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

by Dean Carson

  “Can’t it wait until morning?” she grumbled.

  So I knocked again.

  “Okay, I’m coming.”

  There were sounds from the room as she hastily pulled on some clothes, then the door opened a crack.

  Jelly wasn’t a make-up sort of girl, and she looked gorgeous with her hair all tousled and sleep in her eyes. She was wearing a t-shirt and panties, a good look in a bedroom. It took her a moment to register who was on the other side of the door, and a look of something difficult to register crossed her face. Then she smiled.

  “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  “Isn’t it a bit late to be calling on a respectable woman?”

  “You said morning. It’s after midnight,” I explained. “And I’m hoping you’re not respectable.”

  She opened the door and I stepped in. I pulled the door closed behind me. She faced me. “It went wrong,” she said.

  “It went very wrong,” I confirmed.

  Then I stepped forward and she put her arms around me. At first it was a hug, but then she touched my face and our lips met. Our tongues began to explore, gently teasing, and before I knew it we were moving towards the bed.

  I like to think of myself as a Casanova, smooth and gallant in the bedroom. Except all the evidence points the other way. Instead of smoothly laying her down on the bed, I tripped and we fell in an untidy heap, laughing.

  But we quickly came together again, our lips and our hands eager. I pushed her back on the bed and she grasped my shoulders, running her fingers down my arms. She hit the duct tape and my whole body tensed.

  Then she froze. “What’s this?” she said, struggling to sit up.

  “It’s nothing,” I said, but the mood was destroyed.

  She stood to switch on the light and came over to the bed, wincing against the brightness. My arm was a mess. I had no sleeve on my shirt, the skin was red with blood and there were about three layers of tape binding my bicep. But I felt great. I was alive.

  “Tell me all about it,” she said as she began to look at the mess.

  “It’s nothing, just a flesh wound. The bullet passed right through, did no damage.”

  “Jesus, you were shot and you were going to say nothing.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Bullshit. You were thinking with your dick.”

  That too. There was real anger in her voice.

  “It went a bit bad,” I said. “I was set up. When I went to the location to pick up my new papers, there was a shooter waiting.”

  I didn’t really want to say anything more, but she was glaring at me. Women have a way of looking at a man and making him feel like a boy again. So I went on.

  “It’s nothing really. There was a bit of a barney, but it all worked out fine. I got away. I don’t have any papers, but no harm done.”

  “Really?”

  “But I do have to lie low for a while, and I will have to sneak out of town tomorrow evening. But we always had a plan B, and I should be able to manage.”

  She had gone to the bathroom as I was talking, and she returned with small nail scissors and a towel. She cut through the tape and pulled it from my arm. Coming off my skin wasn’t as bad as I had feared, because the blood had made the arm slippery. But it hurt like hell coming off the wound itself. A splurge of blood oozed. But it was old blood, trapped under the tape. The wound seemed to have stopped bleeding.

  She did her best to clean it up, then went to her suitcase, which was at the end of the bed, and returned with a bottle of vodka.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She ignored my outstretched hand and instead of giving me the drink, she poured a measure neat on to my torn arm. It felt like a red hot poker had been dragged across the torn skin, and it took all my self-control not to scream like a baby. Hopefully any bacteria in the wound were screaming like babies too and shrivelling up.

  “You could have warned me.”

  “You should have figured it out. What else do we have as disinfectant? I can hardly ring reception and ask for a first aid kit. What will I tell them? A strange man is in my room and he’s been shot…? Use your noodle.”

  She was right, so I clenched my teeth and let her get on with it. She made me take off my shirt, which she tore into long strips. She soaked one in vodka and wrapped it around my arm. Then she tied two more strips around it to secure it, using the scissors to trim the ends of the knot. At the end of her ministrations, it was stinging but it didn’t hurt too much. About the same as if someone had hit it with a baseball bat two or three times. Nothing more. And I could take that.

  She sat back to survey her work — and my buff body, I hoped. I am not the best looking guy in the world, but years of training have at least given me the six pack and the broad shoulders.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “I was hoping you would let me stay here for the night. I have a friend due into the port tomorrow evening, and I will sneak onto his boat and he can smuggle me home. That was our plan B.”

  “Why wasn’t it your plan A?”

  Good question.

  “Because he couldn’t get here until tomorrow, and guys have been chasing me and shooting at me for a few days now. I thought that speed might be important. A rookie mistake. I should just have found a beautiful woman and hid in her hotel from the start.”

  She smiled at that, which was a beginning. “So you just catch the boat and go home? Adventure over.”

  I sighed. “The fall-out from tonight might be a problem.”

  Now the frost was back in her eyes as she looked at me. I had to go on. At this point, honesty (of a sort) was my only card.

  “The guy that shot at me ended up a little bit dead,” I said.

  No point in mentioning his friend and La Donna. If you want to score, you don’t want the lady to think of you as a psychopathic spree killer. One body, I could claim self-defence. Three smacked of carelessness.

  She shrugged. “Casualty of war,” she said. God bless her military background. “So there’ll be a murder investigation in the town when the body is discovered?”

  “The alarm will be raised a little before eight tomorrow and there will be a major kerfuffle, I imagine. And the main exits from the town will be monitored. That includes the port, where my friend is meant to pick me up.”

  “Shit. Do you have a plan?”

  “I do,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “I plan on making love to a beautiful woman, knocking back a full tumbler of that vodka and sleeping until noon.”

  She smiled.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I thought our first time would be frantic and energetic, a purely physical release. But I was wrong. It was slow and easy and agonisingly intense. I think it was because we were both too tired for the teenage lust phase of the relationship.

  Our lips came together, then our hands, then our bodies. I pushed her gently back on the bed, my hand slipping up inside her t-shirt until I was cupping one of her breasts. It was small, but the nipple was hard as a bullet. I began to knead it gently. But then she rolled me over onto my back and got on top.

  “Let me do the work,” she whispered, biting my ear gently. “You just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  I did as I was told. I went to pull off her t-shirt, but she slapped my hand away. She was straddling my body now, leaning down and letting her long hair tease my face. The feathery touch was exquisite. Her hands were running up and down my chest, then she slid down my body, letting her hair trail along my face, my neck, my chest. Her hands were on my belt now, loosening the buckle. I could have helped her, but I relaxed and let her do the work. She was in charge.

  Afterwards, I didn’t get the tumbler of vodka I wanted because almost instantly I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. I didn’t wake until nine the following morning. And I didn’t get up until ten. Our second time was as wonderful as the first, but this time I got to be on top.

  I came out of the shower at ten-fifteen with a t
owel wrapped around my waist. I was feeling good aside from the injured arm. The pain was severe, but I could live with it. It was a steady throbbing pain, and you can ignore those. Jelly was back in bed. While I had been in the bathroom, she had ordered a room service breakfast. There was toast, a grapefruit, a bowl of cornflakes and a pot of coffee. Only one cup, as she hadn’t wanted to let reception know she had a non-paying guest in her room. But that wasn’t a problem. I went back to the bathroom and returned with the toothbrush glass. I pulled back the covers and joined her in the bed.

  She took the grapefruit, I took the cornflakes. We shared the toast. She had a cup of coffee. I had a glass. It felt idyllic.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Phone my man and see what time he expects to arrive. Then make my plans,” I said.

  While she was in the shower, I put the call through to Bill.

  “Bad news,” I said. “You can’t put this trip down on expenses and get the days back.”

  “Milosz wasn’t alive? I half suspected it might be a set-up.”

  “Pity you didn’t share your suspicions with me,” I said icily. I gave him the rundown on the night’s events.

  “Chin up,” he said. “The cavalry are riding to the rescue.”

  “But how do the cavalry pick me up? Every cop in the city will be on alert, and a man with his arm bandaged up and no papers is going to arouse some suspicion.”

  “I can’t help you there,” he said. “I assumed I would dock at the marina, you’d come on board and we’d sail off into the wide blue yonder. That won’t be easy now, but we’ll slip you onto the boat somehow. Then Venice. Once you’re there, you are back in the passport free zone. Our ETA is five, so I’ll phone you then and we can improvise something.”

  When Jelly returned to the room, I told her a small boat was coming to the marina that evening to pick me up and take me to Venice. Once I was on board, my problems were over. At that point, I would begin the hunt for the warlord who had ordered the hit. The best defence is attack, and I was going to be his worst nightmare.

  Jelly surprised me with her reaction. “Maybe I can help. I’ll come to Venice with you.” Getting no response from me, she went on: “You didn’t think this was a one night stand? I’m not that sort of girl. I’m killing time until my brother gets to Europe. I would like to kill it with you. And Venice is on my bucket list.”

  “How…?” I began.

  “Unlike you, I have a passport. So I just go to the marina and join your friend’s boat. Having me there might make it easier to slip you on board.”

  There was no denying the sense in her words. We had the glimmering of a plan.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I spent the day in the hotel room. Jelly put a Do Not Disturb notice on the door, and I relaxed as best I could. She went out for a few hours, returning with chinos, a t-shirt and a white linen jacket for me. Perfect disguise. She also had a pair of leather loafers that I was to wear without socks. I would fit in perfectly with the rich tourists.

  More importantly, she had bought disinfectant and fresh bandages from a local pharmacy. It was a painful few minutes, but she cleaned up my arm again and re-bandaged it. Then I put on my new clothes. I felt great, fully relaxed for the first time since I had sat down to meditate in the hostel in Mostar post-assassination. I felt I had passed the crisis point. La Donna had betrayed me but she was dead. Bill was on his way. I merely had to evade the local police — how difficult could that be? — and begin plotting my strike-back.

  Jelly had her bag packed and was ready to check out. She was in skinny jeans and a white t-shirt just tight enough to reveal rather than conceal her body. I stood up and kissed her, feeling the old stirring. We had time. Round three — I was doing well and without the chemical aids La Donna had been forced to use to coax a performance out of me.

  Jelly responded to my kiss, and I could feel her breath quicken.

  Then my phone rang.

  “No one speaks English in this shithole, but Ben has us tied to the dock and some greasy local has said we’re good to disembark. The cavalry has arrived, baby!”

  We walked out openly, arm in arm. We looked like any other couple enjoying a break. I carried Jelly’s bag on my good arm. She offered to carry it herself, but I felt that would draw attention to us. We live in a liberated age, but if a big man lets a small woman carry her own bag it destroys the illusion of them being a couple.

  We took a taxi to the edge of the old town. We got out at a wide plaza where everyone seemed to stop. There is anonymity in numbers.

  People were strolling around enjoying the late afternoon sun, oblivious of the drama playing in the background. I could see a few policemen scanning the crowds, but that was the only sign that three people had been murdered the previous night. With luck, they would put it down to a relic of the war years and be looking for someone local. A gringo like me was unlikely to arouse suspicion.

  And it might not be as bad as I thought. La Donna’s body could have floated out to sea or be trapped in rocks at the base of the pier. Two bodies in the same location would make for a lesser investigation. Either way, I would have to go with the flow and take my chances when they arose. As I knew they would.

  When we got to the harbour, it was immediately obvious that things were bad. Very bad. There was an armed checkpoint at the harbour entrance. Beyond that I could see a heavy police presence, including two police vans, outside the print factory. Several rolls of yellow crime scene tape had been liberally unfurled around the building.

  We stopped well short of the harbour entrance and stepped into a small café. I picked a table near the rear and ordered two coffees. Jelly left the luggage and went down to the checkpoint to see what she could learn. She came back ten minutes later looking pale.

  “You didn’t tell me there were two.”

  I shrugged. “Technically, I only killed one. The other was killed by his colleague.”

  “And that makes a difference? You have to be honest with me if you want me to help you.”

  “Okay — there might be a third body they haven’t found yet. But that’s it.”

  “Shit. You didn’t tell me your second name was Rambo.”

  “Your coffee is going cold.”

  “Don’t try to distract me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. But you distract me all the time. You’re gorgeous.”

  She smiled at that, blatant though it was.

  And I moved swiftly on: “What do they know?”

  “They told me that two men were killed in a shoot-out over drugs. Two Italians. There was a trail of blood leading away but they lost it. They believe that the killers got away on a boat in the middle of the night. But they are taking no chances. They are checking everyone going into and out of the harbour.”

  There goes plan A, I thought. Walk down the marina and hop on board. I hadn’t really believed that would work, so I wasn’t too disappointed. But I reckoned plan B would be complicated and unpleasant. In the absence of any other idea, I got Bill on the phone. He agreed to come on shore and join us in the café.

  Then I went to the toilet. While I was in the cubicle, I wiped my gun free of fingerprints, lifted the lid of the cistern and lowered the gun into the water. I replaced the lid. With any luck, it would be months before the gun was found. I got back to the table as Bill and his son Ben were walking in. Ben, still a few months shy of seventeen, had grown hugely since I had seen him last and was now five centimetres taller than his father — but still thirty kilos lighter. He grinned when he saw me.

  “Hi, Uncle Eliot,” he called.

  I grinned too and we hugged. I wasn’t really his uncle, but he had called me that since he was knee-high to a small dog. An American thing, I believe. I shook hands with Bill. It was good to be among friends.

  “This is Jelly,” I explained, introducing them. “She’s ex-special forces and is helping me out here.”

  She raised an eyebrow at that but didn’t contra
dict me.

  Bill sat down, waved a waiter over and said: “Three beers and a Coke.” Then he turned to Jelly and me. “Anything for you folks?”

  It was good to see that he still couldn’t take things too seriously.

  Over the beers we discussed everything but the situation facing me. We talked about their boat trip, the sights in Dubrovnik, what we wanted to see in Venice. Finally, Ben stood up.

  “I know you’re in trouble, Uncle Eliot. So I’ll go for a walk and let you all talk it through. Give me a call, Dad, when you’re done.” He shook hands with me, smiled shyly at Jelly and left.

  “Lovely kid,” said Jelly.

  “The best,” Bill and I chorused.

  Then we got down to brass tacks.

  It was obvious that I wasn’t going to walk onto the marina and board a boat without arousing suspicions. I had thought I might slip into the water and swim to the yacht, but with the police presence in the harbour area that was not going to work either. I was looking at Jelly for inspiration when I remembered our first date. The Café Buza, where I had dived into the sea. There was a thought.

  I outlined my plan and Bill immediately objected.

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  “Of course you don’t. You can’t swim.”

  “Got me there. And you can? With an injured arm?”

  That was a good point. But I can cover a kilometre in open water with no difficulty. If they could bring the boat close to shore, I would only have to do a hundred metres and I could use side-stroke. I didn’t really see a difficulty. And no one else had a better plan. By default we agreed to go for it.

  “Just be careful of the sharks,” said Bill.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  When Ben rejoined us we had a good dinner, a sort of last supper if things went wrong. I enjoyed every bite of it. I don’t know why it is, but I find hunger is never affected by danger. And I would need to be fully fuelled up for the evening ahead. Bill and Ben also enjoyed the food, but I was not so sure about Jelly. She seemed tense. Bill and I were used to operational problems, and Ben didn’t really know what was going on. Jelly knew and wasn’t in the life. So I suppose it was natural she worried.