As Cole watched workers nervously moving out of Quraishi’s way, determined to avoid eye contact of any sort, he could only begin to wonder what that understanding was.
The whole situation seemed suspicious to Cole; he had been taken to a closed tourist attraction — he had noticed that the gates had been resealed behind them by the man from the ticket booth — and was being followed by two armed security guards, with another car full waiting outside. As far as he knew, Quraishi had no reason to suspect him; but on the other hand, maybe Jeb Richards had said something? He might only have mentioned a rogue US agent, and Quraishi might have thought the timing of ‘Dan Chadwick’s’ visit was simply too coincidental.
But even if Quraishi was setting Cole up, what choice did he have? He needed answers, and he wasn’t going to get them by playing it safe. And so he decided to play Quraishi’s little game and see what happened.
As they walked through the dusty alleys of the city zoo, Quraishi gave Cole a running commentary — here are the kangaroos, there are the parrots, over on the right you can see the elephants; on and on it went, but Cole had seen better animals pretty much everywhere. The ones held here seemed uniformly dull, depressed and unhappy.
‘Ah,’ Quraishi said with a smile, ‘and here we have my favorite.’ He gestured with his hand to a sunken pool to their left. The surface was still, but when Cole raised his hand to cut out the glare of the sun, he could see small, rough shapes moving silently through the water.
Eyes and snouts.
‘American alligators,’ Quraishi informed him. ‘Alligator mississippiensis. Members of the same family are said to date back as far as the Cretaceous. Incredible creatures. They will eat anything, from fruit to large mammals, from snails to automobile license plates. Even men,’ he added, his expression blank.
When Cole didn’t respond, Quraishi smiled and turned back to the pool, moving closer. Cole noticed that the two security guards were also getting closer, and he could feel the adrenalin start to work its magic on him, readying him for anything that might happen.
‘But on the other hand,’ Quraishi explained, ‘they can sometimes live for weeks — even months — with no food whatsoever.’ He turned back to Cole. ‘You can see why they have survived for so many millions of years,’ he said. ‘They are perfectly evolved killing machines.’
‘You believe in evolution?’ Cole asked, now right at the water’s edge next to Quraishi. ‘I thought Allah created everything that we see.’
‘He did,’ Quraishi said, seemingly undisturbed by Cole’s ruse to upset him. ‘I appreciate that some of my fellow believers claim that this means that evolution could not happen, but I myself fail to see why the two things should be mutually exclusive. Blame it on my western education, perhaps. As far back as the nineteenth century, Islamic scholars have supported Darwin’s theories. Jamal-al-Din al-Afghani, for instance, agreed that life will always compete with life, and the strongest will survive. There are numerous references to the emergence of life in the universe in the Qur’an, and many respected men have explained how there is no contradiction between these and the scientific theory of evolution.’
Cole sensed the two security guards directly behind him now, and turned to see their Uzi submachine guns aimed at his back. So Quraishi’s little speech had been little more than a distraction; whether it reflected what the man believed was irrelevant, and unknowable. Sociopaths like Quraishi were able to fashion any reality they desired if it served their purposes.
Cole moved his head, taking in the three men stationed on the parapets of the high walls which surrounded the zoo, aiming Soviet-era — but no less deadly for that — Dragunov sniper rifles at him. The men from the second car, Cole mused as he turned back to Quraishi.
‘Okay,’ Cole said indifferently. ‘What do you want?’
‘I would like very much to know who you really are,’ Quraishi replied in a voice that was still friendly. ‘And if I don’t find out, I would like very much to feed you piece by piece to my little friends here.’
Quraishi gestured with a sweep of his hand to the alligators swimming languidly in the pool before them, and Cole for an instant saw what lay behind the man’s eyes.
And it was only then that he realized how much trouble he was in.
Quraishi and his guards had a different approach to feeding Cole to the alligators than Cole himself had used with al-Zayani and the sharks.
Whereas Cole had strung the terrorist financier upside down, so that his head was just inches from the water, Cole was being held down the right way up on the concrete poolside, the water lapping gently against his feet. His shoes and socks had been removed, and he could feel the hot sun warming his skin.
The difference was that Cole had just been trying to scare al-Zayani; there were no sharks, and even if there had been, Cole wouldn’t have fed him to them. He wanted the man to talk, and he knew that just the threat of it would be enough.
Here, though, it was clear that Quraishi wanted Cole to talk, and the fact that his feet were in the water meant that his captor was prepared to have the alligators really start to eat him. If his head was near the water, their first bite would render Cole useless; if they started on his legs, Quraishi would still have plenty of time to extract a confession before they reached anything truly vital. If he didn’t pass out from pain, shock and blood loss first, of course.
The water was already bloody, Quraishi’s men having thrown in some raw meat from a large pail they’d brought down to the pool.
Cole watched in detached terror as the alligators’ huge jaws snapped out of the water and swallowed the small carcasses whole.
‘I hope it’s all Halal,’ Cole said, trying to keep himself calm.
Quraishi spat at him, then laughed. ‘Very funny, Mr. Chadwick,’ he said. ‘Or whoever you are. I’m sure you understand that we are using the meat to bring them in closer, get them interested in those little feet of yours. They are cautious for the most part,’ he carried on conversationally, as if giving a lecture. ‘Sometimes they can be a little lethargic, even sluggish. They need some… encouragement, before they start on the real feast.’
Quraishi snapped his fingers, and an assistant appeared with a cup of tea for him. The terrorist leader lounged back languidly, enjoying the sun. He seemed perfectly relaxed, and Cole was sure that he’d done this before, probably more than once.
Cole watched as the gators snatched the meat out of the water, rolling over and over as they ripped and swallowed, teeth tearing, blood spilling.
As they finished, they continued to swim, eyeing the shore warily, as if wondering whether to come back.
‘They will not take long to make the decision, my friend,’ Quraishi said pleasantly. ‘Then they will come back. Or one will, at least, just to test you out. Probably that one there,’ he said, pointing at a large gator which appeared slightly darker than the others, circling closer. ‘He’ll take a foot at least, perhaps two. My men here will pull you back, make sure he doesn’t get everything, but it will mean that your entire leg will probably be torn off below the knee.’ He smiled. ‘I cannot promise that the experience will be completely painless.’
‘Okay,’ Cole said, steadying his hammering heart rate with pure strength of will, ‘what is it you want to know?’
‘Ah,’ Quraishi said in disappointment. ‘Ready to talk so soon?’ He watched the gators for several more moments, then looked back at Cole. ‘Let us start with your real name. Then we can move on to who you work for, what you know, and who you have told.’ He gestured at the hungry alligators, some of which were starting to nose their way onto the poolside. His men chased them back into the water. ‘If they let you get that far, of course.’