The Panther

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN


Across the road was Tourist City, the scene of last night’s Russian adventure. Thinking back, I was certain that Buck knew of Mr. Brenner’s interest in Mrs. Corey, and I wondered what the wise old diplomat would advise his friend. I’m sure Buck would tell Brenner to cool it. Mission first.

“John?”

I turned in my seat. “Yes, Clare?”

“Have you driven to Aden?”

“Actually, I have. About two and a half years ago.” I asked, “How about you?”

“First time.” She told me, “I just got here three weeks ago.” She asked me, “How long will you and your wife be here?”

Who? Oh, my wife. I replied, “Hopefully not long. How about you?”

“I signed on for a year.” She told me, “The State Department is helping me repay my student loan.”

“Right. Me, too.”

She laughed.

I asked, “How do you like Yemen?”

“Sucks.”

“Give it time.”

Mike Cassidy, our DSS driver, assured her, “It doesn’t get better.”

We continued south, past the British Embassy and the Mövenpick Hotel, then turned onto the Marib road, which was not well traveled, making it easier to see if anyone was following. Then we doubled back to intersect with the main road heading south again.

The Bondmobile reported on the radio, “We’re alone.”

There was some truck, bus, and SUV traffic going both ways, as well as motorcycles and scooters. The more traffic the better. Not that we were blending in—I mean, five big black Land Cruisers caravanning in the land of little white vehicles were attracting some attention, and it was obvious to even the densest Yemeni that this wasn’t a tour group. Probably, I thought, everyone in Sana’a knew these SUVs, and it wouldn’t be long before Abdul called his cousin Abdullah who was a fink for Al Qaeda. Cell phones. Everybody had one. Even here.

We passed through the ramshackle outskirts of Sana’a, and the traffic started to thin out.

Mike Cassidy announced to his passengers, “I have three weeks to go here.”

I asked him, “Where you heading?”

“Home. Daytona Beach, Florida. Then I got a great gig in Madrid.”

“You deserve it,” I assured him. I asked, “Ex-military?”

“Yeah. Six years in the Army. One deployment in Afghanistan with the Tenth Mountain Division, one in Iraq with the First Cav.”

Clare said, “Thank you for your service.”

“Still serving,” Mike said. “But the pay is better.”

I thought about Mike Cassidy, John Zamoiski, a.k.a. Zamo, and the other DSS agents, and even Paul Brenner. We’d built this extensive and expensive intelligence and security apparatus, of which I was a part, to fight what amounted to a pissant war. But this war could turn very deadly in a heartbeat, as we saw on 9/11, and on other occasions such as the Cole bombing. And when you put nukes into the equation, or biological and chemical weapons, you were talking nightmare time. Day to day, however, no one in the States gave much of a rat’s ass about any of this since 9/11, but 9/11 would come again, and this time we couldn’t say we were surprised or unprepared. Meanwhile, we followed leads, guarded embassies, chased shadows, and now and then whacked a major a*shole, which made the homeland just a little safer. That’s why I was here.

Mike asked me, “How long are you signed on for?”

“I have a forty-five-day visa with the ERT, subject to extensions.”

“You should think about those extensions.”

“Right. But my wife is here with the embassy for at least a year.”

“That can be tough.”

“Right.” Especially if I did get sent home after my visa expired, and Kate stayed on in the embassy with Paul Brenner. Definitely gotta get that Panther.

Mike asked me, “We got any new leads on the Cole bombing?”

“I’ll find out in Aden.”

Clare asked, “Are you investigating the Cole bombing?”

“I am.”

“That was awful.”

“Right.” It was murder.

So the three of us got to know each other a little. Dr. Clare Nolan was from someplace called Iowa and this was her first trip outside of America—except for the week she spent in Washington, D.C., before coming here.

Mike said to me, “The guys in Aden are very good. You’ll enjoy working with them.”

I wasn’t going to be working with them, but I said, “Looking forward to it.”

He did a quick rundown of his fellow DSS agents in Aden, who numbered only six. Like last time, there was also an FBI SWAT Team in the Sheraton, numbering ten, and also, like last time, an FBI doctor. My FBI Evidence Response Team, Mike said, numbered five at the moment, but that varied. There was also a Marine FAST Team of twenty men out of Dubai, for hotel security. So, give or take, there were about forty Americans in the Sheraton—pretty much the same as last time I was here. Enough people to do the job, but maybe not enough to defend Fort Apache if the Indians attacked—which seemed to be a real possibility.

Also in the Sheraton, but not officially counted as warm bodies, were CIA officers and Military Intelligence officers. When I was there, I counted three of each, but they kept to themselves. They didn’t even play beach volleyball with us.

Clare said, “Someone told me the Sheraton was okay. Pool, gym, beach.”

“And a bar,” I assured her. I asked, “Are you staying?”

“I am.”

Ah. “I didn’t know that.”

She informed me, “If you need to go into the Badlands, I may go with you.”

“You sure you want to do that?”

“No. But if you need me, I’ll go.”

I couldn’t think of why we would need a doctor in Indian Territory. Well… maybe if I thought really hard, I could imagine a situation where people were firing automatic weapons at us.

Clare also said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the country.”

Mike suggested, “You’re seeing all you need to see now.”

Clare didn’t respond.

I opened the manila envelope that Howard had given me and slid out the photos of Bulus ibn al-Darwish.

The first photo, in black and white, was of a young man in a cap and gown. The caption read: Bulus ibn al-Darwish, Columbia University graduation, 1987.

Young Bulus was not bad-looking in an exotic sort of way, with a hooked nose, dark eyes, and high cheekbones. His long hair was swept back, and I was surprised to see that his thin lips were smiling. He was happy to be graduating. He had the whole world in front of him.

The next two photos were color blow-ups of what were captioned Driver’s License photo, 1982, and Passport photo, 1990. In the passport photo, he was still clean-shaven, but his demeanor had changed. He looked serious, or maybe he was thinking about returning to his ancestral home. By this time, he’d gotten his head full of radical thoughts, probably through the Internet, and maybe from some local spiritual guides who had a different view of Islam than most Muslims had, and who preyed on young men such as Bulus ibn al-Darwish.

The last three photos were color snapshots, and one of them showed a big Victorian house in the background, and it was captioned Perth Amboy, home, May 1991. Last known photo.

Bulus, twenty-six years old in this picture, looked older, and without reading too much into the snapshot—but with the knowledge that he’d gone to Yemen a year or so after this photo—I had the impression of a young man who was about to sever his ties to home and family; a man who had seen his future and was anxious to make his mark in the world.

Who, I wondered, took the photo? Probably Mom. Taken in May, so maybe a birthday photo. And did Mom and Dad know that their boy was about to leave the nest and fly east? Probably.

I wondered, too, if Bulus had a girlfriend. Was he getting laid? Did he have only Muslim friends? Or did he also pal around with Christians and Jews? Did he watch American sitcoms on TV? Maybe he did all that in college and afterwards. But somewhere along the line, young Bulus started slipping away into an alternate universe. And now he was here, killing people—American sailors, Europeans, Saudi co-religionists, and his own countrymen.

What happened? Maybe I’d never know. Maybe he himself didn’t know what happened, or how it happened. But at some point he’d come to a fork in the road, and he’d taken the wrong one. And I was on a collision course with this guy. If I had a moment with him, I’d ask him about all this. But more likely, there would be no moment of discovery; there would be a quick death. Mine or his.

Mike asked, “Is that the subject a*shole?”

“It is.”

Mike glanced at the birthday photo and said, “Looks normal.”

Right. Some monsters look normal.

Clare leaned forward and asked, “Who is that?”

“That,” I replied, “is Bulus ibn al-Darwish. He is a mass murderer.”

She didn’t reply for a few seconds, then asked, “Are you here to find him?”

“I am.”

“Good luck.”

I took a last look at the subject, then put the photos in the envelope.

If he knew I was here, maybe he had a photo of me.