Zamo were out of the Land Cruiser, and Kate glanced at Brenner, then asked me, “What’s happening?”

I said to Brenner, “You tell her.” She never believes me.

The Bedouin were watching us, curious about what the crazy Amriki were talking about, so we didn’t want to go look at the roof again and put ideas into their heads. But Brenner said to Kate and Zamo, “There is a red marking-looks like blood-on the roof of the Land Cruiser.”

Zamo, who’d painted lots of people red with a red laser beam before he sent them to Paradise, got it in a heartbeat, and said, “Holy shit.”

Well said.

Kate is quick, but stubborn, and she reminded us, “But Yasir said-”

“They’re all marked,” I informed her. “They weren’t marked when we were up in the diwan or I’d have seen that, because I was looking for it. But when we went down to burn our civilian passports on the ground level, the Bedouin, at the prior request of Chet, marked all the roofs with goat blood, probably thinking that they were putting some kind of holy protection mark on the SUVs. You know, like the Passover thing with the lamb’s blood.” I added helpfully, “Exodus.”

Well, maybe that was a stretch, but close enough. Or Yasir and his buddies had no idea why Chet gave them a few rials to do something weird. But they did know to keep their mouths shut about it. I further informed my teammates, “Chet also asked Yasir to give us the shiwals, which will be mentioned in the incident report.”

Kate looked at me, and I thought maybe she’d say, “Sorry I doubted you,” but she didn’t. She asked me, and