Private Princess

by James Patterson

By now a small crowd was gathering as people recognized the turbulence in their midst.

  “Don’t talk to her like that,” Morgan demanded.

  “Or what, faggot?” Lloyd spat, using the most offensive American term he could think of.

  Morgan said nothing publicly. Instead, he leaned close to Lloyd and spoke words into his ear that only they could hear.

  It was the final straw for the bigot—he threw a punch.

  It was an angry punch, sloppy, mistimed and misdirected. Morgan ducked it without even thinking, his own hands never leaving his sides. Lloyd swung a second haymaker. Morgan easily stepped out of its way.

  The disgraced man never had a chance to throw a third. The two security men that Morgan had seen downstairs had been patiently watching the situation develop, hoping that it would fizzle out. Flare-ups between the stellar-sized egos at the establishment were not uncommon, and would be tolerated so long as they kept to chest-beating and insults. Once a punch was thrown, however, the security contingent would sweep in on the perpetrator within moments. During their phone call, Abbie Winchester had told Morgan as much. Now he watched as the two men expertly restrained Lloyd, one on each side of him, exerting enough pressure to hold him in place, but not to cause damage.

  “I’ll have your face cut off!” Lloyd raged at Morgan as he thrashed to break free, his rage escalating higher as Natalie threw a drink in his face and the watching room cheered.

  “I’m really sorry, sir,” one muscular security man apologized to Morgan as he and his partner turned Lloyd to the stairs and prepared to march him out.

  “I’m sorry, too,” said Morgan, the security man’s face dropping as Morgan’s hand shot up under his jacket. Morgan stepped back and clear before the bouncer had a chance to decide if he should defend against the American or keep hold of the thrashing Lloyd.

  Now it seemed the answer was clear: there was only one true threat in the room, and that was Jack Morgan.

  Who had a gun in his hand.

  Chapter 84

  WITH THE SECURITY guy’s back turned to him, Morgan had liberated the pistol from his hidden shoulder holster with ease. In one smooth motion he had pulled the weapon clear with his right hand, using his left to cock back the pistol’s top slide, chambering a round. Within two seconds of Morgan beginning his theft, the pistol was ready for use and aimed.

  “Don’t kill him!” the robbed security man begged, bravely trying to put himself between Morgan and Lloyd, who was now weak-kneed with terror. “It’s not worth it!” he urged.

  “Your weapon on the floor,” Morgan told the man’s partner. “Do it!” he shouted, seeing in his peripheral vision a steady flow of revelers abandoning the scene, rushing with hushed panic for the exit. “Finger and thumb on the grip,” he ordered.

  Slowly, very slowly, the second bouncer reached inside his jacket. With his finger and thumb gripping the handle, he pulled out a six-shooter revolver and placed it on the floor. Behind him, the room had all but emptied. Morgan flicked his eyes quickly to assess who remained, seeing Natalie shaking uncontrollably close by his side.

  “Pick it up like he did,” Morgan instructed her. “Now!”

  Natalie scuttled forward and picked up the gun.

  “Put it in my jacket pocket,” he instructed. “Keep holding it exactly as you are, or I’ll blow his head apart.”

  “Oh God,” the woman sobbed, black mascara running down her cheeks like a polluted river.

  Morgan backed away as he felt the reassuring weight of the second pistol entering his pocket. “All of you on the floor. Facedown. Do it!”

  They complied. Lloyd was the slowest to do so, almost paralyzed with terror. “I’m sorry,” he begged. “Please don’t kill me.”

  “On your face!”

  “I have a daughter!”

  “On your face!”

  Dribbling with dread, Lloyd joined the others on a floor awash with panic-spilled drinks.

  “Interlock your fingers behind your heads,” Morgan ordered the four remaining people in the club, his voice suddenly seeming so loud, and bouncing around the room—the music had stopped, he realized. The last song put on by the DJ had played out, and now the lights and lasers flashed eerily in the silence.

  “Your security tapes. Where are they? Tell me exactly where!”

  But there was no reply, because the bouncers had heard the same thing that Morgan now did—footsteps on the staircase.

  Before Morgan could move, gunshots filled the air.

  He threw himself into a shoulder roll and scrambled for the bar as bullets chewed the furniture and decor in the room. He heard someone scream in pain as the shots flew wild, none coming within a foot of his refuge.

  “Stop shooting!” Morgan shouted, his gut telling him who the firer would be.

  Two more rounds smashed into the wall above him. Morgan scuttled behind the bar and peered around its far side—as he expected, the tattooed girl from downstairs stood at the head of the staircase, a semi-automatic pistol held in her hand. Of the security guards, Natalie and Lloyd there was no sign, only the flapping door of an open fire exit, and a trail of blood made dark beneath the disco lights.

  Morgan drew his pistol up to aim. The girl’s shots had been wild, showing her lack of experience at firing a weapon, and he was exposing no more than his head and the top of his shoulders. At twenty yards, the chances of her hitting him were almost non-existent, while his own accuracy was a dead cert.

  But Morgan couldn’t kill her.

  “Drop it, goddammit!” he shouted.

  The girl fired instead. Across the bar, ten feet away, a bottle of Gran Patrón tequila paid the price.

  “I don’t want to shoot you!” Morgan shouted as the liquid and glass bounced around him. “But I will, if I have to!”

  “You fucked up our club!” she screamed back. “The police will be on their way!”

  Morgan ducked back into cover, expecting the shot that puckered the bar’s wood. The police were a far bigger threat in his mind than the girl’s marksmanship. The exodus from the front door would have been enough to alert a nosy neighbor or an alert bobby. If by some miracle that had gone unnoticed, then the gunshots would do the rest—the club room had been soundproofed for house music, but the open fire escape had seen to that precaution against sound complaints.

  That fire escape was now Morgan’s only chance, he knew. He couldn’t kill an innocent person, and contrary to the belief of politicians and activists, there was no such thing as not shooting to kill. Sure, Morgan could aim for the girl’s shoulder, but when that bullet entered the body it would hit bone. It could send slivers of bone and steel anywhere, including into the girl’s heart. A shot to the arm? She could bleed out from her brachial artery. Then there was the chance of her moving as Morgan fired. The only non-lethal shot was the one you didn’t fire, so that was the option Morgan took.

  But how the hell would he make it to the fire escape?

  It was half the distance between him and the girl, on the right-hand wall. He would be ten yards from her, and his full height, not head and shoulders behind cover. Seeing him coming, the girl was bound to let rip with everything she had left, and only one of those bullets would need to find him to put him down, and from there into handcuffs, or a coffin.

  It couldn’t end here, Morgan swore to himself. His promise of retribution could not die in an illegal club, surrounded by broken bottles of liquor, and washed over by lasers.

  Lasers.

  “Will you let me surrender?” Morgan tried.

  “Piss off, you wanker! You think I’m stupid? You’re staying there until the cops get here!”

  Morgan had assumed as much, but he had used the girl’s tirade to maneuver himself to the other end of the bar, hoping to emerge where she would not expect him.

  Her words done, the room was silent. Silent enough for Morgan to hear shouts in the street and sirens in the distance.

  It was now or never.

  He stepped from
cover, and took aim.

  Morgan fired four times, the pistol rounds sparking as they hit the metal chain and fixture that held the light mounting in the room’s corner. The structure toppled downward and in front of the staircase, its thick cord catching it at chest height before it could crash into the ground. Now with an obstacle between him and the girl, Morgan was already running.

  She fired—shots snapped from beneath the obstruction—but her view had been robbed from her. Within seconds of opening fire, his shoulder was hitting the partially opened door, and he was on the staircase.

  He took a moment to collect himself at the top, not wanting to plunge from one trap into another. With no obvious ambushes ahead of him, Morgan left the first metal platform, traversing the fire escape like a parkour runner, clearing a flight at a time. The shock of the impacts shot through his ankles and up into his body, his face grimacing with each descent.

  But the pain saved his life. No sooner was he on the second platform than the girl appeared on the platform above. Morgan gritted his teeth, expecting the impact of bullets to smash into his exposed back. Instead he heard two clangs, like a hammer hitting metal, two bullets puncturing the sheet metal of the staircase beside him. Then there was only the sound of swearing as the girl realized that her ammunition was spent.

  “Wanker!” she shouted, hurling the pistol at Morgan in frustration. Her throwing aim was better than her shooting, and the pistol narrowly missed his head. He moved. He ran as fast as he could through the darkness, dogs barking and security lights snapping on as he fled, and the sound of sirens growing ever closer and more imminent.

  Morgan felt at the reassuring lumps of metal in his pockets. He had done what he needed to do, and he was not sorry that he had terrified others to obtain the weapons.

  But someone else would be.

  Chapter 85

  PETER KNIGHT LOOKED at the papers in his hand. It was a printout of the premier security companies in the country. These were not businesses that advertised in the local job center, but who recruited directly from the Special Forces and army. Minimum entry requirements were tours of duty, combat experience and solid references from former commanders. They were the kind of people who had worked with Flex both in and out of uniform, and now, Knight hoped they’d be the ones to lead him to the murderer.

  He was wrong.

  “Come on, Ryan,” Knight beseeched the man at the other end of the line. “We’ve used your company for years. Where’s the loyalty?”

  “Well, that’s exactly it, Peter. Even if I knew where Flex was, I couldn’t tell you. Me and him were in the regiment together. Maybe if you told me what this was about.”

  “I can’t,” Knight said, closing his eyes in frustration. “Just trust me, Ryan, this is not a guy you want to be associated with.”

  “I do trust you. But Flex has built up a lot of trust with me too. We were in the sandpit together, so you understand why I can’t rat him out, even if I did know.”

  Knight rubbed at his face. The blind loyalty of the soldiers running these companies was a brick wall that a civilian could not penetrate.

  “What if I told you he hurt another soldier?” Knight tried, tiptoeing around the subject. “A decorated one.”

  “Then get them to call me. If we have a few friends in common, and they vouch for them, then we’ll see.”

  Knight swore under his breath.

  “Something big is about to happen,” Knight told the man, sensing failure. “And you’re about to fall on the wrong side of it.”

  “Nah, mate. I’m standing back from it, well out of the way.”

  “Goodbye, Ryan,” Knight said, hanging up the call. “Bollocks!” he shouted out, crossing off the last name on his list. Not one of the companies’ leaders would speak about Flex.

  Frustrated, Knight screwed up the paper and threw it at the wastepaper basket. It missed. Swearing, he crossed to pick it up, but as he did so a red mist of anger descended before his eyes, and instead of picking up the paper, he kicked the basket as hard as he could and let loose a howl of rage. A rage that had built inside him since Jane Cook had been killed in cold blood. His agent. His friend. Killed in cold blood.

  “Bastard!” Knight roared, wanting nothing more in that moment than to rip Flex’s heart out with his own hands. “Bastard!”

  Eliza Lightwood had done a good job of destroying Knight’s office. Now the angered man did the rest. He threw books, kicked cabinets and punched the walls. He grabbed at his face, pulled at his hair and cried down his cheeks.

  He remembered Jane.

  “No!” he shouted at everything and nothing. “No! No! No!”

  The grief and rage that he’d bottled up hit him like an avalanche. He had been so caught up—so busy protecting Morgan and worrying about him—that he’d ignored his own emotions. Now, faced with the dead end from the security companies, he could no longer hold back the irrepressible savagery of his heartache. As his chest heaved and swelled like an angry ocean, Peter Knight sank to his knees and wept.

  Chapter 86

  AS WAS HIS plan, Jack Morgan abandoned the Audi parked on the Knightsbridge street, instead leaving the area by foot and collecting a bag of clothing bought at the twenty-four-hour supermarket that he’d secreted in a dark alleyway that led to a park. There, he quickly changed jacket and trainers, and pulled tracksuit bottoms over his trousers. A peaked cap was the final item to complete the outfit change, and with the pistols in his pockets, Morgan struck out of the park.

  He pulled a phone from his new jacket—a black windbreaker. The phone was a cheap model bought at the store, and kept with the change of clothes—the one that it had replaced now resided in a drain. Morgan knew that the Audi would eventually draw suspicion. Even if he dispatched someone from Private to collect it, the vehicle would show up on the CCTV footage that officers would scour as they investigated the shooting. Of course, by the time they did, Morgan believed he would have carried out his mission, or died trying. To that end, he dialed a number from memory.

  “I need to meet you, and off the streets.”

  Morgan then listened as he was given an address.

  It wasn’t a hard one to remember, and he flagged down the first black cab that he saw.

  “Where to, mate?” the cabbie asked.

  “I’ll give you directions.”

  Chapter 87

  COMPARED TO THE modern behemoths that arched toward the sky, the Tower of London seemed hardly fitting of its name. More a collection of buildings, walls and ramparts than a singular tower, its tallest point stood at twenty-seven meters. By contrast, the Shard, on the opposite bank of the river, climbed to three hundred and ten. Even the neighboring apartments dwarfed the building in height, but scale was only half the story, and what the Tower lacked in vertical bombast, it more than made up for in history and sheer regal majesty. Heavy black gates sat daunting in the stone walls. Flags flew proudly above the lit-up towers and ramparts, snapping in the wind as if to attention.

  Morgan stepped out of the cab—the third he had taken, anxious to avoid being followed—and took in the building that sat with gravitas alongside the Thames, the river itself spanned by the grand vision of Tower Bridge, lit-up cables hanging between its iconic twin towers. Jack Morgan had visited the place before as a tourist, and such history reminded him of how small was his own place in the world, and the events of man. The oldest parts of the building were almost a thousand years old, and within the walls, enemies of the state had awaited judgment and been delivered to death. Beneath the beauty was a nation’s past soaked in treason, blood and violence. Morgan could not help but wonder if De Villiers had asked to meet him here for just that reason.

  The chance to ask him arrived as the Colonel removed himself from the shadows.

  “Why here?” Morgan asked.

  “It’s secure,” De Villiers replied. “Police. Soldiers. These walls? You won’t find a safer place in London. You found what you were looking for?”

  Mo
rgan evaded a direct answer. “I don’t have anything on me,” he told the man, having hidden the weapons between cabs.

  “Good.” De Villiers turned and led Morgan toward a door that was set in the stone beside one of the imposing gates and flanked by armed guards, who stood to attention at the approach of the Colonel, clad in civilian attire though he was.

  The cold stone tunnel was ten feet deep, and as Morgan emerged at De Villiers’ back, he saw that much of the interior was cast into darkness.

  But there were voices in the night.

  “Stop for a moment,” said the Colonel, his voice calm.

  “What is it?” Morgan asked quietly.

  “Just be quiet.”

  Then, clear as day, Morgan heard a young voice cry out into the night. It was a confident voice. The voice of a soldier.

  “Halt!” he demanded. “Who comes there?”

  A second voice answered, rich with years. Following the sound, Morgan saw the uniform of a Yeoman Warder—a Beefeater. “The keys!” he replied.

  “Whose keys?” the young sentry questioned.

  “Queen Elizabeth’s keys!”

  “Pass then!” the soldier allowed. “All’s well!”

  And Morgan watched silently as the Yeoman, under escort of bayonet-toting soldiers, their silhouettes made long by tall bearskin hats, marched by the young sentry and out of sight.

  At that moment, Morgan realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it go silently. He could not explain why he had done so. Only that he knew he was watching something ancient, archaic and special. A moment that was timeless. A throwback to past days.

  “What was that?” he asked De Villiers, as the tramp of the men’s boots faded into the darkness.

  “The Ceremony of the Keys,” the man explained. “They’re locking up the Tower.”

  “They do this every night?”

  “For centuries,” De Villiers confirmed. “The only thing that changes is the monarch’s name. You’re very lucky to have seen it. Very few do.”