The Panther

CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

As we got within thirty feet of the door of the tower, I noticed that two of the Bedouin were on their cell phones, and I knew what those calls were about; some of the Bedouin had indeed survived the Hellfire attack and were now telling their buddies in the Crow Fortress that the Amriki missiles had fried their sheik and everyone around him.

A few of the Bedouin started looking at us, then they all began standing. There was absolutely no reason now to act normal, so we began running toward the tower.

We let Kate in first through the narrow doorway, followed by Zamo, then Brenner. I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw the Bedouin running toward us, and a few of them were shouting and pointing their AK-47s at me.

Just as I slipped into the doorway, a deafening explosion filled the air, followed by the secondary explosion of the fish van’s fuel tank, and the shockwave knocked me down. I could feel the earth shake under me as I got to my feet, and without anyone saying anything, we all ran for the staircase.

I don’t remember hitting any of the stone steps, but within a few seconds we passed through the windowless storage level and we were all in the diwan, weapons at the ready.

Zamo ran to the indoor outhouse and kicked the door in, but no one was there. What was also not in the diwan was the washstand, and I pointed this out to everyone, who drew the same conclusion: Our missing teammates had headed for the roof.

Kate, Brenner, and I looked out the window into the courtyard. The van was a burning heap of twisted metal, and clouds of black smoke billowed from the wreckage. The courtyard was strewn with burning debris, and it appeared that three of the Bedouin had been killed or injured. The other ten seemed stunned as they wandered around the courtyard or stood dazed and silent.

Then one of them looked up and noticed us in the window, and he pointed and shouted.

Someone fired a full burst of rounds, which hit the stone above us, and without waiting for Brenner to give the order, Kate and I fired back with our M4s on full automatic, then Brenner pushed Kate away from the window and emptied a full magazine at the Bedouin down in the courtyard.

We didn’t wait around for an accurate body count, but it looked to me as though we’d taken out about five of the remaining ten guys, including Yasir, who I’d seen fall. I said to myself, “Sorry.”

The other Bedouin, unfortunately, had made it into the tower, and they were now right below us. Time to go, and there was only one way to go.

We raced up the stone steps and I could hear the shouts of the Bedouin behind us.

Brenner got to the next level first, and he called down, “Clear.”

Kate and Zamo, with me bringing up the rear, charged up the stairs just as a burst of AK-47 fire came up the stairwell. Another burst ripped through the thick floorboards, close to where we were standing.

I fired a burst of rounds back through the floorboards as Kate fired down the stone stairwell. That seemed to quiet down the Bedouin, and we charged up the next flight of steps, then the next, which put us on the level below the mafraj.

So far, no sign of Chet and Buck, but they had to be in the mafraj or on the roof. Or they were up to their old tricks, so I fired a full burst of rounds into the wood outhouse, then kicked in the door and looked down the shaft through the holes, but I didn’t see anyone.

I then looked up and I could see through the squatter hole in the floor of the mafraj, up to the vent hole in the ceiling. I thought I saw a shadow pass through the sunlight and I fired a short burst up through the vent, but I didn’t draw any return fire.

I exited the outhouse and said, “I think they’re on the roof.”

As I said that, we heard a huge, thunderous explosion off in the distance, and we all turned toward the west-facing window. There was another explosion, then another, and in the far distance we could see black smoke rising into the blue sky.

Brenner said, “That’s the airstrike on the Al Qaeda base camp-probably a flight of F-15s from Najran, dropping two-thousand-pound bombs.”

Wonderful. Can they drop a smaller one on Chet and Buck?

The sound of the explosions kept rolling through the windows, and I counted twelve before it got quiet.

So that was the end of the Al Qaeda base camp-but there were more of them, and there’d be more coming. The Panther, however, was dead, and badasses like that were not as easy to replace as a camp full of jihadist recruits.

I said to everyone, “We need to get up to the mafraj.”

Before we could make a move toward the stairs, Kate shouted, “Look!” and pointed to the window on the north side of the tower.

We looked out at the sky and in the far distance we could see a helicopter coming toward the Crow Fortress.

Brenner was covering the stairwell, firing single rounds down the stone staircase, but not drawing any return fire from the Bedouin, who were probably watching the helicopter approaching.

The helicopter was getting closer, and Zamo took a look at it through his sniper scope. He said in a quiet voice, “It’s a Black Hawk… no markings, but it’s got to be U.S…. I see two door gunners…”

Great. The cavalry had arrived. Unfortunately, it had not arrived to save us; it had arrived, as per schedule-or a few minutes late from Najran-to save Buck and Chet’s treacherous asses. This was the part of the plan that Chet and Buck forgot to mention, though Brenner had thought about it-but a little late.

Well, when the Black Hawk got to the roof, what they’d find was two dead guys.

“Let’s go!” I said, and we all ran for the staircase as a long burst of AK-47 fire came through the floorboards around us, followed by another burst that came up the stairwell.

I led the way up to the mafraj and we fanned out along the four walls with our backs to the stone columns that supported the large arches. I saw the washstand sitting against the wood wall of the excrement shaft, confirming what we already knew.

I pointed my M4 at the ceiling, and everyone did the same. No one seemed to have any qualms about doing to our teammates what they had tried to do to us. Also, we had five or six Bedouin trying to kill us, and we might not make it back alive to see that justice was done-so we had to do it here.

As we were about to fire into the ceiling, a voice shouted in Arabic, and it took me a second to realize it came through the vent hole.

I didn’t know what Buck said, but Brenner apparently did, and he shouted back, “It’s not the Bedouin, Buck! It’s us!” He added, “Alive and well. Surprised?”

Silence.

Well, maybe it was a good thing to let Buck and Chet know that we were still alive and well, but not very happy with our teammates. Then we’d kill them.

I shouted through the vent hole, “Come on down. We need to talk.”

It was Chet, who replied, “Come on up.” He let us know, in case we didn’t, “There’s a chopper inbound to get us out of here.”

Us? Bullshit, right to the end.

Meanwhile, another burst of automatic fire came through the floorboards, splintering the old wood and lodging into the ceiling above us. But we were hugging the perimeter of the mafraj, standing on the floor where the boards rested on thick beams and masonry below, so we were relatively safe-for the moment.

Brenner shouted up, “Drop your weapons through the hole-pistols and rifles-then kneel at the hole with your hands on your heads.”

Brenner, ex-cop, was trying to make an arrest. Corey, ex-cop, was trying to make two corpses.

Buck shouted down, “Paul, I don’t know what you’re thinking, or what-”

“Shut up, Buck!” suggested Paul. “Shut your fucking mouth and get your ass down here. You, too, Chet!”

Buck replied, “There are Bedouin down there. Are you all crazy? Get up here. We’ll give you a hand.”

Buck was stalling for time as the Black Hawk approached, and Brenner was intent on making a bust, then getting on that helicopter with his prisoners.

I’d had enough of this and I shouted to Buck and Chet, “You have three seconds to drop your weapons, or we ventilate that roof and you go on that chopper dead.”

No response.

“One, two-” Everyone raised their weapons at the ceiling, and Brenner said, “At my command.” Then to Buck and Chet he said, “Last chance!”

But before Brenner said, “Fire,” someone else fired. In fact, it was the Black Hawk helicopter, which we could see through the big north-facing arch. It had gotten much closer, and the two door gunners were firing long bursts of machine-gun fire at the tower. We all hit the floor as red tracer rounds sailed through the arches. The rounds began hitting the columns and bullets started ricocheting around the mafraj. A spent round hit my arm, then a not-so-spent round hit the side of my Kevlar vest, knocking the wind out of me.

Chet was obviously in radio contact with the Black Hawk, and he’d told them there were bad guys below him and asked for protective fire. Psychos are smart.

I glanced up through the arch and saw the Black Hawk about a hundred yards away and coming fast. Another burst of machine-gun tracer rounds came through the mafraj and we all got into a fetal position as the bullets sailed above us or hit the stone columns and ricocheted around the stone walls.

I rolled on my back and emptied my magazine into the roof, hoping I’d see blood dripping down through the holes. But Buck and Chet were probably standing tight against the parapet now, and if they were smart, they’d also be standing on their Kevlar vests. Nevertheless, I slammed a fresh magazine into my M4 and fired again, and so did Brenner and Kate, but then another burst of machine-gun fire from the Black Hawk made us tuck in tightly against the floor and walls. Zamo, meanwhile, was lying flat at the top of the stairs, popping off rounds down the stairwell with his sniper rifle, just to let the Bedouin know we hadn’t lost interest in them.

I couldn’t see the Black Hawk any longer, and I knew the chopper was now flaring out above the tower and about to put down on the roof. The good news was that he couldn’t fire through the arches at that angle, and he wouldn’t fire through the roof with Buck and Chet there. The bad news was that we couldn’t fire through the ceiling at Buck and Chet and take a chance of hitting the chopper. I mean, the four-man crew of the Black Hawk had no idea what the situation was except what Chet had told them, and Chet lies.

I could hear the rotor blades beating as the Black Hawk hovered above the roof. In about a minute, Chet and Buck would be airborne and on their way to Najran airbase, and we’d be left here to deal with the pissed-off Bedouin, whose sheik Chet and Buck had killed. Shit.

The chopper’s rotor blades were getting louder, then I heard the thump of the wheels hitting the roof.

Chet and Buck would have some explaining to do at Najran and at every stop on their way to Washington-but they’d killed The Panther and that would make people happy, and happy people don’t ask too many questions.

Unfortunately for Chet and Buck, the rest of the A-team was still alive, and we had a different story to tell. Now all we had to do was stay alive to tell it.

Brenner called out to everyone, “When the chopper lifts off, he’ll open fire again to cover himself.”

Correct. So let’s get the hell out of here. The staircase was not an option, so without anyone saying the obvious, we ran in a crouch toward the excrement shaft.

As we got to the door of the shaft, we heard the Black Hawk’s engine revving, and the pitch of the rotor blades changed as the big chopper began lifting off the roof. Almost immediately, two streams of red tracer rounds penetrated the roof and tore into the center of the floor.

We could now hear return fire from below-the Bedouin firing at the chopper through the windows. Then long bursts of machine-gun fire from the Black Hawk answered the Bedouin fire from below, taking the pressure off us for the moment.

We all quickly squeezed into the tight outhouse, and Brenner said he’d go first and establish a beachhead on the next level, where the Bedouin were hopefully not using the squatter. He squeezed himself into the hole, dangled by his fingers, and dropped as quietly as possible to the next level, then got down on one knee and covered the door with his M4.

We could hear more bursts of AK-47 fire as the Bedouin continued to fire at the chopper, which must have been almost out of their range by now. There wasn’t much good news at the moment except that the Bedouin undoubtedly thought that all the Americans were on that helicopter. No such luck.

It took a few minutes for each of us to drop, level by level, squatter hole by squatter hole, to the last level below the diwan, right above the excrement level, which was pungent.

We were all jammed into the indoor outhouse now and Brenner put his ear to the door, saying softly, “I don’t hear anything.”

The surviving Bedouin were either still on one of the higher levels, or they’d taken the stairs down and were in the courtyard, which would not be good.

Our choice now was either to get out of the outhouse and go down the stairs, or drop through the last hole and land in the pile of shit, which didn’t seem so bad at this point. Both ways would get us to the ground floor, but not get us to our Land Cruiser and out of here. To do that, we might have to knock off the rest of the Bedouin, and to be honest I didn’t want to kill any more of them. But neither did I want them to kill us. Actually, since we’d wasted a bunch of them, and since our Hellfires had vaporized their sheik and their buddies, we’d be lucky if they only killed us.

Kate whispered, “We can’t stay here. The Bedouin from the rock pile could be on the way.”

Good point. We didn’t want to deal with more pissed-off Bedouin.

As we were contemplating our next move-stairs or free fall into the shit pile-we heard footsteps above us in the diwan, and voices in Arabic. If I had to guess, I’d say the Bedouin thought we were gone and they were rummaging through the stuff we’d left behind.

Well, before they took the stairs down, this was our chance to get out of here, and we all knew that.

The staircase was quicker and cleaner than the excrement route, so I threw open the door and we moved rapidly across the dark, windowless tower room, which was used to store hay, straw, and whatever. Zamo paused long enough to light a pile of hay.

I hit the stairs first and bounded down three and four at a time, then shoulder-rolled across the earth floor and got on one knee and covered the narrow doorway with my M4.

Kate came down next, followed quickly by Brenner and Zamo.

I stood, moved quickly to the door, and peered out into the devastated and body-strewn courtyard. Some of the wreckage was still smoldering, and the only people out there were dead.

I signaled all clear, pointed in the direction of the gate, and charged into the courtyard, with Kate, Brenner, and Zamo right behind me.

I got to the gate, stopped short, and spun around in a crouch to cover the courtyard and tower. I could see smoke seeping through the stone walls of the tower.

Just as Kate was getting to the open gate, a figure appeared in the diwan window and fired. Kate went down and lay sprawled on the ground. I got between her and the tower and fired long, rapid-fire bursts at the window, glancing back at Kate, who was getting to her feet. No blood, so she’d taken a round in her Kevlar, and I yelled to her, “Move! Move!”

Kate and Zamo ran through the gate, but Brenner spun around and emptied his magazine at the window. The smoke was pouring out of the tower now, and I could see flames in the windows of the diwan.

I slammed a fresh magazine into my M4 and emptied it at the five vehicles in the courtyard, blowing out the tires and shattering the windows. Brenner did the same and one of the Hiluxes burst into flames. Time to go.

We ran through the gate and I saw that Zamo was already behind the wheel and Kate was in the rear, leaning out the window covering us. I jumped in beside her and pulled the door closed as Brenner jumped in the front. Before his door was even closed, Zamo was pushing pedal to the metal and we were shooting across the flat terrain toward the ravine.

Brenner and I lowered our windows, leaned out, and turned back toward the gate.

Two Bedouin came charging through the gate and all three of us opened fire, hitting one of them and making the other dive back behind the stone wall.

Within a few minutes we were at the edge of the plateau, and Zamo was slowing up, looking for the ravine. He spotted some tire marks and cut the wheel sharply to the right, then hit the brakes as the Land Cruiser’s front wheels slipped over the edge of the plateau and into the ravine.

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.