Nelson Demille - The Panther

Zamo navigated down the steep, twisting terrain, going faster than was safe. But back there wasn’t too safe either.

The sun was low on the horizon behind us, and the ravine, which was on the east side of the plateau, was in shadow, making it hard to see up ahead.

After a few minutes of escape-and-evasion driving, Brenner said to Zamo, “We shot up the SUVs, so anyone behind us is on foot.”

Zamo let up on the gas and said, “Now you tell me.”

We didn’t exactly relax, but we were all breathing again.

I looked at Kate, who actually seemed fine, all things considered. She’s cool under fire, and only loses her cool with me. I asked, “You okay?”

“Knocked the wind out of me… I’m okay…” She looked at me and said, “You can say it now.”

A bigger man would have said, “I love you,” but I’m not that big so I said, “I fucking told you so.” And I meant it.

Kate said, “I love you.”

Brenner, who had more important things on his mind, asked, “Anybody have any ideas?”

I asked him, “Can we get to the Marib airstrip?”

He replied, “Maybe. Maybe not. The airstrip has only a few charter aircraft going in and out, and there’s usually no one there.”

Kate asked, “Would the Bilqis Hotel be safe?”

Brenner replied, “Only if you want to run into someone like Colonel Hakim, or maybe Hakim himself if he came to Marib.”

We didn’t want to do that, and Kate asked, “How far is it to Sana’a?”

Brenner replied, “About four hours, but it might as well be on Mars. There are checkpoints all along the route, and we’ll never make it without getting stopped by somebody who we don’t want to meet.”

Forget Plan C. Or was that D?

Zamo continued down the ravine, which was getting wider and less steep.

It went without saying that we were in the middle of nowhere, and the closest safe place might be the Saudi border, which, based on where Najran airbase was, would be about 175 miles north of here, as the crow flies, and we weren’t flying-Chet and Buck were flying.

I asked Brenner about the border and he said, “Good thinking, but we’d never get past the Yemeni soldiers who patrol the border.”

“We have our diplomatic passports,” I reminded him.

He ignored my attempt to lighten the moment and said, “The best thing we can do right now is find a place to hide out and think about how to get out of here at dawn.”

Kate had a better idea and said, “Let’s use our cell phones to make contact with the embassy.”

Eureka.

I pulled out my cell phone and lowered my window to stick my head out, but Brenner informed me, “Sorry to tell you, but Buck and Chet have by now notified the NSA that our sat-phones are probably in enemy hands, and the NSA will have called the carrier to discontinue service immediately.”

Holy shit. I turned my sat-phone on and it lit up, but I couldn’t get a tone.

To be sure, we all tried to get service, but all the phones were dead.

Plan D-or E-was a bust, so I suggested, “How about the Hunt Oil installation?”

Brenner didn’t reply for a moment, then said, “That may be our only play. It’s about two hours northeast of Marib town, and it’s the only place in this province where we’ll find other Americans-Americans with guns.” He added, “But travel at night here is unsafe, and the Hunt people will shoot at night if we tried to approach. So we need to wait until dawn.”

That sounded promising, but it barely lifted the dark mood in the Land Cruiser. I mean, we’d just exited hell with our shirttails on fire, and we were happy to be alive. But we’d only managed to pass from the center of hell to the next circle. This totally sucked. We’d gotten this far by our wits and our balls, without any help from anyone, and we deserved a break. Something good had to happen.

But this is not the land of good; this is the land of not good. We came down out of the ravine, and ahead of us, on the dirt road that we’d landed on-the road to the goat herder’s hut-was what looked like a convoy of military vehicles.

Zamo said, “Shit.”

The beginning of the road looked like the end of the road.

When there’s a military convoy coming at you, and the road you’re on is the only road around, you don’t have too many ways to avoid an encounter, except off-road, but that could end in a hail of bullets.

I could see three American-made Humvees in the front of the convoy, followed by four troop carriers that could hold up to a hundred soldiers.

Obviously, they’d responded to the Hellfire attack, and now they were headed toward the Crow Fortress. But why? And who, exactly, were they?

Brenner, Kate, Zamo, and I decided we had to meet them head-on, so to speak, then play it by ear. I reminded everyone, “We’re supposed to have a deal with the Yemeni government, and we’re supposed to have a free hand here in Marib.”

Brenner pointed out, “That information came from Chet and Buck.”

“Good point.” Maybe the deal expired when Chet and Buck got on that helicopter.

Zamo moved to the right, and the convoy continued toward us hogging the middle of the road. When we got within a hundred yards of the lead Humvee, Brenner told Zamo to stop.

Brenner said, “Hopefully someone will speak English, but if not, I’ll do the best I can.”

The convoy also came to a halt, and we could see now that the vehicles were not painted with the brown and tan of the Yemeni Army; they were the camouflage blue of the National Security Bureau, a.k.a. the Blue Meanies.

Brenner said to me, “You and I will get out to meet them. Kate and Zamo will stay in the vehicle and cover us.”

Kate said to me and Brenner, “Clip your sat-phones to your vests.”

Good idea. They didn’t work, but only we knew that.

Without Buck along to be diplomatic, we decided to carry our M4s, which we slung across our chests, ready to rock and roll. Take a few of them with you.

Brenner and I got out of the Land Cruiser and began the walk toward the lead Humvee, paid for with my tax dollars.

I noticed now in the far distance black smoke rising into the sky. That would be the scene of the Hellfire attack-men and vehicles still burning, and, of course, this convoy had already been there to see the carnage. I said to Brenner, who was also looking at the smoke, “Think about how to tell these assholes in Arabic that we have a dozen Predators with Hellfires watching us and the pilots have twitchy fingers.”

He nodded.

Someone got out of the second Humvee and began walking toward us. Even from this distance I could see that it was Colonel Hakim of the dreaded secret police. He was wearing cammies and carrying an AK-47, all ready for action. I love armed confrontations. They don’t usually last too long.

We got within a few feet of Colonel Hakim and stopped. Brenner gave Colonel Hakim a half-assed salute, and Colonel Hakim returned the salute in a similar half-assed manner. He also eyeballed the sat-phones clipped to our vests, probably thinking about the American Embassy, or better yet about Predator pilots watching their monitors with itchy trigger fingers.

Brenner and Hakim exchanged peace greetings in Arabic, without much sincerity, and I said, “Buenos dias,” using my only second language.

Hakim ignored me and asked Brenner, “What are you doing here?”

Brenner replied, “You know what we’re doing here, Colonel.”

“Yes? Why would I know?”

I said to Brenner, “Just cut to the chase.” I mean, these fucking people could beat around the bush until the bush died of annoyance.

Brenner asked Hakim, “What are you doing here?”