Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

Completing his arc, Flex was surprised to see that Morgan was not up and standing in the aim position, ready to pull his own trigger, but struggling on the ground, with someone biting and writhing on top of him as the American howled in agony.

Herbert , Flex realized. You were actually loyal to the end.

Flex pulled the trigger.

Jack Morgan felt the thud of rounds chew into the body on top of him. He heard the screams of pedestrians as they ran, joined by the drivers of vehicles desperate to flee the death on the bridge.

Morgan fought his urge to black out from the pain. He had never known anything like it. He had suffered several unpleasant injuries, but never before had a man tried to bite into his arteries like a zombie.

The pressure of the bite gave up suddenly as the bullets began to hit like sledgehammer strikes against flesh. Morgan guessed that the man who had assailed him, and who now acted as his unwitting human shield, was Herbert, the idiot loyal to the end and believing Flex cared about anyone but himself.

There was little need to guess the identity of the shooter, and Morgan braced himself for the round that would find its way through Herbert’s flesh, missing bones, and instead coming straight and true to lodge in his own body.

It didn’t come.

The firing stopped.

Flex looked at the pistol in his hand. The top-slide was held halfway back by an ejected round that had failed to properly clear the weapon, the empty bullet case now stopping the slide from coming forward to chamber the next round. To clear it would take the experienced Flex only two seconds, but as the wails of sirens and cries of “armed police” sounded behind him, the man realized that it was two seconds he didn’t have. Flex’s mission had been to kill Jack Morgan and those close to him — not to die himself. Looking at the leaking tandem of bodies on the pavement, Morgan silent and unmoving, Flex was content that the first part was done.

Now he had to escape.

The time for playing dead was over.

Morgan pressed himself up and rolled Herbert’s limp body off him. As he looked at the body he saw that Herbert had been killed by a round in the skull. The bullets that had ploughed into his torso had been stopped by the bulletproof vest Morgan had pulled onto Herbert in Battersea. The man’s assurances that he be protected against Flex had ended up saving Morgan’s life instead. Without the barrier of Kevlar and flesh on top of him, Morgan would have been bleeding to death on London Bridge. For now he was alive, but time was running out for others.

Having lost his pistol in the struggle with Herbert, Morgan now stood empty-handed, his mind struggling to take in the chaos of the scene around him: Rider lay dead in a pool of his own blood. The dirty police officer was dead and slumped behind the car’s wheel. Herbert was no more than a bag of chewed flesh and bone. Flex was gone.

And Knight...

Morgan ran to the bridge-side and peered down. There was no sign of his friend in the swirling gray-brown waters.

Morgan swore, then looked left and right along the bridge. He saw panic. The bridge itself was a rout of abandoned vehicles. The center of the span was empty of civilians, the press of their running bodies cleared to the bridge’s ends. There sirens announced the arrival of the inevitable, London’s security services rushing to the point of attack like blood clots to a freshly opened wound. Morgan saw a flash of movement between the cars and vans that stood abandoned on the bridge — he saw Flex, using cover from view and fire as he fled to the south bank.

As he fled from justice.

On instinct, Morgan turned to follow, but his friendship with Peter Knight stopped him as suddenly as if they’d been attached by a chain. He looked down at the wind-churned waters once more. There was no sign of Private London’s leader. Morgan looked to his blood-smeared watch, and saw that the time was 5:33. Less than three minutes since Flex and his crew had arrived in the police car. In those short moments, at least three men had died. Morgan prayed that it was not four.

Knight could be alive, he knew. He could be alive, and if he was, there was no way Morgan could abandon him. Not when there was hope, no matter how slim.

Morgan took one last look at the fleeing shape of Flex. Knowing that his chance of bringing vengeance down on Jane Cook’s killer may be lost forever, he turned back to the river, and prepared to jump.

“Stop!” Morgan heard coming from a car’s loudspeaker as he climbed onto the stone. “Don’t jump! Don’t jump, Jack!”

It was hearing his name that stopped Morgan, his toes teasing the edge of the ledge as he turned in the direction of the police van that slewed to a halt beside the scene of carnage. Armed officers spilled from its back like pepper from a shaker, their weapons up, ready and searching for targets — Morgan could not be a more inviting one. He felt the press of the revolver in the small of his back, and wondered if it was visible.

“Don’t move!” one of the masked officers shouted at him.

But Morgan did move. His eyes moved. They moved to the shape of an unmarked police car that skidded to a crunching halt between the officers and Morgan.

The doors flew open. The first man that Morgan recognized was the armed man who had stood guard for Princess Caroline inside the Tower. The second was Colonel De Villiers, clad head to foot in tactical gear, a pistol on his hip.

“Go!” he shouted at Morgan, waving in the direction of the south bank. “Get Flex!”

“Knight...” Morgan began, looking to the waters.

“I’ve got him!” De Villiers promised. “Go! Run! Get Flex!”

Morgan took one more look at the empty water beneath him, before turning his predatory eyes to the south.

Flex’s figure was almost clear of the bridge. Once he hit the mass of streets, Morgan knew, the chances of finding him would be almost zero.

And so he ran.

Colonel De Villiers watched as the bloodied apparition of Jack Morgan leaped down from the bridge-side and raced off toward the southern bank of the Thames.

“He’s with me!” the Colonel shouted to a pair of officers who began to take off in pursuit. The men pulled up short with a look to each other, but knowing well enough that orders were orders.

De Villiers ran to the bridge’s edge. He knew police boat units were already rushing to the scene, but Knight had been in the water for almost two minutes now — his time was running out, if it was not already up.

The Colonel had watched the man get hurled by Flex into the waters. He had seen Rider shot, and the struggle that followed. He had seen all this from a drone feed. Morgan had sent word at 5:28 of where the exchange would take place — Jack Morgan, still a Marine and servant to others, had put his own desire for vengeance after what was best for others. He had put his own head in a noose to draw Flex out so that the police could swoop in at the right moment and arrest Jane Cook’s killer.

De Villiers should have known better than to put faith in a plan to survive contact with the enemy. They had made the difficult decision to stand back, and allowed traffic and pedestrians to continue on the bridge — to do anything else would have alerted Flex. What they had not counted on was Flex’s temper causing him to throw Knight into the Thames, and to begin a shootout that had turned London Bridge into the Wild West.

With no other option, Colonel De Villiers shed his gear and jumped from the bridge.