I Am Pilgrim(238)

He and his Helper ripped the pistol out of my belt, shredded my shirt, grabbed my crotch and tore off my shoes to see if I had any concealed weapons. They cut open my pockets and removed my wallet, keys and phone before Nikolaides called to Cumali.

‘You got ’em?’

She tossed him a pair of police-issue steel handcuffs and he and the Helper wrenched my arms behind my back and cuffed my wrists so tight I knew that, in twenty minutes, the tissue would be dying from lack of blood and I might lose the use of my hands for ever. Satisfied that I was immobilized, they got to their feet, picked up their weapons, smashed my cellphone, dropped it next to my discarded Beretta and puffed themselves up. They spoke in a mix of Greek and Albanian, but it wasn’t hard to work out what they were saying – these American agents weren’t half as good as they thought they were, especially when they ran up against genuine hard-asses from the Balkans.

With that, the old bull stepped forward, a decent Glock pistol in his hand, and looked down at me – hands cuffed, lying with my face in the dirt – and kicked me hard in the ribs with the toe of a steel-capped workman’s boot.

‘That’s for my throat,’ he rasped, then motioned to Muscleman and the Helper – both armed with Skorpion machine pistols – to drag me to my feet.

I forced back a wave of nausea from the blow to the ribs, stood unsteadily and looked at Cumali.

‘What’s happening?’ I asked through clenched teeth. I was gasping, trying to deal with the wild shards of pain in my chest and face. For once, I wasn’t faking anything. This was no walk in the park.

One hundred and seventy-eight seconds.

‘You shouldn’t have crossed the Bulgarian border in your rent-a-car,’ Cumali said. ‘That was stupid – it’s monitored by cameras equipped with licence-tag recognition.’

She didn’t try to keep the note of triumph out of her voice. It was clear: she had outwitted the elite American agent.

‘Bulgaria?’ I replied. ‘I’ve never been to fucking Bulgaria.’

She shook her head, sneering. ‘And you’ve never been to Svilengrad and you don’t know about Bright Light and an orphanage for a little boy. Your name is Michael John Spitz and you are an intelligence agent, a member of a special CIA group.’

I paused just enough to make it appear as if I had been startled but was trying to cover it.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. ‘You know I am an FBI agent, here to investigate a—’

Wham! The steel-capped boot caught me just under the kneecap and I dragged in a lungful of air to try to combat the exploding pain. I would have crumpled if Muscleman and the Helper hadn’t been holding me.

‘Don’t fucking lie,’ Patros Nikolaides said with a smile. It was nice to meet a man who enjoyed his work.

One hundred and thirty-two seconds.

Then I saw him.

The most wanted man in the world stepped out of the side passage, leaving the shadows behind and moving into a wedge of light.

He was tall and muscular, just as I had expected a former muj warrior would be, and not even the cheap western suit he was wearing could conceal the coiled tension in him. ‘Dangerous’ was the word that instantly came into my pain-racked mind. I looked straight at his dark eyes, and it was impossible not to see the sharp intelligence in them. Be careful, I told myself, be very careful.

His beard was neatly trimmed, the jaw set, the lips drawn in a determined line – he had an authority, a sense of command about him. ‘I believe you have been looking for me, Mr Spitz,’ he said quietly.

‘My name isn’t Spitz and I have no idea who you—’

I saw the bull’s boot go back and I braced myself for the detonation, but the Saracen raised his hand, stopping him.

‘Please,’ he said to me, as if the lies were hurting him. ‘My sister, praise be unto God, has contacts in Turkish intelligence. She discovered who you really are—’

‘Your sister?’ I said.

He ignored it. ‘She knows nothing of my work and little about me, especially in recent years, but she is aware of what happens to Muslim men hunted by agents like you. The whole Arab world knows.’

‘I am an FBI agent,’ I repeated through a red mist of pain. ‘My name is Brodie Wilson, I am investigating a murder.’

‘I don’t have much time. I am going to ask you some questions and you are going to tell me exactly what I need to know. Yes?’

‘How can I tell you? I’m not Spitz! I don’t know what we’re talking about.’

Ninety-eight seconds. That was all – and Bradley’s call couldn’t come soon enough. My knee was ballooning up and bringing with it increasing waves of nausea, my chest was a field of pain and I was finding it increasingly difficult to speak because of my cheek.