Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

Michael “Flex” Gibbon had waited years for this moment, and the picture of Morgan’s anguish made every second worthwhile.

“Hello, Morgan. Shame we couldn’t do this in person, but good to see you again.”

Morgan recognized the voice of the muscle-bound maniac with his gun held to Cook’s head.

“Whatever it is you want,” Morgan tried, “you can have it. I will sell Private, and you can have every dime.”

“This isn’t about money, Jack!” Flex shouted at the phone, his rage boiling over. “This is about honor! This is about righting a wrong! You don’t walk into my town and insult me! You don’t come onto my turf and sucker-punch me in my own gym!”

“Sucker-punch?” Cook laughed at Flex’s feet. “He beat the shit out of you!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Flex snarled, pistol-whipping his captive with such force that her head snapped back and blood gushed from her nose.

“Jane! Please, Flex,” Morgan pleaded, “I’ll do anything.” He meant every word.

“Anything?”

“Yes. Anything. Anything!”

“Good.” Flex lowered the pistol and ran his hand through Cook’s hair. “So shall I tell you what I want, Jack?”

“Yes! Just tell me! Tell me and you’ll have it!”

“I’ve already got it, you prick,” Flex laughed. “All I want, Jack, is for you to watch.”

Then he lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.

Jack Morgan sank to his knees. The phone fell from his hand and bounced across the floor. As he brought his hands to his face, he could hear Lewis’s anguished screams coming from the phone’s tiny speaker.

“Jack!” Knight shouted, running to his friend’s side. “What is it?”

What was it?

It was witnessing the cold-blooded murder of a colleague. More than a colleague. It was being helpless to prevent it. It was a sense of the deepest revulsion, and the fast-growing tide of anger.

It was the loss of someone Morgan loved, and would never hold again.

“He killed Jane.”

“What?” Knight mumbled, unable to comprehend the words. “What...?”

“He killed Jane!” Morgan said again, the anger beginning to take over every other emotion. “I’ll kill him,” he growled in the back of his throat as he pushed himself up and picked up his phone.

The call had ended.

“Jack? Tell me what’s happened. Talk to me, mate.”

“Flex executed Jane. He’s still got Lewis. I’m going to find him, Peter,” Morgan promised, his eyes like burning embers. “I’m going to find Flex Gibbon, and then I’m going to kill him.”

Michael Gibbon looked down at the body that lay in front of him. What had been a beautiful woman was reduced now to a body of useless meat. It was a waste, really. Still, the bitch who had attacked him at his gym was dead, and Morgan had seen her die. That gave Flex some solace, but it did not fill him with satisfaction. That wouldn’t come until Jack Morgan had suffered still more, and then finally died in agony himself.

“You fucking coward,” Flex then heard, breaking him from his thoughts.

He turned his masked head to look at the police officer, Lewis. She was on her knees and trembling, but her face was hard and defiant.

“You’re a copper,” Flex stated.

“I am,” Lewis answered, with a proud jut of her chin.

“Look at her. Go on. Look at her,” Flex urged with a wave of his pistol.

Willing herself to be stoic, Lewis obeyed and turned her eyes to Cook’s body on the floor.

“This woman was a traitor,” Flex declared, lifting up Cook’s head by her hair so that her dead eyes looked at Lewis. “She was a traitor, and so she got treated like one.”

“She wasn’t a traitor, you fucking murderer!” Lewis shouted, hoping that she could face death with the same tenacity that Cook had.

“She was,” Flex stated coldly, dropping Cook’s head so that it hit hard on the floor. “She’s been working with that American bastard to undermine British security. She’s been working to undermine the army, and the police. Your team, Lewis. She’s been out to fuck your team.”

“Bollocks!” Lewis spat. “Just shoot me and get it over with, you fat bastard! I don’t want to hear your crap!”

Flex’s accomplice hit her hard in the face. The police officer tasted blood, and braced herself as she saw a boot coming in at her stomach.

Being ready wasn’t enough. Lewis doubled over in pain as she felt one of her lower ribs crack.

“I’ve got nothing against you, Lewis,” Flex explained. “But I’ve had nothing against a lot of people I’ve killed, so don’t let yourself think that will stop me. Now,” he asked, bringing up the silencer of his pistol to brush against his captive’s forehead, “are you gonna help me, or are you gonna die?”

Jack Morgan sprinted out of the police station, Peter Knight on his heels, and a series of clattering doors and bewildered faces left in their wake.

“Jack!” Knight shouted at his friend’s back. “We can’t rush into this alone! We don’t have weapons! We need the police!”

Morgan ignored Knight’s calls until the men stood in a wide stretch of empty car park. The American came to a stop and turned to face Knight.

“No police,” Morgan declared, his voice guarded and lethal like a holstered pistol. “If Flex sees police, Lewis will die too. I’ve already had HQ call off the uniforms who were supposed to take over Patel’s crime scene.”

“But—”

“No police, Peter! These are our people, and it’s up to us to save them!”

Knight didn’t point out that Private’s own agent was beyond help. “Lewis is police. Her own people deserve to know what’s happening.”

Morgan shook his head. “I’m getting her out of this.”

Knight could see that the shock of Cook’s death was clouding Morgan’s judgment. The American had pulled off so many daring feats that Knight had lost count, but now that record was pushing Morgan into making rash decisions that would not only cost Lewis her life, but likely Jack Morgan his own.

“This is what he wants, Jack,” Knight argued. “He wants you to run in there with no plan.”

“I have a plan,” Morgan protested. “I’m going to kill him.”

Knight reached out and grabbed his friend by the shoulders. “Jack. Mate. Please. Reconsider this. Getting yourself killed will not bring her back.”

But there was no reply for Knight, nor recognition that his words had even been heard. Instead Morgan looked to the sky. “Chopper’s here.”

Flex stood back as his accomplice delivered a kick into Lewis’s side. The air was driven from her, red-hot pain shooting through the woman’s body as the ends of her broken rib grated against one another.

“Here’s something for you to think about,” Flex growled through his mask. “Don’t you think it’s funny that Jack Morgan and Private keep turning up around the world just as shit is about to hit the fan? Look at London. Who was here to save the day at the Olympics? Who was here for Trooping the Color? It’s always that bastard Morgan. He sets these things up so that his company profits from them! Can you not see that?”

“All I see,” Lewis groaned, “is a fat boy with a man-crush. You should just get it over with and admit you want to fu—”

Flex’s boot drove the last words from her lungs as a wheeze.

“You stupid bitch! What money are you on as a copper? Thirty grand a year? Morgan is making millions a year! Millions! And he’s making it by having others die for him. You think this sack of shit on the floor is the first one who’s died to make Jack Morgan richer?”