The Panther

“The FBI SWAT Team, the DSS men, and the Marines at the Sheraton are on full alert, as are all American personnel in the hotel. Also, we are officially notifying the Yemeni government at the highest level about this possible attack, so they have no choice but to increase their security around the hotel.”

I, of course, remarked, “That will make us sleep better.”

Brenner assured us, “You’ll never sleep as well as the Yemeni Army.”

Funny. But not.

“The last time the Sheraton in Aden was attacked,” Buck said, “was before the Americans were there. During one of the civil wars in the eighties. A rebel group lobbed a few mortar rounds into the hotel.” He added, “The Communists ran South Yemen in those days, and they allowed alcohol-which is the best thing I can say about them. In any case, this rebel group was fundamentalist, and the cocktail lounge offended them.”

I reminisced, “When I was at the Sheraton, we made up fun names for the cocktails.” All right, I’ll tell you. “High Explosive Mojito. Martini Mortars. My favorite was the Incoming Cosmo.”

No one thought that was funny. I guess you had to be there.

Anyway, Kate asked Buck, “Is there any other place for us to stay in Aden?”

“No. The Yemeni government has given us two floors of the Sheraton, and that’s our operational base in Aden.” He assured us, “I wouldn’t worry about this too much.” He added, “Unless you start to see Arab guests checking out.”

Funny? Maybe.

Kate also asked, “Do we have an evacuation plan?”

Yes, the breaststroke.

Buck replied, “We’ll ask Doug Reynolds, who is Ed Peters’s DSS counterpart in Aden.”

Buck then said to us, “Final subject. The road trip to Aden. We haven’t notified the Yemeni authorities of our movement, so, theoretically, Al Qaeda will not be tipped off that we are taking a convoy to Aden tomorrow morning. In that respect, we aren’t advertising this trip in advance with the hope of making contact with Al Qaeda-but as soon as we leave the compound, cell phones will be ringing all over Sana’a and along our route, so our movement will then be known.”

Brenner continued Buck’s thought and said, “The longer we’re on the road, the more chance that Al Qaeda will try to set up an ambush or roadside bomb along our route.” He added, “It will be obvious that we’re headed to Aden. But if we maintain good speed, and maybe vary the route, we should be able to stay ahead of anything they try to plan.”

Buck reiterated, “It’s not as though we’re trying to get into a fight with them, but it may happen, and we are prepared-and we may be able to kill or capture a key Al Qaeda leader.”

That sounded a bit optimistic, but since we were driving to Aden anyway, I guess we might as well kill some bad guys on the way. Right?

Buck had some good news and said, “We may be crazy, but we’re not stupid. So we’ve arranged to have two Predator surveillance drones on station along our route.” He informed me and Kate, “They have infrared video cameras that can see through cloud cover if necessary, and the high-resolution cameras can operate from as high as twenty thousand feet and still see a man with a rifle.” He concluded, “We should know about an ambush long before we reach it.”

Well, that was good news. The bad news, of course, was that the surveillance drones might still miss fifty jihadists sitting in a mud hut waiting for us to come by. Or miss a roadside bomb. I asked, “And what do we do if we get this aerial surveillance information?”

Brenner, ex-combat vet, replied, “I will make the decision about how we react to an ambush warning.”

“Give me a call,” I suggested.

Kate asked a good question. “How about Hellfire missiles?”

Buck replied, “We are not authorized to use Hellfire missiles without the explicit permission of the Yemeni government.”

Kate, the lawyer, asked, “Not even as a purely defensive means to save lives?”

Buck informed us, “Unfortunately not.” He also let us know, “It takes a very long time to get this permission from the Yemeni authorities, so we can’t count on Hellfire missiles in a rapidly developing situation.”

I thought about that and said, “I assume that the Predator surveillance drones will be armed with Hellfire missiles, and that we will in fact use them if we’re ducking AK-47 rounds.”

Buck didn’t reply directly, but said, “To ask permission is to invite rejection. We do what we have to do, then apologize.”

“Right. And give the Yemenis another million.”

“Maybe two.” He smiled and said, “In Yemen, we pay to play.”

Right. Even wars have rules, but the rules here in Yemen did not favor the Americans. The good news was that we broke the rules. The better news was that the punishment was a small fine. Two million. Hell, give the Yemenis ten million and carpet bomb the whole country. Better yet, nuke ’em. Check’s in the mail for that.

Bottom line on this trip to Aden was that it was more than a method of getting from Point A to Point B; it was also trolling for sharks-fishing for Al Qaeda.

Buck announced, “That’s all I have. And if no one has anything further, this meeting is adjourned.”

Wonderful.

But Buck said, “Let me buy you all dinner at the Movenpick. They have a new French chef.”

I said, “I’d love to, but-”

Kate interrupted, “That would be very nice.”

“Good,” said Buck. “Afterwards, if you’re game for it, we can go to the Russia Club.”

I reminded everyone, “We need to get up early.”

Buck told us, “We can sleep on the way to Aden.” He smiled and assured us, “The roadside bombs will wake us up for the ambush.”

I felt like a guy who thought he’d joined an ace fighter squadron and found out it was a kamikaze group. I mean, bravery is one thing; war psychosis is something else. I said to Buck, “You’ve been here too long.”

“I know. But we’re all going home.” He added, “One way or the other.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

So we left the embassy and squeezed into the armored Land Cruiser with Zamo driving and Buck up front for the short drive to the Movenpick Hotel.

It was a nice hotel, and I was glad I was checked in there, though I was staying elsewhere.

I’m not a big fan of Continental cuisine, except French fries, preferring instead pigs-in-a-blanket, but the restaurant was good, and if you let your mind wander, you could be anywhere but here. I’m sure the new French chef felt the same way.

We had a nice, wine-fueled, getting-to-know-you dinner, and talked a bit about ourselves.

Buck Harris, it turned out, was married, with a wife in Silver Springs, Maryland, outside of D.C. I got the impression he had some family money, and he didn’t rely on his State Department salary to buy five-thousand-dollar jambiyahs. So for Buck, maybe the Cold War had been a gentleman’s hobby, something to keep him busy. What, then, was the war on terrorism? Probably the same thing, but with the added incentive of revenge, as he said. I could imagine him being buddies with his former Soviet enemies, but I couldn’t imagine a day when he, or any of us, would be having drinks with former jihadists. For one thing, they didn’t drink. More to the point, this was a war without end, and there would be no forgiving or forgetting.

Buck had a grown son and daughter who he said did not share his ideology or his enthusiasm for fucking America’s enemies. Buck told us, “They believe we should try to understand Islam.” He speculated, “If they’d been old enough during the Cold War, they would have told me I should try to understand Communism.” He assured us, “I understand both.”

Right. Hey, it sucks when your own kids think you’re part of the problem.

But Buck said philosophically, “The important thing is that I know I’ve spent my life doing what I thought was right-not just for me, but for my country, and for civilization-and also for my children and their children.”