Cole felt the thrashing, and heard the screams as the guard was eviscerated by the gator, then something floating past him in the water caught his eye.
It was a severed arm; from who, he didn’t know.
But he sensed another gator approaching from behind, and pivoted in the water, grabbing the arm as he moved and holding it out in front of him between his bound hands, the gators jaws chomping down into it.
Cole kicked away from the thrashing bodies. He was used to swimming with his hands tied – in fact, during SEAL training, he had been forced to repeat lap after lap with both his hands and his legs tied – but the presence of the gators in the murky, bloody water made his heart rate go involuntarily higher, which hampered his progress.
He could feel the water being disturbed as the alligators got closer and closer, but then he was there – back at the concrete slope leading out from the pool – and he pulled his body out, until his feet hit the bottom.
And then he was running, breaking free of the water even as the big head of one of the gators snapped towards him, missing his heels by mere inches.
He turned around and saw the poolside was pure chaos, gators gorging themselves on the guards’ bodies, dragging them back half-eaten into the churning water.
But where was Quraishi?
Cole’s keen eyes scanned the concrete expanse of the city zoo around him, and quickly picked out movement.
Quraishi was running down the dusty main alleyway back to the steel gate, shouting at a shocked zoo employee as he ran.
Cole took off after him as the gates started to open.
Yes! The steel gate eased open, and Quraishi could breathe a sigh of relief at last; he would be back at the Ministry before long, and could order a city-wide manhunt for this crazed man. If the gators hadn’t already killed him, that is.
He risked a look over his shoulder, and his jaw dropped open.
There he was – barefoot, soaking wet, hands still bound in front of him – sprinting down the alleyway towards Quraishi.
Who was this man? A test sent by Allah? A demon sent by Satan?
It wasn’t that Quraishi was afraid to die; he had in fact become used to the idea many years before, and realized that the threat of death was part and parcel of the existence Allah had decreed for him.
But to die needlessly, to die before he had realized his full potential and achieved his great aims, was unthinkable.
The agent, even barefoot on the scorching hot concrete, was faster than Quraishi could hope to be, and would be upon him soon. The man was unarmed, but Quraishi was a realist, and had no delusions about his ability to win a fight with him.
But traffic was at standstill in the streets outside the zoo.
What else could he do?
It was then that he remembered the hot air balloon.
Cole couldn’t believe his eyes.
Ahead of him, he watched as the hot air balloon which had been giving people joy rides all morning, lifted off once again into the air.
But this time it had the relieved features of Quraishi in the basket, his face once more regaining its familiar arrogance.
Quraishi turned to the balloon’s frightened pilot and barked an order, and the flames rapidly burst higher, forcing the balloon to ascend more quickly.
Cole didn’t stop to think; there simply wasn’t time.
Instead, his soles burning on the heat-soaked ground, he increased his pace again and surged towards the lifting balloon, the queue of waiting passengers staring with mouths agape as he jumped.
9
Quraishi felt the basket move as it was pulled a few inches earthwards, as if it had picked up a large weight of some kind.
He had seen the agent sprinting towards him, but by then the balloon had been too high, and he hadn’t seen what had happened below the basket.
But now, the zoo getting smaller and smaller below him as the balloon gained height rapidly, Quraishi risked leaning forward over the side.
What he saw amazed him, although by now he realized that it shouldn’t.
The agent, the ‘asset’, had somehow managed to jump and grab hold of the anchor rope that hung below the balloon. He was now hanging on with his bound hands, suspended by the rope hundreds of feet above the city, wind billowing him from side to side.
What did he hope to accomplish?
But then Quraishi saw his knees rising, the rope steadied by his feet as he extended his legs and reached up with his hands, and he knew.
The son of a bitch was climbing.
Cole tried to steady his breathing as the balloon pulled him higher and higher into the sky, his body swaying from side to side as he tried to climb the anchor rope.
Nothing was in his mind now except getting to Quraishi; the man was only twenty feet above him, in the basket, and as far as Cole knew, he was unarmed. He would get to him and make him talk, make him admit to whatever heinous plan his evil mind had conjured up.
But with his hands still tied at the wrists, the climb was hard; he didn’t want to risk letting go of the rope for long enough to move them a useful distance with each effort, and was so forced to make a series of shorter moves, inching up the rope slowly and methodically.
His focus was so intense that he almost failed to see the long spire of a mosque’s minaret coming quickly towards him. But as the last moment, he sensed it and reflexively gripped tight to the rope and swung his body out to the side, missing the concrete crown with just inches to spare.
The movement sent him into a spin, and his body freewheeled around the hot skies like a spinning top as the balloon continued its progress across the city.
Cole felt the balloon turning as he contracted his core, trying to stop his unending spin so that he could start climbing again. He looked towards the new path of the balloon, and saw another minaret in the distance. Quraishi’s plan was obvious; to knock Cole off the rope by flying towards the tallest structures in Riyadh.
The rope unwound and finally started to spin back the other way, but it was too late – the next minaret was there, this one even taller, and Cole knew he wouldn’t be able to swing his body wide enough to avoid it.
Taking a deep breath, he gripped the rope hard and raised his feet, legs bent at the knee. He timed the impact perfectly, his bare feet compressing onto the minaret’s shaft, legs bending further with the pressure, and then he extended his legs with a powerful push, projecting himself away from the tower, the momentum of the balloon pulling his body around the structure in a wide arc.
The minaret behind him now, Cole again wrapped his feet and hands tight around the rope and concentrated on getting it to stop moving.
He hoped he had time before they reached the next tower.
Quraishi looked over the side of the basket in despair. He was still there!
He had managed to avoid hitting two of the minarets now, and would doubtless start his climb again as soon as he was able.
Suddenly he remembered his phone, and pulled it violently out of his pocket, calling a friend in the Ministry of Interior. He spoke rapidly but coherently, describing the situation and ordering the man to get some helicopters from Riyadh Air Base on the move immediately.
He finished the call, but knew he couldn’t just sit and wait for the choppers to come; by the time they arrived, it could already be too late.
Quraishi looked around the basket desperately, trying to find some sort of weapon. But there was nothing, and he turned to the frightened pilot, snapping at him. ‘A knife!’ he ordered. ‘Let me have your knife!’
He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before; the pilot would have to have a knife, wouldn’t he? In an emergency, a knife was a must – he might need to cut the ropes to free the balloon if it became caught.
The pilot nodded mutely and fished in his pocket, pulling out a box cutter which he handed over to Quraishi with a shaking hand.
Perfect, thought Quraishi as he took the knife. Purposefully designed for cutting the anchor rop
e, it would finish the American agent once and for all.
Cole saw a man – presumably the pilot – above him, maneuvering out of the basket, secured by a length of rope. His hands held the basket’s edge and his feet rested on the bottom guard rail, and Cole watched as the man bent his legs and let go with one hand, searching blindly below for the rope that was attached to the bottom of the basket. The rope that held Cole.
Cole wasn’t surprised that Quraishi had sent the pilot instead of doing it himself; he was a man who was used to sending others to their deaths, but rather more reluctant to take the risk himself. And then he saw the glimmer of metal in the pilot’s searching hand, and knew what it meant. He was going to cut the rope.
In the next moment, Cole could feel the rope moving as the knife found its mark and started to saw through it; forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, every movement taking Cole one step closer to his death.
Cole immediately began to climb harder, allowing his hands to come off the rope for longer periods of time now to gain more distance with each pull, knowing that it was worth the risk, that if he didn’t make it to the basket before the rope was cut, he’d be a dead man.
He ignored the action of the man’s knife sawing back and forth through the rope and just concentrated on the one thing he could control; knees went up, feet secure around the rope, and then he extended his body, letting go with his hands as he reached high to grab hold again.
Cole continued like that for what seemed an eternity, gaining distance at a pace he feared was too slow, much too slow, and yet he persevered, working hands and feet in tandem as he edged ever upward.
Cole could feel the shadow of the basket and risked looking upwards; he was so close now, so tantalizingly close. But the rope was almost completely cut through now, and Cole saw that he was just hanging by a thread; the knife seemed to move in slow motion as the pilot worked through the last remaining fibers.
Knowing it was his last chance, Cole pushed violently upwards with his legs, bound hands reaching upwards as the rope finally gave way; Cole watched it fall to the city streets below even as his hands extended and then gripped down tight on the metal frame underneath the basket, legs swinging wildly.
And then he sensed a shadow approaching him and pulled his legs clear out of the way, the sharp edge of an apartment building’s flat roof just missing him.
He kept his body in an L-shape, his legs extended as the building passed beneath him, but was forced to react again when he felt the passage of the box cutter’s blade slicing towards his face.
He swung a leg up, his bare foot making contact with the pilot’s wrist, deflecting the blow; but his other leg came down in reflexive compensation, banging hard onto the roof, dragging across the hot, rough concrete before Cole pulled it back up.
He glimpsed the pilot bending lower, other hand gripping hard to his support rope as he swung the knife again at Cole.
Cole kicked out again, striking the arm and knocking the knife to one side; and then they were clear of the apartment building and Cole gripped even more tightly to the metal frame as he let both of his legs snake out, calves securing themselves forcefully around the pilot’s neck.
The man lashed out with the knife and Cole felt a searing, hot pain in his thigh as the blade sliced into him, but in the next instant Cole pulled hard on the metal frame, yanking his legs down in synchronization, and the pilot was ripped free from the side of the basket.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion; the man dropped the knife, his hands scrabbling for the rope, for the basket, for anything; and then his entire body was in motion as Cole’s legs pulled him clear and then relaxed their grip, dropping the man over a thousand feet to the unforgiving concrete streets below.
The pilot’s screams carried all the way down.
10
Quraishi watched the body fall from the balloon with impotent horror. He knew it wasn’t the American agent; he could see the rope used by the pilot for support fluttering now in the breeze, and it was clear that nobody was holding it any longer.
There was only one body; which meant that somehow, the agent must still be clinging to the basket. And, realizing now the utter single-mindedness of his opponent, Quraishi understood that the next thing that would happen was that the man would climb up into the basket.
And then what?
His plan – so many years in the making – was just about to reach fruition. And while he didn’t strictly need to be involved from this point on – everything would go ahead just as well, just as lethally, without him – he felt the need to see the results of his endeavours.
He wanted to see the West crushed beneath his feet, he wanted to see his beloved Arab homeland as a free country again, no longer dominated by a corrupt, hated monarchy.
He wanted to see it, and he wasn’t prepared to let this insignificant insect, this dog of an American, spoil his enjoyment.
He breathed deeply, preparing himself for combat.
Allah would be with him, and he knew this would give him the courage necessary for the fight that was surely to come.
Cole’s muscles were burning now, the lactic acid building up in his shoulders, forearms and fingers to excruciating levels as he held onto the metal frame. The climb up the rope had exhausted him, but at least he had been able to balance his weight out through his feet on the rope; now all he had was the grip of his hands, bound close together, the restraints making the position even harder, even more painful.
But he knew he had to somehow keep moving, get into the basket; if he did not, his grip would eventually give way, and he would plummet to the dusty streets of Riyadh as the pilot had before him.
And so Cole clenched his teeth against the pain and started to edge his hands slowly along the metal rail which made up part of the frame suspended below the basket; his fingertips struggling to keep hold as they walked Cole ever closer to the edge.
But soon enough he was there, where the frame ended and the edge of the basket began. He took a deep breath to center himself, and – keeping his grip strong – rocked his body first one way and then the other, finally bursting upwards and shooting out his nearest leg, his bare foot hooking onto the lower guard rail of the basket.
Cole tested the position, could feel it holding. The next part, he knew, would be so much easier with his hands free; but that was a luxury he didn’t have, and he cut the thought from his mind, focusing only on what he could do.
The bland, brown concrete mass of Riyadh stretched out below him, and for a fraction of a second, he imagined himself falling, his body plummeting through the warm air, breath caught in his throat, organs lurching around inside his body making him want to be sick, but unable to be sick, unable to even breathe as the velocity of his fall increased, until he blacked out completely, long before his body was smashed into little pieces as it finally made its impact with the unforgiving earth.
And then the image was gone just as soon as it had appeared, and Cole contracted the tiny muscles of his foot, causing it to grip hold tighter, tighter; and then he let go with his hands and lurched his body sideways and upwards in a near-suicidal last-ditch bid for the basket.
His hands made contact with the cords which ran down the side of the basket and they closed tight immediately, securing his grip once more; and then he pushed up with his foot and levered his other foot up onto the guard rail next to it, his body crunched up onto the side of the basket.
He breathed out steadily, controlling the fierce spike of adrenalin from the maneuver.
And then he extended his legs further, hands going over the top of the basket, taking hold and pulling himself upwards.
And despite the pain in his muscles, the terror which had gone unbidden through his heart, he couldn’t help but smile.
Quraishi was soon going to tell him everything he wanted to know.
Quraishi saw the American’s face as it rose above the side of the basket, flushed with effort but set with determination.
&
nbsp; Quraishi had been scanning the rim of the basket continuously, waiting for the first sign of the man, ready to respond to his appearance.
And when Mark Cole appeared, Quraishi didn’t waste any time at all; he merely planted one booted foot on the base of the basket and unleashed the other, kicking the American with all of his force right in the center of his face and sending him flying away from the basket.
Quraishi smiled.
It had been even easier than he’d thought.
The impact rocked Cole’s head back with savage force, tearing his body from its secure hold on the basket.
There was a flash in Cole’s head and for a moment, he could see nothing, think nothing, do nothing; but he felt his body falling backwards and registered the danger, his mind switching back on just as his feet also began to lose their grip on the guard rail.
In that brief instant when he regained his senses, he saw and sensed everything with perfect clarity; the angle of his own body as it fell backward, the distance and relative angle of the basket, the level of grip retained by his feet, the rope which had secured the pilot, blowing about in the warm air.
And within that same instant, angles and speeds calculated instantaneously, his bound hands reached out and grabbed hold of the discarded rope.
Cole transformed his downward momentum into a sideways swing on the rope, travelling round the basket in a tight arc, legs releasing their grip and extending high upwards until the first one hooked over the edge of the basket and gripped tight; and then Cole pushed the rope away, his hands on the basket’s edge, pulling himself inside, his body rolling forwards until it landed safely on the inner floor.
With no chance to get his breath back, Cole looked up to see Quraishi’s booted foot aimed once again at his face and pushed his hands out, smothering the kick.
WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller Page 25
