Author: James Patterson
Category: Literature
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/james-patterson/page,20,35345-private_princess.html
The bastard was harder to kill than a cockroach, he railed. Flex needed him dead. He needed him dead more than he needed almost anything else in the world.
The only thing more important than Morgan’s death was Flex’s own survival. Caught up in moments of red mist and rage, he had lost sight of that. Rider’s greedy treachery had pushed him to the edge and over it, but now Flex was calming, and becoming more calculating—escape and evade, he told himself. Come on, you old bastard, he goaded. You were trained for this. Escape, evade, and then track the Yank down and cut his throat. It doesn’t have to be today, it doesn’t have to be tomorrow. Let him suffer a bit. Let him remember how you blew that bitch’s brains out on screen. Let him remember how you chucked his mate into the Thames like he was an empty tracksuit. Let him suffer for a bit, and then kill him.
Yes, Flex told himself. That’s what I’ll do.
But first he had to escape.
To that end, he took a wide berth around the train station, knowing there would be coppers there. Instead he circled it two streets over, running eastward, the roads all but empty of onlookers now. Those that Flex did pass stood still in wide-eyed bewilderment—they saw a running cop, they heard a siren, but they had no idea why. In the Big Smoke it could mean a house fire or a terrorist massacre.
“What’s going on, officer?” an elderly man asked plaintively as Flex thundered past.
But Flex had no time to play cops, because he was looking at two real ones coming down the street toward him. They pulled their BMW motorbikes to a stop and dismounted.
Flex saw his opportunity.
“Thank God!” he shouted, cursing inwardly as he saw that the men were armed, and cautious. “I got attacked! He’s armed and on a rampage, and he’s right behind me, covered in blood!”
“Just stop there, mate!” one of the cops called, hand on his pistol. “What’s your name and police number?”
Flex said nothing. Instead he cursed his own stupidity. He should never have used the police gambit again after their trap at the London Stadium. Word must have gone out to the police about imposters in uniform, and Flex was not the kind of person people forgot in a hurry—his huge bulk and disheveled appearance taking these police to the logical assumption that this man might not be what he seemed.
“Move your hand away from your weapon,” the second cop told him, moving his own hand to his holster.
Flex didn’t give him the chance, and drew. A double tap cracked the officer in the chest. Flex turned to draw down on his companion, but that officer had already dropped into cover, positioning his bike between himself and the shooter.
Flex snarled. He didn’t have time for this. So he turned and ran. He ran for the only building he could see with an open entrance. He ran for a building he knew was a dead end, but would at least give him a place where he could take hostages, and negotiate, for with a professional’s eye, he saw that its top reaches would be almost impossible for his former SAS comrades to assault.
And so Flex ran for the Shard.
Chapter 111
JACK MORGAN HEARD the gunshots but did not break stride. They were away to his right, echoing from the street where he had seen Flex disappear. He flinched at the thought of Flex taking more innocent life, and braced himself for what scene he would come across in his pursuit. Morgan prepared for a decision he might have to make between saving that person’s life, or catching the murdering monster.
But then he heard a second set of gunshots crash through the streets, closely overlapped by others, and that overlap could mean only one thing: Flex was in a gunfight.
Morgan waited then—a patient hunter behind the low wall of a staircase, steadying himself, and waiting for his shot.
It came seconds later. Flex barreled out of the street with a quick look over his shoulder, closely followed by a gunshot. Any people in the locale who were not already running and screaming took off like a burst of frightened partridges, obscuring Morgan’s view as he brought up his pistol and tracked Flex’s progress—he was coming closer, running at an oblique angle to the American, who remained undetected, ready and waiting.
Morgan pulled the trigger.
The first round went wide, impossible to tell how far, but the sound was enough to draw Flex’s attention. The fugitive fired back a trio of shots without breaking stride. One of the bullets struck close, sending chips of brick into Morgan’s face and eyes, scratching him and forcing him down into cover. He cursed and wiped his eyes with his fingers to clear his vision.
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.
Chapter 112
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.
Chapter 113
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 fo
rward. 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.
Chapter 114
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.
It was the whispers. Flex is a pussy. Flex got his arse beat. Flex is crooked. Flex can’t be trusted. Flex knew that Morgan had started those rumors, and soon P-C-Gen was losing contracts hand over fist. Reputation was everything in this game, and Flex had lost his. What made it most unbearable to such a proud man was that no one had even been hostile about it. They’d simply stopped calling. And like guilty lovers, they’d stopped answering his calls.
And there was Morgan, the charismatic American twat who had whispered in the ears of CEOs, politicians and agents. Morgan was no soldier, Flex fumed to himself. He was a pilot who’d stuck his chopper into the ground, and hadn’t had the common courtesy to die with it, despite toasting his comrades. He was a schmoozing bastard, not a warrior, and Flex fumed at the thought of the prick’s smug face as he had stood over him in the gym and demanded—demanded—answers.
“Please don’t hurt me,” the doorman in Flex’s grip begged, sensing the rising swell of anger.
Flex obliged by smashing the man’s head into the elevator’s polished mirror. The man slumped to the floor, a smear of blood left behind by his ruined skull.
Flex looked dispassionately at the body. Another life taken because of Morgan. He was the instigator in all this. He was the one who didn’t have the decency to stand, fight and die.
“Bastard!” Flex roared in the confines of the elevator. “Bastard!” he fumed again, as the doors pinged open.
Chapter 115
EARLY MORNING WAS a quiet time in the Shangri-La, customers of the five-star hotel asleep in their comfortable beds, or admiring panoramic views from their rooms over coffee. There were only a small number of people in the hotel’s reception, an international collection of the establishment’s workers, and all were pressed up against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows, their fearful eyes zoned in to the pandemonium on London Bridge below, where sirens wailed and lights flashed, dozens of police officers swarming about the bridge like ants on a log.
“I can see bodies,” a sharp-eyed receptionist gulped.
“Is it a terrorist attack?” one of the breakfast chefs asked, logging into Twitter.
“I hope not,” the duty manager prayed. The sound of the elevator doors pinging open behind them caused the group to turn. They stood frozen as they saw an armed police officer emerging, the body of the hotel’s doorman crumpled at his feet.
Chapter 116
AS FLEX EMERGED from the elevator, he saw the fear on the faces of the people stood huddled in front of him. No, he corrected himself—not people. Sheep, just waiting for one of their flock to make the first move before the others followed. Flex could see their tiny minds trying to work out what was going on—a man lying slumped dead on the elevator’s floor, and a police officer—a symbol that they had been told all of their lives was a force for good—standing over him.
Flex decided he would help the sheep make up their minds, and shot the duty manager in the face.
Chapter 117
JACK MORGAN PRESSED himself as tightly as he could into the elevator’s front left corner. As soon as the doors opened, he expected incoming fire from Flex. Morgan would have a couple of seconds at most before the door was fully open, and he had less than half a foot of cover to hide behind. If Flex was waiting in ambush, Morgan would have a split second to decide if he would gut it out against all odds, or if he would hit the button to close the door and return him to ground level. Deep down, Morgan knew the decision had already been made.
For the memory of Jane Cook, there would be no retreat.
He watched as the elevator’s numbers crept upward, hitting thirty-four in a smooth stop. He pulled the pistol up to his shoulder, ready to punch out and aim immediately as the doors opened.
They did so with a pleasant ping, and Morgan prepared himself for a fusillade of gunshots.
None came. All was quiet but for the sobs of a chambermaid who leaned back against a high glass wi
ndow. She was cradling someone in her arms. Morgan only needed one look at the limp body to see that the person was dead.
“Is he in here?” Morgan shouted, maintaining his position. “Is he in here?”
The woman shook her head and sobbed. Morgan stepped out, his eyes drawn to the body of a suited man who lay dead on the floor. Suddenly, Morgan’s ear was drawn to the sounds of relaxing, melodic music that continued to play in the reception area, despite the carnage that was playing out beneath the hidden speakers.
He swept his pistol left and right, but all was clear.
“Where is he? Where did he go?”
The chambermaid was incapable of speech, but she pointed in the direction of a second set of elevators.
“Does he have hostages?” Morgan asked, reaching into the woman’s pockets and coming up with her access card.
She nodded, sending tears dropping down onto the face of the young man in her arms. Morgan had no time to comfort her. He left, and ran in the direction of the elevators.
“Please don’t hurt me!” a man shouted. Morgan turned to see a businessman huddled shaking beneath a table. “Please!”
“Did you see who went in here?” Morgan asked sternly.
The man nodded.
“How many people with him?”
“Three, I think. Maybe four. Please don’t hurt me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. There’s a woman over there.” Morgan pointed back toward the sobbing chambermaid at the window. “Grab her, and get downstairs. Go!”
After swallowing the lump of fear in his throat, the man scuttled away, and Morgan turned his attention to the elevator. It had only one destination: the highest floor.