Princess: A Private Novel (Private #14)(55)

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not good for you.” De Villiers frowned, reading Morgan’s features like a map. “You need your head on straight, Morgan. Come on, man, this isn’t what I expected from you. Look at how you handled the people who took Abbie Winchester.”

“I’ve lost one of my agents, Colonel.” He didn’t need to tell De Villiers that he had lost much more than that.

“I know you have, Morgan. And now you have this.” He passed Morgan a sheet of paper.

“What are these?”

“Joyce has had no luck in contacting Flex directly, and he’s heard nothing from him since Jane… He’s heard nothing from him since then.

“What you have here,” he continued, “is a list of addresses that Flex has been known to frequent. And these,” he pointed, “are the details of Flex’s expected accomplice, Nathan Rider. Joyce heard that Rider had been brought over from Africa by Flex. Apparently Rider isn’t the kind of man who cares to be in a country where there is a higher kind of law than who has the biggest guns, and so the pieces fit that he’s here for one reason.”

“To kill me.”

“To try. I’ll walk you to the gate. I expect you’ll want to make use of the night.”

They walked in silence. Morgan left the way he had come in: through the small door set into the wall. As he emerged he found himself facing lengthways along the Thames, London’s skyline brilliant in the darkness.

“You have everything you need?” De Villiers asked, emerging beside him.

“I do,” Morgan replied, his eyes on the towers that were lit up toward the clouded heavens.

“Then I’ll leave you with one last thought. I’m giving you as much rope as I can, Morgan, you understand? Precise and deliberate retribution I will allow you, but…”

“I get it.”

“Good. Just remember that this is London, not Afghanistan. If you bring war onto our streets, you’ll be in our sights as much as he is. This city’s suffered a lot these past few years. Our security forces are on a hair trigger.”

Morgan nodded.

“Thank you for your help, Colonel.” He put out his hand and De Villiers took it in a firm grip.

“Get the bastard, Morgan. Get him, and put him down.”





Chapter 92


JACK MORGAN WALKED a mile from the Tower using back streets, main roads and alleyways. Happy that he was clear of tails, he’d put a call in to Hooligan, passing him the few addresses given up by Corporal Joyce. “Get CCTV in those areas if you can,” Morgan had instructed. “Have surveillance teams stood by, but no one is to leave Private HQ unless I order it.”

Then he had given his London team a second set of instructions. Thirty minutes later an old Ford Focus pulled up at exactly the spot Morgan had requested, the driver getting out and walking away without a backward glance. Taking a few seconds to check his surroundings one more time, Morgan pulled a carrier bag from where he had shoved it into a hedge, felt the weight of the pistols inside, and walked to the car. He entered the driver’s side, found the key in the ignition and started it up.

A few seconds later he was on his way to the first of Flex’s addresses.





Chapter 93


TWO YEARS AGO, Michael “Flex” Gibbon had run his security enterprise from atop a beautiful glass building that sat alongside the Thames. So great were the views, and so heavy his workload, that he had lived in the same building.

A lot had changed since Jack Morgan had beaten the SAS soldier down, blowing out the man’s knee and sending the rumor mill wild. Flex was a soft-arse. Flex couldn’t cut it anymore. Why were the heads of two security firms fighting in the first place? I’ll take my business elsewhere. Now Flex’s operation was run out of a town-center office in Tottenham, sandwiched between a chartered accountants and a failed business whose windows were covered with wood panels and graffiti. It was a big fall for a big ego.

Peter Knight sat lonely in his car, looking at the bricks-and-mortar reasoning that had driven Flex to seek out Morgan and cause him pain.

“All because of his bloody pride,” Knight said sadly, shaking his head.

He was in a small car park a hundred yards from the buildings that showed no signs of life. Even if Flex still ran operations around the globe, Knight guessed that the smaller-scale business would now employ a duty manager that worked from home, or wherever his laptop and phone happened to be. It was that way for many of the smaller security companies, of which Flex’s business had undoubtedly become one.

Knight looked down to his lap, where he held a dossier on Flex Gibbon. It was possible to read it by the street lights, and he thumbed through its pages, marveling at how a solid SAS trooper could go from national hero to murdering monster.

It was ego, Knight decided. All ego.

That and pride had pushed Flex to join the army as a young man, after being beaten his whole childhood by his father. Ego had pushed him further, to volunteer for selection for the SAS. Ego had kept him going over the arduous hills phase of training in the Brecon Beacons. Ego had kept him going in the jungle. Ego had kept him going during escape and evasion, where he had been beaten and waterboarded. Ego had allowed Flex to endure so much. It had allowed him to build a thriving business. But then, when that ego had been damaged, it had exploded.