requesting a standby ship in the harbor for possible evacuation, and an unmarked charter aircraft-meaning CIA-at Aden Airport. So far, he said, no response. It occurred to me that Washington might be looking for an excuse to land a thousand Marines on the beach.
Captain Mac, who preferred a fight instead of a flight, said, “I can’t kill them if I’m not here.”
Right. You stay here. Good balls, though.
Buck announced, “We may be leaving tonight.”
No one, of course, asked where we were going, but everyone wished us good luck.
I said, “And good luck here.” And don’t pay for the rooms if you have to check out under fire.
Captain Mac assured me, “We don’t need luck. We’ve got twenty Marines.”
No one asked us how we were getting to wherever it was we were going, but Betsy Collins did say, “Travel at night is risky.”
Buck informed her, “We’re flying.”
Really? How did he know that?
It was understood that this was probably a CIA operation, so no one had any further comments or advice. But I sensed that the Aden team might open up if asked a direct question, so I asked directly, “What do you think of Chet Morgan?”
Silence.
Okay, so that answered that question. I said, “For the record, I think he’s been in the sun too long.”
Buck interjected, “John, we don’t need to-”
I continued, “We could be going up to Marib with him tonight-I guess by plane-and I’m concerned that Mr. Morgan may be suffering from in-country stress and fatigue.”
No one argued with that, but they’d have to report my statement in the event some of us didn’t return from Marib alive.
The dinner and the conversation seemed to be finished, and Buck said, “If you’ll excuse us, we have a meeting in the SCIF.”
Buck stood and we all stood and did handshakes, good-byes, and good luck.
Lyle Manning, who didn’t seem to like me, surprised me by saying, “You’ve made a good evaluation of the situation.”
This was one time I wouldn’t have minded being wrong.
So we went into the hotel, and Kate, Brenner, Buck, and I rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. On the way up, Buck said to me, “You have permission to leave anytime, but you do not have permission to discuss this operation with anyone at any time.”
“The subject, Buck, was Chet Morgan.”
Buck assured me, “I’ve known Chet for three years. He’s a good man.”
“Right. I could tell by what everyone said about him.”
Kate interjected, “John, let’s discuss this after our meeting with him.”
Brenner said, “I’m more interested in the plan than in Chet Morgan.”
Well, you’re wrong. The reason the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray is not the plan; it’s the mice and men. And Chet was about ten rials short of a Happy Meal. But to be a team player, I said, “Fair enough.”
We got off the elevator, greeted the Marine guard, and walked down the corridor to the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
Bottom line here, The Panther was only one of my problems. My teammates were another. But hopefully the plan wasn’t as crazy as Chet.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Buck had a key for the locked door and we entered.
A black tent filled most of the emptied guest room, and we ducked inside through a flap. The dim interior of the SCIF tent was about fifteen feet by twenty, crammed with electronic equipment, desks, and file cabinets, lit only by a few desk lamps and the glow from the computer screens.
Sitting at the shortwave radio was a young man in a T-shirt and shorts, wearing headphones. He noticed us and said, “Chet’s on the balcony.”
Good. I hope he jumped. But probably he was smoking; a slower form of suicide.
We left the tent and went around to the balcony, where, sure enough, Chet stood at the rail with a butt in his mouth, contemplating the moonlit sea. He was still wearing his white ducks and silly Hawaiian shirt, and he was still barefoot. Time for home leave, Chet.
Without turning around, he said to us, “Yemen was known to the Romans as Arabia Felix-Happy Arabia.” He added, “No one has called it that since then.”
Right. Now it’s called Shithole.
Chet continued, “If Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, then Yemen is the slaughterhouse of imperial ambitions.”
God save me from a nutcase with an Ivy League education. Right?
Chet informed us, “Alexander the Great sent a colony of Greeks to Socotra, an island off the coast here, but it didn’t last long, and the Romans invaded from the north and got as far as Marib before their army was decimated by battle, hardship, and disease.”
Marib? Isn’t that where we’re going? Don’t forget the Cipro.
Chet continued, “Yemen has seen a succession of conquerors and would-be conquerors-Egyptians, Persians, Romans, Ethiopians, Turks, the British, and the recently departed Russians. But no one has ever controlled all of Yemen. Not even the Yemenis.” Chet concluded, “I wouldn’t want to see us in a land war here, which is why these surgical operations need to succeed.”
I suggested, “Nuke ’em.”
Chet assured me, “I have no problem with that.”
Maybe he really wasn’t crazy after all. I mean, he agreed with me. And I’m not crazy. Right?
Anyway, Chet dropped his cigarette into a pail of water that had been put there for that purpose-and maybe as a khat spittoon-and he turned toward us.
The light was bad, so it was hard for me to tell if he had been chewing, or where he was in the rising and falling arc of a khat trip. But if I had to guess, I’d say he was on the upgrade of the roller coaster, about twenty feet from the top. Coming down is a bitch.
Chet said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t join you tonight, but I heard you had an interesting conversation at dinner.” He looked at me.
Well, first off, you weren’t invited, and second, I guess someone told him I’d commented on his mental health. But I didn’t think that Betsy, Doug, Lyle, or Captain Mac would give Chet Morgan a call about that. And Buck didn’t have the opportunity to speak to Chet. Probably Chet just assumed, from past experience, that someone called him a nut job, and he further assumed it was me. Good deduction, Chet. Or… he had a directional listening device and he heard us down on the patio. That’s really not nice. But I guess that’s why they’re called spies.
Anyway, Chet led the way into the tent.
There was a small map table in the corner, and Chet invited us to sit.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw taped to a wall the official photo of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but this one was captioned
I also noticed a few steel-cut axes, burn boxes, and paper shredders, all necessary office equipment in a sensitive facility that was located in hostile territory. I pictured Chet high on khat, swinging an ax at the computers, and someone shouting to him, “I said there were
Anyway, the young man at the radio couldn’t hear us with his headphones on, and Chet said, “There are no recording devices activated for this discussion.” He added, “Operation Clean Sweep is top secret, of course, and you will never divulge or reveal what was said here, or what happens here.”
