JACK MORGAN HEARD the gunshots but did not break stride. They were away to his right, echoing from the street where he had seen Flex disappear. He flinched at the thought of Flex taking more innocent life, and braced himself for what scene he would come across in his pursuit. Morgan prepared for a decision he might have to make between saving that person’s life, or catching the murdering monster.
But then he heard a second set of gunshots crash through the streets, closely overlapped by others, and that overlap could mean only one thing: Flex was in a gunfight.
Morgan waited then—a patient hunter behind the low wall of a staircase, steadying himself, and waiting for his shot.
It came seconds later. Flex barreled out of the street with a quick look over his shoulder, closely followed by a gunshot. Any people in the locale who were not already running and screaming took off like a burst of frightened partridges, obscuring Morgan’s view as he brought up his pistol and tracked Flex’s progress—he was coming closer, running at an oblique angle to the American, who remained undetected, ready and waiting.
Morgan pulled the trigger.
The first round went wide, impossible to tell how far, but the sound was enough to draw Flex’s attention. The fugitive fired back a trio of shots without breaking stride. One of the bullets struck close, sending chips of brick into Morgan’s face and eyes, scratching him and forcing him down into cover. He cursed and wiped his eyes with his fingers to clear his vision.
When he looked again Flex was out of pistol range, charging like a bull ahead in the direction Morgan knew there would be no escape from—the Shard. With a flash of realization, Morgan understood Flex’s intention: he would take captives in one of the country’s most difficult buildings in which to effect a hostage rescue, beginning a siege that would end only in the death of innocents, or in the government-sanctioned escape of Flex.
Morgan could not allow either of those things to happen.
He ran onward.
Chapter 112
FLEX DIDN’T LIKE running with his back exposed, but with the armed copper in the street, the inevitable backup on its way, and Morgan taking his own shots, he had decided the best thing for him to do was to put his head down and just go.
Get to the Shard, he told himself. Get in there, grab a hostage, take a breath, work this out.
Despite the death and the carnage, Flex was confident he could escape the situation alive. He knew that the government line on not negotiating with terrorists was bollocks—he had seen it with his own eyes in countless failed states and backwaters around the globe—so he was sure they’d be willing to come to an agreement. After all, Flex had likely trained some of the men who would be orchestrating any planned rescue—he already knew their probable moves. There wasn’t much Flex could do to prevent them gaining access to him eventually, but with a few hostages, he could make a convincing enough argument that there would only be bodies to greet the would-be heroes. With limited options, Flex charged toward the Shard and the endgame that had been forced upon him.
“You!” he shouted to the top-hatted doorman, who was cowering behind a flower pot. “Take me upstairs! Now!”
If the police uniform was not enough to convince the doorman to comply, the pointed pistol was. “OK!” he stuttered in accented English. “OK!”
Flex grabbed the man by the collar of his greatcoat and shoved him toward the golden glimmer of the elevators. “All the way up!” he ordered. He backed into the opening doors so that the doorman was between himself and the outside, Flex’s gun over the man’s shoulder with a clear aim. As the doors began to slide closed, he saw a shape bounding from cover to cover outside. The figure moved too quickly for Flex to be certain it was Jack Morgan, but he fired a double tap anyway. Glass from the building’s front cracked and sent frosted spider’s webs outward.
A split second later, the elevator’s doors closed.
Chapter 113
MORGAN PICKED HIMSELF up off his stomach and looked at the cracked glass that had saved his life—the shatterproof windows of the Shard’s lower floor had absorbed the impact of Flex’s shots.
“Stop!” Morgan heard as he broke back into a run. “Get down! Armed police!”
Morgan turned to look over his shoulder and saw a running officer eighty yards away. The revolver was clearly visible in Morgan’s hands, and one look at the officer’s face told the American that he was serious, and trying to close the distance before he fired.
“Armed police!” he shouted again.
Morgan ran. He could not let him close that gap.
The Shard lobby was empty as he squeezed between the slowly opening automatic doors, not stopping until he hit the elevator call button. When it didn’t open at once, Morgan hit the deck on instinct. He was right to.
Two bullets cracked through the building’s open doors, which were now closing once more. The officer rose from the firing position on his knee, and began to bound forward. Morgan knew he could never bring himself to shoot the man, but the officer didn’t know that.
He raised his pistol and fired.
The first bullet went a foot wide of his target. The second hit dead center, and the police officer dropped to the ground.
Then crawled to cover.
Morgan had shot out the power box above the glass sliding doors, and now they were immobile, a six-inch gap between them. It would be enough to buy Morgan moments for his pursuit, before the police response teams could access the building’s industrial entrances. It would buy him moments to stop Flex from beginning what could turn out to be one of the country’s most bloody hostage situations. It would buy Morgan the time to offer Flex the one thing that could halt his course of action.
Morgan’s own life.
Chapter 114
THE DOORMAN WHIMPERED as the elevator shot upward. The muzzle of Flex’s pistol was pressed into his cheek so hard that he could feel it against his teeth.
“Please,” the man begged, his accent Eastern European, “I have a family.”
Flex said nothing. His eyes were on the numbers on the elevator’s controls. “How many floors in this building?” he demanded.
“Seventy-two.”
“Then why does this lift only go up to thirty-four?”
“It goes to the hotel,” the terrified man explained. “Then there is another set of lifts.”
Flex swore. His plan had been to ride the elevator to its highest level, grab a few more hostages, and then to ensconce himself somewhere that had a good view of the entrances, but was clear of windows that would allow him to be taken out by a helicopter-borne sniper. He also didn’t put it past the regiment to land on the top of the narrow building before abseiling down and smashing their way through the glass. In fact, they’d probably love that, Flex thought to himself, a sense of pride in his past life reaching up momentarily through his anger and hate.
He had been a part of something once, Flex knew. He had been a part of something greater than himself, and not as a cog in a machine, but as a brother amongst pilgrims. Eventually, when push came to shove, he had chosen that band of men over his own wife. She hadn’t been able to understand what it was he did, and why he was the way he was. After losing friends in Desert Storm, the last thing Flex needed to hear was her moaning about him having a couple of beers with his mates instead of driving her to Tesco. As much as it had hurt when she’d taken the kids, Flex had seen it as just one more sacrifice to be made in the service of his beloved regiment, and his country.