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

by Dean Carson

  I walked on, rounding the fish factory. The first workers would arrive shortly before six in the morning, but the furniture place would not open for three hours after that. So it was the fish workers I had to be concerned about. I would have to be finished in the print works by five-thirty. As it took four hours to do up a passport, I would have to have secured the guards and scared Milosz into cooperation by one-thirty at the latest. There was plenty of time.

  I walked around to the front of the block and milled with the people coming and going near the cruise ship. It was huge, a floating city with all the character of an inner city high-rise. Several locals were looking up in awe and the crew seemed to accept this as their due. So I was able to walk right up and examine the gangplank without arousing the slightest suspicion. According to the sign printed in French, German and English, passengers would have to embark by eleven-thirty and the ship sailed at midnight.

  This was a bit of a problem. Cruise ships normally arrive in a town in the morning and let their passengers disgorge for the day. But they leave in the early evening to get to their next port by the following day. It might have been engine trouble, tides, weather, but for some reason this boat was out of sync. On a normal day it would have already left Dubrovnik, but today I would have an audience until midnight. Which reduced my window of action considerably.

  There was nothing for it. I ambled along the street and when no one was looking, I slipped into the delivery yard of the fish factory. The place stank, but at least it was empty. I found a corner and curled up. I went to sleep for an hour.

  I woke around twenty minutes past eleven and went back out on to the road. The furniture store was deserted and the sky was dark. But the area was still lit up like a football stadium for a night game. The bloody cruise liner. If that was not there, I would already be carrying out my break-in, leaving myself a huge margin for errors.

  I joined the crowd, which had thinned from earlier. Most of the locals had gone home. A steady trickle of people arrived from the town and walked the gangplank to the reception deck. Two officers in gaudy uniforms stood at the bottom to greet the guests, and loud music came from a string quartet on board. I kept scanning the crowd. Most of them looked like they should: latecomers rushing to make the sailing, arrogant drunks not worried in the slightest about delaying their fellow passengers, crew members taking their last stroll on dry land. One guy seemed to be slightly out of place. He was too poorly dressed to be one of the passengers and was straying too far away from the ship to be crew. He looked at me twice in passing and then the penny dropped. He was security, probably for the industrial estate. They had a night-watchman.

  I tried to time my walking so that I was as far away as possible from him. By eleven forty-five the trickle from town had dwindled to nothing. By five to twelve I was growing concerned; the gangplank still hadn’t been pulled up. The two guys in the gaudy uniforms were getting restless. One of them took out a walkie-talkie and it hissed as he spoke to someone on board. After a few minutes, he wrote down something — a number — and handed it to the other man, who took out a cell phone and made the call. It was in English, and I was close enough to hear one end of it.

  “We said in five minutes. You miss the ship. We all waiting for you. You the last.” Pause. “No, not ten minutes. You get here now. We don’t hold ten minutes. We hold five.”

  In the end they held for fifteen, and a very drunk man staggered to the gangplank. He was effusive in his apologies and tried to slip the two guys some notes, which they brusquely rejected. They almost pushed him up the gangplank, which was then mechanically raised. The last passenger was on board.

  The string quartet had packed up quite a while ago, its music replaced by a blare from the on-board disco. Most of the lights were still on. I stood there, staring at the big ship, willing it to take off. I willed it so intently I forgot that I was standing there on my own, the only man in an otherwise deserted harbour. How could the security man miss me? A rookie mistake.

  When I became aware of him approaching me, I did the only thing I could. I swayed slightly. I turned to him and smiled vacantly. I took a step towards the ship and slightly missed my footing, then straightened up immediately. There is a secret to playing a drunk; underplay it. Drunks retain a sort of natural dignity. They desperately try to walk in a straight line and not to fudge their words. If you ever need to play a convincing drunk, try to imagine you are a drunk trying to play sober. I looked at the night-watchman, waved blearily, then turned back to the ship and called out: “Mikhail — bon voyage.”

  I began to walk away carefully, trying not to sway or stagger. I could hear no footsteps, so he wasn’t following me. But I knew he would continue to watch me. So I kept walking, down the full length of the ship then out the harbour entrance on to the main road. It was only at that point that I dared to turn around. He had turned away and resumed his rounds. So I turned and walked back into the harbour. Two hours late, it was finally on.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I was back in the industrial estate, and at least now I didn’t have to case the target building. I could get straight to work — once I knew the schedule of the night-watchman. I hid in the fish factory yard again and waited. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, he passed by at a leisurely pace. I watched him as he walked along the harbour road, then turned when he got to the end and disappeared into the industrial estate. Assuming that was his normal pace, I had more than twenty minutes before he came back. Plenty of time to carry out the break-in.

  It was now fast approaching one o’clock, and my time was running out.

  I approached the print works carefully. I needed to avoid any possible security cameras. One of his men could be monitoring them. There might also be a motion sensor triggering a light. The last thing I needed was to let them know I was coming. So I hung to the side of the building. Most motion sensors are designed to catch something coming towards a building, not something clinging to the wall. I got to the door without incident.

  I took out my flashlight and had a quick look at the lock. It was a Yale, wouldn’t you know? Yales were sold initially as unpickable, but that’s simply untrue. They can be picked. It just takes a few more minutes. I took out the glass tumbler and put it to the door, listening for a few minutes. I heard nothing, so I put away the tumbler and got out my tools. I had a thin wire to jog the tumblers into position and a stiff piece of sprung steel as the tensioner. I carefully jiggled the first tumbler into position, applied the tension to hold it, jiggled the second, held it, jiggled the third, nothing. I jiggled it again. Nothing. Damn.

  I released the tension on the first two tumblers and let them fall back. Something was sticking in the lock. A bit of oil would make a huge difference, but I had none. So I blew gently into the keyhole then ran the wire through it aggressively once or twice to dislodge whatever dirt was hampering me. I tried it again.

  The first and second tumbler came up and I held them. Then the third came up. I held it. If the other two yielded, I was in. They did. The lock gave with a soft click and I held the door open a quarter of an inch. Then I waited. After a minute I still heard nothing. So I pushed the door open and stepped into the small vestibule.

  This was not what I expected. I was in a small sectioned-off area of corridor. There was a door in front of me that led into the main office area. And that door was protected by a keypad.

  Here’s the thing about keypads: there are a huge number of combinations you need to try to open them. If you do the maths, you have ten digits to choose from for the first number, nine for the second, eight for the third and seven for the fourth. That makes 5040 possible combinations. If you can go through ten combinations a minute — and I defy anyone to move their fingers that fast — you could be stuck there the bones of eight hours. And some have a feature that if you try unsuccessfully three times in a row the lock is immobilised for a minute or more. So make that eight hours two days, realistically.

  Of course, some people leave the number
scrawled on the wall to remind themselves. It defeats the purpose of a keypad, but you would be surprised how often you get lucky. I ran the flashlight all over the wall. I wasn’t getting lucky today.

  I looked at the keypad and saw four numbers were polished clean by countless fingers rubbing against them, while six of the digits were caked with grime. The clean digits were 1, 4, 8 and 9. These were the numbers that were being pressed every day. So the combination I was looking for was made up of these four numbers. Now the maths became more favourable. I had four possibilities for the first number, three for the second, two for the third, and only one for the fourth. So instead of over five thousand possibilities, I was looking at twenty-four. That was only a few minutes’ work. I had caught a break.

  I could have just started logically, going through every possibility. But often numbers have a meaning. People choose a code that they can remember because the numbers have significance for them. Birthday? Year he got married? I looked at the four polished digits and then it hit me. What if Milosz had been born in 1948? Made sense, according to the biography La Donna had given me. I had nothing to lose by trying it so keyed in the four numbers and heard the satisfying buzz as the lock electronically disengaged. I pushed the door open an inch and waited. I heard no sound. Not a peep. So I pushed the door open fully and stepped through, closing it gently behind me.

  I found myself in a small corridor with three offices leading off to my right. At the end of the corridor was a door leading to the print works itself. And all along the left wall were a series of windows that allowed a full view of the factory floor. I ducked down so that no one on the floor could see me in the corridor and took out my phone and angled it above my head, using the screen as a mirror. I scanned the whole floor and saw nothing suspicious. That didn’t mean anything; it was hardly a forensic search of the premises. But I felt sure enough to stand again and approach the first door.

  I held up the glass tumbler and listened for a minute. No sound. Holding my gun in my hand, I pushed the door gently open and stepped into the receptionist’s office. It was empty. I went to the second room and repeated the process: listen, open, enter, search. Nothing. The third office, the same. All three offices were completely empty, just like you would expect in premises that were closed for the night. La Donna had said that he had a bed in a room at the back of the plant. It looked as if her intelligence was good.

  I came back into the corridor, and as I did the silence was filled with the sound of a toilet flushing. I dropped to the floor like I had been shot.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It came from inside the print works, so I quickly removed my phone and used it as a mirror again. I could see a light go out as a door closed, then I watched a figure hurry across the floor. He got to the back of the building, then climbed some stairs to a door. He opened the door and light flooded out. I could see he was a big man, but moving lightly. An athlete. Perhaps a fighter. He was one of the security detail. I had located my target.

  The door closed and the light disappeared.

  I stood up and looked through the window. The floor was empty once more. The light was almost non-existent, but I could make out the shadows of the giant printing machines. And I knew where the light from the door had been. So I knew where I was going. I opened the door at the end of the corridor and stepped onto the factory floor. Now came the truly dangerous few moments. I had to cross to the door without making the slightest noise, moving through a factory, the floor of which was strewn with God knew what. It was an obstacle course, and I didn’t have the map. So I removed my flashlight and covered it with my hand. Then I switched it on.

  Enough light escaped to show me what was directly under my feet. I found a passage between the machines and began walking towards the back of the room. I was lucky; whoever supervised this place insisted on tidiness. There were barrels of oil and ink, and assorted tools, but they were all to the side, leaving a clear path for me. I made my way carefully and soon found the rear exit of the plant. Light from outside seeped in under the door and I had my bearings. I moved cautiously along the door to my left until I got to the end of it. Now I inched along the wall, slowly, making sure not to make a sound. Closer and closer. Then I reached the bottom step. I let a little more light stream out. I could see concrete steps stretching up to a door about three metres above me.

  I risked the flashlight. I played it along the wall above me. I was at the side of the plant, opposite where the offices had been. There seemed to be a section divided off from the floor, probably a storage area. I could see large double doors, ideal for bringing in and out paper. Above this section there was a second floor that the stairs led to. From the length of the space, I guessed there were two rooms. That squared with the information from La Donna; he had some rooms in the back of the plant. Two rooms, two security men and one target. And just little old me to overcome them. These were the moments I lived for.

  I took the stairs carefully, sticking to the edges. I got to the top and paused, listening. I could hear nothing. But I knew someone was on the other side of the door. So I took out the tumbler and held it to the thin wood. I applied my ear. It didn’t take long. After about thirty seconds of silence, I heard a creak and then a sigh.

  Bats can pinpoint a sound with startling accuracy. Humans can’t. But the sound seemed to be coming from in front of me and to the left. That was my impression. As the door was in front of me, I knew that part was right. To the left was more supposition, but good enough to go on. I considered briefly the best way to approach it. I had one thing going for me: the element of surprise.

  The snag with surprise is that it doesn’t last long. The bodyguard was sitting inside on a chair — the creak — alert but expecting no trouble. He may have had a gun in his lap, but probably not. It would be holstered under his shoulder, or lying on a table beside his chair. It takes a moment to recover from surprise, perhaps half a second. It takes another moment to get a gun out and into play, perhaps a second and a half. So I had two seconds to subdue the man behind the door. That was what surprise was worth to me, a lousy two seconds. Still, it was better than nothing.

  I was determined not to be a target, so I would come into the room moving fast. I took out the Baby Browning and cocked the trigger. I should have done that earlier. The click sounded like a crack of thunder. Most modern guns don’t need to be cocked, but the Baby Browning is old school.

  Had he heard the click? I didn’t know but, if he had, it reduced my surprise by a considerable amount. I opened the door as I cocked the pistol. The weapon was in my left hand, because as soon as I entered the room I threw myself to the right in a dramatic dive.

  He moved a lot faster than I expected. I was barely in, just starting my dive, when the first shot rang out and I felt a searing pain in my left upper arm. It felt like someone had branded me with a hot poker, but my arm was still functional. It was a flesh wound.

  I managed to get off two shots as I fell towards my right. The Baby Browning is not a very accurate gun, but in a confined space, even shooting with my left hand, I was sure of my target. I put one round in his shoulder, the other in his thigh. Two rounds and I had disabled his shooting arm and brought him to the ground.

  Except he didn’t fall. And his arm was not disabled. It was swivelling towards me, trying to get a bead on my new position. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and I could see no tell-tale rosettes of blood. I had hit him twice and I might as well have been shooting at a ghost.

  The bitch.

  La Donna had stitched me up. She had given me a gun and I had checked that it was loaded. But I hadn’t checked that they were live rounds. I was firing blanks. No matter how good your aim is, if you are shooting nothing you won’t hit anything. And if I was firing blanks, everything else was a lie. Milosz was not alive. There was no passport waiting for me. And La Donna had set me up. It explained how my movements were so well known by my pursuers and how they had known where they could take a shot at me in the stree
t. I had been played.

  My shoulder hit the floor and I bounced and skidded along the carpet. Once I stopped moving, he would apply the coup de grace and my game was over. So I kept moving. I rolled away from him and tossed the useless gun into the air, aiming at the light. I could see him momentarily lose focus, following the flight of the gun. Then he refocused on me. But it was too late.

  The Baby Browning hit the light bulb above our heads, shattering it and plunging the room into darkness. He fired, but I was rolling and his second shot missed me. He should have shot ahead of me because of my roll, but he hadn’t. I got to my feet as quickly as possible and two more shots rang out. Both missed in the darkness, but he had the advantage. I didn’t know what gun he was using, but I assumed he had a full magazine. That could leave him with up to fifteen more free shots at me. The odds were not good.

  But the guy was a pro. He stopped firing blind and waited. Eventually I would have to move, and any noise would betray my position. He waited. I waited. This was a staring game, and I wasn’t going to blink first. A minute passed. Two. Five. Damn, he was patient.

  Then he spoke. His accent was thick and heavy, but his English passable. “You have no escape. Just give it up. If you do, I don’t have to kill you.”