“Flex killed her,” Morgan pushed out through clenched teeth, his eyes like lasers as he stared out the window. “And he’s still out there.”
“You’d be dead if you’d have followed Flex,” Knight ventured, as neutrally as possible. “What use is that to her, Jack? That’s not what she’d want. Think about it like this: when Flex goes down, do you want hundreds of witnesses?”
“No,” Morgan replied. No witnesses. Not unless he wanted to spend a lifetime in a British prison.
“Flex will get what’s coming to him,” Knight promised. “But when we decide. Not him.”
For a while the car was silent. In the back seat, Hooligan held his head between shaking hands.
“You’re a good man, Peter,” Morgan finally said. “You too, Hooligan.”
“I ran,” Hooligan stammered. “I left Perkins out there.”
“Perkins will be OK. The police will have got him to a hospital,” Knight reassured him. “They didn’t want Perkins, they wanted you. You did what you had to do.”
“You lived,” added Morgan. “And now you can help us finish this.”
Chapter 76
THE AUDI PULLED to a stop in Private London’s secured parking, and all men exited simultaneously.
“I’ve gotta go to the loo,” Hooligan told the others, and scuttled off.
Knight looked at Morgan over the top of the car.
“I’m sorry I went against your orders,” Knight offered. “I know you’re the boss, but I couldn’t let you go after him. It would have been suicide.”
“You’re my friend, Peter. And you probably saved my life.”
Knight managed a weak smile.
“I’m going to contact the Met,” he told his leader, having been debriefed by Hooligan on the journey. “Let them know that there’s someone masquerading in convincing police uniform.”
“Hooligan said he had all the gear,” Morgan agreed. “Hooligan couldn’t tell them apart. You think Flex has links in the police? Could he have called off the mounted officers to draw me in?”
Knight shook his head. “That was Denise. She was following it all on their system. She hacked in and gave orders for all officers to make their way to a bogus mass casualty event.”
“Good work. Better make sure she covers her tracks.”
As Knight stepped away from the car, his investigator’s instinct read Morgan’s body language. “You’re not coming inside, are you?”
Morgan shook his head. “I’m not. Keys, please.”
Knight tossed them over. “Will you tell me where you’re going?”
“I won’t.” Morgan walked around to the driver’s door and offered Knight his hand.
The Englishman shook it. “Be careful, Jack. I told you I’m ready to step up, but I don’t want to have to.”
Morgan patted his friend on the shoulder. Then, without a word, he climbed into the car. The sleek black machine glided from the garage and into the London night.
Where Jack Morgan would hunt.
Chapter 77
PETER KNIGHT SLOTTED his ID card into the garage’s door, and followed it with the biometric data of his thumb print and retinal scan. Only on the authentication of all three did the heavy deadbolts click open, Knight raising his hand to the cameras that monitored his every move. The security of his headquarters was more than a match for any building in the UK.
It was with a clouded mind and heavy feet that he walked Private’s hallways. He had known Jack Morgan for years, and he had never seen the American act this way. Morgan had always been a focused, driven individual, headstrong, even—how else could he have built the world’s biggest private investigation firm?—but his single-minded desire for revenge was worrying Knight. Knight knew that he and Hooligan had saved Morgan’s life by pulling him back into the car and keeping him from rushing after Flex and into an inevitable trap. Now Morgan was out again, who knew where, and without anyone to stop him from making any rash moves. Flex was ex-SAS and highly trained in tactical warfare. In order to beat him and achieve the justice Morgan so desperately wanted, they needed to be as cold and calculated as he was.
Justice, he thought. What did that mean to him? Peter Knight had worked for a long time as part of the British criminal justice system. He had seen innocent people go to prison, and evil ones go free. The system was flawed, he knew, but overall he believed in it. What kind of society would it be where people felt the need, and the right, to dispense their own justice? Knight had studied cases from Indonesia to Venezuela. He knew what happened when law broke down and vigilantism took over. Inevitably, those vigilante groups descended into becoming gangs and cartels and murderous groups just like the ones they had at first stood up to, and Knight had no wish to see that on London’s streets.
And yet.
And yet, he had done nothing to stop Jack Morgan taking the car and leaving on what could only be the pursuit of Flex Gibbon. A pursuit that, deep down, Knight knew would not end with Flex being handcuffed and put into the back of a police car. It would end with a casket, and spadefuls of dirt.
Knight strode toward the tech lab. “We need to track, Jack,” he told Hooligan.
“Already on it,” Hooligan replied intently.
“He didn’t disable the tracker?” Knight asked, frowning. As head of Private, Morgan was aware of all standard operating procedures. One of the most basic of which was to tag and track all of the Private fleet.
Hooligan shook his head. “He didn’t, surprisingly.”
Knight was confused—why would Morgan go it alone, unwilling to disclose his intent, but leave the electronic signature of his whereabouts?
“Where is he now?”
“Well, that’s odd.” Hooligan frowned, looking again at his screen, and then to Knight. “He’s at Horse Guards.”
Chapter 78
JACK MORGAN PULLED his car off Whitehall and into Great Scotland Yard, where he spied a parking space beside the Clarence pub. It was a private spot, but Morgan took care of that by giving the pub’s bouncer a handshake loaded with a couple of fifty-pound notes. Then, with the lightest of rains falling on his skin, he walked back onto Whitehall, and in the direction of Horse Guards Parade.
The majesty of London had always impressed Morgan, and its effect was even more striking at night. The buildings that lined Whitehall had been part of the seat from which the British Empire had been ruled. It was now home to the Ministry of Defence, the road itself watched over by statues of men who had led British armies to great victories overseas. Morgan’s eyes glanced over the brass plaques as he walked, recognizing the names from lessons he had been taught as a young Marine Corps officer: Earl Haig, who had presided over the slaughter in the trenches; Viscount Montgomery, who had turned back Rommel’s Africa Korps, before serving beneath Eisenhower in Europe; the Viscount Slim, who had routed the Japanese in Asia. All leaders who had been blessed with remarkable men and women to serve under them, just as Morgan had. Looking at their faces, Morgan wondered if they suffered as he did when any one of the people under their command were hurt, or died in the line of duty.
Morgan looked away from the statues, his eyes drawn to a brilliantly lit up structure in the road’s center. It was the Cenotaph, Morgan remembered—the central point of remembrance for all British and Commonwealth fallen soldiers. Jane had told him that when they had walked these streets together, looking for vulnerabilities in security ahead of the Trooping the Color parade, where kidnappers had threatened to execute Abbie Winchester should a ransom for her release not be paid. It was during those hours alone with her that Morgan had begun to develop an attraction for Jane Cook that was more than physical, and her memory had drawn him here. Their time together had been as short as it had been electric, and Morgan wanted to feel her presence as he sought out the road ahead. He wanted to recall memories of her that were exciting and promising, rather than the grotesque images of her death.