INTELL UPDATE

Bin Laden's last confirmed presence was at the siege of Tora Bora, in eastern Afghanistan, in December of 2001 when the al-Qaeda chief and dozens of his men bribed Afghan mercenaries hired by U.S. Special Forces to let them escape into the Pakistani mountains directly across the border. A Pakistani intelligence officer who was the main liaison with the Taliban before 9/11 claims that he informed then President Pervez Musharraf that most likely bin Laden, said to be gravely ill, died several weeks after Tora Bora and was buried in a hastily dug, unmarked grave in the Ghazni desert of eastern Afghanistan. "He was too sick to walk on his own two legs or even ride a horse. His men had to tie him to a donkey," says Brigadier Amir Sultan Tarar, better known to his Taliban confederates by his nom de guerre, "Col. Imam".


SKULLHEAD SENDS

A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE . . .

. . . all the more remarkable because I don't BELIEVE in coincidences . . .

Monday night, driving down the Great American Highway in a brand new Dodge Charger, just passed a sign that tells me I'm on a remnant of the historic Route 66 somewhere northern Illinois, Elvis on the satellite radio singing Unchained Melody, when suddenly my phone rings. It's Kleck, the mad German bombmaker I haven't laid eyes on in about twenty years.

"What are you doing?"

"Me? I'm driving down the Great American Highway, Elvis is on the radio. What are YOU doing?"

"I've been an FBI agent for the past twelve years."

This is EXCELLENT news of course because now we can finally get to the bottom of these annoying rumors about where's the President's brain? "How the hell did you find me, Kleck?"

"Well, I was hanging out around the old hacienda wondering what our old friend Thane was up to, so I googled him up and up pops this wild STORMBRINGER site, and I read "retired Special Forces career NCO (1st SFG, 3d SFG, 10th SFG). I served with honor on five continents . . ." and then there's a story about the Legion, and I think, "This is wild and wierd and wonderful enough, this has GOT to be The Critter . . ."

I'm thinking he must also have seen that post about Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner, because we used to sing Warren Zevon songs while we were standing in formation, and of course we used to call our platoon The Legion because we had an international flavor and we all considered ourselves mercenaries in training.

". . . and your nom de plume . . ."

"uh, that's nom de GUERRE, buddy . . ."

"hmmm, yeah, that seems a little more apropos . . . "

"Yeah, nom de plume is for some kind of Count of Monte Crisco dude with a big white feather sticking out of his big floppy musketeer hat or something . . ."

"Yeah, when you think about it, nom de guerre makes more sense."

Then I started running into these annoying toll booths they have all over the Northland like some kind of national disease, and I had to abort the call.

Good talking to you again, buddy - glad we finally made link up. We'll talk again sometime soon. In the meantime, this post is dedicated to you my buddy Kleck.

Blue Skies . . . now I've got to break contact and get on to my paying job . . .