The Panther

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 Mövenpick 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 f*cking 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.”

Kate assured him, “You don’t need to justify your life or your work to anyone.”

Buck agreed, but said, “In this business, however, you are sometimes forced to compromise your own beliefs in the interest of the greater good—national security, global strategy, and so forth.” He confided to us, “During the Cold War, there were a few occasions when I had to betray or abandon an ally as part of a complex plan.”

No one commented on that, but I did wonder if he was hinting that the past was prologue to the future. Hopefully not.

Kate, too, spoke a bit about her background, including her wonderful FBI father, now retired, and her loony mother who was a gun nut, though Kate mentioned that only in the context of growing up around guns and learning at a young age how to hunt and shoot.

This was a great opening for her to tell everyone about how she whacked Ted Nash, but she didn’t go there. Maybe she was saving this interesting story for when we met our CIA teammate, thinking that the retelling of it would be even more interesting to a CIA officer. But I’m sure everyone in the CIA already knew this story.

I used our bonding occasion to tell some funny cop stories, which made everyone laugh. But to show it wasn’t all fun and games on the NYPD, I mentioned getting shot on the job, and my medical retirement, and my rocky transition from NYPD to the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, and of course, my first case, where I met Kate Mayfield, the love of my life.

Paul Brenner seemed to have had an interesting and adventurous life in the military, but like most combat veterans, he downplayed his war experiences, and again he didn’t mention his clandestine mission to post-war Vietnam. But he did say he’d had a brief wartime marriage, though he didn’t say anything about his current lady in the States, and I didn’t expect he would; he seemed to be a private person. Also—how do I put this?—he was smitten with Kate Mayfield. Hey, no big deal. I think Tom Walsh has the same problem. And it wasn’t my problem.

Anyway, four-fifths of the A-team got to know one another a little better, which might or might not make us work better together. And with luck, we’d all get home and have a few stories to tell. Or, in this business, not tell.

I suggested a reunion. “We’ll meet at seven under the clock at Grand Central Station, just like in the movies, and we’ll go to Michael Jordan’s Steak House.”

Everyone liked that happy ending and we agreed to be there, date to be determined by fate. I wondered who, if anyone, would make it.

Buck paid for dinner as promised—sixty bucks, including tip, wine, and drinks. That’s a month’s pay for a Yemeni, and about four drinks in a New York bar. Maybe I should buy a retirement house here.

Anyway, showing the poor judgment of the intoxicated, we thought it was a great idea to go to the Russia Club.

Zamo drove us the few hundred meters up the road to Tourist City. The half dozen guards at the gate appeared to be Eastern European, and they looked tough and menacing with their flak jackets and AK-47s. But they recognized the American Embassy Land Cruiser, and probably recognized Zamo, and waved us through.

I said to Brenner, “They seemed to know you.”

No response.

Tourist City was a collection of five- and six-story concrete slab buildings, not unlike an urban housing project for the poor. But here, in Sana’a, it was the height of luxury, and more importantly, it was guarded. Not safe. Guarded.

I could see why Paul Brenner might choose not to live here; it was sort of depressing, but also an admission that you felt unsafe on the outside. And macho men would never admit that. They’d rather die. And often did.

There were a few low-rise buildings on the grounds, including a few shops, and in one of the buildings was the Russia Club.

Zamo pulled up and we piled out.

There were two more armed guys in front of the place, and they definitely recognized Mr. Buckminster Harris. In fact, they greeted him in Russian, and Buck replied in Russian with what must have been a joke, because the two guys laughed.

Ironic, I thought, that Buck Harris, who’d spent most of his professional life trying to screw the Russians, was now yucking it up with them in Yemen, where he’d spent part of the Cold War spying on the now-defunct Evil Empire. If you live long enough, you see things you could never have imagined.

We entered the Russia Club, and the maitre d’ saw me and shouted, “Ivan! It is you! Excellent. Tatiana is here tonight. She will be delirious with joy!”

Just kidding.

But the maitre d’, Sergei by name, did know Buck, though not Paul Brenner, which disappointed me. I would have liked to discover that Mr. Cool dropped his paycheck here every month, boozing and whoring. Kate, too, would find that interesting.

Anyway, the place looked a bit sleazy, which it was. There was a long bar to the right, a raised stage, and a ceramic-tile dance floor surrounded by tables, half of which were empty. A DJ was playing some god-awful seventies hard rock, and a few couples were on the dance floor, looking like they were having seizures.

The bar was crowded with casually dressed men and barely dressed women. I mean, I haven’t seen so much deep cleavage since I drove through the Grand Canyon. The men looked Western—Europeans and Americans—and most of the ladies appeared to be from Eastern Europe and Russia, though there were a few black ladies who, I’d once been told, were from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, which is not far from here if you cross the pirate-infested Red Sea. Also at the tables were a few Western-looking women accompanied by their gentlemen friends or husbands. I recognized two men and women from the embassy, but they didn’t wave.

If there were any Yemeni customers or service staff in the Russia Club, I didn’t see them. In fact, I’m sure one selling point of this place was the promise that you didn’t have to see a single Yemeni, unless you stayed until closing time and watched them mop the floor under the eye of armed Russians.

Kate broke into my thoughts and asked me, “Been here before?”

“They’ve named a cocktail after me.”

Anyway, Sergei escorted us to a table, though I’d have preferred the bar.

Buck ordered a bottle of Stolichnaya on ice, a plate of citrus fruit, and zakuskie—snacks.

My last case, involving The Lion, had taken me to a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which is home to many Russian-Americans. The club, Svetlana by name, was a lot more opulent than this place, and the clientele were mostly immigrants from the motherland on a nostalgia trip. This place, named simply the Russia Club, was the Village of the Damned in the Country of the Lost.

Anyway, the vodka came quickly and we toasted, “Na Zdorov’e.”

Kate seemed comfortable enough in the proximity of horny guys and hookers, and her only complaint was the volume of the bad music.

Mr. Brenner asked her to dance, of course, and she accepted and walked unsteadily onto the slippery dance floor with Brenner holding her arm.

Buck said to me, “She’s a delightful woman.”

“She is,” I agreed. More so when she’s had a few. However, if it was me who’d suggested coming here, she might not be such delightful company.

Kate slipped on the tile floor, but Brenner caught her, and Kate kicked off her shoes and they danced to some horrid disco tune.

An attractive, scantily clad lady came over to the table carrying a tray suspended from a strap around her neck, and in the tray were two huge hooters and a selection of cigars and cigarettes. Take your pick.

Buck found three Cubans hiding under the lady’s left humidor, and gave her a twenty-dollar bill, which included tax, tip, and a light.

The lady said to Buck, in a heavy Russian accent, “I don’t see you for many weeks.”

Buck replied in Russian, and the lady laughed and tousled his thinning hair. Buck was apparently still f*cking the Russians.

The lady checked me out and asked, “You are new in Sana’a?”

“I feel I’ve been here all my life.”

“Yes?” She further inquired, “Is that your wife or girlfriend? Or his?”

“My wife, his girlfriend.”

She thought that was really funny, then said to me, “Maybe I see you again.”

“Tomorrow night.”

So Buck and I sat there, smoking Cuban cigars, drinking Russian vodka, listening to American disco, and watching the human comedy.

I was sure that if you stayed in Yemen long enough—like more than a month—you’d develop a deep fatalism, which led to strange and risky behavior. I’m not being judgmental—just expressing an awareness that the people I needed to work with and trust had gone a little around the bend.

Anyway, the DJ switched to American big band, and an instrumental of “I’m in the Mood for Love” filled the room while a Russian chanteuse on the stage did her best to sing along.

“Ahminda moot fa loov, zimply becus yerneermee…”

Brenner and Kate were getting to know each other.

On the subject of fatalism, I imagined that every dangerous mission from the dawn of time through World War Two and the Cold War to the war on terrorism began with an alcohol binge. Or should begin that way. Hey, eat, drink, and be merry. Nothing puts things into perspective like the thought that you might die tomorrow.

I said to Buck, “This was a good idea.”

“It’s the thing to do on the eve of battle.” He added, “War is a good excuse for any type of behavior.”

Indeed.

The DJ was now playing “Moonlight Serenade” and Kate, observing the one slow dance rule, came over to the table, took Buck’s hand, and led him to the dance floor, leaving Mr. Brenner and me to dance if we chose to.

Before I could ask, Brenner sat and said, “Oh, good. Cigars.” He busied himself with pouring a vodka while getting the attention of the cigarette lady, who came over and clipped his Cuban, then lit it for him.

We didn’t have much to say to each other, but he did say, “Good cigar.”

Mr. Brenner, I thought, was becoming less funny and less interesting as he became more distracted by Ms. Mayfield. I’ll write this off to too much alcohol and too much time in the land of limited dating opportunities. Not that you had to be drunk or horny to find Kate Mayfield attractive.

Anyway, I watched Buck and Kate sharing the dance floor with Western European and American men, and Eastern European and African hookers. It was great that so many diverse cultures could get along so well. It would have been even greater if we could get the Arabs out there in their robes and veils, all liquored up, doing the Bristol Stomp.

A few ladies came by to ask if they could sit or have a dance, and Mr. Brenner and I politely declined.

To make conversation, I said to Brenner, “Someday a rocket is going to come through this roof.”

He informed me, “They have steel planking and sandbags on the roof.”

“It should say that on the menu.”

“Moonlight Serenade” ended, and it was my turn to dance with my wife.

The DJ was still spinning big band and the smoky air filled with trombones and saxophones playing Tommy Dorsey’s “I’ll Never Smile Again.”

Kate and I danced, and I didn’t spin her much because I could tell the room was already spinning in her head.

She didn’t have much to say, and I walked her back to our table.

It was past midnight now and the Russia Club was in full swing. Buck suggested cognac, which was not a good suggestion.

Kate said, “I’m ready to go home.”

Me, too. Let’s go to the airport.

Brenner picked up the tab—about forty bucks, which he paid in American dollars.

Sergei showed us to the door and said to us, “Tomorrow is belly dancing show. You come.”

Buck said we’d be back. We left, and Zamo pulled up to the door. I put Kate in the front seat and the boys squeezed in the rear.

As we passed through the gates of Tourist City, Zamo suggested we have our guns handy, which was a good idea considering we were so drunk it would take five minutes to find them.

Zamo also suggested that he drop Kate and me off first at the Sheraton, then double back to the embassy. His final suggestion was that Brenner should stay in the embassy tonight since Zamo had no intention of driving him to his apartment after midnight.

So just another night out in wild and crazy Sana’a.

Kate and I got dropped off at the Sheraton, and Zamo said he’d pick us up at 6:45. Buck told us not to check out, and Brenner said to wear the Kevlar. I said, “Good night and good luck.”

I stuck my gun in my belt and steered Kate into the lobby, which was empty and quiet, though I could hear music from the cocktail lounge.

We went to the elevators, where there should have been a security person, but the chair was empty. We drew our guns and rode up to our floor, where I told Kate to keep an eye on the corridor while I cleared the room.

There were no terrorists under the bed or in the closet so I motioned Kate in, and I closed and bolted the door. The drapes were open and I drew them shut.

Kate, not feeling her very best, collapsed on the bed.

I looked around the room to see if anything struck me as wrong—like a stuffed black panther on my pillow. Everything looked kosher—or I should say halal—and I lowered myself into the stuffed chair.

All in all, this was not a bad day in the Land That Time Forgot. I mean, we learned a lot, and we could make good use of what we learned, and by now, maybe The Panther knew that John Corey, who’d killed The Lion, was now here to kill him. There ain’t room in this country for both of us, a*shole.

My teammates seemed more than competent, and I trusted Brenner. Professionally, I mean. Not so much with Kate. Buck seemed trustworthy, though he had a self-admitted history of throwing friends under the bus—but only for patriotic reasons.

Our CIA person was as yet unknown, but not for long. That could change the team balance.

Kate was still gung-ho, and she was a fast learner. I was honestly glad she was with me and I looked forward to that moment when I could say, “I told you we should have stayed home.”

So, tomorrow the road to Aden, which I’d traveled round-trip last time. This time, there would be no round trip. It would be one-way to Aden, then to Marib. And that, too, could be one-way. But to be optimistic, let’s say Marib was the last stop before home. And the last stop for The Panther.