I Am Pilgrim (69 page)

After forty minutes and about a hundred yards’ progress I called out to the driver of a Danish freighter stopped on the side of the road and asked him how long he figured it would take to clear the frontier.

‘About eight hours from here,’ he replied. ‘Depends on how many illegal immigrants they find and

have to process.’

Bulgaria had somehow managed to become part of the European Union and had quickly

established itself as the organization’s most vulnerable border, acting as a magnet for anyone who wanted to enter the Union illegally and travel on to other, richer, pastures like Germany and France.

By the look of the trucks and people-movers, there was no shortage of chancers and people smugglers.

I thought about trying to get to the front and showing my shield, but rejected it: there was always a chance I’d meet some thickhead who was only too happy to show the FBI who was boss. Instead I undertook some brief preparations, pulled on to the shoulder and drove up the inside of the endless

queue. I passed under two overhead structures with cameras and signs and figured that pretty soon the border patrol would come and find me.

Two minutes later, silhouetted against the twilight, I saw blue flashing lights as a car approached fast down the dirt shoulder towards me. It stopped about ten yards in front, blocking my path, and the guy riding shotgun – probably the more senior of the two – lumbered out and walked towards me. He

was about my age, overweight, and his uniform looked as if an even bigger man had been sleeping in

it. You could tell he was ready to start yelling and order me back to the end of the queue.

I had about ten words of Bulgarian, gleaned from a visit years ago, and luckily they included ‘I am

sorry.’ I got it out fast, before he could launch, and I saw that the phrase at least drew some of the venom from his snarling face. I couldn’t tell from his eyes, because, despite the hour, he was wearing shades.

I kept talking, switching to English, throwing in the Bulgarian apology a few more times. I told him that I had been in his fine country before and had always been overwhelmed by the friendliness of the people. I was hoping that would be the case again now that I needed assistance. I was running late and was desperately trying to catch a flight out of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital.

He grunted and looked as if he was about to tell me he didn’t give a shit – like I said, they were a friendly people – when he saw that I was handing him my passport. He looked at me quizzically; I met his gaze and he took the book. He opened it at the details page and found the five hundred Lev in banknotes – about three hundred US, a month’s wages that far east – that I had put in there.

I had arrived at what was always the most dangerous part of any such transaction – paying off an

official was a serious offence in any jurisdiction, and it was at that stage the guy in uniform could really shake you down if he wanted to. Five hundred to go to the front of the queue? Try twenty thousand – and your watch and camera, please – not to charge you with attempted bribery.

He asked for my driver ’s licence and, with that and the passport, he returned to his squad car.

Vehicles that I had overtaken on the inside were now crawling past, hitting their horns in celebration of excellent Bulgarian justice and giving a thumbs-up to the two officers. I wasn’t angry – in their position I probably would have felt the same.

The man returned and told me to open the driver ’s door. It looked like the real shakedown was on

the way, and I was bracing myself, about to reach for my shield, when he climbed on to the door sill so that he was standing up next to me, holding the door half closed.

‘Drive,’ he said, ‘and hit the horn.’ I did as I was told, and he started signalling to several of the big semis to stop immediately, opening up a gap.

‘Go between them,’ he ordered and, to the accompaniment of huge air brakes hissing, I squeezed

into a lane in the middle of the road which half a dozen languages said was for official use only.

‘Faster,’ the officer ordered. I needed no further encouragement, and floored it.

Followed by the squad car with its lights flashing and the officer still hanging on to the open door, we flew past the miles of semis and coaches until we reached a row of glass booths topped by various crests and a huge Bulgarian flag.

The guy clinging to the door took my passport, stepped into one of the booths, borrowed a seal from his colleague and stamped my passport. He returned, handed me the book and – I figured – was

about to tell me his colleague also needed a contribution, but I was already hitting the gas and heading into the night before he opened his mouth.

I travelled fast, headlights stabbing into the darkness, revealing acres of forest and – as if life in the new EU wasn’t surreal enough – clutches of women in micro-mini skirts and skyscraper heels standing on the roadside in the middle of nowhere. Major trucking routes in other countries had endless billboards; in Eastern Europe they featured prostitutes, and no country more so than Bulgaria.

I passed hundreds of them – Gypsy girls, mostly – waif-like figures in lingerie and fake fur, hard-

eyed kids whose lives revolved around the cabin of a semi or the back seat of a car. If they were pregnant their services sold for a premium, and you didn’t have to be a genius to work out that orphans were one of the country’s only growth industries.

Porrajmos
, I said to myself as I drove on, recalling the Romani word that Bill had told me so many years ago: I was looking at just another form of the Devouring.

At last, the young women gave way to gas stations and fast-food outlets and I entered the town of

Svilengrad, an outpost of about twenty thousand people which had virtually nothing to recommend it

except a pedestrianized main street and a wide range of shops that stayed open until well past midnight to cater to the endless stream of truckers.

I parked the car far away and found four of the stores I was looking for clustered together. I chose the most down at heel of them, the one that – as far as I could tell – had no video recording equipment or surveillance cameras. Inside, I bought the two items that had led me to drive seven hundred miles in twelve hours and had taken me from the edge of Asia into the old Soviet bloc: a piece-of-junk cellphone and a prepaid, anonymous SIM card.

I returned to my car and under a single street lamp in a dark corner of a Bulgarian town nobody

had ever heard of, surrounded by farmland and young Gypsy hookers, I made a call to a number with

an area code which didn’t exist.

Chapter Sixty-one

USING AN UNTRACEABLE cellphone routed through the Bulgarian phone system, and fairly confident that MIT would not be listening, I waited to talk to Whisperer directly.

I had to tell him Leyla Cumali’s real name, I had to report that she was an Arab and I had to reveal that she was the woman in the phone box. That was the first imperative of any agent who was still

‘live’ and far from home – to pass on what they had learned. It was the only insurance against apprehension or death, and they taught you from the earliest days that information didn’t exist until it had been safely transmitted. But, more than that, I had to discuss with him the problem of rendition and torture.

The phone rang five times before I heard Whisperer ’s voice. ‘Who is it?’ he asked. It was early afternoon in Washington, and I was shocked at how weary he sounded.

‘Dave, it’s me,’ I replied, deliberately using his little-known first name, just in case somebody was listening, keeping the tone light and unhurried despite my excitement and a thrumming anxiety concerning my surroundings.

Although he must have been surprised to hear my voice, he picked up the tenor of the conversation

immediately. ‘Hey, what’s happening?’ he said, just as casually, and I was reminded once again how

good a case officer he really was.

‘You know the woman we were talking about, Leyla Cumali?’

‘The cop?’

‘Yeah. Well, her real name is Leyla al-Nassouri.’

‘Sounds Arabic.’

‘You’re right. It was her in the phone box.’

There was dead silence at the other end. Despite Whisperer ’s studied indifference, despite his years of experience and enormous talent, I had shocked the quiet voice out of him.

I didn’t know it then, but the effect of my words was amplified by the rolling failure of all our other efforts. The hundred thousand agents working for a host of intelligence agencies, everyone supposedly looking for a man trying to build a dirty bomb, were delivering a lot of heat but absolutely no light. Deep down, Whisperer figured we were dealing with a cleanskin and that the chances of catching him in time were diminishing by the hour.

‘Oh yeah – in the phone box, huh?’ he said, recovering his voice and making it sound as if it didn’t mean much at all. ‘You sure about that?’

‘No doubt. I met a guy who played an instrument – I won’t try to pronounce it – made from the wing bone of an eagle. He showed me some footage.’

‘Sounds weird,’ Whisperer said, sounding as if it was all pretty amusing. ‘How do you spell it? Al-

Nassouri, not the eagle thing.’

I told him and, in normal circumstances, the next question would have been about where I was calling from, but I was certain he already knew. Given his job, all calls to Whisperer ’s cellphone were recorded, and I figured that he would have already scribbled a note to one of his assistants and had Echelon track the call.

While he was waiting for the answer, I kept talking. ‘There’s something I feel strongly about, Dave

– very strongly indeed. You have to go softly; you should be careful who you talk to.’

‘Why?’ he replied. ‘You figure some folks will come up with a bright idea? They might want to move in and start hurting people?’

‘Exactly. We assume she can contact him but I’m pretty sure the system is booby-trapped.’

‘A deliberate mistake under duress – something like that?’

‘Yeah.’

He thought about it for a few seconds. ‘I guess the guy would be foolish if it wasn’t.’

‘We could lose him totally.’

‘I understand,’ he said. There was another pause while he considered what to do. ‘I’m gonna have to

run this past at least one other person. You with me?’

He meant the president. ‘Can you convince him to hold back?’ I said.

‘I should think so, he’s an intelligent man, he’ll get the problem. Can you nail this business down?’

he asked.

‘Find him? I’ve got a good chance,’ I replied.

I heard a small sigh of relief – or maybe it was just his blood pressure heading back down to earth.

‘Okay, we’ll assume we’re going with the confidential thing. I’ll get the researchers back on to her,’

he said.

‘You saw their previous efforts?’ I asked.

‘Sure – not much good, was it?’

‘Fucking hopeless. We’ve gotta colour outside the lines, use other people.’

‘Who?’

Halfway across Turkey, following the white line for mile after mile until I was almost hypnotized, I had been thinking about the CIA’s research and how the hell to compensate for it. Somewhere just south of Istanbul, I decided what we had to do.
Hai domo
, I said to myself.

‘There’s someone I know,’ I said. ‘I told him once that if I was in a corner and needed computer

help, he’d be the guy I’d call. His name’s Battleboi.’

‘Repeat that,’ Whisperer replied.

‘Battleboi.’

‘That’s what I thought you said.’

‘It’s with an “i” at the end, not a “y”.’

‘Oh good, that makes a difference. Battleboi with an “i” – it’s almost normal, isn’t it?’

‘His real name’s Lorenzo – that’s his first name. He’s been busted for stealing the details of fifteen million credit cards.’

I heard Whisperer typing on a keyboard, obviously accessing an FBI database, and a moment later

he was talking again.

‘Yeah, well, you’re right about that – Jesus, the guy must be in the hacker hall of fame. Anyway, two days ago he cut a plea deal with the Manhattan DA.’

‘What did he get?’

‘Fifteen years in Leavenworth.’

‘Fifteen years?!’ I responded. I started cursing the people responsible – fifteen years in the Big House, for credit cards? I wasn’t sure he would survive it.

‘What was that?’ Whisperer asked, overhearing my muttering.

‘I said they’re assholes. He always claimed they’d bleed him for all the information he had, then double-cross him.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘I guess not, but you’ve gotta keep him out – at least until we’re finished. Tell him a friend of his –

Jude Garrett – needs his help. I’ll bet he’ll outperform the other team, no matter what resources they’ve got.’

‘Battleboi, for God’s sake. Are you sure about this?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’

‘Okay … okay.’ he said. ‘How do you want him to get in touch with you?’

‘I don’t know – if he can steal fifteen million credit cards, I’m sure he’ll find a way.’

We were finished with business, and suddenly I felt tired to the bone.

‘Before you go …’ Whisperer said and his voice trailed off. I wondered if he had lost his train of

thought, but it turned out he was finding it hard to say, that was all.

‘I told you once I envied you,’ he continued, even quieter than usual. ‘Remember that?’

‘Sure, in the car,’ I said.

‘I don’t any more – I’m just glad you’re there, buddy. I don’t think anyone else could have done it, it’s been outstanding work. Congratulations.’