The Panther

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE


Chet opened the throttle, and we were making good time around the peninsula and back toward Elephant Rock.

There were a lot of big dorsal fins gliding around close to the boat, and if Kate and I had been alone now with Chet and his Glock, I might have been a little concerned. But then I remembered that we were here to be Panther bait, not shark bait.

Chet said to his captive audience, “If you recall, we weren’t certain that Al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole attack. This was pre-9/11 and Al Qaeda was only one of many terrorist groups that were causing us problems.”

Right. And Al Qaeda never claimed responsibility for the attack. But on the Arab street, the word was out that Al Qaeda was behind the Cole attack, and Al Qaeda recruitment went way up, just as it did after 9/11.

Chet continued, “By August 2001, right before 9/11—about the time Mr. Corey was here—we identified Bulus ibn al-Darwish, al-Numair, The Panther, as one of the three main plotters. That’s when a lot of this started to make sense.” He asked rhetorically, “Who else could have thought of this, organized it, and executed it so perfectly? It had to be an American.” He reminded us, “Most of these so-called jihadists are too stupid to even think of something like this, and too inept to pull it off.”

I partly agreed, but I said to him, “Some of the top guys are very smart and very sophisticated.”

“True,” replied Chet, “but I see a Western-educated head behind this attack. Not someone like bin Laden who’s really a country bumpkin and a clueless fundamentalist and two-bit philosopher who has his head in the clouds when it’s not up his ass.”

Interesting, and maybe true. At least the CIA thought so.

Chet continued, “No, it was someone who understood us. Someone who had knowledge about our idiotic Rules of Engagement, and someone who may have had some knowledge of the Cole’s layout and the time and date that the Cole would put into Aden Harbor, and the time of the refueling and the first lunch shift. Also someone who understood the psychological impact of an attack on an American warship that caused the death of so many American sailors.” He added, “This bastard, Bulus ibn al-Darwish, has a big hate toward America and this attack was a manifestation of that hate—a humiliating kick in our balls.”

No argument there, and I’d add that Chet Morgan had a big hate, too. I guess we all did, but Chet seemed to be taking it more personally than most of us. I mean, we’re not supposed to get into the hate game, which can screw up your judgment and your performance. You need to be cool, and most people in this business are cool to the point of cold-blooded. Hot is not cool.

But Chet had been here a long time, and he was probably frustrated and under pressure to get results. Plus he had more info than we did about The Panther, including the a*shole’s psychological profile. As sometimes happens in a long investigation, the case officer starts to obsess on the fugitive and begins to see him as the cause of all his problems. It’s kind of complex, but I’ve been there. The other thing that struck me was that Chet, who had initially come across as a bit burned out, was now very animated, like a switch had been turned on. Or maybe the khat had kicked in. Or the hate.

Chet continued, “This attack has not been fully avenged. But it will be. These bastards, including Mr. al-Darwish, have to learn that there is a price to pay.”

“They know that,” Kate assured him, “and they are ready to pay it.”

“And we’re ready to make them keep paying.”

Chet was into revenge, which was good regarding terrorists, but maybe not so good regarding Ms. Mayfield whacking Chet’s colleague. But that was another subject, and probably not on today’s agenda.

I wasn’t sure I had a good take on this guy, but I was certain that Buck knew about him, though Buck doesn’t always share.

Chet had said he’d been here since the Cole was bombed, but I didn’t remember him. On the other hand, the spooks were in and out, flying off to Sana’a, Djibouti, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. And even when they were in the Sheraton in Aden, they were nearly invisible. Part of their mystique.

It must be a lonely job, and I often compared CIA officers to vampires who only hung out with other vampires and had no human friends. That’s not nice. Maybe I have CIA envy.

Chet continued his history of the Cole incident and said, “The first FBI agents sent to Yemen in response to the Cole attack worked in a very hostile environment. They were met at Aden Airport by Yemeni soldiers pointing AK-47s at them when they got off the plane.” He confided to us, “I was with the FBI that day, and I can tell you, we thought we were going to get into a firefight right there on the tarmac.” He added, “A*sholes.”

So, another ugly American who didn’t like the Yemenis. How are we going to win this war on terrorism if we don’t win the hearts, minds, and confidence of our Islamic allies? Right? I mean, true, they were a*sholes. But they were our a*sholes.

Also, I was sure that Chet had been very frightened that day when he was threatened by Yemeni Army guys with lots of firepower. And when you let something or someone frighten you, you get very angry later. And you want to redeem your manhood—by killing someone. Same as on the mean streets of New York. Maybe that’s what some of this was about.

Chet continued, “Speakers in the Yemeni Parliament were calling for jihad against America, like it was us who did something wrong, and this was broadcast live on radio and TV every day.” He added, “Most of the Americans here—tourists, oil workers, and businesspeople—left the country quickly.”

Buck informed us, “The embassy was in lockdown and we sent all nonessential staff to Oman or Riyadh.”

Chet nodded, then went on, “The Yemeni government was sending us mixed signals. They said it was okay to bring our people in, but when we got here, we were threatened.”

Buck explained, “There was a lot of confusion and panic within the government.”

Ours or theirs?

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. Take a few of them with you.

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 a*sholes 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 a*sholes 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.