“It would be,” Brenner agreed, “but the Otter is Company run and this is a Company operation. Also, the helicopter-with or without U.S. Army or Air Force markings-can be easily identified as American, and that’s not what the plan calls for. But if it’s an emergency situation-here, or at the scene of the attack-then a chopper is what we’ll need.”
“Right,” I agreed. “But an hour is a long time to wait for the cavalry to arrive.”
Brenner agreed. “It is, but it’s better than waiting for nothing to arrive.”
Kate asked the obvious question. “Can we contact whoever it is we need to contact to get this helicopter?”
Brenner replied, “I made a sat-phone call to Ed Peters in the embassy, and he’s trying to locate a contact number for the American installation at this Saudi airfield.” He told us, “Officially, the U.S. is assigned there as a training group to the Royal Saudi Air Force, but everyone knows we also have some CIA and NSA resources at Najran to keep an eye and ear on the Yemeni situation. That’s where the F-15s will come from to pulverize the Al Qaeda base camp.”
Interesting. I asked, “Are we sharing this information with Chet and Buck?”
Brenner replied, “I would bet money that Chet and Buck already have a direct sat-phone number and radio frequency for the American chief of operations at Najran airfield. And if they don’t, they can radio the CIA at Najran.” He also pointed out, “They haven’t said a word to us about Najran or about helicopters.”
Right. I mean, there was some crap going on here, but maybe not as much or as deep as my paranoid mind had imagined. There could be rational and logical national security explanations for everything that wasn’t adding up. But if it keeps quacking like a duck, and keeps telling you it’s an American eagle, you gotta be a little suspicious.
I asked Zamo, “Can you pull yourself up there?”
“Why not?”
“Because your arm is fucked up.”
Brenner said, “I’ll go first, you second, and we can easily pull up Zamo and Kate.”
Did we forget old Buck? How about Chet?
Kate let us know, “I’m sure I can pull myself up.”
I looked at the wall of the excrement shaft, which as I said was about eight feet high, and I pointed out, “The last person won’t have anyone to boost them up.”
Brenner replied, “That washstand in the diwan will hold Zamo’s weight, and he’s the heaviest person here.”
I guess they already tried that. You can always count on military guys to show initiative and good skills in solving field problems.
I let Brenner and Zamo know, “Good thinking and good job. But let’s hope we never have to get to the roof.” On a related subject, I said, “You may have noticed that the squatter hole on each floor is big enough for any of us-even Zamo-to squeeze through.”
Brenner, the expert on tower houses, said, “They’re made big so it’s easier to dump kitchen garbage and chamber pots down the hole to the excrement level.” He also informed us, “The excrement shaft is a primitive fire escape in the tower houses.”
You learn something new every day. Anyway, I pointed out, “If we need to go down the shaft instead of up, we can also manage that.”
We all agreed that the excrement shaft had multiple uses, but before we adjourned the meeting, I brought up a perhaps moot subject and said to Brenner and Zamo, as I had said to Kate, “After the Al Qaeda guys came here and saw the bait, all of us, except for Chet, could have gotten out of here.”
Brenner nodded and said, “I thought about that back in Aden.”
And that would have been an excellent time to bring it up, Paul.
Brenner continued, “But”-he looked at me, Kate, and Zamo-“I don’t think any of us ever intended to leave.”
“No,” I agreed, “we never did, but for the record, and for later, no matter what happens in the next few hours, we should acknowledge that we stayed beyond the time we were needed. We stayed to see how it ended.”
No one had anything to add to that, except maybe the words, “Brave but dumb.”
So the mafraj meeting was adjourned for probably the last time, and Kate, Brenner, and I went down to the diwan, leaving Zamo to contemplate the abstract thought that excrement shafts go up and down and either way could get you out of deep shit.
This was all coming to a head, and we had lots to think about, but the bottom line was the mission: Kill The Panther. Then worry about how to get out of here alive.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
It was time to join Chet and Buck in Moses’ Red Sea Fish van so Kate, Brenner, and I went down into the courtyard.
The sinking sun cast a shadow along the west wall, and the thirteen Bedouin sat or squatted in the shade, drinking herbal tea and chatting. Little piles of green leaves sat on the ground between them. It was the happy hour.
Kate, Brenner, and I went into the van where Chet was sitting in the left-hand chair, staring intently at the video monitor. Buck was in the right-hand chair doing the same.
Chet’s screen showed the aerial view of the sheik’s goat herder’s hut, with a very close resolution of maybe a few hundred feet.
Buck’s screen had a higher and wider image of the area around the hut, showing a two- or three-kilometer radius. I saw five white Land Cruisers heading for the hut from the east. The Bedouin? Or Al Qaeda? Probably the sheik and his men, who as hosts needed to get there early to make tea.
As we all knew, each of the two Predator drones over the hut had, in addition to video cameras, two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, each with a high-explosive warhead, ready to launch, then seek and destroy whatever was in the crosshairs of the monitors. Awesome.
Chet came out of his electronic trance and said to us, “Look. The sheik is arriving.”
We looked closely at his screen and saw the five Land Cruisers pulling up about thirty yards from the hut, which was farther away than they had been when we’d arrived from the Otter to meet the sheik. In fact, the vehicles were far enough away from the kill zone to avoid winding up in an auto body shop.
As we all watched, the Bedouin began piling out of the five Land Cruisers, and I counted a total of fifteen, all carrying AK-47s, except one-the sheik.
Sheik Musa was distinguishable in his clean white robes and his regal shiwal. I couldn’t see his face, but from this computer-enhanced height of a few hundred feet, I could actually see his awesome proboscis. I mean, that thing cast a two-foot shadow, and probably had its own zip code.
The Bedouin were unloading the SUVs-three carpets, and what were probably crates of bottled water, plus burlap bags of what was maybe bread and tea. They were carrying other things that could have been camp stoves and pots to boil water-but no khat for their Al Qaeda guests. Other than that, they had everything they needed for a Yemeni picnic, even ants in case someone had malaria. And, of course, they had their AK-47s, because later, in a gross breach of Bedouin hospitality, they’d kill any of their guests who hadn’t been killed by the American Hellfires.
Sheik Musa ducked into the hut with a few of his men, and the rest of the Bedouin began setting up for the powwow.
Chet said to us, “The Panther and his men will arrive in about an hour or more. It’s okay to be late, but never early.”
If they had a woman with them, they wouldn’t have to worry about being early. Sorry. That just slipped out.
Chet hit a button on his console and said, “The video is on record. So we can play the final few seconds of Mr. al-Darwish’s life over and over again.”
There was still the question of friendly fire casualties, and Brenner asked Chet about that.
Chet had a ready answer and replied, “The two sides don’t mix. Al Qaeda is on their carpet or around their own vehicles, and the Bedouin do the same. Only the sheik and The Panther sit together on their own carpet and speak privately, and when the sheik excuses himself to go into the stone hut with a few of his men to drag out the Americans, that’s the signal for the Bedouin to take cover.” He added, “I then give the order to fire, and about four seconds later, it’s all over for Mr. al-Darwish and maybe half his men. The Bedouin will finish off the survivors.” He reminded us, “We discussed this in Aden.”