Nelson Demille - The Panther

Right. These things never go the way you want or expect. I asked Buck, “Who the hell is in charge here?”

Buck said to us, “Yasir seems to be losing control.”

Great.

Nabeel interrupted his argument long enough to tell me and Buck to shut up.

But Buck, understanding these people, said something to Yasir in Arabic, and his voice was firm. I heard the word “Musa.”

Yasir seemed to find his balls and backbone, and he shouted at Nabeel and at the other Al Qaeda shitheads, who shut up.

I mean, what’s the pecking order here? You tell ’em, Yasir. Meanwhile, I glanced at my compatriots, and I could see they were a bit uneasy. While Nabeel and Yasir were talking, I said in a low voice to Brenner, Zamo, and Kate, “If I say pull, on the count of three, you know what to do.”

They nodded.

As Kate likes to point out, I sometimes change the plan. But only when Plan A is not going well. I mean, bottom line here, The Panther’s prize was right in front of his jihadists, and I wouldn’t put it past them to get the drop on the Bedouin and re-kidnap us. Or just blow us away.

So if we had to, we would draw on these five bastards and waste them all before they even got their AK-47s unslung. And that would be the end of the negotiations and the end of Operation Clean Sweep, and unfortunately the end of any chance we had of vaporizing The Panther with a Hellfire. But sometimes you gotta think of yourself first, and you have to take what you can get-like five jihadists who were getting a little too aggressive.

Nabeel and Yasir seemed to have settled down a bit, and they were still jabbering away.

Meanwhile, I noticed that the other four Al Qaeda guys were eyeballing us as if trying to determine if we looked like real guests instead of kidnapped guests.

The Al Qaeda delegation was also eyeballing the big tower room, and they all glanced out the windows to try to figure out where they were. Crow Fortress? Or some other tower in the hills?

The tip-off would have been the window behind them that overlooked the courtyard, and more importantly overlooked the fish van. Hey, Abdul, what’s that doing here?

The other three Bedouin were standing directly behind the Al Qaeda guys, to keep them literally in line, head and eyes straight ahead. But then one of the Al Qaeda assholes tried to sneak a look over his shoulder, and I was surprised and pleased to see one of the Bedouin smack his head with the barrel of his AK-47. Like, “I said no peeking, asshole. Try that again and your brains will be on the floor.” Good. It’s your show, boys, and your fort.

More importantly, I could see there was no love lost between these two groups. The Bedouin ruled and have ruled for two thousand years; Al Qaeda was tolerated, as long as they understood whose land this was. Nabeel, however, had spent a little time in Amrika and he’d forgotten his manners. Interestingly, it was Buck who had to remind Yasir that Al Qaeda was not top dog here. Not yet.

But back to business.

Nabeel shouted at me, “What you do here? Why you here?”

It was Buck who replied-Buck does the talking, I do the shooting-“We are embassy personnel on a visit to see the ruins.”

Nabeel, of course, said, “You lie! Why you go to Aden?”

“Embassy business.”

“You lie! How you come to Marib?”

“By car.”

“You say to hotel you come from Sana’a.”

“You know we came from Aden.”

Nabeel, perhaps realizing his English was too limited to get at the essential truth, took advantage of Buck’s Arabic and continued his questions in that language. I heard the words al-Numair, Al Qaeda, Amrika, Sana’a, Aden, and Marib, and even the word Ghumdan.

Obviously Nabeel strongly suspected that we were here to find al-Numair. And the answer was, Why else would we be here, stupid? But Buck wasn’t going to give them anything. I couldn’t understand what Buck was saying, of course, but I trusted the old Cold Warrior to just stick to the story, no matter how implausible it sounded.

Also, I was certain that Nabeel and his compatriots, as well as their boss, al-Numair, were very pissed off about the Hellfire attack that killed their buddies. Not to mention getting their asses kicked at the Hunt Oil installation. So obviously the Al Qaeda guys were not in a good mood. In fact, they’d like to kill us. But first they had to buy us.

Nabeel, on the instructions of his boss, I’m sure, was trying to determine if the Amriki knew or suspected that The Panther was in Marib-and maybe Nabeel was trying to figure out if this was a trap set by the Amriki with the help of Sheik Musa. And that was the real issue. But Nabeel was not going to get that information from the Amriki, unless we were prisoners of Al Qaeda, which we were not-yet.

It’s not easy questioning someone else’s prisoners, as I discovered last time I was here, and more recently at the Ghumdan prison, and Nabeel seemed frustrated with Buck’s replies, so he ended the conversation, then said something to Yasir.

Buck said to us, “Nabeel now wants to see whatever weapons we were carrying when we were kidnapped.”

That was my cue to say, “One, two, three-pull!” and show them the weapons. But maybe I should see how Yasir handled it.

Yasir and Nabeel seemed to be getting heated again, and Buck took advantage of the shouting to say to us, “Yasir refuses to show these gentlemen anything-except us.” He added, “John’s New York acquaintance may be smelling a rat.”

Right. Al Qaeda is not stupid. I wish Chet was here to see and hear all of this. He might learn something-like how unpredictable people are.

Yasir, too, was getting the impression that Nabeel was smelling a rat, so he did a smart thing and shouted at Buck, probably telling him to shut up. Then Yasir did a smarter thing and kicked Buck in the chest, knocking him on his back. It was all an act-I think. Buck didn’t seem to be hurt by Yasir’s half-hearted sandal kick to his chest, and he sat up again. I would have kicked Buck in the balls-just to make it look real, of course.

Nabeel, taking his cue from Yasir, took a step toward Buck as though he intended to kick or hit him, but Yasir went ballistic and shoved Nabeel back and shouted at him.

The other four Al Qaeda guys looked like they were ready to get into a fight, but the three Bedouin behind them stepped back and leveled their rifles. One of them shouted, probably saying, “Make my day, suckers.”

Anyway, Yasir seemed to be tired of his visitors, and he shouted, “Imshee!” Go away.

The Bedouin began slipping the black hoods over the Al Qaeda dickheads, but before Nabeel was hooded, he looked at me and said, “In Yemen, you die.” Then to my compatriots, he also promised, “You die. But maybe not die. Maybe wish to die.”

Well, Nabeel, you’re not getting an American work visa.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure now if we were going to lure The Panther into a meeting with Sheik Musa, so why shouldn’t I yell “Pull!” and bag these bastards? Right?

I glanced at Brenner, who was looking at me, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Zamo actually had his right hand behind his back, ready for the count.

But Buck, the voice of reason, who could sense that the A-team was on the verge of some messy business, said softly, “Let it go.”

Did he say, “Pull”?

The Al Qaeda delegation was all hooded now, and whacking them would be easy, but not fun or sporting. And maybe not a good idea. I mean, I didn’t think the Bedouin would like that, and I suppose there was still a chance that The Panther would schedule the meeting with Musa-if Chet was right about Bulus ibn al-Darwish taking chances. But for now, it was Kate who’d been right about Al Qaeda smelling a rat. As for Brenner not trusting the Bedouin, he seemed to be wrong about that so far. But this deal hadn’t played itself out yet.