Princess: A Private Novel

by James Patterson

  “Then we may find ourselves at odds, Jack.”

  “Maybe we will. And I’m sorry if we do.”

  “So am I.” She smiled sadly. “Good night, Jack. Whatever happens, thank you for finding Sophie.”

  Morgan tried to smile in return. Then Princess Caroline turned and walked away.

  Chapter 91

  MORGAN STOOD ALONE in the center of the courtyard for some time after his conversation with the Princess. Except for the occasional tramp of a sentry’s feet, or the caw of a raven, the place was quiet. The Tower’s walls muted London’s traffic, giving it the serene sense of being a place of calm amidst the city’s storm. Of course, for Morgan, that was exactly what it was. Soon it would be time to go out into that storm.

  De Villiers’ tall frame appeared in the doorway of one of the buildings.

  “You could have waited inside,” the Colonel told him.

  “I wanted to think,” Morgan replied.

  And think he had done. Of Jane Cook. Of Sharon Lewis. Of Jeremy “Hooligan” Crawford. Of Peter Knight. All wards in his care. All people that, on some level, he had failed. In Cook’s case, Morgan’s actions and lack of foresight had led to her death.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not good for you.” De Villiers frowned, reading Morgan’s features like a map. “You need your head on straight, Morgan. Come on, man, this isn’t what I expected from you. Look at how you handled the people who took Abbie Winchester.”

  “I’ve lost one of my agents, Colonel.” He didn’t need to tell De Villiers that he had lost much more than that.

  “I know you have, Morgan. And now you have this.” He passed Morgan a sheet of paper.

  “What are these?”

  “Joyce has had no luck in contacting Flex directly, and he’s heard nothing from him since Jane… He’s heard nothing from him since then.

  “What you have here,” he continued, “is a list of addresses that Flex has been known to frequent. And these,” he pointed, “are the details of Flex’s expected accomplice, Nathan Rider. Joyce heard that Rider had been brought over from Africa by Flex. Apparently Rider isn’t the kind of man who cares to be in a country where there is a higher kind of law than who has the biggest guns, and so the pieces fit that he’s here for one reason.”

  “To kill me.”

  “To try. I’ll walk you to the gate. I expect you’ll want to make use of the night.”

  They walked in silence. Morgan left the way he had come in: through the small door set into the wall. As he emerged he found himself facing lengthways along the Thames, London’s skyline brilliant in the darkness.

  “You have everything you need?” De Villiers asked, emerging beside him.

  “I do,” Morgan replied, his eyes on the towers that were lit up toward the clouded heavens.

  “Then I’ll leave you with one last thought. I’m giving you as much rope as I can, Morgan, you understand? Precise and deliberate retribution I will allow you, but…”

  “I get it.”

  “Good. Just remember that this is London, not Afghanistan. If you bring war onto our streets, you’ll be in our sights as much as he is. This city’s suffered a lot these past few years. Our security forces are on a hair trigger.”

  Morgan nodded.

  “Thank you for your help, Colonel.” He put out his hand and De Villiers took it in a firm grip.

  “Get the bastard, Morgan. Get him, and put him down.”

  Chapter 92

  JACK MORGAN WALKED a mile from the Tower using back streets, main roads and alleyways. Happy that he was clear of tails, he’d put a call in to Hooligan, passing him the few addresses given up by Corporal Joyce. “Get CCTV in those areas if you can,” Morgan had instructed. “Have surveillance teams stood by, but no one is to leave Private HQ unless I order it.”

  Then he had given his London team a second set of instructions. Thirty minutes later an old Ford Focus pulled up at exactly the spot Morgan had requested, the driver getting out and walking away without a backward glance. Taking a few seconds to check his surroundings one more time, Morgan pulled a carrier bag from where he had shoved it into a hedge, felt the weight of the pistols inside, and walked to the car. He entered the driver’s side, found the key in the ignition and started it up.

  A few seconds later he was on his way to the first of Flex’s addresses.

  Chapter 93

  TWO YEARS AGO, Michael “Flex” Gibbon had run his security enterprise from atop a beautiful glass building that sat alongside the Thames. So great were the views, and so heavy his workload, that he had lived in the same building.

  A lot had changed since Jack Morgan had beaten the SAS soldier down, blowing out the man’s knee and sending the rumor mill wild. Flex was a soft-arse. Flex couldn’t cut it anymore. Why were the heads of two security firms fighting in the first place? I’ll take my business elsewhere. Now Flex’s operation was run out of a town-center office in Tottenham, sandwiched between a chartered accountants and a failed business whose windows were covered with wood panels and graffiti. It was a big fall for a big ego.

  Peter Knight sat lonely in his car, looking at the bricks-and-mortar reasoning that had driven Flex to seek out Morgan and cause him pain.

  “All because of his bloody pride,” Knight said sadly, shaking his head.

  He was in a small car park a hundred yards from the buildings that showed no signs of life. Even if Flex still ran operations around the globe, Knight guessed that the smaller-scale business would now employ a duty manager that worked from home, or wherever his laptop and phone happened to be. It was that way for many of the smaller security companies, of which Flex’s business had undoubtedly become one.

  Knight looked down to his lap, where he held a dossier on Flex Gibbon. It was possible to read it by the street lights, and he thumbed through its pages, marveling at how a solid SAS trooper could go from national hero to murdering monster.

  It was ego, Knight decided. All ego.

  That and pride had pushed Flex to join the army as a young man, after being beaten his whole childhood by his father. Ego had pushed him further, to volunteer for selection for the SAS. Ego had kept him going over the arduous hills phase of training in the Brecon Beacons. Ego had kept him going in the jungle. Ego had kept him going during escape and evasion, where he had been beaten and waterboarded. Ego had allowed Flex to endure so much. It had allowed him to build a thriving business. But then, when that ego had been damaged, it had exploded.

  Knight turned the next page.

  It was a picture of Flex’s children, now young adults, one studying at Liverpool University and the other in Manchester. The kids looked bright and athletic. A note in the dossier said that custody of the children had gone to their mother. The grounds of divorce had been that Flex was forever away on service for his country, and that when he’d returned he’d be angry and violent. On one occasion he had locked his wife in the bathroom for a day to “teach her some respect”—the police in Herefordshire had dropped the case in deference to Flex’s meritorious service. In what then looked like a trade with his wife, Flex had not fought the divorce.

  Knight looked again at the picture of the man’s children. What effect had their father’s choice of career had on their lives? Were they able to live like their other classmates at university? Were they able to settle disputes with calm words, or did they fly to anger and violence? Did they feel abandoned, or resentful? Were they ambivalent toward their father, or did they hate him? Was he a part of their lives, or was he forever estranged? Forgotten.

  Knight rubbed at his eyes as he realized he was asking these questions as much about himself as about Flex. Though Peter Knight could say honestly that he had never intentionally caused his children any harm, they had been harmed because of him. The death of their mother had been traumatic enough, but Knight’s role as head of Private London brought with it a constant threat of danger. He thought of how he’d almost lost them six years ago when they were kidnapped as par
t of Cronus’s vicious attack on the London Olympic Games. How could Knight live with himself if his children were brought into this? He couldn’t, he knew.

  And the children were growing older. They were understanding more and more each day. They were reading moods, and reacting to them. Danger aside, Knight’s workload at Private was enormous. He could not have it any other way, as he was responsible for the lives of other people, but did he want to be just another absent father who put his business life before his children? With his beloved wife gone, did Knight really want to continue risking his own life, and potentially orphan Luke and Isabel?

  He didn’t know the answer.

  But one thing was clear: once this mission was done, Knight would have to seriously evaluate his life. He would have to choose between being the father he wanted to be, or Private.

  Chapter 94

  JACK MORGAN DROVE slowly into the suburban estate in the borough of Wandsworth, south of the Thames. Unlike parts of central London, the homes here were detached, sat back behind manicured lawns, and nestled amongst trees that were heavy and lush with summer rain. Morgan smiled as he saw the surroundings, but not out of any sense of romance—it would make his job of getting close to the buildings easier. He would need to move quickly, as there were three addresses listed to Flex on the paper. Morgan had chosen the closest to the Tower to begin his search, but he was aware that the cover of night was in short supply in summer. Estimating time to travel between each, he had less than an hour for each location.

  He was a hundred yards away from his target now, so he pulled his car to the curbside and got out next to a narrow alley that led between two patches of greenery. Checking Google Earth, Morgan saw that the alley led to a pathway that ran behind the houses, before emerging onto a park and sports field. He turned the bright screen of the phone off, put it into his pocket and followed the path used by dog walkers and football-mad children during the day. Tonight, it would serve a darker purpose, and Morgan took the semi-automatic pistol in his right hand before pushing it into his jacket pocket. If need be, he could fire through the material and off the hip.

  Counting off his paces, as taught to him in Marine training, Morgan measured the distance, the practice accurate enough for him to know that he had come to a stop behind the correct building, a two-story brick home that showed no light and emitted no sound. The house was separated from the footpath by a thin fence and a few trees, and it was no effort for Morgan to raise himself over the fence and drop quietly into the back garden. There he waited. There was nothing. Deep in suburbia as it was, Morgan did not expect Flex to have the garden defended as if it were Fort Knox—nothing drew suspicion like a big musclehead with sirens in his garden—but even so, he inched slowly across the open space to the back wall, his hand twisting the pistol’s grip so that the barrel was aimed through the material at the back door.

  Morgan was halfway across the small garden when the sensor light flicked to life. He had expected it, and now covered the remaining distance in a split second, pressing himself against the back wall. He was cloaked from view from the windows, but he would be looming proudly on any CCTV screens that were inside the building—Morgan was willing to take a chance on that, having seen no flicker of lights inside to indicate that anyone was awake. He could only hope that the house wasn’t empty.

  It wasn’t. Morgan saw him as he peered through the corner of the window, nothing but a pair of feet raised up at the end of a sofa. Confident that the man was sleeping and not watching TV, Morgan moved to the door and considered the lock—it was garden variety, the same as almost any suburban home. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out one of the items he had instructed to be placed in the old Ford’s glove box—it was a lock-picking kit, and Morgan made short work of the old Chubb. Then, pressing delicately, he depressed the handle and pushed open the door.

  The house alarm sounded shrill and violent in the calm night. Morgan had been prepared for it, and as the first note pierced his eardrums he ditched his plan A of quiet calm and resorted to plan B, keeping in mind the three principles of close-quarter battle.

  Surprise: Morgan had taken the sleeping man unaware, and he had a few seconds to act before the man regained full function of mind and body.

  Speed: Morgan raced across the threshold and into the living room like a charging bull, pulling the pistol free of his jacket.

  Violence of action: before the man could even raise himself off the sofa, Morgan had gripped him by the throat and pressed the cold steel of the pistol’s muzzle into the man’s ear.

  “Alarm,” Morgan hissed. “Turn it off. Now.”

  Gripping the man by his trachea, he lifted him to his feet. The man saw that his situation was hopeless, and he used his wide white eyes to guide Morgan to the alarm box, jabbing his finger awkwardly at the digits. Within ten seconds of the door opening, all had returned to silence but for the man’s gasped breaths. Morgan shoved him to the floor and trained the pistol onto the back of his head. Only then did he notice the man’s left arm and shoulder were bandaged.

  “You got shot in the forest,” he guessed.

  The man said nothing, but when Morgan delivered a blow onto the recent gunshot wound, he groaned like an animal.

  “I’ll open up another one in the back of your head if you don’t start talking,” Morgan promised. “You know who I am, and you know I’m working outside the law, so talk. Are you Rider?”

  “I’m not,” the man spat through clenched teeth.

  “Then who the hell are you?” Morgan demanded, pressing the gun into the back of the man’s skull.

  “Herbert. Chris Herbert.”

  “You work for Flex?”

  “I work for myself.”

  A finger into the recently sutured gunshot wound convinced the man to change his answer. “Yes! Flex! Yes!”

  “You’re a mercenary? Well, I have a proposition for you. You help me get Flex, and I pay you back by not blowing your brains out over the carpet.”

  “Ram it, you Yank tart.”

  Morgan pressed his thumb into torn flesh and broken bone. Then he let Herbert tell him everything.

  Chapter 95

  THE THOUGHT OF his children, and the implications of a life without them, weighed heavily on Peter Knight as he watched the row of offices in Tottenham. He rubbed at his eyes, certain that the long hours and excitement had got to him, but he was not wrong in what he was seeing.

  Flex.

  There was no mistaking the size and shape of the muscle-bound man as he slinked quickly inside of his building. Fingers almost fumbling, Knight tried Morgan’s phone. It went straight to voicemail.

  “Dammit, Jack,” he cursed. He then tried Hooligan’s number, and it connected. “Jez? Flex has shown up at his office. Keep trying Jack from your end. I’m going to call Elaine and see if she can move some units closer, without us having to spill all the beans on why.”

  “All right. But stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid, Peter.”

  “I’ll watch from the car,” Knight promised, hanging up. A moment after he did so, he heard a metallic object tapping on the glass of his driver’s window.

  In that split second Peter Knight knew the game was over.

  And he was the loser.

  Chapter 96

  HERBERT HAD SPILLED some good information as to who Flex was working with. There was always the chance he was lying, but Herbert swore blind that the former Foreign Legion man Nathan Rider was the only other man Flex trusted to stand by him during outright murder. Rider had been waiting in London during the shootings in Wales, should opportunity arise there. Once Herbert had gone down to Lewis’s gunshots—treated by Flex, a deft medic from long experience—Rider and Flex had ridden together, and Herbert’s part in the actions had been reduced to watching the news channels, and reporting to Flex anything of interest.

  “He thinks it was you that caused the Knightsbridge shooting,” Herbert told him. “Thinks you went in there looking to get yourself a pie
ce.”

  “And what do you think?” Morgan asked, pressing the steel of the stolen pistol against the man’s head.

  “You know you shot someone? You’re in as much shit as me.”

  The only shots Morgan had fired were to take down the lighting fixtures. It must have been the girl’s wild shots that had found flesh, and left the dark blood trail on the dance floor.

  “Who was it?”

  “Some bellend TV presenter. It clipped off a few fingers, apparently.”

  Morgan didn’t feel too bad about that. He was relieved that it wasn’t Natalie or the security men who’d been hit.

  “Look, mate,” Herbert tried, “I’ve been in enough bad situations to recognize a really bad one, and the only way I see of getting out of this is by working with you.”

  No honor amongst thieves, Morgan thought to himself. Same goes for scumbags.

  “Talk.”

  “I’ll testify. I’ll tell them everything they need to know about Flex. I just need looking after, because he’ll kill me if we end up in the same prison.”

  But Morgan shook his head. “I don’t need testimony. I need him brought out in the open. I need him in front of me, so I can deal with him myself.”

  “But—”

  “Look, you’ve seen this guy’s capacity for revenge. You think being in a different prison is what’s gonna save you from him? No. If you’re going to live past tonight, you need to help me. And if you’re going to live after that, then you need Flex in the dirt.”

  “Shit,” Herbert hissed, knowing that it was the truth. “Shit. What is it you need me to do?”

  Morgan bundled Herbert into the back of the Focus. Already wounded, and with his wrists bound in tape, there was little Herbert could do to escape. A final piece of tape across his mouth had been enough to stifle the groans of pain—Morgan had not been gentle on the man.