I Am Pilgrim

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013

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Part 4, Chapters 14-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4, Chapters 14-27 Summary

Murdoch prepares for his novel mission: “[F]or the first time in my professional life I was out in the cold—I was on a mission without a legend or cover” (506). He plants evidence in his hotel room for Cumali to find and show her brother. Murdoch picks up Bradley and explains he has been seeking a lone terrorist. Bradley is shocked to learn that the plot is not a nuclear bomb, but Murdoch tells him to focus on the key detail: that Cumali is the perpetrator’s sister. Bradley is horrified when Murdoch tells him that the planted emails on his laptop indicate that Cumali herself will be arrested and tortured, while the boy will likely die in an orphanage. Murdoch explains that the horror-inducing scenario is meant to get her to contact her brother. Bradley initially refuses to participate in the most horrifying phase of the plan: kidnapping the nanny and the child, threatening both with death unless al-Nassouri reveals all. When Murdoch reminds him that the alternative is Marcie facing the smallpox threat alone, Bradley accepts the plan.

Murdoch and Bradley return to the hotel, and Murdoch is stunned to realize that his room has been searched by thorough professionals who left almost no trace of their presence The most likely searchers in the area are affiliated with drug trafficking: Murdoch ruefully reflects he should have anticipated the possibility of another encounter with the Nikolaides family.

While they wait for news on Cumali’s movements, Murdoch details his new discoveries about Ingrid Kohl and the Eastside Inn case. He explains that Cameron and “Marilyn,” as he names Ingrid, were lovers before she met Dodge. Cameron marries Dodge and ends their relationship, but Cameron returns to Ingrid months later, eager to murder Dodge for his fortune. The murder enables her to get a passport and reunite with Cameron in Turkey, their chosen location for the murder. Murdoch explains to Bradley that the French House itself offered the perfect structure for the crime. Dodge’s death almost helped them avert the bioterrorism threat, as well; he explains to Bradley that Cumali has placed no calls, indicating that the ruse has failed and that the crime almost provided them the cover they needed to avert disaster.

Before the two can part ways to await the coming virus, Murdoch gets a note from Cumali, inviting him on a picnic with her son the next day. Murdoch realizes this means Cumali’s brother is already in Turkey—there was no phone call required. He has Bradley call Whisperer to explain that there is still hope.

Next, Murdoch turns to his personal affairs, explaining that writing his will requires reckoning with Bill’s final gift to him. To receive his foster father’s final bequest, Murdoch had to prove that his lifestyle was legitimate: He finally falls back on his commendation letter from the president for killing his predecessor. The lawyer explains that Bill’s New York apartment contains his private art collections, now worth millions. Murdoch is deeply moved by this reminder of how much he was loved.

Back in Turkey in the present day, Murdoch decides to leave much of the collection to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, with a plaque from him to his foster father. Murdoch prepares for his mission the next day, knowing he may meet his death. He reflects, “I just hoped I would acquit myself with honor and courage” (538).

Part 4, Chapters 14-27 Analysis

Murdoch’s reunion with Bradley brings the novel’s two cases, and its two genres, together, just as Bradley fully learns of Murdoch’s darker side. Like al-Nassouri, Murdoch will use any available asset, at the cost of Bradley’s morals and his innocence. He has no qualms about asking Bradley to endanger and terrify a child, or about using his love for his wife to secure his cooperation. For all that Murdoch ruthlessly exploits the personal ties of others, he ignores clues to his own past that emerge from Cumali’s ransacking of his hotel room. This inattention adds suspense and tension for the reader and emphasizes his humanity—he is not a robotic antihero but a flawed human doing his best to navigate a compromised world.

Murdoch’s final planning stages put an end to the mystery subplot the novel began with, while ratcheting up the narrative tension about his plans and their viability. Hayes intersperses chapters in Washington with Murdoch’s tale for Bradley, a kind of macabre bedtime story as the possible end of ordinary life looms over them all. The murder plot between Ingrid and Cameron, which relies on no known ties between either of them, is like that of other film-noir plots, such as Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, based on a 1950 novel by Patricia Highsmith. Hayes uses the case to emphasize that Murdoch operates in both the world of espionage and the world of detective fiction.

The section’s concluding anecdotes, Murdoch’s full explanation of his life in New York and Bill Murdoch’s will, emphasize the importance of his childhood bonds. Murdoch’s inability to prove his identity and his moral rectitude underscores the moral ambiguity of his work, though his ultimate vindication by a letter of commendation from the president suggests that heroism can be defined through official sanction, whatever one’s private qualms about a given course of action. Murdoch’s decision to honor Bill by publicly professing his affection and commemorating genocide victims indicates that he wants his death to have a higher purpose, whatever ambiguities he is plagued by in life. His fears for his own cowardice may explain why he turns to Bradley: He seeks out the bravest person he knows to help him carry out his last, crucial task as a hero.