The Panther

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

We entered the prison through a rusty iron door into a dark stone vestibule where a guard stood and snapped to attention.

We followed Colonel Hakim down a quiet corridor whose walls were covered with rotting stucco. This building may have a mold problem.

My mind went back to the Central Prison in Aden, which had been built by the Brits when they ran South Yemen. That, too, was a grim and creepy place, but this place made the Aden prison look like a health spa.

Colonel Hakim led us into another quiet corridor of closed wooden doors. I guess it was past quitting time, but when we passed a narrow staircase that led to the second level, I heard a man scream, followed by a man shouting, then another scream. Glad to hear someone was still at work.

Colonel Hakim opened a door, and we followed him into a room where two men sat in plastic chairs at a small table. Along one wall were file cabinets, and on the far wall was a barred window without glass that let in sunlight and whatever else wanted to fly in. A floor fan moved the bad air around.

On one wall was a large picture of Yemen’s President for Life, Ali Abdullah Saleh, a mustachioed Saddam Hussein look-alike, who was desperately trying to avoid the same fate as his Iraqi idol.

On another wall were signs and posters in Arabic that I guessed were not the prisoners’ bill of rights, though one of them may have said EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS AFTER BEATING PRISONERS.

Anyway, the two men were standing now and neither of them looked like a prisoner. In fact, Hakim introduced one as the interpreter, and the other as a doctor. Hakim explained, “Prisoner speaks no English and prisoner is sick.” Makes sense.

The interpreter, a young guy in Western clothing, asked us to call him Sammy, and the doctor, an older gent in a ratty suit without a tie, introduced himself as Dr. Fahd. Brenner introduced himself using his former military rank, so I introduced myself as Commander Corey. Why not?

The interpreter invited us to sit, which we did, though Hakim remained standing, and Dr. Fahd sat with a newspaper and lit a cigarette. Sammy had a dossier in front of him and he flipped through it, then said to Brenner and me, “The prisoner’s name is Rahim ibn Hayyam-”

Brenner interrupted and said, “Can we have a copy of that?”

Hakim, standing near the window, asked Brenner, “Do you read Arabic, Mr. Brenner?”

Brenner replied, too politely I thought, “No, but I can have it translated.”

Hakim informed him, “That is a classified dossier and may not leave this room.”

I took out my pen and my detective’s notebook, which I never leave home without, and said to Sammy, “Can you spell that name?”

Hakim said, “No. No notes. I tell you to listen.”

Brenner said to me, “We’ll put in a request through channels.”

Sammy continued, “The prisoner says he is twenty-two years of age, and that he is a Saudi citizen by birth. His passport was taken from him by Al Qaeda, so all this is his word. He tells us he is from a good family of the upper middle class who live in Medina. He has two years of university in Riyadh. He further states that he is a good Muslim, he answers the daily calls to prayer, and he has made the Hajj.”

That’s good. I guess. Sammy went on a bit about the prisoner’s religious background-he was a Sunni Muslim-and his devotion to the teaching of the Koran and so forth.

I mean, did I need to know this? But I guess around here this was important stuff. Why? I have no idea. Maybe a good Muslim got better food or one less kick in the balls. Meanwhile, the clock was ticking, and I give Brenner credit for saying, “Can we move on to other information?”

Sammy glanced at Hakim, who knew he had wasted as much time as he was going to get away with, and Hakim nodded.

Sammy flipped a page of the dossier and continued, “The prisoner says he was recruited by Al Qaeda in Medina four months ago. He does not know the family names of his recruiters, only their given names, and that they, too, were Saudis. Shortly thereafter, he was flown on Yemenia airlines to Sana’a on his own passport with a tourist visa. He was met at the airport by two unnamed men, then taken to a house in an outlying district, the location of which he does not know. He stayed in the house for five days, with two other recruits from Saudi Arabia, and they passed their time fasting and praying.”

Some guys have all the fun. No wonder they wanted to join Al Qaeda. Travel, adventure, meet new people, fast, pray, get shot, and go to jail where you get tortured. Sign me up. I mean, what the hell are these people thinking? That is the question.

Sammy continued, “On the fifth day, at dawn, the prisoner and the two others were put into a Toyota Hilux with a driver and traveled east on the Marib road. They were stopped at three military checkpoints, but upon showing their Saudi passports and saying they were tourists and students on their way to the Marib ruins, they were allowed to pass. The driver, a Yemeni, told the soldiers he was a paid guide.” Sammy commented, “This is a place of ancient temples from the times of Sheba, and the place where the Ark of Noah is said to have come to rest, so it is interesting to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.”

Right. And American oil companies and Al Qaeda. Lots going on around Marib. Maybe Matt Longo was right-this was someplace I should see.

Sammy continued, “This was a five-hour journey on the Marib road, and then another half hour into the mountains. The prisoner claims that he cannot tell us or show us where he was traveling in the mountains or where he ended because the three men were asked to bind cloths over their eyes.”

I hope the driver wasn’t blindfolded. But seeing how these people drove, it wouldn’t matter much.

Sammy said, “The prisoner, with his two compatriots, arrived in a mountain camp, which he describes as primitive. Mud houses and caves, and also some Bedouin tents. Perhaps it was once a Bedouin camp. This, he says, was the Al Qaeda training camp, populated by perhaps a hundred recruits from various countries, including Oman, Iraq, Egypt, and Kuwait. And also ten or twelve others who were officers, military trainers, and spiritual guides.”

Spiritual guides? Maybe that’s what I needed instead of a supervisor. There was no spiritual element to the Anti-Terrorist Task Force. How could we be Crusaders without spiritual guides? Anyway, it seemed to me that Islamic jihadists, including Al Qaeda, had medieval heads and twenty-first-century weapons. And that, I thought, made this war very different. I missed the godless Communists.

Sammy flipped a page and said, “The training in the camp lasted for three months-training with rifles, explosives, maps, and communication equipment. The prisoner described the training as very tiring and very hard, and the food was of poor quality.”

This was sounding like more fun every minute. But, I mean, you gotta give these bastards credit. My teenage nephew won’t clean his room, but Al Qaeda gets these mostly middle-class kids to leave their air-conditioning, televisions, and indoor plumbing and go out to the boondocks to live in mud huts and eat goats and learn how to be fighters. Sort of like the Peace Corps, except for the guns. And then there was The Panther from Perth Amboy, New Jersey. What’s going on here?

Sammy continued, “The prisoner says there was a medical person in the camp, but this person lacked skills and supplies. He says one recruit died of a fever, and one of injuries received in a fall from a mountain path. He says there was much sickness in the camp.”

Right. They didn’t have a nurse sticking needles in their ass before they got to Yemen. Bottom line, Al Qaeda in Yemen was in stage one or two of development; they had arrived, they were setting up camps, they had recruits and a training cadre, but they weren’t strong enough yet to make a major move toward toppling the government. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda was gaining confidence and respect by mounting attacks against foreign interests and individuals-tourists, embassies, and businesses-and not taking on the Yemeni military, which would make even a lazy and incompetent army retaliate. And then there was the USS Cole, the first and so far most spectacular and successful Al Qaeda attack in Yemen. That got them noticed.

Sammy continued, “When this training was complete, the prisoner and forty others traveled by vehicle to the region north of Marib town. There they lived in the huts of sheep herders who were not present. And there they planned and prepared for the attack on the American oil facility, which is nearby.”

Sammy looked up from the transcript and said to us, “That is as far as the interrogators got before the prisoner became ill and had to be taken to the prison hospital.”

Right. It’s always a delicate balance between vigorous interrogation and putting the prisoner in the hospital. Or the morgue.

Sammy assured us, however, “The prisoner is somewhat better now and you may speak to him.” He also editorialized, “This is a misguided young man who is frightened, and he cries for his parents and his good life in Saudi Arabia.”

No shit. This kid was looking at ten or twenty years in a Yemeni slammer, which was a death sentence. Unless, of course, Al Qaeda sprung him. Or if Al Qaeda took over here. Then he’d be a hero. Meanwhile, he needed to survive, and the best way to do that was to talk, which he sounded happy to do if these idiots didn’t kill him first.

Brenner asked Sammy, “Did the prisoner say who his leaders were?”

Sammy replied, “As I have said, he has stated that he knows his companions only by their given names.”

Okay, but how about a description of the leaders? Their nationality? Like did one of them have a New Jersey accent and a Jersey Shore T-shirt? I mean, if I had this prisoner alone for two hours, I’d wring him dry. But these interrogators, as I saw in Aden, were inept sadists. All they wanted, ultimately, were more names and a full confession. I wanted to know what the prisoner had for breakfast and what his favorite TV show was, and we took it from there.

Brenner asked Sammy, “What did the prisoner say about the relationship between his camp and the local tribes?”

Sammy replied, “He says nothing about that.”

Brenner then asked, “Why wasn’t he asked? How could this camp exist without the permission of the tribal chieftains?”

Sammy shrugged, then speculated, “Perhaps they had an arrangement. Or this camp was too strong for the local tribe. Or-”

Hakim interrupted, “Do not interrogate the translator, Mr. Brenner. He is here only to say what the prisoner has said.”

True. But as long as Sammy seemed chatty and helpful to the Americans, I asked him, “Was the prisoner cooperative with the other Americans who were here this morning?”

Sammy replied, “Yes, but the prisoner was sick, in the hospital, so it was a short talk.”

I asked Colonel Hakim, “Were you here this morning when the CIA was here?”

“You should ask them, not me.” Colonel Hakim had become impatient with us and said, “Let us see now the prisoner.”

Dr. Fahd grabbed his medical bag, and we all stood and followed Hakim out of the room and down the corridor.

I wasn’t sure if all this was bringing us any closer to The Panther, but it was at least interesting. A small insight into Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, though not their heads. Probably I’d never get into their heads-we weren’t even on the same planet. But I thought I understood a little about Rahim ibn Hayyam, though I hadn’t yet met him. He was a scared kid, and he was happy to talk. He might not think he knew much about the bigger picture, but he probably knew more than he thought he did.

With any luck, Rahim had met The Panther, and with any more luck, The Panther was still in the Marib hills. And if he stayed there, he’d have John Corey up his ass.