The Panther

“And the terrain ahead is unpredictable. It could rise up like a wall and that’s as far as we go.”

“Then we walk,” said Kate.

“Right,” I agreed. As my mother used to tell me, “God made feet before He made cars.” There’s no actual proof of that, but if it’s true, then that’s the reason for the gas pedal. On another subject, what the hell was I thinking?

We continued on, and we were in luck because there was no wall of rock as we crested the top of the rising terrain.

And there it was.

We stopped, and everyone got out of the vehicles and stood at the edge of a slope. Below us in the distance was a flat basin, maybe the size of four or five football fields, nestled among the rising hills around it. Just like we saw on the Predator monitor.

But the camp looked different now. The whole expanse of flat ground was smoldering, like the earth was cooking, and I counted twelve huge bomb craters, about thirty or forty feet across, and deep enough that I couldn’t see the bottoms.

Brenner said, “Good bomb pattern.”

I was just thinking that myself. What?

He continued, “See how they’re evenly spaced? No overlap. The crew pretty much covered the target with twelve two-thousand-pounds.” He also said, “Beautiful. Haven’t seen that in awhile.”

“Looks great,” I agreed. I asked him, “Anyone alive down there?”

“No.” He explained, “The blast sucks the oxygen out of the air, and the shockwaves burst your lungs, and sometimes turn your brain into jelly.”

Wow.

He continued, in a faraway voice, “Sometimes you do find people alive, but they’re zombies… blood coming out of their ears, nose, and mouth.”

“Yeah… well… good bomb pattern.”

Zamo added, “We don’t want to go down there.” He explained, “There’ll be, like, unexploded ordnance, like mortar rounds, or grenades, and they get sensitized by the shock, and if you step on something, they could blow and you’re toast.”

“Good to know that.”

Meanwhile, Colonel Hakim and his three PSO goons were standing off by themselves, looking down at what the Americans had wrought. I had no idea what was going through their minds, but I thought that they had to be impressed, but also troubled, like they’d seen the future.

An acrid odor drifted up from the destruction, like burnt fuel and melted metal, and it took me a few seconds to recognize that smell. The Towers.

Kate, who hadn’t said a word so far, now said, “Payback.”

So we stood there and looked at the smoldering fires and the black gaping holes in the earth, lit by a bright rising moon; a little bit of heaven, and a lot of hell.

Now we find The Panther’s lair, and if he’s home, we kill him.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

The PSO goons dragged Altair out of the Humvee and they sat him on the ground facing his Al Qaeda camp in the basin below.

No one said anything to him, and we let him look. He showed no outward emotion, but instead he stared quietly at the moonlit landscape of bomb craters and smoldering rubble. Finally, he lowered his head.

Brenner said to Colonel Hakim, “Tell him this is what the Americans will do to all Al Qaeda camps in Yemen.”

Hakim, who probably had a foot in those camps, hesitated, then translated.

Altair had no response.

Brenner continued, “Everyone down there is dead. Everyone who went with Altair to meet Sheik Musa is dead. Many jihadists who attacked the Hunt Oil installation are dead.”

Hakim again translated, and again Altair did not respond, but kept staring at the ground.

Brenner then said, “But The Panther who caused all this death is still alive.”

Hakim translated, but this time Altair responded, and Hakim told us, “He says The Panther was in this camp, so he is also dead.”

I said, “Bullshit. Tell this sonofabitch that the next time he lies to us, he gets tasered.”

Hakim nodded and passed on the good news.

Altair did not respond.

I also said, “If The Panther is dead, then Altair can tell us where his hideout is.”

Hakim nodded, and translated, but Altair again had no response.

Okay, the taser was the stick, and here’s the carrot. “Tell him if he shows us where al-Darwish’s hideout is, the Americans will pay him one hundred thousand dollars, and send him anywhere he wants to go.”

Hakim translated that and the other three PSO thugs looked interested themselves. I mean, if they knew where The Panther was hiding, they’d give him up in a heartbeat for a hundred large and a ticket out of here.

Altair, however, was not interested, and Hakim told us, “He says first that al-Darwish is dead in this camp, and that he does not want your American money, and that he will die in Yemen.”

“That can be arranged.” Well, so much for the carrot. Back to the stick.

Hakim had the same thought and he nodded to one of his goons, who hit the old man in the neck with a jolt of juice.

Altair screamed and toppled to the ground, thrashing around, then he lay still.

Kate turned away and walked back to the Land Cruiser.

Brenner said to Hakim, “Keep asking him the same question and if you get the same answer, repeat the process. Eventually he will tell us where al-Darwish’s hideout is.” Brenner cautioned, “Don’t kill him.”

Hakim, who didn’t need much advice or encouragement on the subject of torture, asked Altair the question again, but Altair did not respond, and Hakim’s goon shoved the taser prod into Altair’s nuts.

Hakim went through the routine two more times until Altair passed out. Hakim said to us, “It is possible that he has no knowledge of where this hideout is located.”

Well, that was possible, but we hadn’t gotten there yet.

Brenner looked at Altair lying unconscious on the ground, then bent over and took his pulse, announcing, “He’s… okay.”

Maybe a little gray.

Well, if Altair didn’t die here, Hakim would kill him anyway. We were trying to save the old guy’s life, but he was making that difficult.

I moved away from Hakim and his goons, and Brenner followed.

Zamo, who’d told us about six times in the SUV that he didn’t trust Hakim or his men, stood off near the vehicles with his rifle at the ready. I didn’t trust Hakim either, but we were all here to do business.

I said to Brenner, “Altair knows where al-Darwish’s hideout is and he’d tell us if he really thought al-Darwish was dead.”

“Correct.”

I continued, “He’s not responding well to the carrot or the stick, so…” I thought about this and said, “So we need to try another approach.”

“Maybe more carrots and a bigger stick.”

“No. We’re thinking the way we think, but Altair thinks differently.”

Kate saw that the taser session had ended and she came over to us. “Any progress?”

“No. He’s hanging tough.”

“That’s enough taser.”