I Am Pilgrim (90 page)

I heard Bradley yelling on the phone, worried that something had happened, wondering why the hell the questioning had stopped. I lifted it fast.

‘Problem,’ I said. ‘Hold tight, three minutes—’

I stuffed the phone into my pocket and started flexing my swollen fingers, trying to see if I could

fire the SIG. One thing was certain – because of my damaged foot, I wouldn’t be able to stand or even crouch. What I needed was help.

Chapter Forty-two

THE BERETTA FLEW through the air. I had taken it out of my pocket and tossed it quickly to Cumali. She caught it and looked at me, surprised.

‘Anything happens to me,’ I said, ‘the man in Bodrum won’t accept any excuses, he’ll shoot the nanny. So you’d better make sure I live. Got it?’

She was about to nod, but her brother interrupted. ‘This is no work for her, she’s a woman – give

me the gun.’

I stared at him with incredulity, but then I checked myself – given his background and beliefs, I should have anticipated it. ‘No,’ I said.

‘You know that I was a
muj
,’ he continued, arguing. ‘I’ve killed before, and I’m a better shot. Give it to me.’

‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘I don’t trust you – and, anyway, you’re the decoy.’

He reacted – the decoy? I had no time to explain, and I turned back to Cumali. ‘Ever killed anyone?’

‘Never.’ She didn’t look as if she liked the idea much.

‘Just remember then – you’re not shooting a man, you’re saving your nephew.’

I told her to move fast to an area of fallen stone that would give her cover and a clear view of the three men. ‘Your target is the old guy,’ I said. ‘He’ll be slower, and he’s only got a handgun. I’ll try and nail the two with the machine pistols.

‘I’ll be sitting. The decoy will be standing, acting like he’s interrogating me. The moment you see

me roll on to my shoulder – open fire.

‘Aim at Nikolaides’ chest – when he goes down, keep shooting, okay? Noise always helps.’

I grabbed the polished steel lid of the old freezer box and positioned it against a fallen column. I lowered myself to the ground and leaned against the water trough, my back half turned to the approaching enemy.

When they saw me, slumped and facing away from them, they wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong. Nor would they see the SIG in my lap. The polished steel of the freezer lid wasn’t much of a

mirror, but it would work: it would give me a clear view of the battlefield and the exact position of the three hostiles as they approached.

I heard Cumali whisper: ‘They’re coming!’

I slid the safety off the SIG, hoped that in her anxiety the cop had remembered to do the same, and

waited with the Saracen standing over me. I was breathing hard, a broken man whose eyes happened

to be focused unwaveringly on the polished steel lid of the freezer.

I saw the reflection of Nikolaides and the other two as they entered, and I forced myself to wait for the moment snipers called ‘maximum kill’. Four seconds … three …

The sun shifted slightly on its axis and a shaft of direct light pierced the shattered roof. It hit the cool-box top and the sharp glint called the three men’s attention straight to it.

Nikolaides was no fool – he realized that the steel lid had been moved. He squinted hard and saw

me watching them. He screamed a warning to the Albanians, hurled himself aside and drew his pistol.

I dropped to my shoulder and started rolling into a firing position. Cumali opened up with the Beretta, but wasn’t good enough to hit anything, let alone the sprinting bull.

I rolled over and over through the mud and dirt, crying out as the pain from my battered foot and

injured chest shot through me, drawing aim on Muscleman. He was wheeling with his machine pistol,

about to blast the crap out of the water trough and anything nearby, including me.

The Saracen, unarmed, was in mid-air, attempting to scramble to safety behind the rubble.

Upside down, on my back, I had my finger on the trigger, but it was swollen so badly I could barely

feel a thing. In desperation, I fired a burst of three at Muscleman, working hard to spread them.

Normally, my first shot would have at least hit the target, but this was anything but normal and the first two missed completely.

The third got him in the groin, nowhere near deadly, but the range was so close it hurled him backwards. He dropped the Skorpion and clutched at what was left of his genitals.

Cumali, spraying bullets as she tracked with the fast-moving Nikolaides, didn’t have a clue about

what else was happening on the field. She missed the old bull by a mile but shot the Helper through

the throat. He collapsed immediately.

She kept firing, chasing Nikolaides even though he was fast approaching the water trough. Bullets

splattered in the mud all around me.

Jesus! I would have yelled a warning, but nobody would have heard it over the screams of Muscleman trying to stem the blood pouring from his crotch. I tried to roll to safety but got slammed backwards. A rush of pain erupted in the soft flesh of my shoulder and I knew one of her wild shots

had hit me.

I managed to get to one knee, aiming the SIG fast at the blurred shape of the unwounded Nikolaides. I cursed my damn finger which could barely pull the trigger and saw that my left hand,

supporting the barrel, was shaking like a mother.

I squeezed off four, very fast, but all I could do was hit the old bull in the legs, knocking him to the ground, sending his pistol flying. I wheeled fast, knowing I had to finish it quickly or I wouldn’t have the strength. I saw the dickless Muscleman lunging for his machine pistol.

I shot on the turn – for the first time actually rising to the occasion – putting two in his chest, which was nothing fancy but good enough to kill him.

Nikolaides – bleeding, unarmed – saw Muscleman crumple. Sprawled in the dirt, he looked up at

me, hatred and confusion in his eyes. I guess he had thought it was going to be simple, an easy morning’s work, but somehow I had survived waterboarding, turned my captors against him and still

shot well enough to put two of them down.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ he snarled.

I saw his eyes register his pistol lying almost within reach. I couldn’t help remembering how he had smiled when he smashed my knee with his steel-toed boot, and the force of the hammer blows on

my foot.

‘They used to call me the Rider of the Blue,’ I said. ‘I was the person who ordered the killing of

Christos in Santorini.’

Nikolaides’ face twisted – he was this close to revenge only to fail? He howled, and a massive burst of energy coursed through him like a death rattle. He hurled himself at the pistol. I fired twice and, at that range, his head pretty much exploded.

I turned away – there wasn’t any pleasure in taking a life, even that of a man like him. The day I felt there was I knew it would be time to leave the battle for ever. I levelled the SIG at Cumali – she was drenched in sweat, the adrenaline pumping so hard I don’t think she really comprehended what had happened – and told her to remove the clip from the Beretta.

‘Now keep hold of the gun, point it at the ground and fire three times,’ I said, making sure there

wasn’t a round still left in the chamber.

‘Now drop the weapon,’ I said and, once it was in the dirt, I told her to follow the same procedure with the two machine pistols and Nikolaides’ pistol.

‘Now bring all the clips to me.’

She picked them up, handed them over and I put them in my pocket. With all the weapons separated

from their ammunition, I pointed at the handcuffs, which were lying on the ground where she had dropped them, the key still in the lock.

‘Cuff him,’ I said, indicating the Saracen.

He had dragged himself out of the rubble and was supporting himself by leaning against the water

trough, deep in the canyons of despair, wondering why his god would have forsaken him at the final

hour.

‘Hands behind his back,’ I told her.

As she fitted the cuffs I saw that hordes of flies were already settling on the corpses, and I knew it was nothing compared with the feeding frenzy when the intelligence services of half a dozen countries descended on him.

He raised his lowered head and looked at me. I had the SIG in one hand, still trained on him, and

with the other I was starting to rip strips off my shirt to combat-bandage my shoulder and stop the bleeding. Our eyes met, and we both knew that whatever was left of his life, he would never get another chance to complete his volume of dark history.

‘I love him,’ he said simply. He meant his son.

‘I know that,’ I replied. ‘It was the only weapon I had.’

Cumali handed me the key to the cuffs and I put it in my pocket with the ammunition. I pulled the

bandage tight with my teeth, tied it off and, with the pumping blood slowed to a trickle, I took Cumali’s phone out of my pocket: the three minutes were almost up.

‘Still there?’ I rasped.

‘Christ,’ he replied. ‘How many dead?’ He had heard the gunfire through the mic.

‘Three. It’s over – you can let them go.’

A moment later he told me that the nanny was collapsing to her knees and he had cut the little guy

down. I turned and looked at the Saracen and his sister and let them read it on my face – the woman

and the child were safe.

The Saracen, sitting in the dirt next to the trough, hands cuffed tight behind his back, bowed his head, and I knew he was praying. Cumali shuddered, surrendered herself to a tidal wave of relief and started to cry.

I was about to hang up – I knew I had to make another, critical phone call – but the fever was coming on hard and my head was spinning. In the whirling confusion, there was something I had to

know.

‘Would you have shot the nanny?’ I asked Ben. He didn’t reply, and I knew that was answer enough.

‘Would you?’ he countered after a moment.

‘That’s the difference between us, Ben,’ I said softly. ‘It’s why I was made for this business and you weren’t. Of course I would have.’

Shaking, and not just from fever, I hung up and motioned Cumali over. I couldn’t walk – God, I was

so drained and hurt I could barely stand – and I needed her to lean on. She supported me under one

arm, letting me take the weight off my mangled foot, and I turned to look at the Saracen.

‘Try to come after me,’ I said, ‘and I’ll shoot you both.’

He nodded, and we looked at each other one last time, both our lives changed for ever. I remembered what a group of British soldiers had said after the Argentine war: it was only their

enemies who knew what it was really like on the front line.

I said nothing to him – what was there to say? – and I motioned Cumali to start moving out, leaving

him handcuffed in the dirt. The only key was in my pocket, the weapons rendered useless, and I knew

for certain that there was only one way out of the ruins – by boat – and I was taking the only one of those with me. Confident he was trapped, I knew that, probably less than twenty minutes after I made the next call, scores of men from dozens of different agencies would arrive. Not that they would have much to do other than arrest him – there was no plot to unravel, no network to roll up, no coconspirators to track down. The soft kill of America was almost over.

Hurrying now, I started to dial the second call, my fingers swollen and shaking, trying to remember the number I had been given but which was stored on my smashed cellphone.

Dragging one foot, helped by Cumali, I headed back down the crumbling passage, deeper into the

gloom. There was one thing, however, that I had overlooked, and for the rest of my life I would wonder about the mistake I made.

Chapter Forty-three

CUMALI LED ME through the barred gate and, as I stepped among the rocks, the dazzling sunlight hit me hard.

The short distance from the water trough had been the most painful journey of my life, every step

like one more blow. The water-boarding, the loss of blood and the escalating fever were turning into a flood and taking a critical toll on whatever strength I had left. I felt the past and the present melding into one.

I leaned against a boulder and ordered Cumali to get the cruiser from its hiding place and bring it

up to the old jetty. As she headed off to a tiny cove behind a jumble of rocks, I hit the last digit of the number and heard the phone beep as it made the international connection. It was answered immediately.

My voice was barely audible. ‘Mr President?’ I said, as best I could.

‘Who is this?’ a man replied, too young to be Grosvenor.

‘I need … I need to speak—’

‘I can barely hear you. Identify yourself, please.’ He sounded like a marine.

I was weaker than I had ever thought possible, damaged beyond measure, but I knew what had happened. I was using Cumali’s phone, and the White House communications system had identified the call as originating from a completely unknown source. Sure, I was phoning the president’s direct line, but they weren’t going to let a call like that go through until they knew who it was. Hence I had been diverted to a high-security communications centre buried deep in the Colorado mountains and I

was speaking to one of the eighteen hundred marines and technicians who manned it.

‘Identify yourself,’ the marine signalman repeated.

‘My name is Sco—’ but I knew that was the wrong thing to say; a name would mean nothing.