Private Games Read online

  The bomb went off without warning.

  I can’t recall the sound of the blast that destroyed the driver, the truck and the two other passengers. But I can still smell the explosive and the burning fuel. And I can still feel the aftershock of the invisible fist that struck me full force, hurling me through the windscreen, and setting off an electrical storm of epic proportions inside my skull.

  Dusk had blanketed the land by the time I regained consciousness, ears ringing, disorientated, nauseated and thinking at first that I was ten years old and had just been stoned unconscious. But then the tilting and whirling in my mind slowed enough for me to make out the charred skeleton of the Land Cruiser and the corpses of my companions, burned beyond recognition. Beside me lay a sub-machine gun and an automatic pistol, a Sterling and a Beretta that had been thrown from the truck.

  It was dark by the time I could stand, pick up the weapons and walk.

  I staggered, falling frequently, for several miles across fields and through forests before I came to a village somewhere south-west of Srebrenica. Walking in, carrying the guns, I heard something above and beyond the ringing in my ears. Men were shouting somewhere in the darkness ahead of me.

  Those angry voices drew me, and as I went towards them I felt my old friend hatred building in my head, irrational, urging me to slay somebody.

  Anybody.

  Chapter 12

  THE MEN WERE Bosnians. There were seven of them armed with old single-barrel shotguns and corroded rifles that they were using to goad three handcuffed teenaged girls ahead of them as if they were driving livestock to a pen.

  One of them saw me, shouted, and they turned their feeble weapons my way. For reasons I could not explain to myself until much later I did not open fire and kill them all right there, the men and the girls.

  Instead, I told them the truth: that I was part of the NATO mission and that I’d been in an explosion and needed to call back to my base. That seemed to calm them somewhat and they lowered their guns and let me keep mine.

  One of them spoke broken English and said I could call from the village’s police station, where they were heading.

  I asked what the girls were under arrest for, and the one who spoke English said, ‘They are war criminals. They belong to Serbian kill squad, working for that devil Mladic. People call them the Furies. These girls kill Bosnian boys. Many boys. Each of them does this. Ask oldest one. She speak English.’

  Furies? I thought with great interest. I’d been reading about the Furies the day before in my book of Greek mythology. I walked quicker so that I could study them, especially the oldest one, a sour-looking girl with a heavy brow, coarse black hair, and dead dark eyes.

  Furies? This could not be a coincidence. As much as I believed that hatred had been gifted to me at birth, I came to believe instantly that these girls had been put in front of me for a reason.

  Despite the pain that was splitting my head, I fell in beside the oldest one and asked, ‘You a war criminal?’

  She turned her dead dark eyes on me and spat out her reply: ‘I am no criminal, and neither are my sisters. Last year, Bosnian pigs kill my parents and rape me and my sisters for four days straight. If I could, I shoot every Bosnian pig. I break their skulls. I kill all of them if I could.’

  Her sisters must have understood enough of what their sister was saying because they too turned their dead eyes on me. The shock of the bombing, the brutal throbbing in my head, my jet-fuelled anger, the Serbian girls’ dead eyes, the myth of the Furies, all these things seemed to gather together into something that felt suddenly predestined to me.

  The Bosnians handcuffed the girls to heavy wooden chairs bolted to the floor of the police station, and shut and locked the doors. The landlines were not working. Neither were the primitive mobile-phone towers. I was told, however, that I could wait there until a peacekeeping force could be called to take me and the Serbian girls to a more secure location.

  When the Bosnian who spoke English left the room, I cradled my gun, moved close to the girl who’d spoken to me, and said ‘Do you believe in fate?’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Do you believe in fate?’ I pressed her.

  ‘Why do you ask me this question?’

  ‘As I see it, as a captured war criminal your fate is to die,’ I replied. ‘If you’re convicted of killing dozens of unarmed boys, that’s genocide. Even if you and your sisters were gang-raped beforehand, they will hang you. That’s how it works with genocide.’

  She lifted her chin haughtily. ‘I am not afraid to die for what we have done. We killed monsters. It was justice. We put back balance where there was none.’

  Monsters and Furies, I thought, growing excited before replying: ‘Perhaps, but you will die, and there your story will end.’ I paused. ‘But maybe you have another fate. Perhaps everything in your life has been in preparation for this exact moment, this place, this night, right now when your fates collide with mine.’

  She looked confused. ‘What does this mean, “fates collide”?’

  ‘I get you out of here,’ I said. ‘I get you new identities, I hide you, and protect you and your sisters for ever. I give you a chance at life.’

  She’d gone steely again. ‘And in return?’

  I looked into her eyes. I looked into her soul. ‘You will be willing to risk death to save me as I will now risk death to save you.’

  The oldest sister looked at me sidelong. Then she turned and clucked to her sisters in Serbian. They argued for several moments in harsh whispers.

  Finally, the one who spoke English said, ‘You can save us?’

  The clanging in my head continued but the fogginess had departed, leaving me in a state of near-electric clarity. I nodded.

  She stared at me with those dark dead eyes, and said, ‘Then save us.’

  The Bosnian who spoke English returned to the room and called out to me, ‘What lies are these demons from hell telling you?’

  ‘They’re thirsty,’ I answered. ‘They need water. Any luck with the telephone?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ I replied, flipping the safety on the sub-machine gun as I swung the muzzle around at the Furies’ captors before opening fire and slaughtering every one.

  Part Two

  LET THE GAMES BEGIN

  Chapter 13

  AS THE TAXI pulled up in front of a sterile-looking skyscraper deep in the City of London, the UK’s main financial district, Peter Knight could still hear his mother sobbing. The only other time he’d ever seen her cry like that had been over his father’s body after the accident.

  Amanda had collapsed into her son’s arms after learning of her fiancé’s death. Knight had felt the racking depths of her despair, and had understood them all too well. She’d been stabbed in the soul. Knight wouldn’t have wished that sensation on anyone, least of all his own mother, and he held her through the worst of the mental and emotional haemorrhaging, reliving his own raw memories of loss.

  Gary Boss had come into her office finally, and had nearly wept himself when he’d seen Amanda’s abject sorrow. A few minutes later, Knight received a text from Jack Morgan telling him to come directly to Private London’s office because the Sun had hired the firm to analyse a letter from someone who claimed to be Marshall’s killer. Boss said he would take over Amanda’s care.

  ‘No, I should stay,’ Knight had replied, feeling horribly guilty about leaving. ‘Jack would understand. I’ll call him.’

  ‘No!’ Amanda said angrily. ‘I want you to go to work, Peter. I want you to do what you do best. I want you to find the sick bastard who did this to Denton. I want him put in chains. I want him burned alive.’

  As Knight took a lift to the top floors of the sky scraper, his thoughts were dominated by his mother’s command, and despite the steady ache in his side he felt himself becoming obsessed. It was always like this with Knight when he was on a big case – obsessed, possessed – but, with his mother’s involvement, this p
articular investigation felt more like a crusade: no matter what happened, no matter the obstacles, no matter the time needed, Knight vowed to nail Denton Marshall’s killer.

  The lift door opened into a reception area, a hyper-modern room containing some works of art that depicted milestones in the history of espionage, forensics and cryptography. Though the London office itself was seriously understaffed at the moment due to the recent tragic loss of personnel, the lobby bustled with Private International agents from all over the world, here to pick up their Olympic security passes and assignments.

  Knight circled the mob, recognising only a few people, before heading for a tinted bulletproof glass wall, passing on his way a model of the Trojan horse and a bust of Sir Francis Bacon. He looked into a retina scan while touching his right index finger to a print reader. A section of the wall hissed open to reveal a scruffy freckle-faced, carrot-haired man with a scraggly beard and wearing cargo jeans, a West Ham United football jersey, and black slippers.

  Knight smiled. ‘G’day, Hooligan.’

  ‘What the fuck, Peter?’ Jeremy ‘Hooligan’ Crawford said, eyeing Knight’s clothes. ‘Been having sex with an orangutan, have you?’

  In the wake of Wendy Lee’s death in the plane crash, Hooligan was now the chief science, technology, and forensics officer at Private London. Early thirties, caustic, fiercely independent, and unabashedly foul-mouthed, he was also insanely smart.

  Born and raised in Hackney Wick, one of London’s tougher neighbourhoods, the son of parents who’d never finished secondary school, by the age of nineteen Hooligan had nevertheless obtained degrees in maths and biology from Cambridge. By twenty, he had earned his third degree in forensics and criminal science from Staffordshire University and had been hired by MI5, where he worked for eight years before coming to work at Private at twice the government salary.

  Hooligan was also a rabid football fan with a season ticket to West Ham United’s matches. Despite his remarkable intelligence, as a youngster he’d been known to get out of control watching the club’s big games, at which point his brothers and sisters had given him his nickname. While many would not boast of such a moniker, he wore it proudly.

  ‘I scuffled with the bonnet and roof of a cab and lived to tell the tale,’ Knight told Hooligan. ‘The letter from the killer here yet?’

  The science officer brushed past him. ‘She’s bringing it up.’

  Knight pivoted to look back through the crowd of agents towards the lift whose door was opening again. Sun reporter Karen Pope came out, clutching a large manila envelope to her chest. Hooligan went to her. She seemed taken aback at his scruffy appearance, and shook his hand tentatively. He led her back into the hallway and introduced Knight to her.

  Pope instantly turned guarded and studied the investigator with suspicion, especially his torn and filthy coat. ‘My editors want this to be done discreetly and quickly, with no more eyes than are necessary. As far as the Sun is concerned, that means you and you alone, Mr Crawford.’

  ‘Call me Hooligan, eh?’

  Knight had instantly found Pope both abrasive and defensive, but maybe it was because he felt as though his entire left side had been beaten with boat oars and had gone through the emotional wringer of his mother’s collapse.

  He said, ‘I’m working the Marshall murder on behalf of the firm – and on behalf of my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’ Pope said.

  Knight explained, but Pope still seemed unsure.

  Running out of patience, Knight said, ‘Have you considered that I just might know something about this case that you don’t? I don’t recall your byline. Do you work the city desk? The crime beat?’

  Chapter 14

  THAT HIT A nerve. Pope’s face flushed indignantly. ‘If you must know, I work sports normally,’ she said, thrusting out her chin. ‘What of it?’

  ‘It means I know things about this case that you don’t,’ Knight repeated.

  ‘Is that so?’ Pope shot back. ‘Well, I’m the one holding the letter, aren’t I, Mr Knight? You know, I really would prefer to deal with Mr, uh, Hooligan.’

  Before Knight could reply, an American male voice said: ‘It would be smart to let Peter in on the examination, Ms Pope. He’s the best we’ve got.’

  A tall man with surfer good looks, the American stuck out his hand and shook hers saying, ‘Jack Morgan. Your editor arranged through me for the analysis. I’d like to be there as well, if possible.’

  ‘All right,’ Pope said without enthusiasm. ‘But the contents of this envelope cannot be revealed to anyone unless you’ve seen it published in the Sun. Agreed?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Jack said, and smiled genuinely

  Knight admired the owner and founder of Private. Jack was younger than Knight, and even more in a hurry than Knight. He was also smart and driven, and believed in surrounding himself with smart, driven people and paying them well. He also cared about the people who worked for him. He’d been devastated at the loss of Carter and the other Private London operators and had come across the Atlantic immediately to help Knight pick up the slack.

  The foursome went to Hooligan’s lab one floor down. Jack fell in beside Knight who was moving much more slowly than the others. ‘Good job with Lancer,’ he said. ‘Saving his ass, I mean.’

  ‘We aim to please,’ Knight said.

  ‘He was very grateful, and said I should give you a raise,’ Jack said.

  Knight did not reply. They had not yet talked about any salary upgrade that might be due in light of his new responsibilities.

  Jack seemed to remember and said, ‘We’ll talk money after the Games.’ Then the American shot him a more critical look. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Feel like I’ve been playing in a rugby scrum, but I remain chipper,’ Knight assured him as they entered Private London’s science unit, a cutting-edge operation in every respect.

  Hooligan led them to a far corner of the area, to an anteroom off a clean lab where he told them all to don disposable white jumpsuits and hoods. Knight groaned, but once in the suit and hood he followed Hooligan through an airlock and into the clean room. The science officer moved to a workstation that included an electron microscope and state-of-the-art spectrographic equipment. He took the envelope from Pope, opened it, and looked inside.

  He asked, ‘Did you put these in sleeves or did they come to you like this?’

  Knight heard the question over a headset built into his hood, which made all their ensuing conversation sound like transmissions from outer space.

  ‘I did that,’ Pope replied. ‘I knew right away that they’d need to be protected.’

  ‘Smart,’ Hooligan said, wagging a gloved finger at her and looking over at Knight and Jack. ‘Very smart.’

  Despite his initial dislike of Pope, Knight had to agree. He asked, ‘Who touched these before you protected them?’

  ‘Just me,’ Pope said as Hooligan removed the sleeve that contained the letter. ‘And the killer, I suppose. He has a name. You’ll see it there. He calls himself “Cronus”.’

  Chapter 15

  SEVERAL MOMENTS LATER the weird flute music from the card played, irritating Knight and making him feel as though the killer was toying with them. He finished scanning the letter and the documents.

  The strange sound must have got to Jack as well because he slammed the card shut, cutting off the music, and then said, ‘This guy’s off his rocker.’

  Pope said, ‘Crazy like a fox, then, especially those bits about Marshall and his former partner, Guilder. The documents back his allegations.’

  ‘I don’t believe those documents,’ Knight said. ‘I knew Denton Marshall. He was a supremely honest man. And even if the allegations were true, it’s hardly justification for cutting the man’s head off. Jack’s right. This guy is seriously unbalanced, and supremely arrogant. The tone is taunting. He’s telling us that we can’t stop him. He’s saying this is not over, that it could be just the beginning.’

  Jack nod
ded, and said, ‘When you start with a beheading, you’re taking a long walk down Savage Street.’

  ‘I’ll start running tests,’ Hooligan said. He was looking at the card that played the music. ‘These chips are in a lot of greeting cards. We should be able to trace the make and model.’

  Knight nodded, saying, ‘I want to read through the letter one more time.’

  While Pope and Jack watched Hooligan slice out the working components of the musical greeting card, Knight returned to the letter and began to read as the flute music died in the lab.

  The first sentence was written in symbols and letters that Knight did not recognise but guessed was ancient Greek. The second and all subsequent sentences in the letter were in English.

  The ancient Olympic Games have been corrupted. The modern Games are not a celebration of gods and men. They are not even about goodwill among men. The modern Games are a mockery, a sideshow every four years, and made that way by so many thieves, cheats, murderers, and monsters.

  Consider the great and exalted Sir Denton Marshall and his corpulent partner Richard Guilder. Seven years ago, Marshall sold out the Olympic movement as a force for honest competition. From the documents that accompany this letter, you will see that they suggest that in order to ensure that London would be selected to host the 2012 games, Marshall and Guilder cleverly siphoned funds from their clients and secretly moved the money into overseas bank accounts owned by shell corporations that were in turn owned by members of the International Olympic Selection Committee. Paris, runner-up in the selection process, never had a chance.

  And so, to cleanse the Games, the Furies and I found it just that Marshall should die for his offences, and so that has come to pass. We are unstoppable beings far superior to you, able to see the corruption when you cannot, able to expose the monsters and slay them for the good of the Games when you cannot.