The Black Banners_ 9_11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda - Ali H. Soufan [110]
One of the senior FBI officials responded apologetically: “We just needed to have this conversation because the State Department is complaining.”
A couple of days went by, and we decided that a few of us would head back to shore to check the situation, as we didn’t want the investigation to come to a complete halt. John, Kevin, and I, along with Bob Hickey and a few members of his hostage rescue team, were selected to return to the hotel. We climbed down a rope ladder to a waiting boat and began sailing back to Aden. As we approached the harbor, the HRT guys scanned the shoreline and hills for threats. They noticed a couple of men with binoculars on top of a rugged hill watching us as we pulled in. On shore, we asked the Yemenis if the men on the hill were security officials. They didn’t know anything about them.
The hotel was empty and silent. Previously the corridors had been filled with U.S. officials moving to and from meetings, and a constant buzz of activity was heard; now very few people were around. We found one room with military officials from CENTCOM. We didn’t know if they had stayed or come back.
We spoke to Yemeni officials and evaluated the security situation on the ground. While we planned to return to the Duluth that evening, we were worried about the men we had spotted watching us with binoculars, as they could be al-Qaeda operatives planning to strike. We consulted Department of Defense officials, who said that it would not be safe to head back to the Duluth in a boat. Instead they said that a helicopter would be sent from the USS Tarawa, the command ship of the three-vessel amphibious readiness group of which the Duluth was a part, and that it would take us to the Duluth.
We needed permission from Ambassador Bodine, but she vetoed the decision. She refused to give the helicopter from the Tarawa a country clearance to come pick us up. We had come in a boat, she maintained, and we could leave in one. The Yemenis had told her that they didn’t like military helicopters flying into and out of Aden, and she decided that it was unnecessary. Her decision angered military officers, who felt she was risking U.S. lives.
On the DoD’s recommendation, we decided to stay in the hotel until the situation was resolved. Stuck there for the night, we went in search of food. Most hotel staff had departed for security reasons, but the few left managed to make us something. Although the hotel was empty, we still bunked with roommates for security reasons.
Early the next morning we were told that Ambassador Bodine had been overruled by her superiors in the State Department. They had ordered her to give us permission to take a helicopter back to the boat, and she reluctantly signed the authorization. The plan was to fly us first to the Tarawa; from there we would get to the Duluth in a boat. We prepared to take off from the Aden airport, the pilot aiming out to sea. It should have been a simple ride. But as soon as we were airborne, the helicopter’s alert siren went off. We were being “painted”—a missile system was locked in on us. The pilot swung into action and began emergency evasive maneuvers. He kept changing the direction we were flying in to try to lose the lock. There was silence in the cabin as we all held our breath and held on to the straps tightly (as if they would save us if a missile hit). After a series of maneuvers, the system stopped blinking red. The pilot had successfully evaded the lock. Seconds later we were out on the ocean heading toward the Duluth. We had no idea whether it was the Yemeni military or al-Qaeda locking on us. We didn’t know if it was a test or a warning, or if someone was really trying to shoot at us. It was a terrifying experience, and I learned then firsthand what it means when people say they’ve seen their life flash before their eyes.
We arrived at the Duluth flustered and angry. On the boat, military personnel were tracking the incident. They told us that it was the Yemenis who had painted our helicopter—the first time it had happened, as the U.S. military