Dead if You Don't

by Peter James

  ‘Now again!’

  He hit the send symbol.

  Almost instantly there was a brilliant flash at the far end of the room, a fraction of a second ahead of a massive bang that he heard even through the defenders.

  Smiling, Lebedev removed his headset and strode over to the end of the room, where there was now a pall of smoke curling upwards and a stench of burnt plastic. The phone was gone, leaving a sizeable indent, a metre across, in the concrete floor. He summoned his colleague.

  Prek joined him and stared in shock at the small crater, and at the tiny fragment of phone casing that Lebedev held in his hand, no more than a quarter of an inch square. ‘If you can find a bigger fragment of that phone than this, I buy you drink!’

  Prek went down on his hands and knees for a short while, looking around. Lebedev was right, there was nothing left, just minute fragments.

  ‘So, you are impressed?’ Lebedev asked.

  ‘That is powerful stuff,’ the young Albanian said.

  They returned to the tables, and Prek, in shock from what he had just seen, watched the bomb-maker resume his meticulous, intricate work.

  Lebedev removed, bit by bit, the insides of the camera. When he was done, he began very carefully to pat into place, inside the camera casing, a kilo of the PE4 explosive, which he then methodically packed with nails and ball bearings, all the while talking Prek through the process.

  ‘PE4, when triggered, will detonate at a speed of 8,000 metres a second. You must be careful, Ylli, you know – as you have seen, this is so volatile it can be triggered very easily. Its power, just like the dummy camera packed with explosives that you left at the Amex yesterday, would be enough to kill over two hundred people within the immediate area – and injure many hundreds more.’

  Prek already had his instructions from Mr Dervishi. At the next home game he was to place the camera bomb in a concealed location, depart from the grounds and detonate it remotely by text. Within an hour, Dervishi assured him, he would be on board a private jet from Brighton City Airport that would take him back to Albania, with enough money to live comfortably for the next decade. At his young age of twenty-three, that felt to Prek like forever.

  Not to mention a far preferable option than being fed to a crocodile.

  ‘We use a new phone,’ Luka Lebedev said. ‘No one has the number, no risk of an accidental text.’ He smiled, revealing a row of metal teeth, then placed the small Nokia inside the shell of the camera, pushing it hard against the sticky explosive until it was wedged in place. He pointed his finger at a yellow Post-It note stuck to the table surface. ‘The phone number, Ylli. Try it, send a text from your phone!’

  Prek looked at him dubiously.

  ‘Go on, you are afraid?’

  ‘The bomb is primed?’

  The bomb-maker shook his head. He pointed at two separate wires inside the camera, just behind the lens, each of them sealed at the end with insulating tape. ‘Just try, test it!’

  Nervously, Prek took out his phone, looked down at the numbers, then tapped them in, slowly. When he was done, he looked again at Lebedev. ‘You sure this is safe? We are not going to blow ourselves up?’

  Lebedev tapped his chest. ‘Do I look like a guy who wants to blow himself up? Send it. Send a message!’

  Prek typed out, How’s your day so far?

  He hesitated again.

  ‘What’s your problem, Ylli? You don’t trust me?’

  ‘No, sure I trust you.’

  ‘So, do it!’

  97

  Sunday 13 August

  16.00–17.00

  The smell of cooking was tantalizing Jorgji Dervishi. Sunday lunch – today a very late one because of everything – was one of his favourite times of the week. When he sat down with Mirlinda and Aleksander and just talked, while they ate Mirlinda’s wonderful food. She was a great cook. Whilst he had his mistress to satisfy his sexual lust, Mirlinda always satisfied his other hungers, which included beautifully cooked food and good conversation. And on a normal Sunday he liked to hear how Aleksander was getting on at school.

  Of course, the Sunday meal was always to be accompanied by a fine wine, and then afterwards a nice sleep in front of the television. Perhaps later a walk. He had read an article in a newspaper by a famous food writer who had said that life was too short to drink bad wine. He agreed with this man. Standing at the kitchen sink, he carefully and lovingly removed the foil cap and inserted the corkscrew into one of the many treasures from his wine cellar, a 1989 Haut-Brion.

  As the cork slid out with a satisfying pop, he held it to his nose and inhaled deeply. No hint of damp cardboard or mustiness. Perfume! Nectar!

  He poured a little into his wide, deep glass. Swirled it around, smelled the aroma. Smiled.

  ‘My darling Mirlinda, I think you are going to like this wine, very much – a quite sensational bouquet!’

  ‘You know I always like your choices, my love.’

  ‘Ah, but this one is special indeed.’

  And it was. A single bottle, at auction, would sell for around £250.

  Dritan had texted him the Bitcoin code from Valbone’s computer at Boden Court, and a quarter of a million pounds in Bitcoins was in his account as of an hour ago. He could well afford wine of this quality.

  He took another sip. It was improving, even more, by the second. ‘Where is Aleksander?’

  ‘In his room, crying.’

  ‘Fetch him,’ he commanded.

  As Mirlinda left the room, his phone rang. The caller’s number showed on the display. Edi Konstandin.

  ‘Uncle Edi!’ he answered, joyfully.

  But there was no joy in the old man’s voice.

  ‘What do you think you are playing at, Jorgji?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What do I mean? I’ve just had two detectives here giving me a hard time. Are you mad?’

  ‘Mad? What do you mean, Uncle?’ He stepped out of the dining room and walked along to his office.

  ‘You’ve gone off-piste, very badly, Jorgji. We are family. And our family has only one boss, me. We have a code of honour, am I correct? We are on a mission to have Albanians in this city respected in the community. We harm the business contacts who cross us, but we do not harm innocent outsiders. You have family, you have a child – how would you feel if your boy, Aleksander, was blown up? Have you totally lost the plot? A bomb threat at the Amex? Kidnapping? What are you playing at?’

  ‘I’m running the family’s business now, Uncle. You gave me the authority, you said to me you are too old, you were letting me take over, is that not correct?’

  ‘What I said was take it over, not put it down the toilet, you fool.’

  ‘The world is changing, Uncle. You don’t see that, do you? You put me in charge of the business and that’s what I’m doing. Moving with the times.’

  ‘Moving with the times? What kind of business involves bomb threats at the football stadium on the most important day in the local team’s history? What kind of business is kidnapping the child of a high-profile local businessman?’

  ‘A very lucrative business, Uncle Edi.’

  ‘Lucrative? What are you talking about? Lucrative is a business that has a future. You are killing this future for yourself and for all of us. You are already a very rich man, why do you need to do this?’

  ‘Uncle Edi, you are eighty-two years old. You aren’t in touch with the modern world. You have to let me run this my way, now.’

  ‘Your way?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Edi Konstandin was silent for some seconds, before speaking again. ‘Since I came to this country, Jorgji, I’ve done all I could for my family. Sure, we’ve had some violence on the way, but now we have good, honest businesses. We don’t need that any more. Why can’t you just focus on what we have and stay under the radar? We’re all making enough money to have a very good life here. Why do you want to risk destroying all of that?’

  ‘Just retire, Uncle. Retire, OK?
You’ve done it your way, now I’m doing it my way. If you have a problem with that, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Jorgji, I want you see you now. Come to my house. We have to talk.’

  ‘Uncle, I come later this afternoon, I’m about to eat – and lunch is late enough already.’

  ‘No, you are not eating, you are coming to see me right away – NOW. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand very clearly my vision for the future. Did you never read the Bible, Uncle? The Acts of the Apostles? Old men dream dreams, young men see visions? No? Stick to your dreams, Uncle Edi, I’ll stick to my visions. OK?’

  ‘Since when were you a Christian? You come here immediately. No delay. Do you hear me? You don’t come now, you are finished.’

  ‘I’ve just opened a very nice wine, but I’m afraid it might not last as long as your dreams, Uncle Edi.’ He hung up, just as Mirlinda came back into the room.

  ‘Aleksander is coming down,’ she said.

  His phone rang again. On the display was Edi Konstandin. He killed the call and turned to his wife. ‘I’m sorry, my love, an urgent matter has come up, I have to go.’ He kissed her and walked across the room.

  She looked worried. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing, not important.’

  ‘Not important? Not important but you have to go?’

  He stopped in the doorway. ‘I do. I need to deal with something.’

  ‘Have your lunch first. I’ve cooked your favourite, roast rib of Scottish beef, and I’ve cooked it how you like it.’

  ‘I’ll have it later.’

  ‘Later? The beef will be ruined.’

  ‘If I don’t go now, everything will be ruined.’

  He hurried into his office, removed a spare pay-as-you-go phone from a drawer in his desk, picked up his wallet, cigar case and lighter. Then he went up to his dressing room, grabbed a lightweight sports jacket, and hurried out of the house into his garage, shaking with fury. That senile old fool was not going to dictate to him, no way.

  In a short while, Edi Konstandin would be history.

  But he did have a point about the kidnap – perhaps better to distance himself from that scenario. He’d scooped a quarter of a million for doing virtually nothing today. The balance of the £2,250,000 ransom payment would be very nice to have also, but he’d make much more than that amount with Konstandin out of the way. And there was nothing to link him to the kidnap. Unfortunately for Kipp Brown, the only people apart from himself and Dritan who knew where Mungo Brown was were now dead. He was very safely hidden. By the time his body was found, if it was ever found, it would be so eaten by crabs, lobsters, shrimps and other scavengers of the sea as to be virtually unidentifiable. A shame for a young boy to die. Collateral damage.

  He climbed into his S-Class Mercedes and hit the clicker to open the garage door. As it clattered up, he phoned Dritan on the number his employee had used to text him the Bitcoin code, to inform him of his decision.

  98

  Sunday 13 August

  17.00–18.00

  The water level was over his stomach.

  When were they going to come back to get him out?

  Were they coming back at all? Ever?

  The water was lifting him, constantly now, and he rose and fell with the swell. Each time he fell, he tried increasingly desperately to regain his position on the ledge. Twice, in the past minutes, his feet had missed the ledge and he’d had a moment of panic about being garrotted by the wire noose, until the swell lifted him up again.

  Help me! Help me! Help me!

  He closed his eyes in prayer. Please God, please, please, please, I’m sorry. Please help me.

  99

  Sunday 13 August

  17.00–18.00

  In a red mist, his nerves shredded, Dritan Nano had ridden recklessly out of Brighton on his Ducati motorcycle, his pride and joy, then randomly along the country roads of East Sussex, towards Kent, not even aware of where he was going, just riding, hard and furiously, as if trying to ride a demon out of his body. Eventually he circled back round towards the outskirts of Brighton. He was driving much too fast. Stupid, he realized, slowing right down to the speed limit as he joined the A27 dual carriageway, heading towards Lewes as he had been instructed. Maintaining the speed limit along the bypass, with the University of Sussex campus to his left and the Amex Stadium to his right, he was feeling increasingly shaken as the enormity of his actions was dawning on him.

  I shot three people. Dead.

  Because Jorgji Dervishi made me.

  Made me.

  Oh shit.

  Now the boy is going to die.

  He was close to tears.

  This was not what he had signed up to when he had come to this country, when he had been honoured to take the job as bodyguard to the consiglieri. He had been there to protect Dervishi, not to kill for him. Now it was all falling apart. He’d killed his friend to protect his own family back home.

  He and Valbone had done a deal with Aleksander. The plan was to help his friend, Mungo, screw some money out of his father. They would split it four ways. His share would have given him enough to afford to quit his job with Mr Dervishi and start his own coffee bar in the city. He had already identified one with a lease that was up for sale.

  All that was gone now, since Dervishi had hijacked their plan. Dritan was a fugitive here in England. In a few hours, Mr Dervishi had promised him, he would be smuggled out of the country on the private plane which was kept at Brighton City Airport, with a payoff big enough to start a new life back in his home country. The money Mr Dervishi had promised him, given him his word, his besa, would be enough for him to get an apartment in Tirana and buy a coffee bar there, instead. He just had to get safely to the rendezvous address he had been given, on an industrial estate that Mr Dervishi had built. And then he would be taken to the airport and flown out. Back close to where Lindita was.

  He would find her. He would explain. She would listen to him, wouldn’t she?

  Please, Lindita, I can’t live without you.

  I am seeing someone else and I think he is better for me.

  No, you can’t. You are going to marry me. I will explain everything when I see you. I’ve changed. I’m not that person any more. I’ve changed. I love you, Lindita.

  His eyes misted as he rode on past Lewes, down the long hill towards the Beddingham roundabout. A murderer. Could he trust Mr Dervishi to protect his back? Shield him? To do what he promised?

  Of course he could. Besa. No Albanian, ever, failed to honour his besa.

  The police would start a manhunt soon, if not already. A massive manhunt. For him.

  The one person who could shield him was Mr Dervishi. With Dervishi’s help he would be back in Albania tonight. But doubts filled his head.

  Could he really trust his boss, despite his besa? The man had a hold on him. Multiple holds. He knew where his family lived and now he could quietly slip his name to the police.

  Shit, what had he done?

  Should he just leave now? Get out of here while he still could?

  As he entered the roundabout he wondered should he turn right and down to Newhaven? Dump the motorbike and jump on a ferry and just get away? He could hitch-hike back to his home country to avoid being detected at railway stations or airports.

  Good plan, apart from one big problem. His passport was in his room in the apartment he had shared with Valbone, above Mr Dervishi’s garages.

  He went round the roundabout for a second time.

  Mr Dervishi had connections. Long tentacles. People would be capable of finding him, wherever he hid, however deep in Albania, if he further angered the man. And as Dervishi was well aware, they didn’t even need to bother trying to find him – they knew where his family lived.

  He had to follow his instructions. Hope for the best. And in a moment of clarity, he was comforted by the knowledge that it wasn’t just Mr Dervishi who had a hold on him. He had a hold on Mr Dervishi, too. Stuff on his boss.
Stuff he could tell the police.

  Fortified by that thought, he continued round the roundabout, then back up the hill, faster now. He circled at the top, headed back down the hill and after a short distance turned left at the sign which read RANSCOMBE FARM INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.

  He rode past a development of chalet-style holiday homes and entered the industrial estate, passing a noticeboard and a unit with two large skips in front, and then along past rows of identical steel units with yellow doors, all with deserted parking bays. One advertised itself as a pump specialist, another was pet food supplies and another recycled electrical waste. He threaded his way through the network of roads and units until he found the address he had been given. He cruised along, past a unit with an elderly model Jaguar estate car parked in a bay, then reached Number 26, CABURN HEATING & PLUMBING SERVICES.

  Two vehicles were parked outside, a small Hyundai and a van bearing the business name.

  Freewheeling onto the forecourt, he kicked down the stand and dismounted, carefully balancing the machine, before walking up to the office door and rapping on it, hard. There was a frosted-glass window to the right of the door, behind which the distorted shadow of a figure moved.

  He heard the door being unlocked – two locks, then a third – and finally it was opened by a short, thin, bespectacled man in his twenties, with a shapeless mop of thinning dark hair. He was dressed in an anorak, badly fitting jeans and cheap trainers, and looked nervous. ‘Ylli Prek?’

  ‘Yes – Dritan?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Come in, quick.’

  Prek peered past him, anxiously, then shut and relocked the door immediately after he had entered. Dritan followed him into the main workshop area of the unit and received a hostile glare from a shaven-headed man who was bent over the casing of a camera, a roll-up dangling from his lips.

  The bomb-maker looked at the new arrival with suspicion. ‘You are here why?’

  ‘I work for Mr Dervishi. He told me to come here – to wait for him after a job I have done for him. What do you do here?’

  ‘I make bombs for Mr Dervishi.’ He removed his crinkled cigarette and smiled, flashing his metal teeth.