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this time on their own volition?
    Neither Fikes nor Oldfield wanted the responsibility of letting a lone civilian wander onto a battlefield. They said the chances of being killed were frighteningly high and it just wasn’t worth their jobs to sign the papers. They strenuously advised me to fly back to South Africa and wait for the Iraqi border to open.

    That was the last thing on my mind, as each hour I sat around twiddling my thumbs meant more animals would perish. While I waited, hoping that the HOC would reconsider, I tried to hitch a ride with the press, pestering CNN, BBC, and FOX, but they were facing their own problems getting to the battlefront.
    Then I heard that a certain Colonel McConnell had arrived from Baghdad for supplies and was also sourcing food for the zoo’s animals. This was the best news I had heard. It meant that at least some creatures had survived.
    I managed to contact McConnell and he confirmed my worst fears. The zoo was in dire straits and the few remaining animals were at death’s door, starving and critically dehydrated. He was taking a load of buffalo meat back the next day but admitted this would not last long without adequate refrigeration. I begged to be allowed to accompany him, but it was impossible to get clearance for a civilian. McConnell did, however, send me a copy of his one-page report on the zoo that described the fighting, lawlessness, and looting and the surviving animals’ critical condition. The report concluded, ominously: “The zoo is still a very dangerous place.” But I naively shrugged off the warning and kept trying to find a way in.
    Fortune favors the persistent—or perhaps in my case the thick-skinned—and a chance encounter completely turned the tables. Ambassador Slabber had kept in regular contact and now he requested a diplomatic favor. The Kuwait Zoo had just completed an elephant and rhino enclosure and had applied for a permit to bring animals over from South Africa. Slabber thought that because I happened to be in Kuwait, I might assess whether the enclosure was suitable.
    Initially I was reluctant because I didn’t want to waste precious time on anything not connected to gaining border clearance. But Martin had been fundamental in getting my Kuwaiti visa, so I hesitantly agreed and was met by one of the zoo’s senior veterinarians, Dr. Medoc.
    Unfortunately, enclosures did not pass muster. They were too
cramped, and I had to tell the Kuwaitis this with as much tact as possible. But as our meeting ended we got to chatting about the Iraqi situation. Dr. Medoc described how the Iraqis had trashed the Kuwait Zoo during Saddam’s invasion of 1991. Every single animal had been machine-gunned in cold blood. The Iraqi soldiers had done it for fun, he said.
    The shock must have been evident on my face, and I told him I was doing my damnedest to get into Iraq to ensure the animals didn’t all die at the Baghdad Zoo as well. Would the Kuwait Zoo donate medicines and supplies to their Baghdad counterpart? It would be a fine goodwill gesture, particularly as Kuwait was keen on establishing solid relations with whatever post-Saddam government emerged. And who better to transport the supplies across the border than me?
    Medoc agreed in principle but said final permission would have to come from the minister of agriculture and animal welfare himself. A meeting was set up for the next day.
    Again, fate played a strange trick. A few days earlier at the airport, while being held up by the notoriously cantankerous Kuwaiti customs, I had met a Texan named Mike Honey, a senior executive for the U.S. Evergreen aircraft company, which contracted helicopters to the military. My mission intrigued Honey, particularly as it was entirely self-initiated, self-funded, and, in his opinion, bizarrely offbeat. He said he might be able to fly me into Baghdad on one of his “birds,” and we kept in contact once in Kuwait City.
    The night