Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

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.

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.

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.

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.

And what had happened then? He’d served his years, and though he’d felt fit and able, and had had no wish to leave, the army had had other ideas. Thanks for your work. Sorry about your dead mates. Here’s a shit pension, now piss off, will you, and drink yourself to death somewhere nice and quiet. There’s a good man.

Not Flex. He had joined the most elite unit in the world to prove a point — that he mattered. That he was good enough. The chip on his shoulder was still there when he left the service, only it had been joined by the vicious things he had done — and enjoyed doing — in the name of Queen and country. Flex had found he was bloody good at killing people, and as the West had capitalized on the spoils of war, Flex had thought it only right he take his own share.

And so he had started P-C-Gen Security, using his network of Special Forces contacts across the world to bid for the lucrative contracts spawned by the wars on terror and drugs. As he’d snapped them up like a greedy dog, Flex had reached out to men he’d worked with in the world’s most dangerous corners. As the money had rolled in, Flex had moved into offices on the Thames — literally — and though he was not in the regiment any longer, he’d had what he wanted — pride. Respect. A career that kept him in the center of the world’s web of violence, and the men who administered it.

Jack Morgan had ruined all of that. The beating in the gym had been embarrassing enough — and had left Flex with a ruined knee that had required long and arduous reconstruction — but what had followed from Private was worse than any smackdown.