Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

Pull the trigger , he told himself. Pull the trigger. Find another way to get Flex. Find another way to rescue Knight. Knight put himself in this position. Why should Jane’s killers go unpunished, for his mistake? Pull the trigger! Morgan’s anger screamed at him. Pull the trigger, kill this son of a bitch, and then kill the others. Do it! Kill him! Now!

Morgan lowered the pistol, and turned to the front. Behind him, having seen the murderous intent in the American’s eyes, and believing his life to have run its course, Herbert began to whimper.

Before Morgan could tell him to shut up, his phone vibrated.

The first location sent to Morgan was a waypoint. Morgan expected that Flex would hold the final destination until the last moment, but the muscle-bound murderer needn’t have worried — Morgan had no intention of alerting anyone who could stand between himself and Flex. His mind was as set as a Marine charging an enemy machine-gun nest, focused on nothing but the result of his actions — his own safety an afterthought unworthy of consideration.

Flex’s first direction sent Morgan to Brixton. The second, to Waterloo. Morgan was then instructed to proceed to Lewisham, until Flex called back with the location of the true meeting place: London Bridge.

At first the site of the meeting point surprised Morgan. It was public. It had limited access. Perhaps Flex really did intend to honor the swap? Or perhaps, like Morgan, he was ready to die to get what he wanted, and the bridge was the best bottleneck to make sure that happened.

“We’re going to go in on foot,” Morgan told Herbert, remembering the barriers that had been put in place to stop terrorists from driving vehicles into pedestrians, and knowing that any stopped car on the structure would draw instant scrutiny from the security services.

“You realize your best chance to live is by doing what I say?” he asked the man again.

Herbert nodded, and Morgan ripped away the tape that had covered the man’s lips. Herbert grimaced as pieces of skin tore away with it. The tape on the man’s hands would stay, covered by a coat, the hood pulled up over the man’s head and zipped in place to act as an impromptu straightjacket.

“I’ve counted my rounds. You mess this up, I’m holding one back for you.”

“I won’t,” Herbert promised. “All that crap that mental bastard told me about unit loyalty and honor, and then he goes and tells you to stick a bullet in me? Give me a gun and I’ll shoot him myself.”

Morgan smiled at the idea. “Out the car.”

They left the Focus in a disabled parking bay next to London Bridge station. Morgan had no intention of coming back to it, and had pushed the revolver into the front of his trousers, the semi-auto in the back. Herbert had said that Flex expected Morgan was behind the Knightsbridge shooting, and so it was safe to assume he knew Morgan would be packing heat as a result. What Morgan couldn’t guess was whether or not Flex would ask him to expose those firearms on the bridge, and to draw the inevitable attention that would bring.

“He won’t give you your mate.” Herbert shook his head. “He’s a nutter, and all he’s talked about for months is killing you.”

Morgan ignored him, instead taking in his environment. The area was quiet, but slowly breathing its way to life — early birds in suits made their way toward the station. A street sweeper cleared plastic glasses and cigarette ends from outside a pub. Looming above all this was a thousand-foot-high sentinel, the Shard, looking like it had been plucked straight from one of Tolkien’s fantasy worlds then clad in glass.

Morgan looked at his watch — 5:28. They would hit the bridge’s center at exactly the time of Flex’s request. The bridge itself was a flat expanse, the pedestrian pavement on each side as wide as its two traffic lanes. Across it came a dribble of cars and lonely pedestrians, people ensconced in their own worlds, with no idea that life and death was about to pass them by within meters.

“Keep on my left side,” Morgan told Herbert, wanting to keep the firing line of his right hand free. “You see any of Flex’s people?”

“It will only be Rider with him. It was only me and him that Flex brought in.”

Morgan kept looking over the people ahead of him nonetheless. He wasn’t about to make assumptions based on the word of a man who had tried to kill him.

“Where the hell is he?” Morgan growled as they reached the center of the bridge’s long span.

There were no stopped vehicles. No sign of Flex’s bulky form, or Rider’s rangy figure.

“Where the hell are they?”

“Traffic?” Herbert suggested.

Morgan shook his head. At this time of the day the roads were almost bare.

Too late, he saw the trap that had been set.

“Shit!” hissed Herbert as he saw the same. “We’ve got to run!”

But Morgan did nothing.

He simply watched as the police car came slowly across the bridge, and indicated that it was about to pull up alongside them.

Morgan had been set up.

“We need to leg it, now,” Herbert urged. “If they catch you with those guns you’re done!”

Morgan knew it, and yet he remained where he was, his eyes tracking the police car that was gliding along the curbside, now only ten meters away.

“Move and I’ll kill you,” he told the man beside him.

“What are you going to do? Kill me, then the coppers?”

Could he? Morgan asked himself. Could he shoot police officers acting in the line of duty, so that he could bring his own brand of justice to Flex? Could he bring that same heartbreak that he now felt to the families and loved ones of these officers?

No, Morgan knew. Not a chance in hell.

And so his options were to run, or stand — he chose to stand, and Herbert hissed that he was an idiot.

Morgan said nothing. Maybe he’d be proved wrong, but he was listening to his gut, and his instinct told him that Flex would not be happy with Morgan simply being arrested and imprisoned. Flex wanted Morgan’s blood as badly as Morgan wanted his.

No, Morgan told himself, growing more certain. Flex wouldn’t send the police, and though Morgan believed in coincidence, he did not believe that a squad car would happen to pull up on him the moment he walked onto London Bridge, and single him out, when dozens of other pedestrians were walking across the length of the bridge.

There was something more going on here, and as the car drew close enough for the early morning light to illuminate the occupants, Morgan saw that his gut had been right.

Flex.

There was no mistaking the bulk that sat in the car’s passenger side, and who now emerged onto the roadside, clad head to foot in police gear, his equipment accurate down to the shoelaces. Behind him the rear door opened, and Rider stepped forth, equally tailored. So dressed, neither the men nor their car would draw unwanted attention — security was a part of London life, and nowhere more so than at its iconic locations.

Flex had taken the precaution of turning off the car’s interior lights so that they did not come on with the open doors, and Morgan could only just make out the shape of the figure in the car’s recesses. Behind the wheel sat the face of another “police officer,” and Morgan chanced a glance to Herbert, who gave a quick shake of his head — he didn’t know him.

“You keep your mouth shut, you fucking rat,” Flex snarled at Herbert. “Did the regiment teach you nothing?”

“Taught me that you’ll blow the bridge to save yourself,” Herbert replied.

“Shut up,” Morgan told him, as calmly as he could in the presence of Jane’s killer. Then to Flex, “Take Knight out of the car, and Herbert’s yours.”