I Am Pilgrim(241)

Then the water hit me.





Chapter Thirty-six


IT WASHED OVER my torso as the plank sank into the trough, chilling my genitals and aggravating the open wound on my chest. I dropped lower, helpless, and felt the tide hit the back of my strapped skull and cover my ears.

Then they tilted the plank backwards.

Water flooded across my face. Trying not to panic, unable to use my arms or twist my body, I took another huge gulp of oil-stained air and only succeeded in sucking the moisture faster through the towel. Water ran down my throat, and I started to cough.

A wall of water hit my face and I wasn’t coughing any more, I was choking. In darkness, my head tilted back, I had no idea whether the water had come from a bucket or if they had plunged me deeper into the bath. The sensation of drowning – of a terrifying need to drag air through the sodden towel – was overwhelming.

Instead, fluid was flooding into my nostrils and mouth and running down my steeply inclined throat. The gag reflex kicked in, trying to save me, and became a rolling thunder of spasms and choking.

More and more water was hitting me, and I was becoming disoriented. I had only one thought, one belief, one truth to cling to: eighteen seconds and Bradley would call. Seventeen seconds and salvation would be at hand. Sixteen …

I was bound so tight I couldn’t thrash and kick despite the cascading terror. More water entered my nose and mouth, seemingly drowning me, and the constant gagging and spasms were turning my throat raw. I would have screamed, but the filthy towel and surging water prevented even that release. With no way to express itself, my terror turned inward and reverberated through the hollow chambers of my heart.

My legs and back jerked instinctively, trying to make me flee, using up precious energy, and I felt myself being tilted further backwards. Water swamped me. Another surge of gagging hit. Where was Bradley? He had to call.

A fragment of my whirling mind told me I had lost count of time. How many seconds? There was nothing but blackness and the desperate urge to breathe. To endure, to survive, not to falter was all that was left.

I spun through darkness and overwhelming fear. My head was tilted even further back and I was plunging down. Maybe it was just another huge bucketful of water, but I felt as if I was deep under the surface, choking, gasping and retching in a watery grave, desperate for air, desperate for life.

I knew I could endure no more, but suddenly I was rocketing up, the water draining off my face, and I could drag air through the towel. It was tiny and insignificant, but it was a breath, it was life and they were standing me upright. Bradley had called – he must have!

I tried to suck more air into my throat – I had to be ready to play my part – but I kept gasping and retching. Then the towel was gone and I was pulling in breaths as my chest kept heaving, with my windpipe shuddering and spasming.

I knew that I had to control it, I had to be in command – by God, it was the Saracen’s turn now to sit down to a banquet of consequences.

A hand slid inside my shredded shirt. I blinked the water from my eyes and saw that it was him, checking the rhythm and strength of my heartbeat. I caught sight of the old bull standing behind him, laughing at me through his stained teeth, enjoying my distress and fear.

A surge of wild panic tore through me: nobody was acting as if the tables had been turned. I knew then that there had been no phone call. Where the hell was Ben?

I slumped – I was alone in the Theatre of Death and, this time, I really was dying to the world. I would have fallen to the ground, but Muscleman and the Helper were holding the board, and kept me upright.

‘The name of the traitor?’ the Saracen asked.

I tried to speak, but my throat was ripped raw and my mind, awash with adrenaline and cortisol, was struggling. Instead, staring down at the ground, I just shook my head – no, I wouldn’t be telling him any name.

‘That was thirty-seven seconds,’ he replied. ‘It was longer than average and you should be proud. You’ve done as much as anyone could expect. But it can go on for minutes if we like. Everybody breaks; nobody can win. What is the name?’

My hands were shaking, and I didn’t seem able to stop them. I looked up and tried to speak again. The first syllable was so soft it was inaudible, and the Saracen leaned in close so that he could hear.

‘Put the towel back on,’ I whispered.

He backhanded me hard across the face, splitting my lip. But he couldn’t scare me any more. In a corner of my mind, I had found a small reservoir of courage – I was thinking about Ben Bradley and those sixty-seven floors.

Muscleman and the Helper upended the plank and carried me back to the trough. The Saracen was about to reattach the towel when Nikolaides called out, telling him to step aside. I saw that he had picked up a stonemason’s hand hammer – a heavy, brutal thing – from among the equipment they had hidden next to the rubble.