Dead or Alive: A heart-pounding assassination thriller with a shocking twist (Eliot Locke Thrillers Book 1)
Page 18
Dugalic ordered a foie gras starter, followed by lobster thermidor. The blonde went for a mixed herb salad and a demi portion of vegetarian lasagne. They drank the best champagne with the meal, whether it suited the courses or not. That was not the point: the price tag was.
Before the main course arrived, two women were let into the restaurant by one of the men running security. They were both tall, slim and elegant, like ballerinas, but with racks no respectable dancer ever sported. Dugalic looked at their nipples through the thin material of their dresses and thought he could hang his jacket on them. The two girls went onto the small stage, which normally housed a discrete string quartet during special occasions. Some music came over the speakers and the two girls began to dance. Soon Dugalic didn’t have to speculate about the nipples because they were on view to everyone in the room. Some of the male diners were clearly pleased with the way their evening was going; their women folk seemed less happy.
Dugalic was ecstatic. One or both of the dancers would join him in a back room after his meal, if he wasn’t too drowsy from the food. And there was blondie, who was his for the night. He was delighted that he had decided to take in some culture and swung by the Sarajevo Jazz Festival. He was delighted his wife had not joined him.
The meal was a great success. There was a happy buzz of conversation from the tables around him. People knew they were in the presence of someone, even if they did not know who, and many smiled his way. He felt like the King of Bosnia, a worthy successor of Stephen Tomašević, the last king. He had been beheaded in 1463, leaving the vacancy. Blondie was the perfect consort and a wonderful conversationalist: she kept her mouth shut and listened raptly to all his stories, laughing often and at the right places.
No one noticed one of the diners, sitting alone and reading a book, occasionally stealing a glance at the two exotic dancers. He was dressed in a dark suit and had the sort of nondescript face that was easy to lose in a crowd.
After the meal, Dugalic called for the dessert trolley and for more champagne. The two dancers continued to gyrate to the music. No one noticed the nondescript man slip into the toilet and no one saw him open a briefcase. There were no witnesses as he keyed instructions into a remote control console, and there was no one there to see him remove a normal wireless telephone handset from the case. When he emerged from the toilet, no one noticed that he was wearing a thin black tie and looked just like a waiter.
Two minutes later, the man walked up to Dugalic with the phone in his hand and said: “Gospodine, telefonski poziv za vas.”
He had a non-Slav accent, but Dugalic took the phone from him and held it to his ear.
Just as he did, there was a loud bang outside the front door of the restaurant and the door shook as a bullet struck it. A second thudded into the wood. Immediately, the three bodyguards pulled their guns and opened fire, as everyone dived for cover.
No one noticed the waiter as he walked quietly but quickly towards the kitchen and from there out the back into an alley. He wasn’t worried about the shots, because he knew that they came from a remote controlled drone and that they were low-power rounds that would do nothing but spread panic. They would not draw blood. No collateral damage. He knew this, because he was the man in control of the drone.
He spoke into his own cell phone. “Amel Dugalic?” he said.
“You caught me at a bad time,” snapped Dugalic. “Some pricks are shooting at me.”
“I know,” said the man, who was now walking briskly away from the restaurant. “I am the one doing the shooting.”
Dugalic’s eyes bulged. “You fucking prick. We’ll kill you. And after that, we’ll fuck you over so badly you’ll wish you were dead.”
Ignoring the logical implausibility of that statement, the voice on the phone went on: “Did you recognise the waiter?”
“What waiter?” screamed Dugalic.
“The waiter that handed you the phone you are talking on right now.”
“Of course not, you fuck. I don’t have time for this. Someone’s shooting at me.”
“That’s me, as I explained. I thought you would recognise me. You put a hit on me a few months ago. You hired a whole team to try to kill me.”
The penny dropped. Finally.
“Eliot Locke?”
“The same. Two women who meant something to me died because of that contract you put on me. I asked them one question and I’ll ask you that question now. Why?”
“Locke — fuck you.”
Eliot grinned. He hadn’t really expected an answer. He pressed a small button on the remote in his pocket and a radio signal travelled outwards at 300,000 kilometres a second. It was picked up in less than a nanosecond by a small receiver in the handset of the phone that Dugalic held in his hand. The receiver sent a signal to a detonator, which did what detonators do.
It was a small explosive charge, but it was in the earpiece and plenty powerful enough to blow most of Dugalic’s head off his shoulders, spraying the wall, the ceiling and nearby diners with blood, brain and bone fragments.
The blonde froze, her pale complexion freckled by the mist of blood. Then a small glob of greyish brain matter slid off her cheek and fell to the crisp white linen table cloth and she screamed.
Eliot barely heard the explosion, muffled by the intervening distance, and he smiled.
It was time to go home.
***
Want to carry on the adventure? Read THE CAMINO KILLER — Book Two in the Elliot Locke thriller series.
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A NOTE TO THE READER
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking the time to read the first Eliot Locke thriller. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I grew up reading thrillers from the golden age, when writers such as Eric Ambler, Hammond Innes, Lional Davidson, and Alistair MacLean brought us quirky characters in exotic settings. A book was not just a puzzle to figure out, but a journey of the imagination. I also loved the assassin with a conscience David Callen, created by James Mitchell and immortalised on television by Edward Woodward in the late sixties/early seventies. All those influences went into Elliot Locke.
As western culture spreads the world is becoming more homogenized, but there are still wonderfully different countries and regions to explore. It adds a frisson of excitement to my travels when I use the experience to scope out new territories for Eliot’s adventures. I was careful to make Eliot a man who enjoys his food, as this is one of the great pleasures of travel. When I see a menu I am drawn to the items I have never tried, and this has led to some terrible meals. But it has always been interesting.
I walked the Camino with a friend, and that forms the backdrop to the second Eliot Locke book. I met my partner in Moscow, so of course Eliot had to visit that city in the third instalment. You get the idea. I can’t wait to visit South America, and South East Asia, to see what trouble I can put my character in. I also intend to seek out adventure and explore travel writing.
One of my first jobs was as a crime reporter, and I learned that the bad guys are complex people with as much good in them as you and I, though often well hidden. I hope you will find my villains as interesting as my hero.
Nowadays, reviews by readers are essential to an author’s success, so if you enjoyed the story the best way you can thank me is to take the few seconds required to post a review or rating on Amazon and Goodreads. I love hearing from readers, and you can connect with me through my Facebook page, via Twitter, or through my website.
Before I sign off, a few quick thank yous. Thank you to my editor Ronan O’Leary, a very talented filmmaker who is even more obsessive on grammar than I am. Thanks to my agent Isabel Atherton of Creative Writers, and to Amy Durant and all the staff at Sapere Books. Finally, but most importantly, thanks to Fr Hugh O’Dowd, an inspirational English teacher who turned a nerdish wo
uld-be physicist into a reader and writer. I will be forever grateful.
I hope we’ll meet again in the pages of the next Eliot Locke adventure.
Dean Carson
www.deancarson.com
ALSO BY DEAN CARSON
THE CAMINO KILLER
Published by Sapere Books.
20 Windermere Drive, Leeds, England, LS17 7UZ,
United Kingdom
saperebooks.com
Copyright © Dean Carson, 2020
Dean Carson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781800551121