Chapter Thirty-nine

FROM WHERE I was lying, I had an unobstructed view as Cumali ran into the light, fear written all over her face, the cellphone clutched tight, her brother racing to meet her.

For a moment I wondered what had happened: in my mind, the plan was shattered and I was finding it difficult to process even the most rudimentary information. I couldn’t conceive that Bradley was alive; I didn’t remember that one phone call could still save both myself and the mission.

I watched in confusion, trying not to surrender to the pain in my foot and wrists, as Cumali reached her brother and thrust the phone at him. He spoke in Arabic, but it was clear that he was demanding to know what was wrong. Gasping for breath, Cumali just pointed at the phone. The Saracen looked at the screen …

His beloved son stared back, innocent and uncomprehending. Tears streaked the little guy’s face but, because he was being filmed, he was trying his best to smile. He had a hangman’s noose around his neck.

The Saracen stared at the still frame, his entire universe trembling, everything he thought he knew and understood shaken to its foundations. He looked at me, murderous and volatile. Somebody was threatening his child! He would—

He flew towards me, his eyes incandescent with anger, and in my wounded mind a gear finally meshed. It was the phone call I had tried so hard to count down to, the one which I had desperately wanted to hear. It was the only explanation for the woman’s distress and the Saracen’s anger …

Bradley had come through!

I tried to sit a little straighter, but I was still strapped to the board. Despite a wave of pain, I managed to remember what I had rehearsed in my hotel room when my mind and body were whole and terror was something which only other men knew. I had guessed that the moment of greatest danger would be when the Saracen realized it was a sting and that his child’s life was in the balance: he might lash out in fury and kill whoever was close at hand. I dug down and recalled what I had to say.

‘Be sensible and you can save your son, ’ I said, half faltering.

‘How do you know it’s my son?! ’ he yelled.

‘You can save him if you want, ’ I repeated, not bothering to explain.

His sister had recovered enough to start screaming at her brother – half in Arabic, half in English, all in anguish – telling him not to waste time, to ask me what he had to do to save the child. The Saracen kept staring at me, unsure whether to surrender to logic or anger.

‘Look at the picture! ’ Cumali yelled. ‘Look at your son! ’

She pushed the phone closer to his face and he looked again at the child’s image. He turned to me …

‘What is happening? Tell me! ’ he demanded.

‘Speak to the man on the phone, ’ I replied.

The Saracen put the phone to his mouth and spoke in English, venomous. ‘Who are you?! ’ he said, trying to assert control.

I knew Bradley would ignore it – just as we had planned, he would tell the Saracen to watch a video clip he was about to send. The first shot would be of a clock or watch to prove that it wasn’t faked, that we hadn’t staged it, that it was happening as we spoke.

The Saracen played the clip. He saw the clock and then he seemed to stagger. His sister, watching too, clung to him, crying out in a mix of Arabic and Turkish. The clip showed one end of the rope attached to the brass bolt that had once supported the kitchen light. The other end was the noose around the little guy’s neck. He was standing on the shoulders of the obese and sweat-drenched nanny. When her weak knees gave out, she would fall and the boy would hang.

It was a horrific scene, and it was no wonder that Bradley had objected so vehemently to it, but I needed something so shocking that the Saracen would have no time to act or plan. In truth, I couldn’t take all the credit – if that was the word – for devising it. I had read about it years ago – during the Second World War, Japanese troops had made captured European fathers support their kids in exactly the same fashion. They had then forced the children’s mothers to watch until their husbands stumbled and fell. Of course, to the Japanese, it was sport.

The Saracen lowered the phone and looked at me in hatred. While he stood rooted to the ground, Cumali flew at me, about to rip and tear at my injured face.

Her brother hauled her back – he was trying to think, his eyes darting around the walls of the ruins. It was a better indication of the prison in which he found himself than the bars of any cage. My mind was starting to function and I knew I had to keep the pressure on, to deny him any chance of disrupting the script I had written.

‘I and my people won’t tolerate any delay, ’ I said. ‘Listen to the phone again. ’

Robotic, in shock, the Saracen lifted the phone and heard a woman at the other end sobbing, hysterical, speaking to him in Turkish. It disoriented him – it was a language he didn’t understand – and he handed it to his sister.

She started to translate into Arabic, but I stopped her. ‘In English, ’ I demanded.

She told her brother it was the nanny. ‘She’s pleading, ’ she said. ‘She can barely stand! She says, if we can’t save her, at least save the child. ’

She grabbed the Saracen’s shirt, losing control. ‘What in God’s name have you done? What have you led us into?! ’

He threw her hand off and she stumbled backwards, breathing hard, staring at him in fury.

‘We estimated that the nanny would probably be able to stand for another six minutes, ’ I said. ‘Of course, we could be wrong. It might be less. ’

I was making it up but, in the desperate circumstances, nobody challenged it. The Saracen looked at the image on the phone and then at me. I knew that he was reeling, uncertain what to do.

‘You’re his father, ’ I said quietly. ‘Your son is your responsibility – save him. ’

I had learned long ago in Geneva that love wasn’t weak, love was strong. Now I had gambled everything on the power of it. The Saracen said nothing, immobilized – unable to think or decide – caught between his grand plan for the future and his son’s life.

I had to force him, and I reached down into my fragmented mind and remembered what I had to say. ‘What value is a promise, ’ I said, ‘especially one to a dying wife? But go ahead if you want to – break a promise made before Allah. ’

He stared at me, breathing in shallow gulps, scared. ‘How do you know that? Who told you about Gaza?! ’

I made no reply, and he turned away from the two of us. He was lost in darkness, trying to find a way out of the prison, thinking – I was certain – about holding his dying wife, how his son was his last tangible link to her and the sacred promise he had made to her and to God to protect him.

I saw his shoulders slump, and then his voice broke with sudden anguish. ‘What do you want? ’ he said, turning towards me. ‘Tell me what to do. ’

Cumali, sobbing in relief, threw her arms around him.

‘I have to let the man on the phone know that I’m alive and safe, ’ I said. ‘Untie me. ’

The Saracen hesitated – once he released me he knew that there was no going back – but he didn’t get any more time to think about it. Cumali stepped forward, released the leather straps that bound me to the board, took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the cuffs.

They fell to the ground and I almost passed out from the flood of pain as the circulation started to return to my swollen hands. I managed to grab the side of the trough and haul myself upright. As soon as I touched my battered foot to the ground, the explosion of crushed nerves almost sent me back into the mud, but somehow I stayed on my feet and put my hand out for the phone.

The Saracen gave it to me, but I didn’t raise it to my face – instead I reached my hand out to the two of them.

‘Weapons, ’ I said.

They both handed over a pistol – the cop’s was a standard Beretta 9-mil, but the Saracen’s, probably provided by Nikolaides, was a SIG 1911 Stainless, made in Switzerland, as good a weapon as you could ever buy over the counter.

I shoved the Beretta in my pocket and kept the SIG held loosely in my swollen fingers. Given the state of my hands, I wasn’t sure I could even fire it. I shifted the weight on my damaged foot, fought back a wave of nausea and raised the phone to my mouth.

‘Ben? ’ I said, my voice rasping and broken, probably barely recognizable to him.

‘Is that you? ’ he asked.

The sound of the cop’s voice, something I thought I would never hear again, almost overwhelmed me. I slumped for a moment and realized how they had nearly destroyed me.

‘Sort of, ’ I said, after a moment. ‘I’m gonna open the mic, Ben, ’ I continued, trying to remember the details I had so meticulously planned. ‘You’ll hear whatever is going on. If something happens to me, shoot the nanny – okay? ’

I saw the information register with the Saracen and Cumali, and I lowered the phone. Despite the freshly dug craters in my mind, I knew I had to move fast. I turned to the woman.

‘Go down the tunnel, stay hidden and watch the beach. When you see the others, head back fast and warn me. Remember – get smart and sign them up to attack me and the man in Bodrum will hear. You know what he’ll do. ’

She nodded and ran, desperate to make it work, desperate to save the boy. In her anxiety and fear, I doubted she even realized she had become my closest ally.

I turned and looked at the Saracen. I knew that, no matter how much agony I had gone through, the really difficult part lay ahead: I had to get him to tell me the truth and not defeat me with lies and disinformation.

‘My name is Scott Murdoch, ’ I said, through the pain of my injuries. ‘I am an American intelligence agent. I am going to ask you some questions. ’