AS MORGAN TOOK aim at Flex, Herbert launched himself into Morgan’s back and landed on top of him. The pistol fired but the shot was spoiled, the bullet smashing into one of the ammunition pouches on Flex’s hip.
“Run, Flex!” Herbert shouted at his leader. The man then bit down onto Morgan’s neck like a feral dog.
Herbert felt Morgan writhe in agony beneath him, and he used his legs as he had been taught in jiu-jitsu classes, hooking them over and under Morgan’s. With his hands still tied behind him, and his arm wounded, Herbert wormed and snapped like a lamprey, blood running into his mouth as he sought to save Flex, who he knew would never truly abandon him. They had been through too much together. They were mates. They were comrades, with an unspoken bond. Herbert had known Flex’s words about killing him for what they were—a ruse to get Herbert back by his side, no man left behind.
Herbert had never liked Rider. He had never understood why Flex employed him in the first place—so he hadn’t been surprised to see the man put money before honor and draw on Flex. Now, like a dog trained for blood sport, Herbert was eager to serve his master. His friend. He was eager to serve the man who had told him that he would never abandon him, and that he would be there for him always.
Chapter 103
TIME, LOCATION AND reality had melted for Flex. He was oblivious to the fact that he was in the center of a gunfight on London Bridge, pedestrians running screaming and cars crashing into one another as they sought to escape the carnage. Flex had been overtaken by the red mist, his anger and rage all-consuming. His endgame was a distant memory now. All he wanted to do was kill. Kill. Kill.
Throwing Knight over the bridge had been a good start. He hoped that the weasel suffered a long death. It was a shame he couldn’t have given the same end to Rider, that greedy shitheaded bastard, but blowing out his throat would have to be enough. Turning through his arc to draw aim against Morgan, Flex briefly noticed the slumped body of his dirty cop behind the steering wheel, what little there had been inside the man’s head now gray jelly against the windshield.
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.
Chapter 104
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.
Chapter 105
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.
Chapter 106
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.
Chapter 107
“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.
Chapter 108