The zoo—a dingy collection of bored, lanky animals—turned out to be a bad location for a rendezvous. It was busy but not enough so that he could disappear into a crowd if he had to. Also, the people were there in groups and families—boisterous young fathers, barefoot children, even women in pale blue burqas, hard to tell apart in a flurry of the indistinguishable. As a lone man, he not only stuck out but was likely to draw stares.
Despite himself and all his apprehension at the poorly planned mission, Morgan couldn’t suppress his excitement. The danger awoke in him an animal alertness that he had not felt since his days in the Clandestine Service. It was a feeling that, in his suburban life, he could only approximate, shooting at the firing range or speeding down the highway in his classic GTO. But even these were pale parodies of what he felt at that moment.
Morgan looked around for a visitors’ map and didn’t find one that he could understand, so he walked around, looking at the cages and forming a mental layout of the place. He spotted the orangutan enclosure close to the far end of the zoo. It was a tall cage that bordered two others on either side, with the service access in the back wall. It held two unhappy-looking apes that several teenage boys were trying to taunt into activity.
He walked over to the cage and leaned against the railing, scanning the crowd discreetly every few seconds. He soon spotted a young man, twentysomething, walking in his direction with a little too much nervous resolution. He was not tall, but Morgan could tell that he was very strong even through his baggy khameez shirt. They made eye contact and broke it almost immediately. With affected nonchalance, he pretended to be interested in the apes and planted his feet next to Morgan.
Anxiously, expectantly, Morgan said, “A fruit vendor in Kabul once said to me, ‘Afghanistan is always the same; it is only the invaders who change.’”
The youth gave Morgan a knowing look and responded in stilted, accented English,
“Well, you know what they say. Variety is the spice of life.”
The wrong response. It was the wrong goddamn response. Morgan stiffened slightly and hoped the other man hadn’t noticed. His mind raced. Had he made a mistake in deciphering the code? It had been so long, maybe he had misread it. Maybe Conley had gotten it wrong. Maybe—no, he stopped himself. He hadn’t remained alive so long by doubting himself. This man had just failed the only possible test of his identity. He was an impostor. The question that remained now was what to do about him.
“Cougar sent you?” the man asked, still pretending to look at the two orangutans, who sat picking at each other’s nits. “You are Cobra?”
Morgan nodded. “I assume that he sent you, too?”
“That is right. I am Zalmay.”
“Nice to meet you, Zalmay. Is there any chance you can tell me what was so important that Cougar sent me here to get you?”
“I would prefer to do it once we leave this place, if that is acceptable to you.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” Morgan assured him. “We can go. I just need to show you something first.”
“It cannot wait?” The young man began to look nervous.
“It needs to be now. Somewhere private.”
Morgan led the way along the zoo path. He had to act fast. For all he knew, the real Zalmay was still coming, and he needed to get back to the orangutan cage before someone else beat him to it.
As Morgan led the impostor toward an out-of-the-way bathroom, each man was careful not to turn his back on the other. Did the man know that he knew? Were both of them walking with feigned cordiality, only prevented from turning on each other by the public location, knowing full well that they would attack each other as soon as they were out of sight? Morgan had no way to know for sure—but neither did the other man. This made the timing extremely tricky. Making a move too early might be a mistake, but making it too late could be fatal. The situation was a boulder teetering on a precipice, where even the slightest nudge would send it hurtling over the edge.
In their tentative walk, they reached the bathroom. It was more of a hut with two small external niches, each formed by an L-shaped wall that hid its respective door from the sight of anyone walking along the path. Morgan walked to the men’s side, kicked the door to the lavatory lightly to make sure no one was inside, and motioned for the impostor to follow him.
“Cougar told me to give you this,” Morgan said as soon as they were out of sight, reaching into his shirt for his gun. But the impostor caught on too quickly, rushing him and slamming him against the wall before he could take aim. The gun flew from his hand, falling out of close reach. Morgan caught a glint of steel in the man’s right hand—a small switchblade. He deflected the man’s thrust but felt a sharp pain as it made a glancing slash in his torso. Morgan struck back with an open-handed blow that smashed the man’s nose, then grabbed the impostor’s right hand, knocking it twice against the wall so that the knife fell to the ground. Morgan kicked it away and then threw a lateral hook that was thwarted by the close quarters: his elbow hit the wall, and the punch landed ineffectively on the man’s arm. The response came quickly: the impostor punched Morgan in the gut, causing him to double over. The man maneuvered himself behind Morgan, who felt a thick, beefy arm wrap around his neck.