Nelson Demille - The Panther

I hate it when planes collide in midair.

The pilot or copilot also announced, “We’re flying dark-no exterior lights, and please keep all the shades down if you turn on your overhead light.”

I lowered my shade.

A few minutes later, we came out of our gravity-defying climb and leveled off. I turned on my overhead light and scanned the aisle for the beverage cart.

The pilot came back on the PA and said, “Marib is almost due north of here, but unfortunately I forgot to file a flight plan with the authorities.” He chuckled. A little CIA pilot humor. He also told us, “To confuse anyone watching us on radar, we’ll take a northwesterly heading towards Sana’a, then as we approach Sana’a we’ll drop below radar coverage and head east into Marib.” He informed us, “Marib has an airstrip, so if someone thinks we’re going there, they’ll think we’re heading for the airstrip.”

Right. Because no one would think we were stupid enough to land on a road in the dark.

The pilot also assured us, “Weather is good en route, and we have some moonlight to fly by and we have night vision goggles for the landing.”

Do we have parachutes?

“Flight time is about two and a half hours.”

Well, we had reached the point of no return regarding Operation Clean Sweep.

Actually, Kate and I had reached that point when we walked into Tom Walsh’s office to talk about Yemen.

And here I was.

And here we all were, all six of us, with not much in common except one goal-to kill someone. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some misgivings about this, but I’d be lying more if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the kill. That’s the reason I came here. Well, one of the reasons.

The pilot announced that we’d reached our cruising altitude of thirteen thousand feet, and we were free to help ourselves to refreshments from an ice chest in the rear.

So we all got up and fished soft drinks and bottled water out of the chest, and Chet invited us to sit on the facing bench seats. Zamo had no need or desire to know what Chet was going to say, so he returned to his seat with a Dr Pepper. Was it my imagination, or did his left arm seem not to be moving normally? I mean, if you take a hit like that, with soft tissue trauma, it’s going to stiffen up, and maybe it was also infected. Great. A sniper with a bum arm.

Anyway, Kate, Brenner, and I sat together, and Buck and Chet sat facing us. Chet turned on an overhead light and I saw that he had a file folder in his hand-what the CIA calls a dossier, just to be tres cooler than the FBI.

Chet spoke over the steady din of the twin engines. “This is our psychological profile and background analysis of Bulus ibn al-Darwish. It was put together by a team of FBI and CIA psychologists and investigators over the last three years since we identified Mr. al-Darwish as a prime suspect in the Cole bombing.” Chet also informed us, “This report is based on interviews with the suspect’s parents, a younger sister, childhood and college classmates, teachers, school counselors, Muslim clerics, and others who knew the bastard in the States.”

I asked, “Any girlfriends?”

“Only one that we know of.”

“There’s the problem. He wasn’t getting laid enough.”

“John, please.”

Who said that?

Chet agreed, “Young men without women are a problem in this culture, and that often leads to male aggressiveness and other abnormal behavior.”

“Right.” When I get horny, I get mean.

Chet continued, “It may not seem necessary to know all of this, considering that we’re going to terminate the subject. But I thought you’d find this interesting, maybe for future assignments. And maybe you’d also just like to know what’s inside the head we’re going to blow off.”

I would. And I’d also like to know what’s going on in Chet’s head.

Chet continued, “Also, if you know how al-Darwish got to where he is, and who he is, you’ll see why I think he’s going to walk into that meeting with Sheik Musa and get himself killed.”

Chet, as I said, was a small breath of fresh air after my four years with the FBI, which, as part of the Department of Justice, needed to at least sound legalistic. Ergo Howard. And Kate, too. But I was working on Kate. The CIA, on the other hand, made few public statements, and therefore they had not developed a politically correct vocabulary for public consumption. Maybe I should consider asking Chet for a job. I was sure I could explain about my wife killing one of his colleagues.

Chet informed us, “The subject, as he is called in this report, was born in New Jersey to Yemeni-born parents. As I said, he has a younger sister, Hana. His father, Jurji, was and is a successful importer and wholesaler of Mideastern goods, and he commutes to his office in Newark. He uses the name George, which is Jurji in Arabic. The mother, Sabria, is a stay-at-home housewife. They live in a large Victorian house in the waterfront section of Perth Amboy, which is more affluent than most of the working-class city.”

Right. The house I’d seen in that photo.

Chet said, “FYI, Bulus means Paul, but the subject never used Paul to identify himself to non-Arabic speakers.” He added, “We shouldn’t make too much of that, but it’s interesting that his father calls himself George, and mother’s and sister’s names are nondescriptive-Western-sounding.”

Right. A shrink would have a field day with that. More importantly, in a few days Bulus would be known as Mayit-Dead.

Chet also told us, “The al-Darwish family and the wife’s family in Yemen are city dwellers-Ta’iz-and they remain there. We have asked the PSO to keep these families under surveillance, but nothing has come of that.” He added, “I’m sure the suspect doesn’t go to Ta’iz for family visits. The senior Mr. al-Darwish, George, sends money to his and his wife’s relatives, and he used to visit now and then on business, but since the Cole, George hasn’t set foot in Yemen.”

Right. War separates families and divides loyalties, and for the emigrant, the fatherland can become a dangerous place. As for jihadists like Bulus, who do come home, they discover they can’t pop in on Uncle Abdul for a cup of tea. They are alone. Except for their new friends with AK-47s.

Chet continued, “The family in Perth Amboy kept a halal home, read the Koran, and attended a storefront mosque in the downtown section of the city. The mosque has not come to the attention of the authorities and neither has the al-Darwish family.” He added, “Mr. and Mrs. al-Darwish have been known to have a cocktail or two with Christian friends.”

I hoped they reciprocated with a khat chew.

Chet flipped a page and continued, “The subject terrorist attended the public schools and had few friends in grade school or high school, possibly because he lived in a non-Muslim community. The people we interviewed claim, however, that the subject’s social isolation was his choice and not a result of any prejudices in the community. As possible proof of this, most of those interviewed confirmed that the subject’s parents and sister had friends and social contacts in the non-Muslim community.” Chet speculated, “If we believe that, then maybe the subject wrongly perceived prejudice and animosity, and reacted accordingly, and that reinforced his social isolation.”

Right. Little Bulus was an angry, unhappy, and weird kid, and this made him a prime target for other kids. And that’s why he wanted to be a terrorist when he grew up.

Chet continued, “The subject seems to have ignored the fact that his parents and sister were integrating well into the community, and the analysts believe that this shows the subject’s tendency to exclude any realities that don’t fit his preconceived beliefs.”