The Panther

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO


The PSO goons dragged Altair out of the Humvee and they sat him on the ground facing his Al Qaeda camp in the basin below.

No one said anything to him, and we let him look. He showed no outward emotion, but instead he stared quietly at the moonlit landscape of bomb craters and smoldering rubble. Finally, he lowered his head.

Brenner said to Colonel Hakim, “Tell him this is what the Americans will do to all Al Qaeda camps in Yemen.”

Hakim, who probably had a foot in those camps, hesitated, then translated.

Altair had no response.

Brenner continued, “Everyone down there is dead. Everyone who went with Altair to meet Sheik Musa is dead. Many jihadists who attacked the Hunt Oil installation are dead.”

Hakim again translated, and again Altair did not respond, but kept staring at the ground.

Brenner then said, “But The Panther who caused all this death is still alive.”

Hakim translated, but this time Altair responded, and Hakim told us, “He says The Panther was in this camp, so he is also dead.”

I said, “Bullshit. Tell this sonofabitch that the next time he lies to us, he gets tasered.”

Hakim nodded and passed on the good news.

Altair did not respond.

I also said, “If The Panther is dead, then Altair can tell us where his hideout is.”

Hakim nodded, and translated, but Altair again had no response.

Okay, the taser was the stick, and here’s the carrot. “Tell him if he shows us where al-Darwish’s hideout is, the Americans will pay him one hundred thousand dollars, and send him anywhere he wants to go.”

Hakim translated that and the other three PSO thugs looked interested themselves. I mean, if they knew where The Panther was hiding, they’d give him up in a heartbeat for a hundred large and a ticket out of here.

Altair, however, was not interested, and Hakim told us, “He says first that al-Darwish is dead in this camp, and that he does not want your American money, and that he will die in Yemen.”

“That can be arranged.” Well, so much for the carrot. Back to the stick.

Hakim had the same thought and he nodded to one of his goons, who hit the old man in the neck with a jolt of juice.

Altair screamed and toppled to the ground, thrashing around, then he lay still.

Kate turned away and walked back to the Land Cruiser.

Brenner said to Hakim, “Keep asking him the same question and if you get the same answer, repeat the process. Eventually he will tell us where al-Darwish’s hideout is.” Brenner cautioned, “Don’t kill him.”

Hakim, who didn’t need much advice or encouragement on the subject of torture, asked Altair the question again, but Altair did not respond, and Hakim’s goon shoved the taser prod into Altair’s nuts.

Hakim went through the routine two more times until Altair passed out. Hakim said to us, “It is possible that he has no knowledge of where this hideout is located.”

Well, that was possible, but we hadn’t gotten there yet.

Brenner looked at Altair lying unconscious on the ground, then bent over and took his pulse, announcing, “He’s… okay.”

Maybe a little gray.

Well, if Altair didn’t die here, Hakim would kill him anyway. We were trying to save the old guy’s life, but he was making that difficult.

I moved away from Hakim and his goons, and Brenner followed.

Zamo, who’d told us about six times in the SUV that he didn’t trust Hakim or his men, stood off near the vehicles with his rifle at the ready. I didn’t trust Hakim either, but we were all here to do business.

I said to Brenner, “Altair knows where al-Darwish’s hideout is and he’d tell us if he really thought al-Darwish was dead.”

“Correct.”

I continued, “He’s not responding well to the carrot or the stick, so…” I thought about this and said, “So we need to try another approach.”

“Maybe more carrots and a bigger stick.”

“No. We’re thinking the way we think, but Altair thinks differently.”

Kate saw that the taser session had ended and she came over to us. “Any progress?”

“No. He’s hanging tough.”

“That’s enough taser.”

I agreed and said, “This guy doesn’t want to rat out his chief and go to hell. Right? He wants to take the express elevator to Paradise.”

Brenner nodded and said, “It’s not a choice between living and dying. It’s a choice of what kind of death he’s looking for.”

“Correct. So we have to help him become a martyr.”

Kate asked, “How?”

“I don’t know. But Hakim does.”

The gentleman in question came over to us and asked, “What do you want to do?”

I said to Hakim, “It seems to me, Colonel, that Altair does not want to die a traitor and a coward. Right?”

Hakim, who was probably both, had to think about that, but then he nodded and said, “This may be true.”

“So? How do we make a deal with Altair that lets him tell us what we want to know, but also lets him into Paradise?”

Again, Hakim had to think about that, and he replied, “That is difficult.” He informed us, “You are the reason for his stubbornness.” He explained, unnecessarily, “You are… infidels. He cannot betray his chief to you, or he will go to hell.”

“Right. We get that.” In fact, Altair should have mentioned that himself between tasers to his nuts. He would have saved himself a lot of pain, and saved us a lot of time. Not to mention saving all of us some discomfort. Well, the PSO guys didn’t care—they did this stuff on their coffee breaks. Maybe, though, the pain was part of the process on the road to salvation.

Hakim interrupted my thoughts and said to me and Brenner, “There is also an issue of the money. Altair rejects it, but he will want this for his family.” He explained, “It is a thing which worries the martyrs for Islam. Their families. So, Altair will give me his family name and I will promise that his family receives the money—in exchange, of course, for the information you need.”

Hakim thought a lot about money, but he might be on to something.

“Okay,” I said, “so how do we make all this work?”

Colonel Hakim replied thoughtfully, “First, we must offer Altair two kinds of death. The one will be a bullet in the head, right here, and he will die a defeated man, a prisoner, and not a martyr who has died in jihad and who would ascend directly to Paradise. And also there is no promise of money to his family.”

Got it.

Hakim continued, “The other death, to die in jihad, a martyr to his faith, that is more difficult to arrange.”

Maybe I should challenge Altair to a knife fight, but the old guy could get lucky and I’d be the one heading for Paradise.

Zamo, who was standing near the vehicles and who had spent some time in Islam, said, “Let the old guy go into the camp.”

Yeah?

Hakim thought that might be a good idea and said, “Yes, he can be with the dead martyrs, his jihadists. He will pray among them, and find peace.”

Great. But first he has to do the open sesame thing with the cave.

Hakim continued, “When I spoke to him earlier, he believed two things—that God spared him for a purpose, but also that he had not achieved martyrdom as his jihadists had.”

Right. A little survivor’s guilt. We can help him with that.

Brenner said to Hakim, “Speak to him. But don’t forget what we need from him.”

Hakim said he certainly understood, and he reminded us, “Do not forget what I need from you.”

How could we forget?

So Brenner, Kate, and I joined Zamo near the Land Cruiser to get out of Altair’s sight.

Hakim’s goons sat the old man up, gave him some water, and Hakim began talking to him.

About ten minutes later, Hakim came over to us and said, “Altair has told me that he believes Bulus ibn al-Darwish was in this camp, and that he died here.”

That was not what I wanted to hear.

Hakim continued, “But he has also told me that because he believes his chief is dead, he can now reveal the place where al-Darwish once lived.”

That’s more like it. I think we all understood that Altair was bullshitting himself, but sometimes you gotta do that to save your soul, like me eating hamburgers on Good Friday and calling them veggie burgers. I mean, you can’t bullshit God, but you can bullshit yourself.

We walked back to the edge of the basin and there was Altair, stumbling down the slope toward the Al Qaeda camp, going home.

Colonel Hakim told us, “He will die here. And that is good.”

Very good.

“Or, perhaps, God will again spare him, and we may hear from him someday.”

“I hope not.” But a deal is a deal, and on that subject, I asked Colonel Hakim, “Where is The Panther’s hideout?”

Hakim looked off at the distant hills beyond the basin and pointed. “There.”

“Can you be a bit more specific?”

He got specific and asked, “Do you see that peak? The one that resembles the sail of a ship?”

Were we getting directions to Noah’s Ark?

It was hard to see much in the moonlight, but I thought I saw what Hakim was pointing to. Zamo, however, had his nightscope on it and he said, “I see it. It’s about three klicks, across some rough terrain.”

Kate and Brenner were also looking at it through the lower-powered daylight scopes on their rifles, and they said they could see it clearly in the moonlight. Great.

Colonel Hakim informed us, “Altair says there is a trail which begins on the far side of the camp. If you can locate that trail, it will take you to the other side of that mountain where the trail will ascend to the cave of Bulus ibn al-Darwish.”

Piece of cake. Or a sack of bullshit. I asked Hakim, “Are you sure Altair was telling you the truth?”

“One can never be sure. However, he swore this to me, and I believe he was truthful.” Hakim nodded to himself and said, “Altair understood that the thing I was giving to him needed to be repaid.”

This place is starting to make sense.

Brenner said to Hakim, “I assume you are not coming with us.”

The colonel replied, “I see no reason for that, and I have duties elsewhere.”

Right. Like a swim in the pool at the Bilqis Hotel. I didn’t want Hakim and his goons with us anyway, and neither did anyone else. We could handle this ourselves unless The Panther had a platoon of jihadists with him. I asked Hakim, “Would you guess that al-Darwish is alone?”

Hakim replied, “Al-Darwish is dead, according to Altair. But if he is not, then he is in that cave, and he is alone, or perhaps he has one or two trusted jihadists with him. But no more.” He motioned toward the camp, indicating that there weren’t many jihadists left for The Panther to invite to his hole.

Well, the only thing left to talk about was money, and I said to Hakim, “Whether or not we find The Panther if we find his cave, you will be rewarded as we discussed.”

“Three million dollars.”

And a small mango up your ass. “Correct.”

Brenner confirmed that, and said to Colonel Hakim, “We will arrange to meet in Sana’a, perhaps at the American Embassy, or in your office. The appropriate people will be there from my government to arrange for your reward.”

I lifted my foot, because the bullshit was up to my ankles.

But maybe Brenner would try to get something for Hakim, and I guess that was okay. As with Altair, you do a little bullshit and a little chocolate ice cream. Point is, we weren’t out of here yet, and Hakim could be the problem or the solution.

Hakim said to Brenner, “If you should capture al-Darwish—or find him dead—and you find yourself without means to transport him to Sana’a, I am at the Bilqis Hotel.”

Of course you are. And the hotel is not charging a PSO colonel a rial for the room. Life is good if you’re a policeman in a police state. It occurred to me that I had the right job, but in the wrong country.

Brenner said, “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll let you know.”

Actually, if we found The Panther, the only thing we’d have to transport was his pinky finger, and the rest of him could rot in these hills.

I hate long good-byes, so I said, “Good-bye.”

But Kate, a compassionate lady, asked Colonel Hakim, “Did you tell Altair that his family would be taken care of?”

“Ah, yes, I did that. So we will need to discuss that as well.”

I didn’t think Uncle Sam was going to pay a terrorist’s family a hundred grand, but they might pay Hakim something and Hakim could take care of that. Good-bye.

But Hakim had more to tell us, and he said, “The family name of Altair—it is al-Darwish.”

I hardly knew what to say, so I said, “See you later.”

Colonel Hakim and Mr. Brenner exchanged salutes, and the PSO guys got back in the Humvee I bought for them.

So, here we were. Alone at last.

They say the journey is the destination, but it is not. The journey is the journey; the destination is the end. And we were near the end of this journey—and so was Bulus ibn al-Darwish.