I Am Pilgrim(237)

In the seconds before the men jumped me, all I had to do was hit a button on the keypad. Any button.

Bradley wouldn’t answer: he would recognize the number and it would start a countdown. Exactly four minutes later he would pick up the nanny’s cellphone, take it off the charger and dial Cumali. She would look at the caller ID, see that it was the nanny and, worried there was a serious problem with the little guy, would answer. She would then learn something that would change everything.

The four-minute gap was crucial. It was the period I had estimated would elapse between first being grabbed by the muscle and the Saracen emerging from the shadows. If his sister’s cellphone rang too soon, the Saracen might realize that something was wrong and turn and vanish into the ruins. How could I coerce a man who had already run?

If Cumali’s phone rang too late, I was going to be in a world of trouble. The Saracen was desperate for information about the supposed traitor, and he didn’t have much time. He wouldn’t waste it on a polite conversation and I figured he would have something like a twelve-volt truck battery and alligator clips close at hand. As every torturer knew, that instrument was highly portable, easy to acquire and, if you didn’t mind how much damage you caused to the victim, extremely fast. I wasn’t sure I would be able to hang on for very long.

Four minutes – don’t screw it up, Ben.

We passed a mound of rubble and trash – shards of broken glass, empty beer bottles, the polished steel lid of a freezer box. Groups of kids had obviously broken in over the years and partied hard.

Next to the mound was a long marble trough. Once used by the dignitaries to wash their feet, it was fed water from a stone gorgon’s face. One end of the trough was broken, and I should have paid it more attention – it had been blocked with rocks and the trough was full. But my mind was in another place: I was waiting to be attacked, waiting to hit the magic button before they had my arms pinned to my back.

We stepped into the sunlight filtering through the shattered roof and I saw that the path ahead disappeared into a huge fall of masonry.

I had reached the dead end, I was trapped in a box canyon, and the index finger of my left hand was the only thing between me and disaster.





Chapter Thirty-two


‘WRONG TURN?’ I said, indicating the wall of rubble and turning back towards Cumali.

She was no longer alone.

The first of the hired help had stepped out of a side passage, blocking any escape route, not trying to hide himself, looking straight at me. It was Muscleman who had broken into my hotel room, still in his leather jacket and an equally tight T-shirt. Maybe it was because my senses were highly charged, perhaps it was seeing him in the flesh, but I realized then that I had seen a photo of him long ago – laughing on the deck of Christos Nikolaides’ converted ice-breaker as it rode at anchor in Santorini.

I suddenly knew which of the drug cartels Cumali had asked for help and why. When an old man up in Thessaloniki had heard it concerned an American intelligence agent, he would have been only too happy to agree.

‘Looking around too?’ I said to the man. ‘I guess you’re with the school group, huh?’

I couldn’t let them think that I suspected anything; they had to believe that their element of surprise was complete, otherwise the Saracen might realize it was a trap.

I heard a footstep on gravel – Muscleman was the diversion, the attack was coming from behind. No time to think, just make a decision. Yes or no? Launch or not?

I pressed a button on the phone, firm and short.

It was the right decision. My finger had barely left it when they hit me – two of them, very fast, very hard, halfway to being professional. I was going down to my knees, but before I fell completely I got one of them in the larynx with the point of my elbow and sent him reeling and gasping in a flood of pain. The other one had me round the neck, driving his fist into my face, and I felt my cheekbone go. I could have retaliated, but I was putting up a show. There was no point in having the crap beaten out of me, I would need all my strength for what was coming.

I clutched my cheek and sprawled into the dirt. Already I was counting. Four minutes: two hundred and forty seconds.

Two hundred and thirty-two. Two hundred and …

The man with the bruised and swollen larynx had stumbled back to join the other attacker, and I glimpsed his face. It was the bull of a man – squat, with closely cropped hair and a cruelty in his eyes that you rarely saw in men outside of prison. I’d seen him before, his expression too – on a mugshot provided by the Greek police – and I recalled that he had a very thick jacket indeed. It was Patros Nikolaides, the father of Christos: the old godfather himself had left his walled compound.