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.

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.

‘Don’t put yourself through it, ’ the Saracen said. ‘You are an American, Mr Spitz – a man without God. When you stand at the abyss, when you are being broken on the wheel, who will you be able to turn to for help?

‘You have made tiny mistakes, left enough evidence in your wake, to end up here. No, you’re really not that good.

‘Why do you think those mistakes were made? Whose hand was protecting me? Who do you think delivered you to this place? It wasn’t Leyla al-Nassouri. It was God. ’

I said nothing, slumping a little, as if defeated. Muscleman and the Helper loosened their grip a fraction as they tried to support me, and I launched myself forward, using my head as the only weapon I had, hitting Nikolaides’ face with the top of my skull, splitting his bottom lip, feeling it spurt with warm blood, sending him flying backwards and making him spit two lower teeth.

Another few seconds wasted. Come on, Ben – not long now. Cheat a little.

The bull, bellowing with pain, hurled himself towards me and was only stopped by the Saracen’s shoulder as he stepped between us.

‘We’re wasting time, ’ he said, and looked at Muscleman and the Helper. ‘Get started. ’

I would have liked to have kept chatting, I would have liked to have chatted for another sixty-three seconds, but they didn’t seem interested. The two Albanian thugs dragged me back down the passage, and I was confused – I thought they would have had the truck battery or whatever equipment they needed right at hand.

The confusion vanished when I saw the overflowing marble trough and realized what it meant. Mentally, desperately, I tried to shift gears – I had prepared myself for pain, not terror. I had figured I could withstand the alligator clips or pliers ripping out my fingernails for a brief amount of time, but now I dragged my feet, trying to run the clock down – every second was going to count. If I started to talk, everything would be lost.

Forty-two seconds. The drug courier at Khun Yuam, the tough guy with the machete scars across his chest, had lasted twenty-nine.

The Saracen stopped at the marble trough and spoke to his sister in Arabic. I couldn’t understand the words, but his hand motion was eloquent enough – he was telling her to take a walk. What was about to happen was not suitable for a woman to witness.

Thirty-eight seconds. Don’t let me down, Ben.