The Panther

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO


We headed south on a paved but disintegrating road, and within ten minutes we turned off on a worse road, where up ahead, on a hill, I could see the dark tower houses of Old Marib.

We stopped near a crumbling wall at the edge of the city, and we all got out and looked around. We had clear views down the hill, and there was no one in sight.

Buck said to us, “Paul will stay here with Zamo. John, Kate, and I will go into the city for about half an hour of sightseeing.”

I told Buck, “I’ve seen the South Bronx. I’ll stay.”

Kate said to me, “I want to see this and I want you with me.”

I asked Buck, “If we’re not getting kidnapped here, why are we here?”

“We need to be seen.”

“There’s no one around, Buck.”

He informed me, “There are people around, and they notice everything and everyone in a place like this. Especially Westerners. And they all have cell phones and phone numbers to call.”

Sounds like Kate’s hick town in Minnesota.

Buck further explained, “We need to give any potential kidnappers enough time to discover we are here and call men together to kidnap us.” He added, “Our kidnapping needs to appear to be real.”

I see a CIA brainstorming session at work; clever people thinking of stupid things. Or Buck just wants to see Old Marib.

Regarding our kidnapping having the appearance of being real, I asked Buck, “Isn’t it unusual for us not to have hired some Bedouin to be with us? Or National Security police?”

Buck replied, “There was a time when you could come here on your own. But it’s not advisable now, though adventurous travelers—or unknowing travelers—still come here without armed escorts.”

“Okay.” I asked, “Are the Predators watching?”

“Of course.”

I pictured Chet in his van watching us right now. Should I flip him?

Buck also said, “Our Bedouin escort is close by and we can call them if a situation arises.”

Or when we’re ready for them to kidnap us.

Zamo put the duffel bag with the serious guns on the hood of his Hilux and he and Brenner stayed behind to cover our backs.

Buck led the way and Kate and I followed him into the city, carrying only our concealed sidearms and a camera.

The dirt streets of Old Marib appeared deserted, but I noticed fresh goat droppings and recent footprints in the dust.

The mud brick tower houses rose as high as eight stories, except the ones that had collapsed from age or were blown up by the Egyptian Air Force in Civil War Twenty-nine, or whatever. More than half the city was gone, but you could see the surviving foundations filled with drifting sand and rubble.

Buck said to us, “Several thousand people once lived here. Now maybe a dozen families remain.”

“Well, parking’s not a problem.”

The place was creepy, and the dark mud brick buildings looked like high-rise haunted houses. It was deathly still, except for a weird wind that whistled through the streets and through the shells of the buildings, and small dust devils that appeared and disappeared in the roads and rubble. The words “post-apocalyptic” crossed my mind.

I mean, the place smelled dead—like old ashes and rotting… something.

I glanced at Kate, who seemed fascinated, but also anxious.

Buck said to me, “Be honest. Isn’t this interesting?”

“No.”

Buck chuckled. He was having a grand time, and he spotted a huge foundation stone in one of the tower houses, which he examined, saying, “This is from a Sabaean temple. See the Sabaean writing carved in the stone?”

Kate dutifully got closer and examined the whatever. I kept an eye on the street.

Buck also found a square stone column that had been incorporated into the doorway of the building, and he informed us, “This, too, is Sabaean. It’s probably three thousand years old.”

I asked, “What does the writing say?”

“It says ‘Yankee go home.’ ”

Funny. But not a bad idea.

Buck also let us know, “This hill is actually the result of layer upon layer of civilization here. Someday, archaeologists will excavate this right down to the first human settlement on this spot.”

And find the world’s first delicatessen.

Anyway, it was time for a sit-rep, and I used my sat-phone to call Brenner.

He answered and I asked, “Anything happening there?”

“Negative.” He asked, “Am I missing something good?”

“I see dead people.”

“Get a picture.”

“Roger.”

So we continued to wander around, and Buck was all over the place, looking for bits and pieces of broken stone with this weird writing carved in it, which to me looked Martian. He took lots of pictures, and I was starting to believe we were tourists.

Buck asked us, “Do you want to go into one of the houses?”

“No.”

“We can climb up to the mafraj and get a wonderful view.”

“Buck,” I said sternly, “these towers are on the verge of collapse. I don’t even want to be in the street next to them.”

“Well… all right. But if we see real kidnappers—or Al Qaeda—we’ll have to duck into a tower house.”

“I’d rather shoot it out on the street.”

We continued on, and Buck, ever the instructor, informed us, “Islam has an ambivalent attitude toward pre-Islamic culture and artifacts. Some Muslims see these ancient pagan cultures as visible evidence that the early Arabs were civilized and very advanced. But the fundamentalists reject anything that is pre-Islamic and pagan, and they often destroy these artifacts—the same as the early Christians destroyed and defaced the statues and temples of pagan Rome.”

“Right. They knocked the dicks off the statues.”

“Correct. The fundamentalists here do the same.”

Can we leave now?

But he continued, “The Bedouin feel some affinity for these ruins. The Sabaeans are their direct ancestors. But people like Bulus ibn al-Darwish want to erase all evidence that a civilization existed anywhere in the Middle East before Islam.” He added, “And that is why the Western archaeologists have been threatened here, and why so many attacks on Westerners have occurred in and around pagan archaeological sites here and elsewhere in the Middle East.”

I thought that Westerners were attacked at archaeological sites because that’s where Westerners went. And also because these places were isolated. That’s what happened to the Belgians. They should have stayed in Sana’a. Actually, they should have gone to Paris.

But I got Buck’s point. Westerners coming here was like people going to an African game preserve; the visitors want to see the wild animals, and the wild animals see the visitors as a lunch that walked into their dining room.

In any case, we were in the right place. Or the wrong place.

Buck reminded us, “The Romans besieged this city, and Marib has been besieged dozens of times and survived until the Egyptian Air Force destroyed it in 1967.”

Jet fighters with two-thousand-pound bombs are a bitch.

Buck looked around and said sadly, “War is senseless.”

I think the old Cold Warrior was going soft. I mean, this was nothing compared to thermonuclear Armageddon.

We came into an open area that Buck said was once a souk. There were goats wandering around the square and also a few kids—meaning young children, not baby goats. Anyway, the kids—the children—spotted us and stared at us like they’d seen ghosts. I guess they don’t get many tourists here.

Finally, they got their courage up and about ten of them ran toward us, yelling, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!”

I said to Buck, “Tell them to walk with us and we’ll pay them.”

Buck nodded and said something in Arabic, and the children left their kids behind and surrounded us as we doubled back to our vehicles.

I mean, I hate to use children as shields, but they were getting paid.

About half an hour after we’d entered Old Marib, we came back to where we’d started.

Buck asked us, “Did you enjoy that?”

Kate said, “It was fascinating. Incredible.”

Sucked.

We walked out of the ruins and I was happy to see Zamo and Brenner, who had not been kidnapped or murdered.

We paid off the urchins, and I advised them, “When you grow up, relocate.” But stay away from Perth Amboy.

Brenner wanted to ride with Zamo awhile, so we switched and Buck got behind the wheel with me still riding shotgun and Kate in the back. Buck took the lead again and we drove down the hill, toward the next dead ruin, the throne of the Queen of Sheba.

I pictured the headline in the New York Post: Five Yanks Yanked Seeing Sheba. Or, Bedouin Bad Boys Snatch Our Boys.

Hey, it’s all make-believe. Part of a clever CIA plan.

So how about this? Panther Pulverized by Predator in Perfectly Planned Ploy.

I like that.

But first, a friendly kidnapping.