It had been many years since he had killed a man, and it filled Morgan with a sudden mental clarity. He searched the man’s pockets for something that might identify him and found a slim wallet in a shirt pocket, sticky with blood. He opened it and ruffled through it, taking the money to make it look like a robbery. He then checked the cards. “What the . . .” It was an employee ID, with the dead man’s name and along the bottom, the words, A
CEVEDO
I
NTERNATIONAL
. Why was a man who worked for a government contractor posing as a CIA informant? Morgan got up and closed the bathroom door. He didn’t have time to think about that, not at the moment; with luck, the body would remain hidden long enough for Morgan to escape from the zoo.
He picked up his Glock and ran, making his way out of the grove and around a number of cages back to the orangutan habitat. People stared at him and backed away, and soon he noticed why: his shirt and arms were spattered with blood. He reached the orangutan cage to find two men standing there, playing out the same scene that he’d had with the impostor minutes earlier.
Screw it
, he thought, and he pulled out his gun. This was no time for finesse.
“I was sent by Cougar,” he said, holding up the Glock. “Which of you is the man I’m looking for? Which of you is Zalmay?”
The slighter of the two, a bewildered young man, sheepishly raised his hand. The other immediately reached for a gun, and Morgan quickly fired two rounds into the man’s chest, prompting screeches from animals and bystanders alike. The young man stood frozen, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
“You need to come with me,” Morgan said, but Zalmay backed away, terrified.
“We need to get out of here now! There’ll be others!” Morgan insisted, and then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. While most of the zoo’s visitors were now running as fast as they could away from them, one figure in a burqa had just drawn a submachine gun from under her garment. This seemed to convince Zalmay. He and Morgan bolted just as she opened fire on them.
They dashed as fast as they could, bullets whizzing past them, hitting the ground and walls around them. Morgan was taking the most direct route to the exit when he spotted a man up ahead, running toward them, with a black submachine gun of his own.
“Turn here!” Morgan yelled to his companion, and they took a right on a path that led them along the perimeter of the zoo. There was a tall fence to their right, and to their left, a low wall separating them from the sunken animal habitats ten feet below.
Then Morgan saw him—the same man who had cut them off before had doubled back to intercept them on their current route, and he was now only about fifty yards away in front of them. Behind him and Zalmay, the woman in the burqa was still approaching. To go forward or backward and try to face either of them with only his handgun would be suicide. There was only one possible way out.
“Jump!” he yelled.
“What?”
But Morgan had already climbed over the wall to the animal habitat. Looking only at the dusty ground below, he pushed off. He tried to land on his good leg but still felt fire in his bad knee when he hit. Moments later, his companion landed beside him, tumbling over.
Morgan got up, and as he looked around, he saw piercing green eyes staring at him from no more than six feet away. She had been reclining lazily, at least three hundred pounds of sleek tendon and muscle. Now she seemed to be taking an inordinate interest in these intruders who had just landed in her home.
They had jumped, literally, into the lion’s den.
C
HAPTER
14
M
organ looked into the lioness’s eyes, and out of the corner of his he could see her muscles tense. Half-remembered words from the story Baz was telling him in the car flashed in his mind: some jackass who’d wanted to show off for his friends had jumped into the lions’ enclosure, presumably the very one he was standing in right now, and had been mauled to death. One wrong move, and Morgan would meet the same fate. He stared into the lion’s eyes, at the tips of her long yellowed teeth, at a jaw that could crush steel. The first rule of surviving an encounter with a predator, passed on by an asset during a mission in sub-Saharan Africa, echoed loud and clear in his mind: don’t act like prey.
Zalmay stumbled to his feet, and a gasp told Morgan that he had finally become aware of where they were.
“
Don’t move
,” Morgan said to Zalmay. His eyes did not stray from the lion. “If you run, you’re dead.” She was reclining on a waist-high wooden platform. On the other side of it was the service access gate. It was padlocked. There was, he noticed, no place to hide in the habitat apart from tall grass, and no other way out. But there was a shallow recess in the wall at the gate that could provide them with cover from enemy fire.
They couldn’t have more than a few seconds before their pursuers caught up with them. He wasn’t about to be caught like a sitting duck. “We’re going to walk, slowly, to that door,” he said to Zalmay, and he began to take measured, deliberate, sideways strides, keeping his eyes on the lion. Zalmay followed with timorous steps. The animal’s gaze was locked on them as they moved, her muscles rippling as if she was aching to pounce. He remembered his handgun, tucked inside his
khameez
. How fast would he be able to draw? And how many bullets would it take to kill a lion? He decided against it.
The slightest misstep
, Morgan thought,
and we’re dinner
.
They inched their way around the wooden platform, and Morgan wondered whether a lifetime of living in a cage had made the lioness tame or even more hungry for prey. But with every step they took toward the gate, she seemed to relax and grow more accustomed to their presence. No sudden moves, and they would be fine.
They had almost made their way to the other side of the platform, only a few feet from the gate, when Morgan’s eye was drawn to the far end of the long habitat, where bars kept out visitors on another of the zoo’s paths. People had been watching them through the iron barrier and yelling, but now they weren’t pointing at him or the lioness anymore. They were looking directly above them.
Morgan had scarcely a split second to react. He lunged, pulling Zalmay with him into the recess in the wall as a round of bullets hailed down on the spot where they had just been standing. There was another burst, close to them, from what Morgan recognized as a submachine gun. But they were well protected; the bullets wouldn’t hit them, not from above.
The gunfire was not entirely without effect, however, as the sound seemed to have angered the lioness. She had leapt from the platform and now paced the ground right in front of them, looking up at the pursuers.
Morgan took a moment to examine the gate behind them. It had a rusty old padlock, holding a dead bolt in place. He knew better than to try to shoot it open; all that would accomplish would be to seal it shut permanently. He shoved his shoulder against the gate with all the momentum he could muster in the limited space he had, hoping the dead bolt, or a piece of the wall around it, might give. It didn’t budge. Time was running out.
Zalmay began shouting through the gate, into the tunnel egress; his cries for help were in an Afghan dialect—Morgan couldn’t tell which.
There was another burst of gunfire, but this time it wasn’t directed at them. Several bullets pierced the lioness’s flank; several red spots on her tawny skin erupted in blood. Her legs buckled, she collapsed to her side, and with a few last, wheezing breaths, she died.
There was only one reason, Morgan realized, that they would shoot her. He drew his Glock and listened for it. Sure enough, a few seconds later, he heard the soft thud of someone’s feet hitting the dust in the cage. The other pursuer would probably have stayed above, ready to rain bullets on them if they poked out of their little nook. They were completely cornered. But he wasn’t going to be taken down, not without a fight. He held up his Glock and motioned for Zalmay to stand back.
He heard a man’s voice, in the accent of a native English speaker, shout from just out of sight, “Drop your gun! We only want the kid. Come out peacefully, and we’ll let you go.”
Morgan looked at Zalmay, who was wild-eyed and breathing heavily. “We’re going to get out of this,” Morgan told him, but it didn’t seem to help.
The man fired a burst of bullets against the edge of the wall, spraying dust into their faces.
“You really think you can take us on?” the man continued. “Even if you survive today, what are you going to do? We found you
here
. If you run, we’ll find you again. Just give us the kid, and you’re free to go.”
“Go to hell!” said Morgan.
“All right, you—.”
“Ramos!” someone yelled. It was a female voice, coming from above. Accented but not Middle Eastern. Something European. It seemed strangely familiar to Morgan, and it stirred up old, long-forgotten memories. But before he could place it, he was interrupted by a scream. The man in the cage had tumbled backward into their line of sight; on top of him was an enormous male lion with a wild, orange mane, teeth bared, its claws sunk into the man’s chest, crimson with blood.
Morgan was so startled, he didn’t notice that a panicky zoo employee had arrived on the other side of the gate and was yelling at them as he fumbled and cycled through keys on a ring as big as Morgan’s fist. Having picked one out, he pushed it into the padlock, and, with a turn, the lock fell open. He undid the bolt and swung open the gate, urgently motioning them outside. They got out of the cage and into the service access tunnel. The zoo employee closed the gate behind them, securing the dead bolt and clicking the lock shut. He obviously wasn’t about to risk his life for the other man. Morgan looked back into the cage and saw the lion dragging his prey, screaming, out of sight.
Morgan surveyed the tunnel. It was long, curving out of sight in both directions. He noted which way was the exit. Then he noticed his companion, whose eyes showed a state of mind past fear and horror.
“Look alive!” Morgan exclaimed. “We’re not out of the woods yet.” He took Zalmay by the shoulders and shook him; the youth seemed to snap out of it. They started down the tunnel in the direction of the exit. Pain gripped Morgan’s bad knee as they ran; with every impact of his right foot on the concrete, he fought through agony. But he kept on moving as fast as he could.
Eventually, they reached a flight of stairs that led them up to a custodial building. The door to the outside was locked, but it was made of flimsy, decaying wood. Resting on his bad leg, he raised his left foot high and kicked the door. The weak jamb splintered around the lock. Sunlight flooded in, and Morgan saw that they were at the entrance of the zoo, where patrons were swarming, funneling through the narrow door to the outside.
No better plan than to get lost in the crowd
, thought Morgan. “Let’s go,” he told Zalmay, holding his arm so they wouldn’t get separated.
They pushed and jostled, but everyone was as eager as they were to get through. Rather than let go of Zalmay, Morgan let the pushier patrons pass; they finally made it outside with the last of the stragglers. Morgan heard police sirens approaching in the distance.
They found Baz looking apprehensively at the crowd that was streaming out of the zoo. He frowned at Morgan as they approached and said, “Did you cause this?”
“I thought I told you to keep the engine running. Where are the keys?” he demanded. Baz took them from his pocket and held them up. Morgan grabbed them.
“Hey!” Baz protested.
“Get in the backseat. You!” he said, pointing at Zalmay. “Up front.”
They complied, Baz reluctant and Zalmay bewildered. Morgan got into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition, and maneuvered around the frenzy of pedestrians. As they rolled onto the road, the police cars were pulling up to the zoo’s entrance.
Morgan drove as fast as he could without attracting undue attention, keeping his eyes on the rearview mirror to spot any possible tails. As the zoo receded into the distance and they approached the city, Morgan took a deep breath. When he inhaled, he felt a sharp pain on his right side where the knife had sliced his skin, pain that up until that point had been dulled by the adrenaline. He lifted his shirt to look at the wound. It was bleeding freely, a long cut but not very deep.
I’ve had worse
, he thought, and he pressed his hand to the wound to stanch the blood. He would have to get somewhere quickly to attend to it. But first there was a pressing issue he was eager to get out of the way.
He turned to the young man in the passenger seat. “You’re Zalmay, then?”
“That is r-right,” he said, with a slight stammer. “Zalmay Siddiqi.”
“All right, Zalmay. You can call me Cobra.” He reached for the radio dial, turning it on and cranking it up until cheesy Middle Eastern pop music blared from the speakers. “I need you to tell me who’s after us,” he said just loudly enough so Zalmay could hear him but Baz could not. “And while you’re at it, tell me what they have to do with Acevedo International.”
Zalmay looked back at him anxiously, a bit surprised. “So you know they are from Acevedo, then? They are enforcers. Mercenaries.”
“Yeah, I figured,” he replied. “And why do they want you dead?”
“Because of what I know—what Cougar and I uncovered. Because I’m carrying this.” He took something out of his knapsack and handed it to Morgan: a tiny memory card. “Pictures that show Acevedo is involved in the Kandahar drug trade.”
Morgan frowned, turning the memory chip in his fingers. If what the kid was saying was true, this whole thing was much bigger than he had imagined. Acevedo was a major contractor, a multibillion-dollar corporation. And it had major ties with politicians. Whatever separation there was between government and business was especially porous when it came to Acevedo. The object in his hands would put him in the sights of some major players.
“I think I’d better hold on to this,” he said, slipping the chip into his pocket. “I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know later. Right now, I just need to know this: is there any possibility that you were followed on your way to meet me?”
“No, I do not think so,” said Zalmay. “I have been hiding in Kabul for days. If they knew where I was, I believe they would have come for me already.”
“That’s what I thought.” Morgan took his left hand off his wound, which promptly began to bleed freely. Taking the wheel with his bloodied hand, he used his right to remove his Glock from its shoulder holster. Zalmay recoiled. But Morgan held it out by the muzzle for the boy, keeping his eyes on the road. “I want you to take this and keep it pointed at our friend here.” He motioned to Baz. Zalmay took the gun gingerly and trained it on the driver.
“What is the meaning of this, Cobra?” said Baz with shocked indignation. He apparently had been straining to hear their conversation.
“Don’t play dumb,” Morgan answered, looking at him through the rearview mirror. “You sold us out.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, looking astonished.
“There were exactly three of us who knew the location of the meeting today, and two of us were nearly killed in there.”
“That is crazy, Cobra, my friend. I did not—”
“Save it,” Morgan interrupted. “Just sit tight, and do as I say.” He looked at Zalmay and spoke again so only he could hear. “We need a place to lay low for a while.”
“There is the place where I have been h-hiding out,” he stammered. “An abandoned house in the north city. I will tell you how to get there.”
“Good. When we get there, you and I are going to have a nice, long chat. And I’m going to get some answers.”
As he drove, Morgan’s thoughts were haunted by the mysterious figure in the burqa and that strangely familiar voice that stirred up something obscure in his unconscious mind.