“He didn’t know,” Knight pressed.
“And whose fault is that?” Morgan shot back, his eyes burning into Knight. “You are the head of Private London, Peter, and Flex is on your turf. If he was planning this, you should have known about it.”
Knight didn’t know what to say.
“Cook is dead because Private London didn’t see this coming,” Morgan warned. “Hooligan isn’t the only one that’s replaceable.”
Chapter 56
INSIDE THE HELICOPTER was tense, and silent. Beside Knight, Morgan sat like a coiled spring. Then, without warning, the American’s body sagged into his seat.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Morgan sighed.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
“I’m the head of Private, and all mistakes belong to me. If anyone killed Jane, then it was me.”
Knight turned in the helicopter’s tight confines so that he could look directly into Morgan’s face. “Flex killed Jane. Don’t forget that, Jack. Nobody else. Flex.”
After a moment Morgan grudgingly nodded. “I should have seen this coming, though, Peter. We beat him down when we were searching for Abbie Winchester. We kicked his ass. Reputation is everything in the security business, and Flex must have lost his when he took that beating.”
“Not everyone kills over a reputation.”
“But Flex would,” Morgan countered. “I should have known that. I should have seen it. I came into this situation with blinkers on, and led us into one trap after another. Jane’s dead because of me.”
“Bollocks, Jack!” Knight grabbed his friend’s shoulder. “She’s dead because of that bastard!”
“She’s dead because of me. And Lewis too. Flex won’t take prisoners.”
Chapter 57
FLEX PULLED HIS gun from Sharon Lewis’s mouth and looked down at the policewoman.
He smiled.
“What are you looking at?” Lewis growled, fighting to control her shaking body.
“I’m impressed,” Flex grunted. “I’ve seen SAS soldiers piss themselves when they’ve gone through that.”
“That’s because you’re all a bunch of pussies!” Lewis braced herself against the expected reprisal.
None came.
“I need you alive,” Flex explained. “I need you to deliver a message to Jack Morgan.”
“What is it?” she asked cautiously.
“This.”
And then the punch did come.
Chapter 58
“I’M PUTTING HER down,” the pilot announced over the helicopter’s internal comms, pointing to a patch of green amidst the city below them—it was Holland Park, the nearest clearing to Patel’s Kensington home.
“Anything from the CCTV taps?” Knight asked Morgan as they dropped toward the ground, their stomachs lifting.
“Nothing useful.”
“So what’s our plan?”
Morgan didn’t answer. Instead, as the helicopter’s skids touched down onto the grass, Morgan threw back the door and ran.
Knight tried to stay on his heels, but the American was faster, the desire for revenge driving him on to a pace that Knight simply couldn’t match. As their shoes beat the tarmac of Kensington’s pavements, Knight began to fall behind. Only Morgan’s occasional slowing to check his phone’s map allowed Private London’s leader to keep him in sight. Knight had no need for his own map—he recognized the area by sight. He knew they were drawing closer, and was relieved to see Morgan pull up short of Patel’s street.
“We can’t just sprint in there, Jack,” Knight panted as he caught up. “They’ll kill Lewis, and then us.”
“We’re not going in anywhere.” Morgan looked down the street.
Knight followed the direction of Morgan’s gaze, and he saw the reason why.
Patel’s home was surrounded by police.
Chapter 59
“I TOLD YOU not to call the police!” Morgan shouted at Knight, seeing their chance to slip inside and rescue Lewis disappear.
“I didn’t,” Knight protested. “Honestly, Jack, this wasn’t me. But look, the way that they’re set up. This isn’t a siege.”
Morgan looked to the police cordon. The uniformed officers were facing outward, not in.
“None of them are in cover,” Morgan realized. “They’re not afraid of getting shot.”
“Flex is gone,” Knight said, the words barely out of his mouth before Morgan was again sprinting, this time toward the police.
“Who’s in charge?” he called to the nearest uniform, the officer raising an eyebrow at Morgan’s American accent.
“Please stay away from the cordon, sir,” the young PC said in reply.
“I need to know who’s in charge!” Morgan asserted. “My people were inside that house! I need to get in there!”
“Sir, please stay calm.”
“I am calm! And I need to get inside!”
The sound of raised voices drew the attention of a police sergeant. As a veteran officer, she had seen enough grief to recognize it in Morgan.
“Sir,” she said in a calm, controlled voice, “you say you know whose house this is?”
“It belongs to Mayoor Patel,” Knight cut in before Morgan could speak. “But the two women here are Sharon Lewis and Jane Cook. One is a police officer and the other is an investigator for Private.”
“They are my people,” Morgan seethed. “And I need to see them.”
The police sergeant thought over Knight’s words, then looked back to the house.
“Have you been inside?” Knight begged. “Please, we need to know.”
The sergeant held her tongue as she gestured for the young officer beside her to move away and give them privacy.
“The paramedics are stabilizing one woman who’s been badly beaten,” she told the men, looking straight into their eyes. “I’m afraid that one of the women… has passed away.”
“Can we see them?” Knight asked.
Morgan opened his mouth but found himself unable to speak.
“This is Jack Morgan, head of Private. My name’s Peter Knight, and I’m head of the London branch. If you call my sister-in-law at the Met, Elaine Pottersfield, she will confirm for you who we are.”
“I’m sorry, sirs, but your identity is not the issue. No one but the police and paramedics can cross this boundary. If you will wait here, I’ll go and find out which hospital they’re taking her to.”
“Thank you,” Knight said, defeated. Beside him, Jack Morgan was white with rage.
“This is Flex’s doing,” he hissed between clenched teeth. “He called the police himself, to keep me from Jane.”
The truth of that hit Knight like a blow. Then, in the same moment, he realized what other motivation a former SAS soldier could have for keeping them at the cordon.
“We’re sitting ducks out here, Jack,” Knight warned. “There are hundreds of windows on this street, and Flex could be in any one of them. Let’s get clear and into some cover,” he urged.
But Morgan stood firm. Knight considered how he could drag Morgan from the street and to safety. Thankfully, he was saved the ordeal by the reappearance of the sergeant.
“I gave your names to the lady in the ambulance,” the police officer told them. “She wants to see you.”
Chapter 60
MORGAN AND KNIGHT ducked under the police tape and followed the police sergeant quickly to the back of the ambulance. Knight threw a look Morgan’s way, worried at the intensity he saw coming from his friend and boss. There was no knowing what kind of state Sharon Lewis was in emotionally, or physically. Knight had never met the woman, but his guess was that the last thing she would need would be Morgan going in bullheaded and demanding answers.
He needn’t have worried.
“Lewis, I’m so glad you’re alive,” Morgan said gently. Knight could have sworn there were tears in the man’s eyes.
And why not? Lewis was strapped to a gurney, her arms splinted to immobilize around t
he fractures she had suffered at the hands of Flex.
“What the hell have they done to you?” Morgan whispered.
The answer to that question was obvious—Lewis had been savagely beaten from head to toe. Her skin was already turning a mottled purple, her neck held firmly in place by a plastic brace. Her right eye was fully closed; her left was focused loosely on the two men who stood silhouetted against the ambulance’s door.
“Morgan,” she whispered. “Morgan.”
“I’m here,” he told her, placing his hand on hers. “I’m so glad to see you, Lewis.”
“Like this?” She tried to smile.
“Not like this,” he said softly, and Lewis’s open eye shed a tear. They both knew what Morgan meant. He was glad to see her alive.
“I couldn’t stop them,” she said, the single tear followed by several others. “I’m sorry, Morgan. I couldn’t stop them.”
“Don’t think about it, Lewis. Don’t even think about it.”
But of course it was all she could think about. The image of Cook on her knees with the barrel pointed at her head. The soft psst sound of the silenced pistol firing. The sight of Cook’s body slumping to the floor.
“You need to rest, Lewis.”
“I don’t want to close my eyes,” she whimpered. “It’s all I see.”
From long experience of violent memories, Morgan knew of one way to escape the emotional pain.
“Watch her, Peter.”
Morgan slipped out the rear of the ambulance and returned a moment later with the paramedic. Without a word, the first responder took a syringe and fed morphine into the cannula in Lewis’s wrist.
“He’s given you something for it. You’ll sleep, Lewis, and you won’t feel the pain. You won’t see the pain.”
Lewis tried to blink tears away, but gravity held them on her eye. Morgan took a tissue from one of the ambulance’s shelves and delicately dabbed them.
“You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever seen. I’m going to come with you to the hospital.”
“No,” she said, fighting against the drug that now began to overtake her. “No hospital, Morgan.”
He had to hunch over to catch the rest of her words, which were lost to Knight. Finally, Lewis’s lips stopped moving, the slow rise and fall of her chest showing the signs of a woman in a deep, drug-fueled delirium.
“What did she say?” Knight asked Morgan.
When the American turned to face him, his eyes reminded Knight of an impending storm. There was calm now, but soon all would be destruction and violence.
“That we finish this.”
Chapter 61
JACK MORGAN AND Peter Knight stepped from the ambulance, the paramedic pulling the doors closed behind them. The vehicle’s lights and siren started up and police officers hurriedly cleared a lane for it to pull away. Given the severity and nature of the attack, a police car followed in the ambulance’s wake to ride shotgun. Morgan noticed the precaution, and gave his thanks to the police sergeant.
“She’s one of ours,” the woman said.
“She saved my life,” Morgan told her. “Please look after her.”
“We will,” the sergeant promised. “I’m sorry that we can’t let you inside. If it was up to me…”
“You’ve done enough,” he assured her. In truth, it killed him that he could not run to Cook’s side, even in death, but if he was to be denied that proximity to the woman he loved, then he would take himself where he was needed. He would take himself to where her killer was hiding, and there, he would deliver justice.
“We need to go,” he told Knight.
“Our car will be here any second,” said Knight, and sure enough, a black Range Rover appeared in that moment at the end of the street. “But that’s not ours,” Knight wondered, ready at any moment to shove Morgan into cover should the occupants prove hostile.
At the behest of a waving officer, the vehicle slowed to a stop ten meters short of the cordon. There the passenger door opened, and Knight felt his body relax as a familiar figure stepped into the street and beckoned toward them.
“Over here!” Colonel Marcus De Villiers waved, and after a final thank you to the police sergeant, Morgan and Knight slipped under the cordon to join him.
“Have you seen Lewis?” asked the Guards officer.
Morgan nodded. “We have. She’s badly beaten, but alive.”
“Thank God,” De Villiers sighed. As head of royal security, Lewis fell under his command, and there was no doubt in the Private agents’ minds that De Villiers truly cared for Lewis’s well-being.
“And Cook?” the man asked hopefully.
Morgan said nothing. Knight shook his head.
“Morgan, I’m so sorry.”
Morgan’s mind was miles from sympathies. A million miles from them. It was only concerned with retribution.
Perhaps De Villiers saw as much.
“Get into the car, Morgan,” he ordered as if to a soldier. “Not you,” he said to Knight as he tried to follow. “I need to speak with Morgan alone.”
Chapter 62
AS THE RANGE Rover’s door closed behind them, Morgan was about to ask De Villiers what he wanted to speak about. Instead, he watched with surprise as the Colonel slammed his fist into the headrest of the empty passenger seat.
“Bastards!” he snarled. “Spineless, gutless bastards!” He punched again, breathing heavily. “They’ll pay for this—Lewis is one of mine.” The head of royal security inhaled deeply. “An attack on her is… It’s an attack on the Crown, Morgan.” De Villiers shook his head. “And Cook? She was awarded an OBE for what she did in Afghanistan. She’s done as much for her country as any other person.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Morgan asked, his manners blunted by emotion.
“Why?” De Villiers choked, as if it were obvious. “Because I want to help you.”
“You can’t help in this. Our work for the Princess is over. We found Sophie. We found her killer.”
“It’s over, is it?” De Villiers shook his head. “Not when Lewis is in the hospital it isn’t. Not when…” He left Jane Cook’s name and fate unspoken. “Look, Morgan, you may not have the highest opinion of me, that’s clear enough, but I am a soldier—a British soldier—and we believe in honor and justice. Someone out there has murdered a former army officer, and badly beaten one of my police officers. I want whoever did it found.”
“Then look for them.”
“I don’t need to, because you already know who it is, don’t you? You’re like a bulldog straining at the leash, Morgan. You’re not sniffing for clues—you’re ready to tear out a throat.”
“I don’t know who it was,” Morgan lied.
“Bullshit! Total bullshit!”
“And what if it is bullshit? Do you think I’d tell you, so that you can get in my way?”
De Villiers laughed. “Get in your way?” He shook his head. “Morgan, Lewis is family to me. I want to help you. I want you to find these people before anyone else does. Do I have to spell out why?”
Morgan looked into the officer’s eyes, and believed him—De Villiers wanted justice. The kind that couldn’t be delivered in a British courtroom.
“No,” Morgan answered.
“Good.” De Villiers nodded with finality. “Now. I expect you’ve been wondering where to find a gun?”
Chapter 63
PETER KNIGHT WATCHED as Morgan emerged from the back seat of the Range Rover. No sooner had the door closed than the vehicle pulled away quickly up the street.
“Our own car’s here.” Knight gestured to a black Audi dispatched from Private London. “Where to?”
“Headquarters.” Knight recognized from his boss’s tone that it was not a good idea to dig for further information right now.
As they crossed to the waiting car, Morgan threw one more forlorn look toward the building that housed Jane Cook’s body. It would be some time before the pathologists and crime scene investigators were ready to t
ake her away, and it pained Morgan to know that Cook was alone and cold on a kitchen floor. He knew from experience that there was no dignity in death, but Cook’s fate seemed exceedingly cruel. The fact that his own life was in danger did not even enter into his mind. Instead, Jack Morgan’s emotions swung from crushing sadness to red-hot rage.
“I’m going to rip his throat out,” he promised as they climbed into the car, repeating the image that De Villiers had put in front of him.
“We’ll get him,” Knight promised.
“We’ll finish him,” Morgan corrected. “This doesn’t end in an arrest, Peter. I understand if you don’t want in on that, but those are the rules.”
“I’m with you,” Knight said, meeting the hard stare of his friend and leader. “I’m with you, Jack,” he vowed again, his mind then catching on the crux of what Morgan was saying—this was not an ordinary case. The rules had changed. No, Knight caught himself thinking, not just the rules. The entire game.
“We have to think like Flex,” said Knight. “The man’s clearly got no limits. No boundaries. What else is he capable of?”
“Anything. He’s sick. You should get hold of your family, Peter. Have them brought into Private HQ.”
“My God, you’re right.” The icy fingers of fear reached up from Knight’s stomach and into his throat. It was with a near shaking hand that he made the call to his children’s sitter, and asked for them to be brought to his place of work. “We should bring in all of our staff,” Knight then urged. “No guessing who else he could target.”
“Do it. He targeted Jane because of what she and I did to him in the gym, but I don’t put anything past him.”
Knight made the call, ordering Private London’s watch manager to bring in all members of staff, emphasizing the need for vigilance.
“What now, Jack?” he asked, his phone calls made.
But there was no reply from the American. None in words, at least, but Morgan’s eyes told Knight all he needed to know.
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