Princess: A Private Novel Read online

  The American scowled as he looked at the captive on the back seat behind him. In truth, he still had no concrete plan of how he would use Herbert to get to Flex.

  Though it pained him to do so, Morgan knew he must take his foot off the gas, and allow thought to take over from action. He realized that the best place for him to do that would be in Private London’s headquarters, where he could draw on the minds of his agents.

  As if his thoughts were being read, he saw a familiar name flash up on his phone’s caller ID. He took it on the second ring, his eyes in the car’s mirrors as he pulled out of the Wandsworth estate and headed toward London’s city center.

  “Peter. I’m coming back to HQ. I’ll meet you there in ten.”

  “No,” Flex’s voice answered him. “You won’t.”

  Chapter 97

  “DON’T DO IT,” a strange voice had said from outside of Peter Knight’s car, seeing his finger moving to redial. “I’ll put one in your head before your call goes through.”

  Slowly, Knight had turned his head. He had not been surprised by what he’d seen, and had found himself looking into the barrel of a pistol. It was held by an ugly man in a dark hoody.

  “You fuckin’ amateur,” the man had sneered. “Maybe you want to turn down the brightness of your phone next time you call in a sighting. Get out the car.”

  Knight had obliged, furious with himself. The man was right—Knight had acted like an amateur. Thoughts of his children had clouded his mind, and on seeing Flex he had acted quickly, without thinking. Now that impulse would probably mean he would never see Luke or Isabel again.

  “Flex is the only one who’s killed someone. You can get out of this if you turn him in.”

  The ugly man had half smiled, as if he’d felt sorry for the Private agent in front of him. “You really should have stayed in the amateur leagues.”

  Knight had heard a sound behind him. Then had come darkness.

  He regained consciousness in the back of a van. His head covered, he had no concept of where he was or for how long he’d been unconscious. All he knew for certain was that he’d been abducted, and that he was in serious trouble.

  The van stopped, and he felt the suspension move as a significant weight departed, opened the door and climbed into the rear. A second later, what must have been a meaty hand swiped Knight’s hooded head, sending it bouncing off the wooden floorboard.

  “Are you awake?” Flex asked.

  Knight said nothing. Flex hit him again. Already bruised from the hit he had taken in Mayoor Patel’s home, Knight gritted his teeth against the pain.

  “I said, are you awake?”

  “I’m awake,” Knight replied, tasting blood on his teeth. The hessian sacking of his hood smelled rank and musty as it pressed against his face.

  “Morgan’s on the phone,” Flex told him. “Say hello.”

  “Morgan?” Knight asked, raising his voice so that it would carry, “I—”

  Flex finished the conversation for him, savagely punching Knight so that the man’s groans carried all the message needed. Then Flex stepped from the van’s rear doors and shut Knight alone in the confines of his misery.

  Chapter 98

  “STILL THERE, JACK?” Flex said, climbing back into the passenger seat and motioning for Rider to drive.

  “I’m here,” Morgan growled down the phone. “Now what is it you want, Flex? You haven’t killed him. There must be a reason. How much do you want?”

  “This isn’t about money, Jack. You should know that by now.”

  “I’ll give you twenty million dollars.”

  Flex laughed, but beside him Rider frowned, tuning into the conversation. Flex tried to silence the man’s piqued interest with a hard look, but it didn’t work.

  “This isn’t about money,” Flex said again, as much for Rider’s benefit as for Morgan’s. “The reason he’s still alive is that I want to kill him slowly. And I want you to know all about it, Jack. I want you to see it. I want you to hear it. I want you to feel it. I don’t like my chances of getting you alive, but he’s close enough for what I’ve got planned. You I can deal with later.”

  “Why wait?” Morgan asked. “Deliver Knight unhurt, and you can have me. You can have your fun with me.”

  “I wasn’t born yesterday, you dickhead.”

  There was a moment of silence on the line. Flex felt Rider’s scowl—the man clearly unhappy that £20 million had been so quickly dismissed.

  “Talk to him about the money,” the ugly man urged, only shutting up when Flex strained against his seat belt like an angry pit bull.

  “Well, if we’ve got nothing more to talk about, Jack—”

  “How do you like loose ends, Flex? Because I’ve got one of yours in the car with me, and he’s about to get dropped at Private HQ.”

  “Bollocks,” Flex snorted.

  “His name’s Chris Herbert,” Morgan announced, giving away the details of how, and where, he had taken the man. Flex’s face grew more angry with each piece of information. “He’s ready to roll on you. You may kill Knight, you may kill me, but this is solid evidence against you, Flex. You’ll be on the run for the rest of your life.”

  It took every measure of Flex’s self-control not to dash the phone to pieces. He had never expected to stay in the UK after enacting his revenge, but there was a big difference between being a suspect who quietly slipped off the radar leaving only theories and no evidence, and one of the culprits testifying to his guilt.

  “Fuck!” he finally shouted, losing the battle with his rage and the synthetic testosterone that coursed through his body. “I’ll give you your man back once you put a bullet in that useless bastard’s brain!”

  “Do your own dirty work,” Morgan replied, the sounds of a panic-stricken Herbert coming from behind him as he strained against the tape on his mouth. “Herbert for Knight.”

  “Done,” Flex spat. “Be in central London. The meet will be at zero five thirty.”

  He didn’t need to tell Morgan that he’d hold back the location of that meeting place until the last minute.

  “Make it public,” Morgan told him. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 99

  JACK MORGAN SPENT the wait in an industrial area of Battersea, placing him close to central London’s many bridges, the Ford Focus pulled to the curb alongside steel fencing and litter.

  “Flex wants me to put a bullet in your head and dump you.” Morgan eyed the trash on the roadside.

  Herbert tried to speak through the tape. His eyes had calmed, and they pleaded with Morgan to let him talk.

  “Don’t speak,” Morgan told him. “Just listen.”

  The man ceased his movement and stifled words.

  “You realize there’s a chance Flex just puts a bullet in us both the moment we arrive?”

  Herbert nodded.

  “I have an idea, but you have to play your part.”

  The man raised his eyebrows.

  “You’ll find out when we get there. Just do as I say. Flex is who I want, understand?”

  The man nodded. He understood. Just as Morgan had felt no great personal animosity toward Joyce for helping to conspire to kill him, neither did he feel it toward Herbert. Jack Morgan lived in a world where people tried to kill him on a regular basis—it was an occupational hazard. It was when they involved the people he cared about that he began to see things personally. Herbert had not been there when Flex had pulled the trigger and killed Jane Cook. If he had, he’d be dead already. The man couldn’t know it, but being shot by Lewis had likely saved his life.

  Morgan sighed, and looked along the empty street that was bathed beneath orange street lights. He thought about Peter Knight. How his friend was a captive of a man who had shown himself to be a murderer. How the father might soon make orphans of his children. How a professional investigative agent had allowed himself to be caught so easily by the people he was there to track.

  With guilt, Morgan realized that he was angry wit
h Knight. He tried to push the feeling away, but the sense that Knight had come between Morgan and justice for Cook would not shift. Hadn’t Morgan told him to send other agents to watch Flex’s office? Hadn’t he trained Knight, taught him, and trusted him? Now, when he needed him most, and when he was finally getting ahead through the capture of Herbert, Knight had flipped the field back in Flex’s favor. He was putting them all in Flex’s hands, and giving the man a chance to play his endgame. Morgan had only a wild card left to play, and if that failed, he was at best back to the beginning in his search for Flex. At worst, he was on his back with a bullet in his head.

  The next hour passed in waves for Morgan. One minute there was anger at Knight, the next guilt that he could ever think that way. Then came sadness, then came grief, then came rage that Flex was at large. That rage led to the obstacle that now stood in the way of justice—Knight—and so began the cycle once more.

  To break it, Morgan attempted to distract himself through meticulous checking of his two pistols. He broke them down one at a time—one always with a bullet in the chamber, and close at hand, should he need to use it—and inspected and cleaned every part of them to ensure there would be no malfunction when he needed them most. Morgan’s ammunition count stood at eight 9mm rounds for the semi-automatic pistol, and six .357 rounds for the revolver. Not enough for a protracted gunfight, but maybe enough to put Flex and Rider down if he drew first.

  And was he willing to do that?

  Rubbing the heel of his hand into tired, blood-red eyes, Morgan could not be sure. He hated Flex, and wanted the man removed from society, and the world, but Jack Morgan had always pictured himself as a defender—a man who took life in order to save others. Could he really draw his pistol first, and shoot Flex and Rider down in cold blood? For the sake of justice for Jane, he wanted that answer to be yes.

  But deep down, beneath the anger and the pain, he admitted to himself that he just did not know.

  Morgan finished assembling and reloading the pistol in his hands, cocked back the hammer, and pointed it at Herbert’s startled face.

  Pull the trigger, he told himself. Pull the trigger. Find another way to get Flex. Find another way to rescue Knight. Knight put himself in this position. Why should Jane’s killers go unpunished, for his mistake? Pull the trigger! Morgan’s anger screamed at him. Pull the trigger, kill this son of a bitch, and then kill the others. Do it! Kill him! Now!

  Morgan lowered the pistol, and turned to the front. Behind him, having seen the murderous intent in the American’s eyes, and believing his life to have run its course, Herbert began to whimper.

  Before Morgan could tell him to shut up, his phone vibrated.

  Chapter 100

  THE FIRST LOCATION sent to Morgan was a waypoint. Morgan expected that Flex would hold the final destination until the last moment, but the muscle-bound murderer needn’t have worried—Morgan had no intention of alerting anyone who could stand between himself and Flex. His mind was as set as a Marine charging an enemy machine-gun nest, focused on nothing but the result of his actions—his own safety an afterthought unworthy of consideration.

  Flex’s first direction sent Morgan to Brixton. The second, to Waterloo. Morgan was then instructed to proceed to Lewisham, until Flex called back with the location of the true meeting place: London Bridge.

  At first the site of the meeting point surprised Morgan. It was public. It had limited access. Perhaps Flex really did intend to honor the swap? Or perhaps, like Morgan, he was ready to die to get what he wanted, and the bridge was the best bottleneck to make sure that happened.

  “We’re going to go in on foot,” Morgan told Herbert, remembering the barriers that had been put in place to stop terrorists from driving vehicles into pedestrians, and knowing that any stopped car on the structure would draw instant scrutiny from the security services.

  “You realize your best chance to live is by doing what I say?” he asked the man again.

  Herbert nodded, and Morgan ripped away the tape that had covered the man’s lips. Herbert grimaced as pieces of skin tore away with it. The tape on the man’s hands would stay, covered by a coat, the hood pulled up over the man’s head and zipped in place to act as an impromptu straightjacket.

  “I’ve counted my rounds. You mess this up, I’m holding one back for you.”

  “I won’t,” Herbert promised. “All that crap that mental bastard told me about unit loyalty and honor, and then he goes and tells you to stick a bullet in me? Give me a gun and I’ll shoot him myself.”

  Morgan smiled at the idea. “Out the car.”

  They left the Focus in a disabled parking bay next to London Bridge station. Morgan had no intention of coming back to it, and had pushed the revolver into the front of his trousers, the semi-auto in the back. Herbert had said that Flex expected Morgan was behind the Knightsbridge shooting, and so it was safe to assume he knew Morgan would be packing heat as a result. What Morgan couldn’t guess was whether or not Flex would ask him to expose those firearms on the bridge, and to draw the inevitable attention that would bring.

  “He won’t give you your mate.” Herbert shook his head. “He’s a nutter, and all he’s talked about for months is killing you.”

  Morgan ignored him, instead taking in his environment. The area was quiet, but slowly breathing its way to life—early birds in suits made their way toward the station. A street sweeper cleared plastic glasses and cigarette ends from outside a pub. Looming above all this was a thousand-foot-high sentinel, the Shard, looking like it had been plucked straight from one of Tolkien’s fantasy worlds then clad in glass.

  Morgan looked at his watch—5:28. They would hit the bridge’s center at exactly the time of Flex’s request. The bridge itself was a flat expanse, the pedestrian pavement on each side as wide as its two traffic lanes. Across it came a dribble of cars and lonely pedestrians, people ensconced in their own worlds, with no idea that life and death was about to pass them by within meters.

  “Keep on my left side,” Morgan told Herbert, wanting to keep the firing line of his right hand free. “You see any of Flex’s people?”

  “It will only be Rider with him. It was only me and him that Flex brought in.”

  Morgan kept looking over the people ahead of him nonetheless. He wasn’t about to make assumptions based on the word of a man who had tried to kill him.

  “Where the hell is he?” Morgan growled as they reached the center of the bridge’s long span.

  There were no stopped vehicles. No sign of Flex’s bulky form, or Rider’s rangy figure.

  “Where the hell are they?”

  “Traffic?” Herbert suggested.

  Morgan shook his head. At this time of the day the roads were almost bare.

  Too late, he saw the trap that had been set.

  “Shit!” hissed Herbert as he saw the same. “We’ve got to run!”

  But Morgan did nothing.

  He simply watched as the police car came slowly across the bridge, and indicated that it was about to pull up alongside them.

  Morgan had been set up.

  Chapter 101

  “WE NEED TO leg it, now,” Herbert urged. “If they catch you with those guns you’re done!”

  Morgan knew it, and yet he remained where he was, his eyes tracking the police car that was gliding along the curbside, now only ten meters away.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” he told the man beside him.

  “What are you going to do? Kill me, then the coppers?”

  Could he? Morgan asked himself. Could he shoot police officers acting in the line of duty, so that he could bring his own brand of justice to Flex? Could he bring that same heartbreak that he now felt to the families and loved ones of these officers?

  No, Morgan knew. Not a chance in hell.

  And so his options were to run, or stand—he chose to stand, and Herbert hissed that he was an idiot.

  Morgan said nothing. Maybe he’d be proved wrong, but he was listening to his gut, and hi
s instinct told him that Flex would not be happy with Morgan simply being arrested and imprisoned. Flex wanted Morgan’s blood as badly as Morgan wanted his.

  No, Morgan told himself, growing more certain. Flex wouldn’t send the police, and though Morgan believed in coincidence, he did not believe that a squad car would happen to pull up on him the moment he walked onto London Bridge, and single him out, when dozens of other pedestrians were walking across the length of the bridge.

  There was something more going on here, and as the car drew close enough for the early morning light to illuminate the occupants, Morgan saw that his gut had been right.

  Flex.

  There was no mistaking the bulk that sat in the car’s passenger side, and who now emerged onto the roadside, clad head to foot in police gear, his equipment accurate down to the shoelaces. Behind him the rear door opened, and Rider stepped forth, equally tailored. So dressed, neither the men nor their car would draw unwanted attention—security was a part of London life, and nowhere more so than at its iconic locations.

  Flex had taken the precaution of turning off the car’s interior lights so that they did not come on with the open doors, and Morgan could only just make out the shape of the figure in the car’s recesses. Behind the wheel sat the face of another “police officer,” and Morgan chanced a glance to Herbert, who gave a quick shake of his head—he didn’t know him.

  “You keep your mouth shut, you fucking rat,” Flex snarled at Herbert. “Did the regiment teach you nothing?”

  “Taught me that you’ll blow the bridge to save yourself,” Herbert replied.

  “Shut up,” Morgan told him, as calmly as he could in the presence of Jane’s killer. Then to Flex, “Take Knight out of the car, and Herbert’s yours.”

  “Change of plan on that one.” Flex shrugged his massive shoulders. “Knight can go, but you’re coming with me.”

  Morgan held his tongue. He’d expected the gambit, and now ignored it, instead taking in his options, and his chances. Flex and Rider were both armed, pistols holstered on their hips. As seasoned pros, neither man was impinging on what would be the other’s aim—Rider stood aside and staggered from Flex. Morgan was a quick draw, but he couldn’t expect to take down both men before he was hit himself. Was he willing to die to kill Flex? Was he willing to give Knight’s life, too?