He turned his back on the blizzard tearing through the pine forests of Barvikha, and cast a warm smile on the crocodiles as they lay on the artificial island in the center of the enormous enclosure. There were six in all, and all named after an ancient Egyptian deity. His favorite was the young female, Sekhmet, the goddess of fire and vengeance. He watched with pride as Anubis slid down from the island and disappeared into the salty brine with nothing left behind him other than a faint trail of bubbles, and then he was gone from the world again.
“Crocodylus porosus is a miracle of nature, Kosma.” As he spoke, the giant Kosma was dragging a young man into the room. He hurled him on the floor a few yards from Vetrov and took a step back, keeping an evaluating eye on the surface of the water.
“The largest reptile alive in the entire world, the saltwater crocodile is truly the greatest predator on earth.” He stopped talking for a moment to study his own reflection in the window with a mix of weariness and hope. It was true he was going gray, and the lines around his eyes were deepening every day, but unlike other men, Vetrov knew he wasn’t going to grow any older. He knew, for a fact, that not only would he not grow old, but that he would never die.
Which was more than he could say for the young man now cowering opposite him.
He gave himself one last narcissistic glance and turned to face Kosma, whose seven-foot frame was towering over him. His number two was nervously explaining about the fiascos in China and Berlin.
“And you lost them?” Vetrov drawled, and then sipped a glass of chilled mineral water. His eyes crawled to the sweating man on the floor.
Kosma nodded unhappily. “At Xian. Two of my men let her get away with Sorokin.”
“But he is dead now?”
“Yes. Ekel killed him in a cab outside Tegel in Berlin, but the woman got away with the map.”
Vetrov sniffed sharply and walked away from his chair. Ekel Kvashnin was the very best in the business. He was not a man to mess with, but failing to kill the Chinese woman and secure the map was sloppy. His next failure would be his last, no matter what his reputation.
Once again, he watched the snow falling across the bleak landscape in thick white waves. “So Ekel killed Sorokin, but the little Dragonfly still flutters…” He made a casual, rising gesture with his hand to mimic a butterfly.
“Not for long. Ekel is tailing her to a bank somewhere in Berlin where she has stored the map. When she retrieves it he will kill her and take the map.”
“And our American friend upstairs is still refusing to give up Mercurio?”
Kosma nodded in a businesslike manner.
Vetrov looked up at the giant man standing before him and considered his options. He wandered casually over to a large plastic box positioned by the fence surrounding the enclosure as Kosma dragged the man by the scruff of his neck closer to the water. “We call them hyper-carnivores because most of their diet is pure meat, but they are so much more than that. They are beautiful apex predators, to be respected, to be feared. Wouldn’t you agree, Anatoly?”
The young man crawled up to his knees and clasped his hands in a show of desperate supplication. “Please, Mr Vetrov, sir.” He broke down and began to cry without shame. “Please… I have children…”
Vetrov ignored his pleas. “In Ancient Egyptian bestiary, the crocodile was respected totally, for the entire economy was based on the Nile — the crocodile’s territory. They wrote poetry about them, they worshipped them.” He paused and raised his chin to look into the enclosure. “I wonder if Sebak will play today?”
“Mr Vetrov… please, I beg you…”
“Sebak was the crocodile god…” Vetrov opened the plastic box and the room was instantly filled with the sound and smell of chickens. “My darlings deserve a starter before the main course, naturally.”
Vetrov pulled a chicken from the box and without a second thought tossed it live over the enclosure fence. It squawked and flapped but before it hit the water a male crocodile fired through the surface like a ballistic missile and snapped its wide jaws with a thunder-crack. The chicken was gone, the only remnants a small cloud of white feathers drifting through the air like snowflakes.
Vetrov gave an evaluating nod. “Ah! Anubis is faster today.”
Anatoly turned white and began to tremble. Kosma took another step back.
“These beautiful specimens are from the Northern Territory of Australia, and they are the most formidable crocodiles on earth. They have the most powerful bite of any creature on the planet and can crush a buffalo’s skull as if it were paper, as you will discover for yourself as soon as you tell me why you passed my research to Yevgeny Sorokin.”
“I… I never…”
“Shhh,” Vetrov gently stroked Anatoly’s head. “Please, don’t tell lies, Tolya. You, a humble research assistant from Volgograd, were entrusted with the greatest research secrets the world has ever known. I offered you more money than your family has accumulated in five centuries, and yet you pass critical information to my rival — who is now dead, by the way. I want to know why.”
“I never even heard of Sorokin, Mr Vetrov, sir, please…”
“There are many ways to be killed by a crocodile, Tolya. If you are in the water, without a ripple on the surface, the next thing you know your head is crushed in its jaws. You wouldn’t even see it coming. Less than a second and your skull is crushed and he is propelling you deep beneath the waves…” Vetrov waved his hand forward to simulate the path of a crocodile.
Antoly’s reply was drowned in tears.
“And that is the good way, the fast way. Another way is Kosma here hangs you over the water from the rigging above the enclosure. That way my darlings will leap from the water and snap at your legs, each trying to make the kill. Now, how and why did you pass the information to Sorokin?”
“I swear, I never…”
Now bored with the game, Vetrov sighed deeply and snapped his fingers to bring matters to a close. Kosma moved reluctantly forward and took hold of Dr Anatoly Ivanov by the scruff of his neck and lifted the sobbing, broken man as if he were a simple cloth doll.
“One more chance, Tolya, and then you die.”
“I do not know anyone called Sorokin!”
With a casual nod of his head, Vetrov gave Kosma the signal. The giant man raised the screaming man effortlessly above his head like he might lift a twenty kilo barbell and hurled him into the water beyond the fence.
For a second, or maybe two, the professor of Egyptian hieroglyphics tried to swim for the shore, driven by the most primal of instincts, but even he knew it was pointless. In the blink of an eye the enormous jaws seized him, and as the yellow teeth of Anubis sunk into his flesh, he disappeared beneath the foam and froth, now turned a startling crimson by his own blood.
“The girl knows more, I know it…” Vetrov murmured.
In the enclosure, a ferocious battle was unfolding. Water splashed all over the paving and occasionally a man’s screams could be heard. Then a few short seconds later, Anubis dragged the still, silent Egyptologist into the brine and there was silence.
Vetrov chuckled and applauded as the water grew still again.
“Shall I get her?” Kosma was replying to his boss, but his eyes were firmly fixed on the horrendous scene that had unfolded in the enclosure.
Vetrov nodded his head and replied calmly. “Yes.”
Still tied to the chair with the bag over her head, Alex Reeve strained to hear if anyone else was in the room with her. She thought she was alone, and her mind turned to escape. From somewhere below her, she heard the sound of splashing and the most terrified screams of a man she had ever heard in her life. After a moment of silence there followed the sound of a man laughing, and then applause. She strained at the duct tape holding her to the chair but it was no good. She wasn’t going anywhere.