Candleburn (20 page)

40

Blake pushed the door of Dubrovnik’s wide as he entered.

Blue
neon lights from behind the bar flickered, illuminating the bottles and making the smoke shimmer, giving the place the down-at-heel air of a backstreet dive from an earlier age.

On
his usual barstool, Blake saw Ron Casabian leaning against the counter with a double whiskey talking to another man, whose face was obscured by the bar’s thick atmosphere.

This
was not unusual.

Ron
usually held court at Dubrovnik’s, surrounded by a gaggle of friends and reporters, listening to his stories of intrigue and conspiratorially connecting fragments from various regional sources.

Ron
called his regular drinking partners his “accomplices”.

They
certainly boozed. They clearly indulged in both the legally sanctioned end of the drugs market (‘local herbal tobacco’ was the traditional euphemism – or ‘special blend’). And on weekends, they visited the whoremongers.

Blake
pushed through the crowd of suits and rounded the bar.

“And
here he is – the boy with a broken halo,” Ron said with great enthusiasm, his arms held wide. “Come here, my boy – you must sample this new cocktail I’ve invented. I call it ‘Grounds for Divorce’.”

“You
want to talk any louder?” Blake smiled. “Maybe there’s a Ceebie in the corner who didn’t realise I’d entered.”

“Gah!”
Ron threw his hands up theatrically, “I have a professional understanding with them that this bar is off limits. What happens here stays here. At the end of the week I agree with their ears exactly what they have heard and can report to their superiors. It’s all very civilized.”

Blake
leaned in close.

“And
how do you know they stick to your agreement?” he whispered.

“Two reasons,” Ron spoke softly into Blake’s ear. “First, the local spook is the bartender and I have photos of him committing illegal acts with two Lebanese transvestites.”

Ron
grinned profusely to show how much he’d enjoyed that particular evening’s work.

“And
second,” he continued, “he knows I have another contact in his office deliver me every report he submits to his bosses. I get them at my desk on Monday morning at 11 am.”

Ron
then leaned back and burst into raucous laughter.

Blake
always enjoyed Ron’s company.

Ron
was short, had the frame of a powerful wrestler gone to seed, and at fifty still had sable black hair with a full beard. There was not a single grey in sight.

How
Blake envied him that.

Around
Ron, there was always boisterous merriment. In Blake’s mind, Ron was Santa Claus’s younger, more libidinous brother.

And
Alice’s face always flickered with disgust when his name was mentioned. At times in the last eighteen months, all those things had been huge pluses.

“John,”
Ron called to the bartender. “Get my friend here a beer – he’s looking thirsty. And stick it on Asp’s tab. For him it’s a business expense.”

Blake
saw Ron’s drinking partner for the first time.

Nate
Aspinal.

“The
two of you have met before, I’m guessing,” Ron said.

“Once,”
Asp replied, shaking Blake’s hand. “A year ago at a mutual acquaintance’s Dubai leaving drinks.”

“It
was the dullest dinner party ever,” Blake added. “Thirty-two guests, almost all of them British embassy consular staff. Career civil servants.”

“The
two of us ended up sneaking out and hiding in the pool house with a bottle of tequila until sunrise,” Asp laughed. “I meant to get in touch…”

“But
in your line of work, hanging out with a journalist probably isn’t the smartest move in the world,” Blake replied. “I understand.”

“Well,”
Asp said, “I hear reporter isn’t your only line of work.”

Blake
shot Ron a look that could kill.

“Relax,
relax,” Ron said, patting a hand on Blake’s back. “I get the impression you two have been working on the same story from opposite ends and a little clarity will help smooth this bargain.”

Blake
took a step back. Legs and hands instinctively ready to fight.

“Blake,
relax!” Ron said. “Seriously. I’ve known this man ten years. I vouch for him.”

“With
the greatest of respect, Ron…”

“Listen,”
Ron said. “You’re already being taken care of. I’ve sent a clean-up crew to your home address to sort out the borscht you left spattered all over the walls. There’s a second on its way to interfere with that mess you left in the marina. And finally, since you’ve been a busy boy: I’ve had to stretch myself to the limit to get a third to distract the police who are crawling all over the back nine of a golf course in the Springs district.”

Blake
was astounded by the speed of Ron’s knowledge.

“How
do you know about all that already?” Blake asked.

“That’s
my job, Blake,” Ron said. “It’s what I do. And right now, I’m telling you that all three of us need to put all cards – all cards, mind – on the table otherwise this muddle we’re embroiled in is going to turn very quickly on us.”

Blake
considered his options. Ron talked loosely, he knew that. Yet he couldn’t believe how candidly the American was bandying about such dangerous information.

“You
think I was thrilled about this?” Asp hissed. “I’ve had two dead colleagues in a week. Tonight, I probably lost a third. He was protecting my wife and kids so now I have to presume these bastards have them too.”

“And
what do you plan to do to these people when you catch up with them?” Blake asked.

“To
quote Ron: ‘make more borscht’,” Asp replied coldly.

Blake
dropped his eyes.

“Well,
my friend: decision time,” Ron said. “It’s either come with us to a corner booth I’ve marked out so that we can hash this through… or you walk out and you’re on your own. I call off the clean-up and interference teams – I tell them to stop what they’re doing and tell them to return any bodies they’ve secured to their original locations. What do you say?”

Blake
scanned the bar once more to check the faces of those around them. Middle aged suits dancing and drinking and smoking, not a care in the world.

“Let’s
do this,” Blake said.

Ron
let out a triumphant laugh and whacked his hands on the bar top.

“Excellent
news!” he yelled. “Borscht for everyone.”

41

“Let me get this straight – you have the box, you’ve opened it and it contains three cigarette butts that belonged to Prince Harry?” Ron asked.

He
face was furrowed with incredulity.

“That’s
all she wrote,” Blake replied.

“But
it makes no sense,” Ron said. “The only possibility is that you’d want them for the purposes of extortion. We all know the conspiracy theory that’s been doing the rounds for years – so you’d take your cigarette butts and you’d get them to a DNA lab in the hope that they reveal Harry is the son of someone other than Prince Charles.”

“There’s
just one flaw in the plan,” Blake said.

“It’s
absolutely nuts,” he and Ron said in unison.

Asp
scratched at his beard, irritated.

“You yourself, Ron, said stories have consequences, even if they’re untrue,” Asp asserted.

“True, true,” Ron replied. “But the kid is so obviously Charles’s son that it’s just ridiculous. The idea is absolute nonsense!”

“None
of this gets my wife and children back,” Asp said. “What do we do about that?”

“In
order to help get them back safely,” Ron replied gently, “given the proven proclivities of these people towards torture and random killing, we need to understand what’s at stake. Otherwise, if you play this flat – simply hand over the goods and trust they’ll do the right thing – we may end up being double crossed. Understanding them allows us to plan. Right now we don’t even know exactly who or where these people are. Have you received a ransom?”

Asp
yanked his phone from his pocket and checked it again. He’d been surreptitiously willing it to ring or beep with a message since the incident at his house.

Nothing.

“Only to hand over what they want,” Asp said. “No drop or meeting details.”

He
tossed the mobile on the table and stared away into the room in disgust.

“There’s
a further stupidity to this,” Blake offered. “Let’s say – million to one outside shot – that Harry isn’t Charles’ son. What does that get you? He’s what, fifth in line to the throne?”

“Fourth,”
Asp corrected.

“Exactly,”
Blake said. “So, in the ludicrous realm where he’s not Charles’ son, you take some lab report and blackmail the Royal Family. How much would they – could they – actually pay?”

Ron
harrumphed.

“You’d
be lucky to get two or three million dollars from them,” he said. “Start asking for any more and things get nasty really fast. They may be rich but they’re not that rich. They’d talk to aides or the Prime Minister or employ specialists and pretty soon, the blackmailer would have the British state crawling all over them.”

“And
there’s no terrorist in the world,” Blake added, “not even a crazy one, who wants the SAS or SBS and combined British security services scouring the earth for them.”

“And
for a payoff of just a couple of million lousy bucks,” Ron agreed. “And that’s if they pay and it comes with the risk of a 7.62mm bullet to the back of a head in a dingy alley somewhere. So why would anyone do something so ridiculous?”

Asp
sat bolt upright. He reached forward and began searching the Internet frantically on his phone.

“It’s
not as preposterous as it seems,” he said, fingers swiping and clicking. “There. The Human Tissue Act of 2004. It’s a British law that got passed in a hurry and creates a new crime in Britain called ‘DNA Theft’. Essentially, it makes DNA testing of British people without their consent illegal, except by law enforcement.”

“So
what?” Ron said. “Plenty of countries now have laws against that sort of thing.”

“Here,”
Asp replied, showing him another online article. “I remember it because we were asked by a father to test the paternity of his child a couple of years ago. The problem was that both the father and the son were British.”

“I
don’t see the connection,” Ron said slowly.

“The
law is extraterritorial,” Asp said. “It’s a crime for any British person anywhere in the world to have their DNA tested against their consent – except by the authorities. I remembered thinking at the time that it’s very rare for the UK to pass laws that apply to their citizens wherever they are in the world, so I dug into it. Nominally, Britain got the law because of some organ scandal involving kids – that’s what the bulk of it is about – but the paternity testing part has little to do with that.”

“You’re
going to tell me it has to do with Prince Harry?” Ron asked.

“I
spoke to some journalists about it after doing the research,” Asp said. “One of them told me the ‘DNA theft’ part of the law was inserted because two guys from a tabloid had tried to steal glasses drunk from by Prince Harry at a club in London.”

“That’s
thin,” Ron shrugged his shoulders. “And you still get no money and run the risk of getting shot for trying. Plus, all you’ve got to do is look at Harry’s grandfather – the boy’s the spitting image of his family forebears.”

“I
agree,” Blake said. “But ludicrous though the idea is, let’s assume for a moment that Harry isn’t Charles’ son – just assume it, because if it’s what the terrorists believe, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not: it’s what they’re basing their actions on. Where do we stand now? How does that help us?”

Everyone
slumped back in their seats. Blake grabbed a cigarette of his own and borrowed Ron’s matches. He blew a smoke ring at the ceiling as they sat in silence.

“There’s
got be something deeper at play,” Blake said.

“I
could try and talk to British Intel,” Ron grumbled, shaking his head. “But both they and Dubai have been giving us the silent treatment of late. Ever since Connors took office in January, we’ve strained just about every diplomatic relationship we have. It’s that fuckchump Bush all over again.”

“I
hate to bring it back to this – what about my kids?” Asp asked. “Dubai’s police and its Ceebies have no experience with kidnapping or hostage rescue. I want everyone back in one piece. Ron can’t you put in a word for me? Rustle up some Navy Seals or Deltas or something? You must have some markers you can call in.”

Ron
picked up his tobacco tin. He lifted the lid with a twist of his thumb and began teasing what looked like lichens and moss into his pipe.

“My
resources are stretched keeping Blake here out of the eyes of the authorities,” he said. “I’ll work to get some special forces available but I don’t know what the time frame on that will be – or whether it’s even possible; you are, after all, not even an American citizen. Blake is.”

“Would
it help to remind them of the number of times I’ve done dirty little jobs for you?” Asp hissed.

“It
may,” Ron said, enunciating his words carefully. “In the meantime, I think there is a clear plus in your favour – my newly returned to the fold colleague here.”

He
gestured towards Blake.

“Your
stories are clearly intertwined,” Ron continued. “Blake is absolutely right, this has to be bigger than it appears. Therefore, can we agree, Blake, that with my boys out there running interference for you, that you therefore owe it to Nate to work with him to secure the recovery of his family?”

“You
didn’t even need to ask,” Blake replied. “I’m not letting those cigarette butts out of my sight until I know what’s going on. Asp and I are joined at the hip until we can get his wife and kids back.”

“Are
you willing to hand the box and contents over to the terrorists, if that’s the what it takes?” Ron said.

“I
am,” Blake said. “But only if I’m certain they’re alive and well. These bastards aren’t getting anything unless they play fair. Are you alright with that Asp?”

“Me?”
Asp said. “Primarily, I want my family back. After that, anything else is up to you.”

“So,
what’s your first move?” Ron asked.

“I
have the floor mat from the Russian’s car,” Blake said. “There were three kinds of sand on it. I know the head of the forensics department at Zayed University. We could get access to that and narrow down where they’re holding the hostages.”

“No.
That tells you were the Russians have been,” Ron disagreed. “While there’s a link between the Russians and the terrorists, there’s no guarantee they’ve been to the same location.”

“Then
we’re left with waiting for a ransom meet up that may or may not come,” Asp said.

“There’s
another option,” Blake replied. “We return to Asp’s house and search for additional clues.”

Asp
tried to pick up his gin. His hand was shaking. The liquid sloshed over the side and dribbled onto the table.

“Christ,”
Asp said, returning the glass to its coaster. “It’s slipping away from us and we still haven’t a clue what’s actually going on.”