“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