Babylon's Ark (16 page)

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Authors: Lawrence Anthony

BOOK: Babylon's Ark
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“It's the only way,” he said. “Let us kill a few for you, and the word will soon get out. Your problems will be over, man.”
I realized he meant exactly what he was saying, and politely declined,
“Then don't come complaining when you get into shit,” he said.
However, he did me give me their emergency satellite phone number with instructions to call anytime if we were in trouble.
I also told Adel and Husham to let it be known on the street that “mercenaries” were guarding the zoo. These tough men were on many an occasion our scarecrows, frightening away troublemakers—and they looked the part with multiple bullet belts, back-turned baseball caps, T-shirts bearing the logo of their favorite rugby team, tight black shorts, and sneakers without socks. They were wild men, all right.
Jeremy was a particularly interesting case. Over the months, I got to know him well and we often had long discussions sitting outside the zoo in the early evenings. He considered the “warrior cause” to be the highest calling and absolutely scorned the “effete” lifestyle of today's men.
“They're the living dead,” he said. “Just look at them. Boring jobs, boring lives, boring wives. I'd rather be dead.”
He also believed devoutly in reincarnation. “I have been a warrior for ten thousand years and I always died on the battlefield. This life will be no different.”
For them, Baghdad was a battlefield where no rules applied. At night the Special Forces would arrive at the hotel to collect them for an undercover mission and they would kit up and go out. This generally meant pulling on a T-shirt, short pants, a baseball cap, and a
pair of sneakers without socks. By comparison the SF troops were always immaculately dressed in full combat uniform.
There was no love lost between the two groups, though. The Special Forces looked upon the mercenaries with total disdain, and in return the “mercs” made it loudly clear that as far as they were concerned, “SF” stood for “Sick Fucks.” They delighted in purposefully keeping the punctual SF team waiting just to bait them.
On one occasion I was in the mercenaries' room as they prepared for a mission.
“Where's the knock-knock?” Brad, a stocky, well-built fighter, kept repeating agitatedly as the others filed out. “Where's my fucking knock-knock?”
“Behind the bed,” Jeremy called back casually. “I kicked it off earlier.”
Brad reached down between the bed and the wall and with a grin brought up his “knock-knock.” It was a sawed-off shotgun with lead slugs almost the size of bananas that was used to shoot out the locks of a house they were storming. That's how Brad “knocked” on a door.
They were certainly a different breed of men, but they helped us incredibly at the zoo. Make no mistake, when you are in a war the toughest, bravest warriors are the people you want on your side.
 
 
NOW THAT I HAD DEEP FREEZES I devised another plan to bolster security. Although the bodyguards helped when they could, we needed a more permanent military presence, as there were still gangs of insurgents roaming the city and launching hit-and-run attacks. I had been trying for some time to get the army to step up patrols on the zoo grounds, without success, but with two deep freezes now chilling in the office, I quickly got the word out that we had plenty of frozen bottled water on the premises.
It worked instantly. All of a sudden there were scores of soldiers pitching up in Humvees, tanks, and armored cars to exchange their daily warm-water ration for frozen bottles to get a long icy drink,
something not inconsequential in Baghdad at the time. This increased military activity at the zoo was certainly noted by the fedayeen. The plan had come off perfectly.
After WildAid the next international organization to pitch up was Care for the Wild International (CWI). Their chief executive, Dr. Barbara Maas, phoned me from England and asked what the zoo needed.
I immediately rattled off a wish list starting with meat and vegetables and, most important, a dart gun. About ten days later she arrived in a military convoy with a load of much-needed supplies, although Kuwaiti customs had confiscated the dart gun, deeming it to be a “dangerous weapon.”
This caused real mirth in Baghdad, where bullets were whistling around the streets like in a bad gangster movie. Perhaps they considered the dart gun to be a Weapon of Mass Sedation.
However, Barbara's timely arrival with food was an absolute godsend, and she certainly had courage by the bucketful to come in to Iraq when she did.
For us, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week, among the mayhem that was Baghdad at that time, there was no respite. The situation we faced was critical, and we were far from the next level we were striving for; that of “mere” emergency rather than the current dire conditions.
Then came Luna Park.
W
E GLARED at each other. Both of us were sweating profusely, and it was not just from the heat blasting off the desert.
I leaned forward, poised on the balls of my feet, my fists clenched and white-knuckled.
“This is private property,” he hissed at me in Arabic. “You have no right to be here.”
The sentence was translated for my benefit. I took a step forward. The man did not step back.
“Are you the owner of this disgusting place?” I asked.
The translator put the words back into Arabic.
“I own this park. What are you doing here?”
“I have come to shut the zoo in your park down.”
“Why?”
“Because it is the most disgusting place on the planet.”
We were now shouting. The TV cameramen, anticipating a fistfight to erupt at any second, crowded around us.
I gestured at the TV crews, without taking my eyes off the Iraqi's face. “You see these cameras? You are now internationally famous for the worst abuse of animals on earth.”
The man stared back, eyes screwed into slits with naked hostility. “This is private property. You have no right to be here.”
“We are going to close your zoo down,” I repeated; then choosing my words carefully—officiously—so that the interpreter would not mistake them, I continued, “You will only be allowed to reopen when you conform to international standards of animal care.”
Then I flipped and shouted, “In other words, when you bloody well know how to look after animals properly.”
“I have a veterinarian who does that.”
“Go and fetch him for me.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I want everyone to know who he is! The whole world will see he deserves to be struck off the roll!”
The man turned on his heels and strode off.
“Come back here,” I shouted after him, and to my surprise he stopped and turned around.
“So you understand English! Come back here! These animals can't fight back, but I can.”
He looked at me with a sneer and shrugged elaborately.
I went crazy. “That's it!” I shouted, completely losing it and starting after him. “I'm going to beat you up right now!”
Sumner grabbed my arm, pulling tightly. “Leave him, Lawrence,” he said, and then again much louder, “Leave him.” He then shouted at me, “Leave him! He's finished!”
I turned to Sumner angrily. “When we have got the animals out we are going to bulldoze this place flat or else this bastard is just going to start again.”
Sumner nodded. A few of the soldiers clapped.
“Thanks,” I said to Sumner later. “It would have been a mess if I had got hold of him—but I would have enjoyed it.”
Sumner looked at me strangely. “I never knew you were capable of such anger.”
“Me, neither.”
But then, none of us had ever seen such barbarism as this before.
 
 
I HAD BEEN AWARE that there were several rogue zoos operating in the city and had heard that one somewhere in western Baghdad was particularly awful. But we were too bogged down with the main zoo to take on any extra problems, pressing as they were.
Then reports, filled with revulsion, started filtering through, some from Iraqis, others from soldiers who had seen this hellhole of a “zoo” and were shocked to the core at the conditions in which the animals were being caged. Something had to be done.
As a preliminary precaution Sumner and I approached the military's legal department housed at Saddam's main palace to get advice on the legitimacy of closing down a privately owned zoo in an occupied country. Military lawyers weren't sure, as it had never happened before, and so looked up Iraqi legislation on animal cruelty. It was basic in the extreme, in effect stating vaguely that you shouldn't do it. Under Saddam's ruthless regime, where human rights barely nudged the moral barometer, animals didn't rate at all.
But that vagueness, argued the lawyers, would work in our favor, as we could interpret it how we liked. They all agreed the key comparison should be with zoos allowed to operate in the United States. If a zoo such as this would not be allowed to operate there, we should shut it down.
The zoo was called Luna Park. Even before the war there were press reports that told grim stories of staff poking the hyena with sticks to “make it more lively” and encouraging visitors to throw chewing gum and chocolate bars to the bear and monkeys. There was much suspicion that it also was a vital jigsaw piece in Iraq's diabolically cruel animal black market, possibly as a type of halfway house, bringing buyers and sellers together.
Luna Park was located deep in the Red Zone, where the war had never really ended. It was called red because soldiers had to keep their weapons' safety catches off, ready for instant battle. Consequently
Sumner anticipated serious problems raiding it. He asked for twelve soldiers and four Humvees to escort us in, and despite sniping fedayeen regularly attacking Westerners in the area, there was no problem finding volunteers.
Sumner 's role in providing security for the zoo's growing number of “Noah's Ark” operations was, literally, a matter of life or death. But he did it so subtly no one appreciated just how much planning and effort went into each raid. Here he was taking unarmed civilians into some of the most chaotic security areas in the country and he only had a handful of soldiers to provide cover. He was the classic commander, efficient, unflappable, and totally in control. However, the gnawing concern that he might lose someone during one of these hazardous missions was always with him.
Before setting off, we loaded the remaining animal transport cages from the Baghdad Zoo that had been too cumbersome for looters to carry off. Adel and Husham were coming along to give on-the-spot assessments of the animals. Stephan Bognar, Barbara Maas, and several press and TV crews also joined up.
The convoy took the long route, skirting the southern sector of the city so as to not alert Luna Park's owner. This was going to be a surprise assault, not a courtesy call.
An hour later we arrived at the complex on Palestine Street. A garishly painted mural at the gate depicting animals cavorting on spacious savannah greeted us as we stormed in. A large cutout of Mickey Mouse was bolted on the archway, just above the Humvees that skidded to a halt at the exit to block anyone escaping.
But this was no Disney in the desert. Far from it.
The first cage we came to housed a huge bear, squashed into a claustrophobic eight-by-eight-foot den. His head was bald from chafing against the iron bars. His only access to water was through a bowl outside the cage, which meant he had to learn to squeeze his paws through the bars and try to flick the liquid into its mouth. The bowl was dry.
In fact, it was more than dry; it was filled with dust. No one
could tell when the animals had last been fed or watered. He had been locked in that hellhole for five years.
In a slimy green pond nearby, a male swan floated like a feathered blob of flotsam. Next to him was his dead partner, her long neck lying in the algae-infested muck like a broken stalk. Swans mate for life. He had apparently been attempting to revive his dead spouse for days.
A few yards away a pelican was tethered to a pole in the desert heat, unable to reach the water—her natural element. Her feathers, once surf white, were now sickly gray, and her elastic pouch dangling from her bill was wizened and empty.
In a nearby cage a camel had collapsed in the sun. His enclosure was the same size as the bear 's. There was scant room for him to move.
A striped hyena that was stressed out of her mind kept running round and round her tiny pen. In other coops there were badgers, mongooses, jungle cats, foxes, pigs, birds, and monkeys, all as emaciated as concentration camp survivors. The dogs were too weak to wag their tails.
We found a gazelle lying on a piece of corrugated plastic—her only luxury, if you could call it that. She was barely able to lift her head.
Other animals, including a piglet, lay dead and stinking in their cages. The staff had been too idle to remove them.
In other cages that constituted a makeshift aviary, an assortment of scrawny, bedraggled birds sat staring vacantly.
Sumner and I mulled over the words of the military lawyers. There was no way a disgusting hellhole such as this would be allowed to operate in any civilized society. The question the lawyers had hypothetically posed answered itself with brutal precision.
“We're gonna shut this shit house down,” shouted Sumner so we could all hear. I smiled. So did the soldiers. It would be a pleasure.
At that stage the man purporting to be the park owner stormed up and our confrontation erupted. As it turned out, he was an employee,
not the owner. That dubious privilege belonged to an individual named Karim Hameed, whom we would meet later.
We were fortunate to have both Stephan and Barbara there, as they both had animal husbandry skills. Husham and Adel issued instructions to the reluctant Luna Park staff, while William and I stayed together and coordinated the overall rescue with William, keeping a keen eye on security. Farah Murrani, an Iraqi vet who spoke fluent English and who would soon become a vital part of our team, translated and coordinated the movement of animals to the vehicles.
We started organizing the removal of the animals. However, the cages we had brought from the zoo were barely suitable; most had at least one trolley wheel missing, so soldiers had to hold up a side while others pushed on the remaining wheels. Some had no functioning wheels at all, the ball bearings seized solid, and had to be maneuvered as clumsily as a cupboard in a small room.
We also had no drugs or even a dart gun. So we loaded the smaller creatures first: the pelican, the widower swan, an owl, two Egyptian vultures, two porcupines, two rhesus monkeys, four goats, four ducks, two birds of prey, the gazelle, three German shepherds, three spaniels, three terriers, two Maltese, and a small Pekingese.
The little Malteses were so dehydrated I poured water through the wire mesh directly into their mouths. They soaked it up like sponges—and were still thirsty. It was absolutely pathetic watching them desperately trying to grab at the bottle with their teeth, terrified I would snatch it away.
Next we took, barehanded, two snarling desert foxes, a wolf, and a jackal. As we had no protective clothing, this involved some skilful maneuvering, with one man opening the cage door while another quickly pushed the transport cage into place. Others then rushed to the back and banged on the bars to ensure the animals bolted forward into the mobile cage, whose door was instantly slammed shut. The starved animals were snapping at anything they could, and the threat of rabies if anyone got bitten was very real.
The rhesus monkeys also posed problems. These simians bite at the slightest provocation, and to avoid their slashing incisors one man had to grab the flailing arms at the same time as another grasped the legs and carry the monkey spread-eagled to its new cage.
What made it worse was the Luna Park staff had no keys to the cages, so we had to smash the locks off with a crowbar. This spooked the animals even more, and you could hear them screaming with eerily human voices above the noise of the hammering. It was a miracle no one got bitten.
There was some room in the last Humvee, so we decided to take the camel as well. He appeared to be tame and a rope was looped around his neck as he was guided out of his squalid den. In front of the cage was a patch of rough spiky grass, jutting out of the desert sand like brush bristles. The camel flopped onto the grass and started writhing like a snake. He was so riddled with fleas and mange that his skin was on fire—but he had never been able to scratch himself in his cramped cage. The ecstasy on his face was infinite.
We then gave him some water and he drank. And drank. And then he drank some more. I thought camels weren't meant to get thirsty, but this one couldn't get enough.
With much pushing, cursing, and shoving, the camel was loaded onto the Humvee.
Then we went across to the bear. The rescue cage was ready and I looked down at the animal huddled in the corner.
“What's the problem?” I asked the zoo workers nearby. “Let's get the bear.”
As I spoke he reared up to his full height on his hind legs. Bears are not indigenous to Africa and so I'm not familiar with them. As this giant stood up, his head banging the cage roof, I couldn't believe it. I had never seen a bear actually stand up before—the two at the zoo were always crouched—and this one was as big as a mountain, towering and growling at us. My God, I thought, there's no way we're going to fit this monster in.
“Whoa! Forget the bear,” I said. “We'll come back for him later.” Eventually our convoy left, looking like Noah's Ark on wheels as it meandered through the city. It brought Baghdad's chaotic traffic to a standstill. Even though camels are a common sight in Iraq, no one could have claimed to have previously seen one standing imperiously next to a mounted machine gun in the back of a Humvee.

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