Chet then related another scary story, one I’d heard when I was here. “The American response team was given the two floors of the Sheraton, but one night the hotel was surrounded by a few hundred men wearing traditional dress, though they had military jeeps and were armed with military weapons, so we knew they were Yemeni soldiers and maybe PSO men in disguise.” He stayed silent a moment, undoubtedly recalling that night, then said, “We organized defensive positions on the roof and on the ground floor, and we wouldn’t let any of the Arab guests leave the hotel.” He added, “There were still a few Western tourists in the hotel, and they were afraid to leave, so we gave them handguns for self-defense.” He let us know, “We all thought we were going to die that night… The officer in charge of the Marine unit issued a single order-‘Take a few of them with you.’ ”
Right. No surrender. No American hostages. And when I was here in the Sheraton, that order still stood.
No one spoke for a while and the boat continued on toward the Sheraton beach. I looked at Kate, who appeared to have acquired a new appreciation of the situation here, and maybe a new appreciation of her husband who’d spent a month in this dangerous place. It wasn’t all beach volleyball, sweetheart.
To Buck and Brenner, Chet’s stories were nothing new, but it probably reinforced their resolve to get the job done and get the hell out of here. There comes a time in every hazardous tour of duty when you realize you’ve used up your quota of luck. Buck, Brenner, and Chet were past that time, but the goal was finally in sight; just a few hundred kilometers from here, in Marib.
Chet continued, “By dawn, all these assholes surrounding the hotel had disappeared. But we were ordered to get out of the hotel, and we were ferried by boat to U.S. naval vessels in the harbor. Two days later, the Yemeni government said it was safe to return to the Sheraton, so we took Navy helicopters back to the beach. But on the way in, the helicopters got radar lock-ons from SA-7 ground-to-air missiles, the pilots had to drop down to sea level, and we came in over the water ready for a shoot-out.” He looked out at the water and the approaching beach as though this scene brought back that memory, and continued, “But there weren’t any hostile forces on the beach-I think the Yemeni military probably thought we’d turn around when the choppers got the missile lock-ons, and when we kept coming they beat it out of there. So we retook our two shitty floors in the Sheraton and we’ve been there ever since.”
Right. And Mr. Chet Morgan, a privileged child of a superpower country, had had a lot of time since then to reflect on the poor reception he’d received in Yemen. He came here to help-well, not really, but officially-and the Yemenis treated him like a piece of crap, and threatened to kill him, and he wasn’t leaving here until he evened the score. Of course by now he was nuts, so even M-16 therapy wasn’t going to make him a happy man-but it would help.
Chet wrapped up his background briefing. “The weeks after the Cole was bombed had a surreal quality to them… maybe more like slapstick comedy with the Yemeni government and military running off in different directions like the clowns they are, saying, ‘Welcome Americans,’ then ‘Yankee go home.’ ” He concluded, “Totally dysfunctional country.”
Dysfunctional, as Betsy Collins said, would be an improvement.
We were about a hundred meters from the beach now, and Chet backed off on the throttle as he steered around some sandbars toward the shallows near Elephant Rock.
There were a lot of gulls on the rocks, but Chet left them alone, and instead he flipped the bird at the Yemeni Army guys manning the machine gun. Chet needs some anger management classes.
As he maneuvered the boat, he said, “In the old days of gunboat diplomacy, if some pisspot country attacked Westerners, a naval fleet would assemble and bombard the port city until it burned to the ground. Now… well, the primitive little assholes of the world get away with too much. But there will be a day of reckoning.” Chet thought a moment, then said, “In fact, every day since 9/11 has been a day of reckoning.” He nodded to himself and added, “And for Mr. Bulus ibn al-Darwish, a traitor to his country and a mass murderer, his day is close at hand.”
I hoped so. What I knew for sure was that there would, indeed, be a day of reckoning here in Yemen, but I wasn’t sure who would be reckoned with.
CHAPTER FIFTY
The cocktail hour had arrived, and Kate and I joined our colleagues in the hotel bar. Chet Morgan did not make an appearance, but he had asked us to meet him in the SCIF at 10 P.M. to discuss the operational plan.
Chet had stayed with his boat after dropping us off in four feet of water, and we had returned to the hotel pool where Howard and Clare were watching our things and apparently getting to know each other better.
Howard and Clare knew not to ask us about our new friend on the beach, but Clare did say she was worried when we were gone so long. Clare really cares about me.
Kate and I had gone back to our room to shower and dress for dinner and/or a trip to Marib later that night, as per Chet. Once things start to roll, they roll fast, and you have to keep one step ahead of the terrorists and two steps ahead of Washington.
Kate and I discussed Mr. Chet Morgan of the Central Intelligence Agency, and I confided to her my suspicion that Chet was a chewer. She thought about that, but wasn’t sure, so I dropped it.
I didn’t share with Kate my other thoughts about Chet in regard to his nuttiness or what was driving him, but I did say, “He seems a bit intense. When he’s not spacey.”
Kate replied, “You have a built-in prejudice against the Agency.”
Me?
Anyway, Kate was reserving judgment on Chet. Unfortunately, we needed to make a quick decision about going up to Marib with this loon to find The Panther.
I also broached the delicate subject of her complicated relationship with Ted Nash and said, “I think we should ask Chet if he knew Ted, and how he’s feeling about your last encounter with the deceased.” How’s that for subtle?
Kate didn’t reply for a few seconds, then said, “I’ll take care of that.”
Actually I would take care of that, but I said, “Okay.”
Well, we were now down at the bar for drinks with our colleagues, including our DSS guys from Sana’a and most of the Aden team, except for the twenty Marines, who were on guard duty.
Unfortunately, because of the high alert, and our possible trip into Indian Territory tonight, alcohol was still off the menu. The bartender was whipping up fruit drinks in the blender, and I had a mango slushie. It sucked.
But the conversation was good, and we talked about home, family, and everything but the war on terrorism, and no one mentioned the forty Al Qaeda guys heading our way. I noticed, though, that everyone was wearing Kevlar vests and sidearms and had automatic rifles with them, which is not SOP in the bar. The bartender, waiters, and the civilian clientele noticed, too, and they were looking a bit concerned. I wondered which one of them had a suicide belt. Maybe the fat Saudi guy in robes sitting by himself drinking scotch. This was a lot more exciting than Ecco’s.
At 8 P.M., Captain Mac, thinking maybe we’d pushed our luck a bit, and that we needed to get serious about security, asked all American personnel to leave the bar and return to their rooms or their posts.
A few of us, however, had a dinner meeting scheduled, and we went out to the back patio where the grill was blazing.
We sat at a round table-me, Kate, Buck, Brenner, Betsy Collins, Doug Reynolds, Lyle Manning, and Captain Mac.
It was still hot, but the sky was clear and the stars were out, and a half moon was rising in the east. Out on the water I could see the lights of big cargo ships and oil tankers. A few Western tourists were cavorting in the pool, and the really dumb ones were strolling on the beach, probably wearing T-shirts that said, “Kidnap Me.” This place was a headline waiting to happen.
The barbecue was good, as I recalled from last time, though I passed on the goat kebobs. We all drank non- alcoholic beer and chatted about how wonderful it was to be living the dream and working for the government- foreign travel, great pay, appreciative bosses in Washington, and a chance to make a difference by killing some assholes who wanted to die anyway.
We got around to security concerns, and Doug Reynolds told us he’d sent a message to Washington
