Private Games

by James Patterson

‘What are you two talking about?’ Knight said.

  ‘Didn’t you look at the boxes they came in, Peter?’ Amanda cried. ‘The necklace and watch were manufactured by Trace Angels, a company I’ve invested in. There are tiny GPS transmitters embedded in the jewellery so that parents can track their children!’

  Chapter 94

  KNIGHT BOLTED OUT the door of his mother’s house, watching two tiny heart-shaped icons pulsing and moving slowly on a map on the screen of his iPhone.

  According to the map, Luke and Isabel were less than two miles away! That realisation had caused Knight to run from his mother’s without a moment’s hesitation, going out into the street to find a cab and to see why his phone was having trouble connecting inside.

  Knight punched in Elaine Pottersfield’s number again, and got nothing but a message about network problems. He was about to turn and rush back into Amanda’s home when he saw a taxi coming.

  He hailed it, and jumped inside. ‘Lancaster Gate Tube station,’ he said.

  ‘Yah, mon,’ the driver said. ‘Hey, it’s you!’

  Knight did a double take, realising it was the same driver who’d chased the taxi that had tried to run him and Lancer down.

  ‘Cronus has my kids.’

  ‘De crazy guy who blew up Mundaho?’ the Jamaican cried.

  ‘Go like hell, man,’ Knight said.

  They roared north-west towards Brompton Road while Knight tried Pottersfield’s number again. It did not go through, but he’d no sooner ended the attempt than the iPhone buzzed, alerting him to a text.

  It was from Hooligan and read: ‘AT YOUR HOUSE. YOUR COMPUTER AND PHONE BUGGED. ASSUME YOUR MOBILE BUGGED 2. MAYBE TRACEABLE. CALL.’

  Traceable? Knight thought. They’ve been tracking me?

  ‘Pull over,’ he yelled.

  ‘But your kids, mon!’ the taxi driver said.

  ‘Pull over,’ Knight said, forcing himself to calm down. He glanced at the beating hearts on his screen. They’d gone into an address on Porchester Terrace.

  ‘Do you have a mobile?’

  ‘My old lady’s phone died this morning,’ the driver said, stopping at the kerb. ‘I gave her mine to use while hers be fixed.’

  ‘Son of a …’ Knight said. He looked at the screen one last time and memorised the address where the twins were being held.

  Then he handed the phone to the driver along with two fifty-pound notes. ‘Listen carefully, mate. I’m going to leave this phone with you, and you’re going to drive it out to Heathrow.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t argue,’ Knight said, now scribbling on a business card. ‘Drive it to Heathrow and then circle back to this address in Chelsea. You’ll see police there. Ask for Inspector Pottersfield or Hooligan Crawford – he’s with Private. Give them the phone. There’ll be a reward in it for you.’

  ‘What about your kids, mon?’

  But Knight was already gone, running across Brompton Road towards Montpelier Street, heading north towards Hyde Park, thinking that the last thing he wanted was to have police arrive in force, surround the place, and force Marta’s hand – or Cronus’s hand, for that matter. It could cost Luke and Isabel their lives and Knight could not survive that. He’d scout the place out, and then find a phone to alert Elaine, Jack, Hooligan, Pope, and everyone else in London.

  Knight was gasping for air by the time he reached the trail that paralleled the west shore of The Serpentine. His lungs were on fire when he left the park ten minutes later and crossed Bayswater Road, across from Lancaster Gate Tube station.

  He went west along Bayswater Road, passed a crowd of revellers at the Swan Pub still celebrating England’s’ come-from-behind victory over Brazil, and finally took a right onto Porchester Terrace. The address he sought was on the west side of the street towards Fulton Mews.

  Knight stayed on the east pavement, moving methodically north until he’d got as close to the address as he dared in case the street was being monitored. He desperately wished he’d had his binoculars with him, but could see that the white apartment building had balconies on every floor and iron bars on the ground-floor windows.

  There were identical apartment buildings on either side of the building Knight was targeting. Every window in the building was dark except for a light that glowed from French doors leading to the balcony of a flat on the north-east corner of the third floor. Was this where Marta was holding his children?

  Rain began to fall again, hard enough for Knight to decide he would not look out of place if he put up the hood on his raincoat and walked past the building on the east side of the street.

  Were Isabel and Luke inside? Cronus? Was this their hideout? Knight walked past, taking what he hoped would look like casual glances at the doorway, wondering if he should risk crossing to the other side for a closer look before he went to one of the hotels over on Inverness Terrace to call Elaine.

  Then he noticed how close that balcony was to the balcony immediately to the north, which was attached to a wholly separate building. It appeared to Knight that anyone would almost certainly be able to see from that balcony on the adjacent building into the apartment where he thought Luke and Isabel might be being held.

  Hell, you could probably jump from one balcony to the other.

  Knight slowed and studied the facades of the apartment buildings, trying to figure out how to climb up there. But then lights went on behind the French windows of the adjacent balcony. Someone was home there.

  Instantly a plan hatched in Knight’s mind. He’d ring their bell, explain what was going on, and ask to use their phone to call Pottersfield and to access the balcony for surveillance purposes. But then he thought to go to the rear of the two buildings to see if any other lights were on. It took him three minutes. No other lights. He returned to Porchester Terrace just as a woman came out through the front door of the apartment building he wished to enter.

  Knight bolted past her, smiled at her as if they were old friends, bounded up the steps, and caught the security door before it could shut. Even better. He’d go straight up and knock at the door of the flat on the south-east corner of the third floor. When they saw his Private badge they were sure to let him in.

  He ran up the two flights of stairs and came out into a centre hallway that smelled of frying sausages. The third floor was divided into four separate flats. Knight went to the southeast-facing flat, number 3B, heard a television inside, and knocked sharply before holding up his Private badge and ID to the peephole.

  He heard footsteps approach and then a pause before locks were thrown and the apartment door opened to reveal a puzzled Michael Lancer who said, ‘Knight? What are you doing here?’

  Chapter 95

  LANCER WORE A tracksuit and looked as though he had not shaved in days. And his eyes were sunken and hollow as if he’d slept little since being fired from his position with the London Organising Committee.

  ‘You live here, Mike?’ Knight asked incredulously.

  ‘Past ten years,’ Lancer replied. ‘What’s going on?’

  Puzzled now, Knight said. ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Uh, sure,’ Lancer said, standing aside. ‘Place is a mess, but … why are you here?’

  Knight walked down a hallway into a well-appointed living area. Beer bottles and old Chinese takeaway containers littered the coffee table. The southern wall was exposed brick. Pressed against it was an open armoire that held a television tuned to the BBC’s wrap-up of the last full day of Olympic competition. Beside it was a desk and on top of it a glowing laptop computer. A blue cable came out from the side of the computer and was plugged into a wall socket.

  Seeing that cable, it all suddenly seemed to make some sense to Knight.

  ‘What do you know about your neighbours on the other side of that wall?’ he asked, spotting the French window that led out onto the balcony.

  ‘You mean in the other building?’ Lancer asked, puzzled.

  ‘Exactly,’ Knight said.

  The LOCO
G member shook his head. ‘Nothing. It’s been empty for almost a year, I believe. I mean, I haven’t seen anyone on the balcony for almost that long.’

  ‘Someone’s in there now,’ Knight said, and then gestured at the blue cable. ‘Is that a CAT 5e line linked to the Internet?’

  Lancer seemed to be struggling to understand where Knight was going with all these questions. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘No Wi-Fi?’ Knight asked.

  ‘The CAT has much higher security. Why are you so interested in the flat in the building next door?’

  ‘Because I believe that Cronus or one of his Furies has rented it so they could tap into your computer line.’

  Lancer’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s how they were able to crack the Olympic security system,’ Knight went on. ‘They tapped into your line, stole your passwords, and in they went.’

  The former decathlon athlete looked at his computer, blinking. ‘How do you know all this? How do you know they’re next door?’

  ‘Because my children are in there.’

  ‘Your children?’ Lancer said, shocked.

  Knight nodded, his hands balled into fists. ‘A woman named Marta Brezenova, a nanny I hired recently, kidnapped them on Cronus’s behalf. She doesn’t know that the twins are wearing pieces of jewellery fitted with a GPS transmitter. Their signals are coming from that flat.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Lancer said, dumbstruck. ‘They were right next to me the whole … we’ve got to call Scotland Yard, MI5. Get a special-weapons unit in here.’

  ‘You do that,’ Knight said. ‘I’m going to see if I can look into that flat from your balcony. And tell them to come in quiet. No sirens. I don’t want my kids getting killed on a knee-jerk reaction.’

  Lancer nodded emphatically, pulled out his mobile, and began punching in numbers as Knight slipped out through the French window onto the rain-soaked balcony. He moved past wet patio furniture and tried to see into the other flat.

  The other balcony was less than six feet away, featured an iron balustrade, and was empty, apart from some old wet leaves. The French window had gauzy white curtains hanging over it that let light out, but gave Knight no clear idea of the interior layout. To his right, Knight could hear Lancer talking on his phone, explaining what was going on.

  A wind came up. The French window on the far balcony blew open several inches, revealing a stark white carpet and a white country-style table on which several computers stood glowing, all connected to blue CAT 5e lines.

  Knight was about go back into Lancer’s apartment to tell him what he’d seen when he heard his son whine from somewhere in the adjacent flat: ‘No, Marta! Lukey want to go home for birthday party!’

  ‘Shut up, you spoiled little bastard,’ Marta hissed before Knight heard a loud slap and Luke went hysterical. ‘And learn to use the loo!’

  Chapter 96

  THE PRIMAL INSTINCT of a father wanting to protect his child seized Knight so completely that without considering the consequences he climbed up on Lancer’s railing thirty feet above the ground, crouched, and dived forward.

  As Knight pushed off from the wet rail his shoes slipped ever so slightly, and he knew in an instant that he wasn’t going to make it onto the floor of the balcony next door. He wasn’t even going to reach the railing, and he thought for sure that he was going to plunge and break every bone in his body.

  But somehow his fingers snagged the bottom of the iron balustrade where it met the balcony floor and he grabbed at it for dear life, dangling and wondering how long he could hold on.

  ‘Shut up!’ Marta snapped inside, and slapped Luke again.

  The little boy’s sobs turned bitter, and that was enough to trigger a massive surge of adrenalin in Knight. He swung his body left and right like a pendulum, feeling the iron biting into his hands, but not caring because on the third swing he was able to catch the edge of the balcony floor with the toe of his right shoe.

  Seconds later he was over the railing and onto the balcony itself, his muscles trembling and a chemical taste in his mouth. Luke’s crying had become muffled and nasal, as if Marta had gagged Knight’s son.

  Ignoring the stinging in his hands, Knight gripped his Beretta and eased up to the half-open French window. He peeked inside and saw that the living area was similar in layout to Lancer’s place. The furnishings were wildly different, however, with a much colder touch. Everything in the room, except a gold and red tapestry that hung on the right-hand wall, was the same stark white as the carpet. Luke’s muffled cries were coming from a hallway by the kitchen.

  Knight pushed open the French window and stepped inside. He kicked off his shoes and stalked quickly to the hallway. He had no illusions about what he was doing now. Marta was a part of the death of Denton Marshall. She’d helped destroy his mother’s happiness. She had tried to destroy the Olympics, and she’d taken his children. He would not hesitate to kill her to save them.

  Luke’s cries softened enough for Knight to be able to hear Isabel weeping too, and then a deeper groaning. All of it was coming from a room on the left, its door open and lights on. Knight hugged the wall and reached the doorway. He looked down the hallway beyond and saw two doors, both open, lights off.

  It was all going down in the room right next to him. He thumbed the Beretta’s safety.

  Gun held out in front of him, Knight stepped into the doorway, sweeping his weapon around the room. He spotted Isabel lying on her side on a bare mattress on the floor to his right, tied up, tape across her mouth, looking towards Marta.

  The nanny was about fifteen feet from Knight, her back turned to the door, and she was changing Luke’s nappy on a table against the wall. She had no idea that he was standing in the doorway behind her, searching for a clear shot.

  But James Daring did.

  The museum curator and television star was staring at Knight, who understood much of the situation in a heartbeat. Knight stepped forward, aiming the pistol, and said, ‘Get away from my son, you war-criminal bitch, or I will head-shoot you and enjoy doing it.’

  The nanny pivoted in disbelief towards Knight, her attention darting to a black assault rifle standing in the corner several feet away.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Knight said, taking another step towards her. ‘Get down on your belly, hands up behind your head, or I will kill you. Right now.’

  Marta’s eyes went dead and vacant, but she started to comply slowly, lowering her centre, watching Knight the way a cornered lioness might.

  Knight took another step forward, gripping the Beretta two-handed, seeing her framed in his pistol sights. ‘I said get down!’ he yelled.

  Marta went flat, and put her hands up behind her head.

  Glancing at Daring, Knight said, ‘Cronus?’

  The television personality’s eyes glazed before Knight heard a nearby thudding noise and something viciously hard hit his head.

  It was like storms he’d seen come up over dry lowlands in Portugal: thunder boomed so loud that it deafened Knight even as heat lightning crackled, sending electric tentacles through his brain, so brilliant that they blinded him into darkness.

  Chapter 97

  Sunday, 12 August 2012

  THE SOUNDS OF hydraulic doors opening and shoes slapping on tile stirred Karen Pope from an edge-of-consciousness sleep.

  The Sun reporter lay on a sofa in Private London’s lab, feeling wrecked by a fatigue that was compounded with worry. No one had heard from Knight since he’d walked out the rear door of his house. Not Pottersfield, not Hooligan, not Pope, not Morgan, nor anyone else at Scotland Yard or Private.

  They’d waited for him at his home until shortly after dawn when Pottersfield had left to examine the bodies of the two dead women found in the abandoned factory. Pope and Hooligan returned to Private to run the fingerprints that Hooligan had taken at Knight’s house through the Balkan War Crimes database.

  They’d got a hit almost immediately: Senka, the oldest of the Brazlic siblings,
had been all over the place. When Hooligan informed Pottersfield, the inspector told them that preliminary fingerprint work on the more recently slain woman positively identified her as Nada, the middle Brazlic sister.

  At that point, around eight a.m. that Sunday, Pope had hit a wall of exhaustion and had lain down on the couch, using one of Hooligan’s lab coats for a blanket. How long had she slept?

  ‘Hooligan, wake up,’ she heard Jack say. ‘There’s a beat-up Rasta at the front desk looking for you. He says he’s got something that he was supposed to hand-deliver to you for Knight. And he refuses to give it to me.’

  At that Pope opened an eye to see the American standing at Hooligan’s desk and Private London’s chief scientist rousing from a nap. Above him, the clock read 10:20.

  Two hours and twenty minutes? Pope sat up groggily, then got to her feet and stumbled after Hooligan and Jack out of the lab to the reception area, where a Jamaican sat painfully in a chair by the lift. A large bandage covered his grossly swollen cheek. His arm was in a cast and secured by a sling.

  ‘I’m Hooligan,’ the scientist said.

  The Rasta struggled up and held out his good hand, saying, ‘Ketu Oladuwa. I drive de cab.’

  Hooligan gestured at the cast and bandage. ‘Crash?’

  Oladuwa nodded. ‘Big time, mon. On my way to Heathrow. Broadsided by a panel van. I been in hospital all night.’

  Pope said, ‘What about Knight?’

  ‘Ya, mon,’ the Rasta said, digging in his pocket and coming up with a smashed iPhone. ‘He gimme dis one here last night and tell me to drive it to Heathrow and then back to his home to find you or some inspector with da police. I went to Knight’s home when I got out of hospital dis morning, and police told me you gone, so I came here.’

  ‘To give us a smashed phone?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Wasn’t smashed before da accident,’ the Rasta said indignantly. ‘He said something on dat phone help you find his kids.’