Cobra 405

by Damien Lewis

  ‘Kilbride, man, didn’t they ever teach you how to torture someone?’ Boerke announced. ‘Let’s stop buggering about. Nixon, go and fetch me a carving knife, a large one.’

  Nixon glanced at Kilbride, who shook his head. Boerke and Kilbride locked stares – baleful ice-blue against smouldering coal-black. Neither man’s gaze wavered.

  ‘We need this fucker to talk, man. Let’s cut him up a little …’

  ‘This is my fucking home, Boerke. My wife and kids live here. And now you want to add this little fucker’s dying to their day …’

  For an instant Boerke stiffened. Then he dropped his eyes to the ground. ‘I guess I misjudged things, man.’

  Kilbride shrugged. ‘Whatever. Forget it. We’ll get this shit to talk. He’s a scrawny little scrag-end of a man. Is this the best that Allah can throw at us?’

  The prisoner lifted his head, eyes blazing. ‘Burn in hell, godless pigs. I never talk!’

  ‘Fuck me, so the little runt does speak some English!’ Smithy exclaimed. ‘The lying little bloody—’

  ‘Hold on, man, I just thought of something,’ Boerke interjected. ‘Pigs … Nixon, you have some pigs in your garden, man. Go and fetch me one, the biggest you have, and some rope. And that sharp knife … Come on, man, I’ll help you. Trust me, Kilbride, I know a way to make the little shit spill his guts with the least disturbance possible …’

  Five minutes later Nixon and Boerke returned, dragging a large pig behind them. Although the animal had lived happily at The Homestead for many years, it knew instinctively that something very bad was about to happen to it, and it was struggling for all it was worth. Nixon hauled the pig over to a tree, slung the rope across one branch and heaved the animal into the air by its back feet. Boerke removed his shirt, revealing a remarkably lean and muscled body for his age. He grabbed the carving knife and tested the blade with his thumb before turning to face the prisoner.

  ‘You watching carefully, kafir?’ he called out. The prisoner spat a gob of mixed blood and mucus in Boerke’s direction. ‘That’s good, kafir, good. Now, what does it say in your holy book? “The animals that forage beneath the earth are not Halal, they are unclean.”’ Boerke turned to the pig. ‘Well, this is what you’ll be getting, kafir, if you don’t start talking …’

  Boerke sliced deep across the pig’s throat and a bright red stream of blood pulsed out into one of the buckets. He held it close under the beast’s head until it finally stopped kicking. Boerke turned away from the dead animal and strode across to the prisoner. He crouched down in front of him, his white torso smeared with flecks of gore.

  ‘What time is it?’ Boerke asked, talking more to himself than to anyone else. ‘Half past twelve. It’s pretty much lunchtime, kafir. And guess what you’re going to be getting? Ask him the questions again, Nixon, one last time.’

  Nixon repeated the questions, but still the prisoner refused to talk. Boerke got him lying on the ground on his back and attempted to force a metal funnel into his mouth, but the man kept his jaws firmly clamped shut. Boerke drew back his arm and punched him once, with lightning speed, in the mouth. There was a sharp crack as the prisoner’s front teeth shattered. Before he could recover Boerke jammed the funnel inside, holding it there while Nixon poured the first of the warm pig’s blood into it. Nixon hadn’t appreciated the prisoner’s ‘stinking dog, black slave’ comment, and as far as he was concerned the man on the ground was getting exactly what he deserved.

  Boerke grabbed the prisoner’s nose with his one free hand, forcing him to breathe through his mouth or suffocate. As he tried to do so he found himself gagging on mouthfuls of pig’s blood. The prisoner thrashed about and jackknifed his body before going into a violent vomiting fit. Boerke and Nixon backed off a little, realising that they would get no answers if they killed him. Once the prisoner’s physical state got back to something approaching normal, Boerke grabbed him by the hair and showed him the bucket.

  ‘Two-thirds full, or one-third empty, it doesn’t make a lot of difference, man. You start talking or your next course is going to be more of the same.’

  The prisoner responded with a stream of Arabic invective. Boerke glanced at Nixon. ‘Guess those weren’t the answers we were looking for, man?’

  ‘He made remarks about you that I don’t care to repeat, Mr Boerke. Then he said that he is vomiting out the pig’s blood, so no harm comes to him in Islam.’

  Boerke ran a bloodied hand through his blond hair. ‘Stupid bloody kafir. Okay, this fucker’s going to talk if it kills me.’ He glanced at Kilbride. ‘You sure you don’t want to use the dog, man …?’

  Kilbride shook his head. ‘Not unless I have to. The noise. Plus …’

  ‘I can understand, man. It’ll ruin a good animal.’ Boerke smiled, a thin, predatory smile. He picked up his knife and rose to his feet. ‘I have a better idea, man. A far better one.’

  He strode across to the pig, and in one savage movement he slit it open from the underside of its chin down to its pelvis. He pushed a hand inside its stomach cavity and started hauling out handfuls of intestines. By the time Boerke had finished gutting the animal, he was covered in gore and had two bucketfuls of mixed pig’s blood and intestines.

  Smithy glanced at Kilbride, a look of revulsion on his face. ‘What’s he doing now? I reckon he bloody enjoys this sort of thing …’

  Boerke peered into one of the buckets. ‘Stop being such a pussy, man … Okay, looks like it’s about ready.’ He picked up the buckets, a pail in either hand. ‘Let’s go and feed the kafir to the sharks.’

  ‘Now you know,’ Kilbride remarked to Smithy. ‘And it’s not such a bad idea.’

  Before he had taken two steps Boerke stopped. ‘Hold on, man, there’s one thing I forgot. We have to wrap the parcel first, before we give it to the sharks.’

  Boerke turned back to the pig carcass and began to skin it. The operation went smoothly in the lean South African’s hands. Soon he and Nixon had the pigskin laid out flat on the ground, glistening in the midday sun. Nixon fetched a ship’s needle and thread, and then they carried the prisoner over to the pigskin and laid him in the centre of it. As he writhed and twisted and fought to break free, Boerke started to sew the bound man into the fresh pig’s hide.

  For several minutes Boerke worked away with the needle and thread, all the while getting Nixon to explain to the prisoner exactly what they were going to do to him. First, the ‘chum’ – the mixed pig’s blood and intestines – would be thrown off the end of Kilbride’s pier. Sharks can smell blood from several miles off, Boerke explained. The more chum they threw in, the more it would whip the sharks into a frenzied bloodlust. By the time they threw the prisoner into the sea the bloodied pigskin would drive them to distraction, and in seconds he would be torn into shark-bite-sized pieces.

  Boerke acted as if he knew his Islamic theology reasonably well. In fact he was largely bullshitting, but he figured that the prisoner had been brainwashed by his fanatical leader and knew little about the true tenets of Islam. Boerke reminded the prisoner that at the very point of his death all parts of a Muslim’s body must be ‘accounted for’ or else he would be unable to enter the hereafter. If the prisoner didn’t talk he would be torn apart by the sharks, so by anyone’s reckoning there would never be any ‘accounting’. And there would certainly be no chance of the prisoner being buried by sundown on the day of his death, which was another rule of strict Islamic law.

  Boerke smiled an evil smile. ‘You really want to go to Hell, is that it, kafir? Because when I feed you to the sharks, that’s where you’re headed. Paradise, those seventy-two virgins, all that good life you’ve been promised – all of that will be fucking history, my friend.’

  For the first time since the questioning had begun there was real terror in the prisoner’s eyes. He had no fear of death, but the very thought of eternal damnation was torture to him. Boerke completed his sewing job by fixing the pig’s head on top of the prisoner’s own, its snout dangling in his eyes
. Then the four men carried their gruesome parcel down to the pier. Luckily, it was hidden from The Homestead by a thick clump of trees, which meant that their shark-feeding activities would be largely obscured from view.

  Boerke got a plastic mug and threw the first of the chum into the water. As they waited for the sharks to appear, he thought up a further refinement to his plan. Kilbride was amazed at how completely focused the South African’s mind could be, especially when the object of that focus was how to cause maximum terror.

  ‘Nixon, man, listen. You will love this one, I think. Go get the wheelbarrow and fetch this kafir’s three dead friends. We’ll feed them to the sharks first, just so he gets the general idea.’

  Nixon gave a wide, flashing smile. ‘Yah, Mr Boerke, I like it.’

  As Nixon went to fetch the corpses, Boerke kept throwing in the chum. A cupful every other minute and soon there was an oily red slick stretching a good way into the sea. Nixon returned and dumped the three dead men on the pier. Boerke chucked a couple of cupfuls of chum over them and then turned back to scrutinise the sea, one hand shading his eyes.

  ‘Here they come, man,’ he announced.

  A pointed dorsal fin approached the pier. It was quickly joined by a second, and within minutes there were several dozen sharks circling. Boerke took a big handful of guts and threw it into the midst of them. The water boiled and thrashed as the sharks fought each other for their share of the feast.

  Boerke smiled. ‘Looks about ready to me.’

  He bent down to peer into the prisoner’s face. ‘Now remember, kafir, you’re all trussed up in a pig’s skin, which is hardly the best way to go and meet your maker.’

  Without further comment Boerke and Nixon picked up the first corpse and threw it into the sea. It hit the water with a hollow slap, lay there for a second face downwards, and then the first shark hit it like a steam train. It struck from below, driving the corpse several feet out of the water before fish and human body tumbled back into the ocean. The sea became a savage, boiling maelstrom as several giant sharks fought and tussled over the carcass, jaws gaping and teeth flashing white and bloodied red. Without a word, Boerke and Nixon picked up the second and third corpses and hurled them in after the first.

  Boerke bent down and dragged the prisoner’s head up by his hair. ‘You ready to talk, kafir? Or you want to follow your friends?’

  There was no audible response, just a faint jerking of the head from side to side as if to say ‘No’.

  Boerke dipped his cup into the chum again and threw its contents in the prisoner’s face. ‘The stupid kafir’s never going to talk. Best we get him over the side, don’t you think, Kilbride, man?’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Kilbride replied, picking up on Boerke’s cue. He got to his feet. ‘Come on, Smithy. I’ve had enough of this shit. Feed him to the fucking sharks for all I care.’

  Boerke and Nixon tied a loop of rope around the prisoner’s ankles and shoved him off the pier. He dropped head first towards the water. The rope went taut as his shoulders hit, leaving just his head below the surface. A second later a sleek white shadow came powering up from the depths. Boerke and Nixon yanked on the rope with all their strength, just as a massive set of gaping jaws opened around the prisoner’s head. His body shot upwards as the shark’s jaws snapped shut, two jagged rows of teeth missing their prey by inches. The man on the rope was left dangling free, five feet above the sea and staring at the sharks below him, ready for his next submersion.

  The prisoner’s terrified cries were enough to stop Kilbride and Smithy in their tracks. In among his screams they reckoned they could hear a childlike sobbing, and a phrase being repeated over and over and over and over again.

  ‘Man, that was close,’ Boerke remarked. ‘Might not be so lucky next time, kafir. Come on then, Nixon, lower away. There’s plenty more where that came from.’

  Nixon shook his head. ‘He is saying he will talk, Mr Boerke. He is saying he will tell us everything.’

  ‘Is he, Nixon, man?’

  ‘Yes. And he is begging us not to feed him to the fish.’

  ‘Best we haul him up, man. But if he’s messing with us, he goes straight back in again. You tell him from me, Nixon – I am not taking any more shit from this one …’

  Nixon translated Boerke’s words, and the prisoner’s choking reply. ‘He pledges on the life of the Holy Prophet that he will talk, Mr Boerke.’

  ‘It’s the word of a kafir, man. What’s that worth?’

  Nixon glanced at Boerke. ‘I think we can trust him, Mr Boerke. No Muslim pledges on the life of the Prophet lightly. To do so would be a disrespect and a sin …’

  Boerke nodded. ‘Okay, let’s haul him in.’

  Once back on the pier the prisoner lay in a heaving mess, his body curled up in the foetal position, his arms covering his head.

  Boerke and Nixon waited for him to recover enough to talk. ‘You know something about Islam, is it, man?’ Boerke asked. ‘What these kafirs believe in …’

  Nixon nodded. ‘My father was a Muslim, my mother a Christian. Such mixed marriages are not so rare here in Tanzania. We are a very tolerant people. So I am a Muslim by birth, Mr Boerke …’

  ‘Shit, Nixon, man – I never knew …’

  Nixon grinned. ‘Ha! You are worried, Mr Boerke? Worried that I am a Muslim being made to torture a fellow Muslim? No need. This man is no Muslim and neither are his “Brothers”. They are evil killers, Mr Boerke. They take a peaceful faith and they turn it into one of hatred and murder. I am a Muslim by birth, Mr Boerke. But if I had my way, we would take every one of these bad people and feed them to the sharks …’

  Boerke held out a hand to Nixon. The lean Afrikaner and the big Tanzanian shook hands. ‘I don’t care what religion you have, Nixon, man. I’m glad to have you on our side.’

  Kilbride, Smithy and Boerke gathered around the prisoner as Nixon went about asking him the same questions all over again. As the prisoner started talking, so Boerke kept chucking another cupful of chum over the edge of the pier, just to remind him that it was still feeding time down there. He and the Brothers had been sent by the Old Man of the Mountains, the prisoner confirmed. They had travelled from Syria to Tanzania to spy on Kilbride and the rest of his team. The Old Man had given him Kilbride’s home address, but he didn’t know how the Old Man had come by it. And their mission had been to gather as much information as possible on the Lebanon Operation.

  What was the ‘Lebanon Operation’? Kilbride asked. And who had funded and armed them? The Lebanon Operation was the Old Man’s name for the original Beirut bank robbery. The Old Man was desperate to know where the gold was hidden, and Kilbride and his team were the key to finding out. As for their funding, it had come from the Old Man. And their weapons, those had been smuggled down from Somalia, cross-country, and passed to them locally.

  There was a Lebanese man, one Emile Abdeen, whom the Brothers had tracked to London, the prisoner added. This Emile had fed them much information about the original bank raid, confirming that the gold was hidden in the Lebanon. Once the Old Man had his hands on the gold, then the Day of the Seven Assassins would proceed as planned. Once they had the money they required to fund the operation, they would strike. And that was all the prisoner knew. They could feed him to the sharks, but he had told them everything.

  Boerke glanced at Kilbride, an evil smile on his face. ‘He’s told us all he knows. I believe him, man. So let’s send him back to his people. Let’s send the kafir home, man.’

  Kilbride looked confused. ‘What the hell for?’

  Boerke nodded at the pathetic figure lying on the jetty before them. ‘As a warning, man, a warning. To show them what we’ll do if they try to send any more of their people after us.’

  Kilbride waited for his Thuraya satphone to show three bars on its screen, indicating a three-satellite pick-up, and then punched in the number.

  ‘Nick Coles,’ a voice answered.

  ‘They’ve tracked us down.’


  ‘Kilbride? Who did?’

  ‘The enemy, Nick. The fucking Black Assassins, or whatever name they call themselves. They were here, Nick, here on my doorstep. How the fuck did they find us, Nick?’

  ‘Erm …’

  ‘How did they find us, Nick?’

  There was a second’s silence. ‘There’s something we haven’t told you …’

  ‘You’d better be fucking careful, Nick. They came to my fucking home. I don’t like being lied to …’

  ‘No one’s lied to you, Kilbride. It’s just …’

  ‘No more crap, Nick. I’m warning you …’

  Nick Coles’s mind was racing. He was fairly certain how the enemy had found Kilbride: The Searcher had led them to him. It wouldn’t have been very difficult. He would have contacted some of his old colleagues from The Regiment, few of whom would have known about The Searcher’s conversion to the terrorist cause, and they would have led him to Kilbride. But Nick’s strict orders were to keep The Searcher out of the picture. And there was an alternative explanation.

  ‘We’ve found Emile,’ Nick announced. ‘Unfortunately, he’s dead. His body was discovered yesterday … Apparently, he’d been dead for some days.’

  ‘Where? How?’

  ‘Here in London. The police have logged it as a “random killing”. We have a rather different theory. We don’t think the words “Die, Infidel Pig” scrawled across the walls in the victim’s blood supports the random-killing theory. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  ‘You think he talked? Why would they have killed him if he’d talked?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they killed his wife and children too. I went down to the murder scene. You’ve never seen such savagery …’

  ‘The bastards … But it still wouldn’t explain how they found us. Emile knew nothing. Well, nothing like that, anyway.’

  ‘Maybe there were clues, things you’ve not yet thought of – things you might not remember, even. Who knows what was said and done in the heat of battle, all those years ago?’