Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

Hooligan scanned the crowd and saw no sign of his attacker. The closest uniforms were a hundred yards away — two mounted police who were craning their necks at something as they patrolled along the roadside, where vehicles sat bunched and lazy, awaiting their turn to slip away from the stadium’s neighborhood.

“Where are you?” Hooligan asked hurriedly into his phone. “They won’t let me in the pub!”

“Stay next to it,” Knight replied. “Jack is coming for you. Jez, listen. Who is following you?”

Hooligan opened his mouth to reply, but the words died in his throat.

The “officer” was on the opposite side of the crowded street. A gray hoody was now pulled up over his head, but there was no forgetting the man’s grim, ominous face.

“He’s here,” whispered Hooligan as the man spotted him and began to cross the pedestrian traffic, a sick smile creeping across his ugly face. “I need to run!” Hooligan hissed into the phone.

“Stay where you are,” Knight insisted.

“But he’s coming!”

“Hooligan, if you run, we may not be able to find you again.”

“Peter! He’s getting close! Where’s Jack?”

“Stay where you are!”

“Peter! Peter!”

His pursuer was now halfway through the crowd. Halfway, and gesturing toward Hooligan’s position — the assailant was not alone.

“Help!” shouted Hooligan to everyone and no one. But the revelers ignored him, seeing either a smackhead or a drunk. “Help me!” Hooligan begged, but they did not. They shook their heads or smiled as they walked by.

It was only when another man began to shout in the crowd that the smiles began to slip, and were replaced with panic, and something more powerful than fear.

Terror.

“Bomb!” Jack Morgan shouted as he sprinted toward the White Swan pub. “Bomb!” he roared, hoping to sow confusion and chaos.

He got it. London was a city where terror attacks were a question of when, not if, and now dozens of panicked fans began to run, some screaming, others echoing Morgan’s frantic calls.

“Bomb!” they yelled, scrambling to get clear.

The stampede began moments later.

It took only seconds for word to pass from one mouth to another, twenty meters at a time. In under thirty seconds, it had reached the tail end of the crowd, who now surged forward, sideways and backward. What had been a steady flow of fans became a torrent, and no amount of cajoling by police or stewards could stop the flood.

“Out of my way!” a man screamed at Morgan, shoving him aside.

Others battered their way past him, many carrying children. The White Swan was only a dozen meters from Morgan, but the wave of fleeing spectators turned his approach into that of crossing a raging Rocky Mountain river.

“Hooligan!” he shouted. “Jeremy!”

Between the flashes of hustling claret-and-sky-blue shirts, Morgan caught sight of Hooligan sheltering by the pub’s wall as if from a storm, but it was a tidal wave of people that rushed by him.

“Over here!” Morgan shouted. “Over here!” His words were getting lost in the din of the crowd, but he kept calling. “Look! Jeremy! Here!”

And finally Hooligan did look, his eyes caught by Morgan’s motion, which was counter to the direction all others were moving. “Jack!” he called, his voice cracking. “Jack!”

Morgan saw Hooligan waving and pushed forward with more force, his sole focus on reaching Hooligan’s side. When he burst from the crowd, it was almost as a newborn, tossed from the frantic motion of fleeing fans into a tranquil haven.

“Where is he?” asked Morgan.

“I haven’t seen him since the stampede started.” Hooligan hugged Morgan as if he were a long-lost father. “That was you who started the bomb scare?”

Hooligan was not the only one to have figured that out, and now the alert mounted police, who’d been drawn to Morgan by his rushing through the crowd, pointed fingers in his direction and turned their horses into the press. The steady flow of fleeing fans broke around the beasts like river rapids.

“They’re coming for us, Jack! Thank God!”

Morgan felt no such elation. Flex was owed retribution, and Morgan could not deliver that from a Metropolitan Police cell. The mess could be cleared up, but it would take time. Time where Flex could be hunting more of Morgan’s people, or disappearing.

“Up and over the fence,” Morgan ordered, his eyes on the wooden fencing that stood between them and the back of the pub. “Go! Put your boot in my hand, and I’ll push you up!”

Hooligan knew better than to argue with Jack Morgan. In seconds he was over the fence. Morgan chanced one look over his shoulder before he followed.

The horse troopers were surging forward, eyes narrowed in pursuit as they talked into their radios.

Morgan was a wanted man.

Morgan dropped down into the backyard of the pub.

“Gate over there!” He pointed the direction to Hooligan, and the two men began to twist and turn their way between empty beer kegs that gleamed silver in the evening’s sunlight.

“What’s happening, Jack? Who’s that bloke chasing me?” Hooligan asked over his shoulder.

“Just run! I’ll explain later,” Morgan told him. “Run, and don’t stop!”

But Hooligan did stop — the gate was locked. Morgan was about to boost the tech up and over when both men’s phones rang simultaneously. The anomaly was enough to stop Morgan, and have him answer. “Peter,” he said into the phone.

“Don’t worry about the police,” Knight’s voice bounced back. “Get out of the front of the pub, Jack. I’m waiting here.”

“We can’t,” Morgan protested. “The police saw me start the stampede. We can’t—”

“Don’t worry about the police!” Knight urged. “Just get out front. Hurry!”

Morgan felt Hooligan’s eyes on him, expecting orders from his leader. Every instinct told him that they should run, but...

“Inside,” the American told Hooligan, putting his faith in Knight and leading his tech man toward the back door.

As they stepped inside they saw the pub had pretty much cleared out except for a few stubborn patrons.

“You’ve gotta love the British.” Hooligan couldn’t help but smile with pride as he caught sight of one pensioner who was still sipping bitter at the bar, damned if he would move from his usual spot for a bomb threat.

Morgan’s eyes were on the doorways and windows. Through the glass he caught sight of Knight behind the Audi’s wheel, and pushed Hooligan through the nearest exit toward it.

Emptying out onto the street, Morgan half expected to be instantly assailed by police. Instead, he saw the two mounted officers moving away at speed in the opposite direction.

“Get in!” he yelled at Hooligan, opening the rear door and bundling him inside. He was about to follow when a roaring voice stopped him like a sledgehammer to the chest.

“Jack!” the voice bellowed. “Jack!” The sound of the familiar voice he so hated ignited every inch of his body in furious fire as he turned to face the owner.

Flex.

The muscle-bound man stood in the street as the final panicked remnants of the stampede hurried by him. By his side was a tall brute in a gray hoody.

Morgan wanted to kill them both.

Flex knew it, and smiled.

Then he simply walked away.

“Flex!” Morgan roared at the man’s back, his mind too full of anger to formulate threat or insult. “Flex!” he shouted, his call cutting away as he realized he was immobile, something holding him back from charging at the man who had killed Jane Cook.

“Help me hold him!” Knight shouted at Hooligan, who stretched from the back seat to reach out the door, taking hold of Morgan’s belt. “Hold him!” Knight demanded, struggling with his own grip as he twisted from the driver’s seat.