Dead or Alive: A heart-pounding assassination thriller with a shocking twist (Eliot Locke Thrillers Book 1)

by Dean Carson

  “Always mountains?”

  “Oh no. Big wave surfing, up to two metres. Big game hunting. In fact, that’s the real reason I am in a borrowed suit. I lost my own in a big poker game last night.”

  “And an amateur comedian. Don’t give up the day job,” she laughed.

  I was beginning to relax. Boredom is something I hate, and I tend to get into trouble when I have too much time on my hands. This woman was growing on me. That is a problem we men tend to suffer from; if you laugh at our jokes, we will fall for you. We are easily manipulated that way. I wasn’t falling for her, but I was certainly thinking of how to spend a few hours in her company. I could justify it by pretending it was to keep myself from doing something stupid on my own.

  But if this was going to work, we had to be straight with each other. By that I mean, she had to be honest with me. I wasn’t about to tell her I worked as a bounty hunter. It is best to keep some mystery. But I needed to know about her.

  I looked at her, my smile fixed broadly on my face.

  “As long as we are being honest,” I said, “tell me what you really do. Because you are no teacher.”

  Her face froze for a moment. It was only a fleeting moment, but I have trained myself to read the micro-expressions that flit across a person’s face when they are under pressure. It was there. Then she was smiling at me again. But it took her a full minute to answer me.

  “You are right,” she said eventually. “But so am I. Yes, I work as a teacher. But I wasn’t always one.”

  “You were military.”

  “Yes. I did a full ten-year hitch and retired on a modest pension. So I am a teacher now, or at least a teacher’s assistant. I’m studying part-time and will be a teacher in the end. The army gave me a grant to study.”

  I digested that for a moment. “You only get a grant if you are invalided out. Where did you serve?”

  “Two tours of Afghanistan. Near the end of my second tour, I signed up for a third. But with two days to go we were on patrol in a hot zone. We thought the insurgents had been cleared out, so I guess we weren’t being as careful as we should have been. And we had sniper cover too. It seemed to be routine. We were near the end of the patrol, just ten minutes to go. We had turned and were making our way back to the barracks when we saw it. There was a child lying in the middle of the road. The child hadn’t been there twenty minutes earlier. She wasn’t moving, just a wee thing in a pink cardigan and tatty pants. My OC told us all not to move, but I had to go and check on her. I had to see if was she alive.

  “I ignored the OC and moved forward. The sniper was covering me, so I felt safe. I got up to her and she wasn’t moving. She can’t have been more than six. There were no marks on her and I thought she might be asleep. Or sick. So I turned her over to check. That’s when the mine under her body exploded.”

  She was silent for a moment and took a nervous sip of her coffee.

  “Christ, I could do with a beer. I turned her over and she went up like Bonfire Night. Her body shielded me from the worst of the blast, but my lower leg was shattered.”

  She bent down and pulled up the left leg of her jeans to reveal a shapely calf and skin that was pocked and scarred. “One other soldier had disobeyed the OC and come up to the girl with me. She was on the other side and nothing shielded her. She took the full blast. I was picking parts of her out of my hair for a week.”

  I made a sympathetic face but said nothing. What can you say to that?

  “She was my lover.”

  Wow. Now I really was speechless. I gently reached across the table and took her hand lightly in mine, squeezing reassuringly.

  She smiled weakly. “Any smart comments now?”

  “So you’re a lesbian? How’s that working out for you? I see I struck out for more than daddy issues.”

  Her smile was rueful and wavering. “I’m not a lesbian really. I am more straight than anything. But it was the army. I don’t know if you know any army types, but they tend to be brainless morons. Your standard grunt is about as attractive as a side of six-week-old beef. I don’t think that Linzi and I would have stayed together after we got home, but we would have remained good friends. I lost that. I nearly lost my leg. But they patched me up and sent me to teach school. And now you have the full story.”

  That put a damper on proceedings. Where do you go from there? There was an awkward silence that stretched. Wisecracking Eliot, at a loss for words when a real woman was in pain. Then I noticed behind her a handwritten sign: Cold beers and gorgeous views. 300 metres.

  “You need a beer,” I said decisively.

  SIXTEEN

  I have never known three hundred metres to take so long — or to pass so delightfully. We left the café and followed the handwritten sign, which contained a rough red arrow. We walked up a narrow street, passing the handcarts that are used in the old quarter to make deliveries. We came to a T-junction, with another handwritten sign. But the arrow pointed straight up. We debated left or right and eventually tossed a coin. It came up wrong. Heads, where the direction was tails. So we lost ten minutes before we found another sign. This one had an arrow, but it pointed towards the middle of a fork. It was like a mad treasure hunt and it took thirty minutes to get there. We went up and down narrow streets, crossed shadowy courtyards, found two beautiful plazas and finally arrived at a narrow steep lane that went up along the side of the medieval wall. The wall was huge and dank, its shade giving a welcome break from the heat of the sun.

  At the top of the lane we came to one of the old gates of the city, a narrow crack in the wall just wide enough to accommodate a man leading a fully laden horse. The gates had been made deliberately narrow; you did not want a gap that an army could come through. We were able to walk through side by side, which brought me deliciously close to Jelly. I didn’t object.

  The wall was nearly three metres thick, and when we got through the ground fell sharply beneath us. The vista was magnificent: sapphire blue sea dotted with small boats of all descriptions. In the distance, merging into the heat haze, were the darker shades of the islands. We were on a cliff face. It wasn’t sheer, but if you fell you were going the whole way to the sea. Above us, up a rough path, was the establishment offering the cold beer and glorious views. It was the oddest bar I had seen. The main bar was dug into the cliff and had a patio with about eight tables. There were four other smaller patios, some above the bar, some below, spread across the cliff like the nests of sea birds.

  We ordered beers, of course, and sat in companionable silence enjoying the spectacle. The beers were cold. The views were gorgeous. The sign had not lied. It was peaceful, apart from the highest nest, which was occupied by a rowdy group of young men and women. I knew the type because I had been one only a few years — or perhaps a decade — earlier. The men were juiced on testosterone, desperate to impress the women. The women were at an age when nothing would impress them. I tuned them out.

  “So what’s your plan?” Jelly asked eventually.

  “I have a friend who is trying to sort me out with papers. Meanwhile, I wait.” I lifted my glass. “The waiting is easy.”

  “If he doesn’t sort you out…”

  “She,” I corrected, and immediately regretted it though I could not have said why.

  Jelly looked at me. “She? Is she cute?”

  “It depends on what you are into,” I said non-committedly.

  She grinned. “Are you sleeping with her?”

  God, I hope not. My balls wouldn’t stand another night. And I can’t even remember if I enjoyed it or not.

  Jelly must have seen the look that crossed my face, because she smiled broadly. “Is she that bad?”

  I wasn’t going to tell her about La Donna. I was under no illusions I had any chance with Jelly, but a man is a man and I play the odds. So the less said about the murderous sex-bomb who had a date with me that evening the better. Instead, I raised a hand for the waiter and ordered a salad. The time passed easily. I don’t know exactly
how long we spent there, but if memory serves me correctly it was four beers, a salad and a very nice cheesecake. I know we were still chatting easily by mid-afternoon. The rowdy young men and women had been replaced by an American couple who lunched and left, then by a group of late teen boys, too young to drink in some jurisdictions but happily downing the Heineken from their cliff-top eyrie. Around three, one of the boys threw himself off the railing and sailed in a graceless arc down the side of the cliff. He hit the sea with a splash, and a huge cheer rang up from the tables and from the few people on top of the city walls who could see the jump.

  A few minutes later a second guy jumped, and it soon became the sport of choice in that part of Dubrovnik. The crowd began to grow on the walls as the young men tested their manhood against the challenge. Some jumped gracefully and hit the water with a minimal splash. Some just bombed into the water, shouting as they hit. One or two chanced a dive. The cliff was particularly steep where they were jumping and all cleared the rocks easily. Clearly they knew there was deep water beneath. Jelly and I cheered with the rest and chipped in our scores for the better efforts.

  “Ten years ago I would have been right there with them,” I said. “I would have been scoring tens with every dive.”

  “Bullshit, old man,” she said. “You would have been holding their towels and praying no one asked you to join in. I know your type. You’re a hill walker, not a cliff diver.”

  “Would you give me a date if I jumped?”

  “I can give you a date anyway — 6 June 1945. I have plenty more dates if you want them.”

  “Seriously.”

  “If you dive, I’ll give you a kiss.”

  “It will have to do.”

  I stood up. She was still laughing. It was only a moment to reach the platform from where everyone was jumping and diving. I went to the edge and looked over. I could see the darkness in the sea that had to be the landing area. From up here it looked small enough. For a moment discretion fought with valour, and discretion was winning. She was right; I am not a high diver. I do things when my life is at risk but, in general, I am content to sit back and relax with a good book and a glass of single malt. Then one of the teens grinned at me and said something I didn’t understand. I looked at him and shrugged, the universal sign language for ‘I haven’t a clue what you said’.

  “Is too dangerous. You kill yourself, old man,” he translated.

  There it was again, ‘old man’. That’s my father. That won’t be me for another forty years. Without a word, I turned from the edge. The kids laughed. Then I began climbing the side of the cliff, gaining height rapidly. I had spotted a small rock that cropped out from the face about four metres above the nest of tables. That was where I was making for. It wasn’t a difficult climb. A tough grade four, borderline grade five. In layman’s terms: a rope should be there to secure the climber. But I was never one for rules. I got a hand on the rock outcrop and levered myself upright. It protruded about twenty centimetres, plenty of room for me to stand comfortably. Then I looked down.

  The problem was immediately obvious. The guys jumping from the edge of the platform below me had to get out more than a metre to ensure they hit the water safely. From my perch, I would have to clear three metres or more to be safe. A nine-foot standing jump is not an easy thing. I looked down at the guys on the platform. They were looking up at me, grinning their encouragement. A hush had descended on them, like the hush in a stadium before the champion prepares for the winning jump. I looked down and across to Jelly. She was looking up at me, a curious look on her face.

  It was now or never. I should have at least taken off my jacket. I should have removed my shoes. I should have… I bent down quickly, touching my toes. This ensured that my knees were bent enough to provide the push I would need. Then I straightened explosively, throwing my hands forward and springing violently from the rock. I felt the air rush past me and then I was clear of the tables and soaring past the cliff face. Fifteen metres below, the water rushed at me. The cliff shot by only centimetres away. It would be a close thing…

  SEVENTEEN

  I hit the water perfectly and came up to cheers and laughter. I turned towards the shore and Jelly had a strange look on her face, half smile, half something else. That’s the problem with women. You set out to impress them and then discover that common sense and reliability can often be as appealing as displays of machismo. But I felt great, the adrenalin rush lifting my spirits and helping me forget for a while why I was in this lovely town with death at my back and the vast emptiness of the Adriatic to the front.

  As I dried off we finished our beers and the bar owner sent over complimentary ones in acknowledgement of the highest dive of the day. One was enough for me. I had proved something, at least to myself, and was content to leave it at that. The young men continued to leap and we continued to cheer. The afternoon lingered.

  By the time the second beer was killed, my cheap suit had almost dried out. But my shoes still squelched, and I would probably blister on the walk home. God, how I wanted to get home.

  I got my kiss before we left and I would have got a date too, I believe, but tonight was for La Donna. If she could get me out of here…

  We walked back through the wall into the old quarter together, found our way to one of the long streets leading from the sea up to the new quarter, and paused. We stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

  “If you’re around tomorrow…” I began.

  “That would be nice,” Jelly said. Then we smiled and turned our separate ways. It would be nice to see her again, but deep down I knew it wouldn’t happen. The vague promise to meet up was a polite platitude. Tonight I would get the help I needed and by this time tomorrow I would be long clear of Croatia. I think she knew it too, even if she didn’t know the trouble I was in. It was a fleeting contact, like seabirds tossed together on a storm only to be thrown as quickly apart. Special but brief. I walked wistfully away.

  I stopped at a small kiosk to buy a take-away coffee. The shade of the afternoon on the damp suit was chilling me, and I thought a hot drink as I walked would help. I used my last few coins and got a latte. To hell with European conventions about not having a milky coffee in the afternoon. I had dived the height of a four-storey building. I was invincible. I could drink a latte.

  I stepped back on to the street and took a sip. Delicious. I lowered the cup to chest height and walked on. As I reached the top of the street, I thought I would turn and see if I could catch one more brief glimpse of the svelte and sexy Jelly. She was probably long gone, but I turned anyway. That turn saved my life.

  As I turned, the paper coffee mug in my hand imploded, the hot liquid gushing over my hand. I felt the scalding pain and felt the wisp of a breeze pass over my hand and disappear almost instantly. Instinct took over. Before I could even begin to process what was happening, my knees buckled and I fell to the ground as if shot. My body twisted as I fell, my hip hitting the ground at an angle as my body rolled, the fall being taken by my hip, my back and my shoulder in quick succession. Like a paratrooper hitting the ground in the good old days before controlled descent, I collapsed and ended up prone on the pavement without any part of my body taking the brunt of the fall.

  I ended up in the gutter, my torso and head between a cart and the pavement, my legs exposed.

  My brain began putting together the pieces. There had been no sound, but coffee cups don’t explode in your hand like that. And the rush of air past my hand; the only thing that made sense was a bullet. But it had been subsonic. There was no characteristic crack as it punched through the sound barrier. Pistol round? No. The shooter would have had to get too close to me. Beautiful women might distract me, but not that much. I would have noticed. And it would be too risky; he would have to be able to escape after taking the shot.

  So a sniper. And a pro, if he had a silenced rifle and the experience to use a reduced velocity round. I didn’t move. Lying down in the gutter, I presented a smaller target. A
nd if I didn’t move, he might think he had hit me. Job done, and he would be already up and moving. Although every instinct said run for cover, I forced myself to remain immobile. I began counting the seconds in my head. I would give it two minutes.

  The only thing I moved were my eyes. I scanned as much of the street ahead of me and to my side as I could. I couldn’t see anything. Without moving my head it was difficult. I was relying on peripheral vision. Where would I set up the shot? I looked at rooftops and balconies. I looked for open windows.

  A man ran up to me and grabbed me by the shoulder. He shook me gently and began jabbering at me in what my brother would have described as ‘foreign’. Croatian is a type of foreign I don’t speak, but I knew he was asking how I was. The good Samaritan, helping a man who had tripped or had a heart attack. I didn’t move. Too early. A second person stopped and bent over me, concern written all over his face.

  Then I saw it, the glint of light from a roof about seventy metres away. There was a low parapet on the roof and I couldn’t see anyone, only the glint. But I knew what it was all right. In the movies that would have been the sniper fixing his telescopic sight on my prone form. But this was no movie. The sniper was packing up. You never catch the glint before the shot, because the gun is not moving and the sight is fixed firmly on your head or chest. Now the gun was moving and the sun caught the telescopic sight and I saw the flash. In ten seconds he would be on the other side of the roof, probably heading for a fire exit and a waiting motorcycle. He either believed he had hit me or was not willing to risk a shot now that I was surrounded. I waited for the roar of the motor, then remembered that we were in the pedestrianised section of the town. He would be escaping on foot. I might be able to catch him.

  And then what? He had the gun. I had a damp suit and squelchy shoes. This one I had to let go.

  The danger was over now. I sat up and smiled weakly at the small group of concerned people who had gathered around me. I reached a hand up and one of them pulled me to my feet. I gingerly put my weight down on my right foot and winced, as if I had tripped and twisted an ankle. A man immediately rushed to support me. I tried again, this time getting my foot under me. I limped off to their murmurs of sympathy.