Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Princess

Cracked leather touched rich soil. Knee in the dirt, the man thought of what was to come, and smiled. A broken nose took in the smell of the damp earth, memories carried in its dank scent. Memories of digging spades, pleading eyes and shallow graves.

The owner of the gloves wiped them against his camouflage trousers, his memories cleansed as easily as the leather. To him, the image of those graves was as inert in his mind as the way a postman views the mail. It was his job to fill holes in the ground, and with pride — the man knew that he was good at it. Better than good. He had been born as just another shitbag on the estate, but now he was a hunter.

He was a killer.

He’d tracked in forests, stalked in deserts, kidnapped in jungles and killed in cities. He had done these things for service, for his country and for his brothers. Sometimes, he’d done it for money.

Today he did it for pride.

He did it for justice .

The hunter-killer turned his eyes up to the sky. Rain was beginning to fall, bouncing from the thick green leaves of summer. The hunter-killer welcomed it. It was his ally. It would cover him as he slid and crept his way closer to his target. Closer to justice.

He could see his prize now, and the proximity caused his heart to beat against his scarred chest, endorphins flooding his body as he pictured his kill and the satisfaction it would bring.

It had been a long stalk, but the prize would justify the suffering and the cost. This kill would come at a price — a great price — but he would not shirk it. The butcher’s bill would be paid in full, and then there would be justice .

Fifty yards away now, and the hunter-killer begged his heart to still, despite the thrill of what was only moments away. Wet branches pulled at him as he moved forward, checking his pace. He forced himself to slow, too close now to fail.

He looked down at the pistol in his hand, checking it for dirt. There was none, as he knew there wouldn’t be. Inside the weapon in his hand, a bullet rested snugly in the chamber, ready to shatter on impact, and to tear out a great chunk of flesh in the body of his prize.

The hunter-killer smiled as he pictured that carnage.

Then he brought the pistol up into the aim, and centered its sights on the back of his target. A target that had caused pain and misery and suffering.

With a smile on his face, the hunter-killer pulled the trigger.

Jack Morgan was alive.

For a former U.S. Marine turned leader of the world’s foremost investigation agency, Private, that could mean a lot of things. It could mean that he had survived knife wounds, kidnap and helicopter crashes. It could mean that he had survived foiling a plot to unleash a virus on Rio, or that he had lived through halting a rampaging killer in London.

Right now, it meant that he was twenty thousand feet in the air, and flying.

Morgan sat in the co-pilot’s position of a Gulfstream G650 the private jet cruising at altitude as it crossed the English Channel from Europe, the white cliffs of Dover a smudged line on the horizon. To the east, the sun was slowly climbing its way to prominence, the sky matching the color of Morgan’s tired, red eyes.

He was exhausted, and it was only for this reason that he was a content passenger on the flight and not at the controls.

The pilot felt Morgan’s hunger: “You can take her in, if you’d like, sir,” the British man offered.

“All you, Phillip,” Morgan replied. “Choppers were always more my thing.” He thought with fondness of the Blackhawks he had flown during combat missions as a Marine. Then, as it always did, the fondness soon slipped away, replaced by the gut-gripping sadness of loss — Morgan had walked away from the worst day of his life, but others hadn’t.

What is it the British say on their Remembrance Day? “At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.” Morgan liked that. Of course, he remembered those he had lost every minute between the rising and the setting as well. Every comrade of war, every agent of Private fallen in their mission. Morgan remembered them all.

He rubbed at his eyes. He was really tired.

But he was alive.

And so Morgan looked again at the printed email in his hand. The friendly message that he had read multiple times, trying to draw out a deeper meaning, for surely the simple words were the tip of a blade. As the sprawl of London appeared before him, he was trying to figure out if Private were intended to be the ones to shield against that weapon, or if it would instead be driven into the organization’s back.

He was trying to figure this out because the email had not come from a friend. It had come from Colonel Marcus De Villiers, a Coldstream Guards officer in the British Army. Though no enemy of Morgan’s, he was certainly no ally, and when in doubt, Morgan looked for traps. That was why he was alive.

But De Villiers was more than just an aristocratic gentleman in an impressive uniform. He was the head of security for a very important family. Perhaps the greatest and most important family on earth.

And that was why Morgan was flying at full speed to London.

Because Jack Morgan had been invited to meet the powerful people under De Villiers’ care.

He had been invited to meet the royal family.

Morgan stepped from the jet into a balmy morning of English summer.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” the man waiting on the tarmac beamed.

Morgan took in the uniformed figure — Colonel Marcus De Villiers was every inch the tall, impressive man that Morgan remembered from two years ago, when Private had rescued a young royal from the bloody clutches of her kidnappers. De Villiers had been a sneering critic of Morgan and his agents then, and Morgan was certain that, beneath the smile, the sentiment was still strong.

“It is a beautiful day, Colonel, but you weren’t so keen to exchange pleasantries last time we met,” Morgan replied. “After I refused to cover up the Duke of Aldershot’s involvement in the kidnapping of his own daughter.”

“All’s well that ends well.” De Villiers shrugged, trying hard to keep his smile in place.

“The Duke died before he got to trial and faced justice.” Morgan shook his head. “I wouldn’t call that ending well.”

“One could say that death is the most absolute form of justice, Mr. Morgan, but that’s beside the point. The whole business went away quietly, which was very well received where it matters.”

“If you’ve brought me here to boast that a royal scandal stayed out of the papers, Colonel, then you’re wasting my time. I took this meeting out of respect for the people you represent, but I’m ready to step back onto this jet and head home if you don’t tell me in the next ten seconds why I’m here.”

“Very well, Mr. Morgan. I didn’t bring you here to boast about avoiding a royal scandal. I brought you here to prevent the next one.”

Morgan joined De Villiers in the blacked-out Range Rover that waited beside the landed jet. The Colonel would divulge no more information, but he had said enough to get Morgan’s attention.

The men were driven from London’s outskirts into the lush green countryside of Surrey, where multimillion-pound properties nestled in woodlands. It was beautiful, and Morgan watched it roll by the tinted windows as he considered who he might be heading to meet, and why.