Nelson Demille - The Panther

Again, a long silence, then a response that I couldn’t make out over the PA speaker.

Kate asked, “What did he say?”

I hoped he said, “Get the hell out of here,” but the pilot said to us, “He reports no dust tonight.”

Chet got out of his seat and opened the cockpit door so we could have visual contact with the pilots in case things started to go downhill.

Chet then said, “Shades down. Lights on so we can get our weapons.”

I pulled down my shade, and we all turned our overhead lights on and made our way to the rear.

Buck said to Kate, “Please put your balto on over your clothes.” He explained, “Sheik Musa and his men would be offended to see a woman dressed in men’s clothing.”

I added helpfully, “No cross-dressing here. This is not New York.”

Kate said something unladylike, but pulled her balto from her bag and slipped it on over her mannish attire.

We all retrieved our weapons and returned to our seats and buckled up.

I assured Kate, “Sheik Musa won’t give you a second glance.”

“Lights off,” said Chet. “Shades up. Give a holler if you see anything that doesn’t look right.”

Kate put her shade up and we both looked out at the terrain, coming up fast. It was much flatter here than it had been a few minutes ago when we passed over the hills. I thought I saw a light here and there, but mostly it was a dark landscape, though the moon was bright enough to reveal some isolated areas of cultivation.

The Otter was in its final approach and it was getting a little bumpier as we came in lower.

The pilot came on the PA and said, “Night Visitor has wished us a safe landing.”

Well, that was the final okay, and we had truly reached the point of no return.

I had this mental image of Tariq with a gun to his head, surrounded by smiling jihadists while The Panther and Sheik Musa were having a good laugh as they sharpened their daggers. Or maybe Tariq was in on it, too, and he was high-fiving Musa. Right?

The aircraft suddenly decelerated, and the pilot said, “Two minutes.”

Chet said, “As soon as the aircraft comes to a halt, we jump out and take up defensive positions in the drainage ditch on the left side of the road.”

Is that an FAA-approved procedure?

But there was some good news, and the copilot called out, “Predators report no negative indications.”

Great. But how can they tell? Good-guy and bad-guy white robes and AK-47s all look alike. Right?

The high-mounted wings gave us an unobstructed view below, and we were all focused on the terrain outside the windows.

I didn’t see anyone or anything in the dim moonlit landscape below. No people, no vehicles, no buildings. Just rocks, dry flatlands, some scrub brush, and a few stunted trees. The roadside drainage ditches, however, had some vegetation, and this would give us good concealment-and also good concealment to anyone waiting for us.

Chet informed us, “We’re going to put down in the middle of our designated landing strip, then roll out past the end of the transponders.”

Right. Just in case the bad guys were waiting at the end of our expected rollout. But the bad guys knew this trick, too, and they’d be farther down the road.

The pilot said, “About thirty seconds.”

Kate said to me softly, “Well, we’re not drawing fire.”

“That’s good.” In fact, if there were bad guys down there, they wouldn’t shoot the Otter out of the sky; they’d let us land and get out, then shoot up the Otter, then try to take us prisoner. Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

Chet called out, “Order of exit-me, Paul, Buck, John, Kate, and Zamo last.”

At about fifty feet above the narrow dirt road the Otter’s engines suddenly got quieter and we dropped quickly. The reinforced fixed landing gear hit hard, and we began a jarring series of bounces over the rough road, throwing up a cloud of dust. The aircraft fishtailed, but the pilot kept it on the road.

The pilot was pressing hard on the brakes and the Otter was decelerating rapidly.

Chet said, “Unbuckle, get ready to move.” He stood, slung his rifle, and moved quickly toward the rear door as the Otter was still rolling out. Before the aircraft stopped, Chet opened the door, letting in a cloud of dust.

Everyone stood, slung their rifles, and lined up in the aisle. I asked Buck, standing in front of me, “How do you say in Arabic, ‘Don’t shoot. I’m an American with diplomatic immunity.’ ”

Buck replied, “I’ll do the talking, you do the shooting.”

Buck’s okay for an upper-class, Ivy League, State Department bullshitting twit.

Chet grabbed a few bags from the luggage bin as the aircraft lurched to a sudden halt. He called out, “Let’s go!” then threw the bags out and jumped after them. Brenner and Buck did the same, and as I got to the door, the copilot came up behind me to shut the exit door and said, “Good luck. See you on the return.”

Is this a round trip? I threw my overnight bag out, said “Geronimo,” and jumped the three or four feet to the ground.

Kate was right behind me, then Zamo, and we all scrambled into the drainage ditch with our baggage.

The Otter’s door closed, and a second later the engines roared and the aircraft began accelerating rapidly down the road.

If this was an ambush, this was when the Otter would begin taking fire. I divided my attention between my surroundings and the big, lumbering aircraft, which was quickly disappearing in the dark. Within ten seconds, I saw the Otter pitch up and go airborne at a very steep angle. No tracer rounds followed it, and I knew we were okay-for the moment. In fact, we were alone in the middle of Al Qaeda territory.

Chet said to keep low and keep still.

But Brenner, ex-infantryman, said, “You don’t stay where you were seen taking cover. Follow me. Leave the equipment.”

So we ignored the CIA guy and followed the combat vet through the drainage ditch in a running crouch.

After about fifty yards, we stopped and Brenner and Zamo crawled out of the ditch and scanned the dark road and countryside through their rifle-mounted nightscopes.

Brenner, looking east toward the direction we’d flown in from, said, “I see a vehicle on the road, moving this way, no lights.”

Chet was on his sat-phone and he said, “Tariq. This is Mr. Brown.”

I thought his name was Morgan.

Chet listened, then asked, “Is that you in the vehicle near the touchdown spot?” Then, “Okay, keep coming.”

We could hear the vehicle now and we all poked our heads above the brush and peered through our nightscopes at a small pickup truck that was approaching slowly.

As it got closer, I could see a man behind the wheel, but no one was in the passenger seat-and hopefully there were no jihadists crouched in the rear. The truck stopped where we’d jumped out of the Otter.

Chet said into the phone, “Keep coming.”

The pickup truck continued on.

Chet said to us, “Stay down, cover me,” then he stood and raised his hand toward the truck, which came to a stop next to him.

Tariq stayed in the vehicle and he and Chet shook hands through the window and exchanged a few words. Chet said to us, “Pile in the rear.”

So we all stood and jumped in the rear of the small pickup. Chet hopped in beside Tariq, who did a U-turn and took us back to our baggage, which we quickly collected, and off we went, up the bumpy dirt road we’d landed on.

Following Brenner’s lead, we were kneeling on one knee, scanning the terrain through our rifle scopes. All I could see through my scope were long stone fences that penned in a few sheep and goats. Zamo was standing, steadying his sniper rifle on the roof of the cab as he peered ahead through his nightscope. It seemed to me that his left arm was definitely hurting.