Private Royals: BookShots (A Private Thriller) (8 page)

‘Brand-new lock on the truck’s door,’ he told those listening in to his radio. ‘I need to take a look at the sides and confirm this is our guy. Maybe the paint got washed out by the showers.’

Knight edged his bike out to the side of the truck and saw that his hunch was correct – the black of the Jones Brothers lettering was showing faintly beneath the fresh coat of white.

‘This is our guy!’ he said excitedly.

But their guy was a Recon Marine before he was a kidnapper, and as such, Alex Waldron knew something about being scouted as a target. The black bike and its rider had aroused his suspicion, and now Knight saw a thick-jawed brute staring death at him in the wing mirror. He’d been spotted.

And that was when Waldron tried to kill him.

WALDRON HIT A
hard left and a right on the wheel, causing the truck’s rear end to shoot out, hoping to send Knight and his bike smashing into the line of cars parked nose to tail at the roadside.

Knight saw the truck’s movement just in time, and with a flick of the throttle the bike’s powerful engine pushed him forward and out of danger. He was now level with the cab. Waldron threw caution to the wind and began to drag the corner of the cab along the line of stationary vehicles. Knight would either be ground between the truck and the cars, or if he hit the brakes and dropped back, another flick of the wheel would send the truck’s rear end slamming into him.

He had less than a second to make a decision that would either save or end his life.

He took it, and with adrenaline pumping through his veins, he made the impossible leap to the rear of the truck’s cab. The bike fell to the tarmac and smashed to pieces under the truck’s wheels.

Somehow, amidst the chaos and destruction, Knight found a handhold, gripping on by his fingertips.

It was enough. Acting purely on impulse and instinct, he hauled himself to safety in the narrow refuge between the cab and its cargo container.

With a soldier’s sixth sense, Waldron had seen the narrow escape of his prey and began to throw the truck into a series of wild manoeuvres in an attempt to shake Knight loose, the blare of horns echoing as other drivers sought to avoid the menace that barged through the London streets.

Knight knew he had to act before the inevitable happened and someone was killed by this rampaging truck.

He pulled the helmet from his head, grasping it in one hand, and used his other to pivot himself outwards so that the Kevlar crashed against the driver’s window, cracking it. Through the spider’s web of glass, Knight saw a look of pure animal rage on the face of a man who seemed to hold no value for life.

Knight swung again, and this time the glass smashed. Waldron threw a savage punch through the now open window that connected with Knight’s jaw. The blow struck like a hammer, and Knight’s feet slipped beneath him on the narrow perch of the door ledge.

Inches away from becoming a bloody smear on the roadside, Knight managed to regain his footing. He grabbed hold of the driver and the two men grappled, Waldron oblivious to the pedestrians and motorists who fled in panic from the weaving truck. Grasping wildly, Knight felt his hand come into contact with the truck’s steering wheel. Seeing a line of parked cars, the pavement clear of pedestrians, he turned it hard left with all of his strength.

The truck slewed. Metal screamed as the cab ploughed into a lamp post that bent like a broken toothpick, the echo of the crash ringing out across the streets.

It all happened in a split second, and in that moment Peter Knight was thrown through the air like a rag doll.

KNIGHT WASN’T IN
the air long enough to register the sensation of flight. One moment he had been fighting with Waldron through the truck’s smashed cab window. The next, he was half inside the front windscreen of a Ford Focus, the shattered glass giving way beneath the force of his landing.

He wanted to lie there. The damage control centre of his mind was already telling him that he was bruised from head to toe, that his spine had suffered a blow, and that two of his fingers were likely broken. Looking at the awkward angle they’d assumed, he became sure of it. He wanted to lie there, but if he did, he knew he had about twenty more seconds to live – because Waldron was climbing from the truck’s smashed cab, his face as bloody as it was angry, and in his hands there was a knife.

No, Knight corrected himself, it was a KA-BAR. It was the weapon that had killed Aaron Shaw, and had sawn open the throat of Grace Beckit. If Knight couldn’t move, he’d be the next to be slaughtered.

Waldron was free of the cab and saw Knight, helpless. He grinned.

Ten seconds.

WALDRON SMILED AS
he closed the gap. Knight had met his kind before – the sickest members of humanity who could only find pleasure in inflicting pain and suffering on others. In most instances, Knight was as fascinated by them as he was disgusted. On this occasion, seconds away from dying on the man’s blade, his only thought was how to kill the Recon Marine first.

Waldron was on him now, his tobacco-stained teeth showing in a bloody grin. He could see that Knight was trapped in the Ford’s window, maybe paralysed. With nowhere to run, Waldron wanted to take his time in dispatching his victim. It was only the panicked cries of onlookers that brought him back to reality. He’d have to make it swift, so he brought the knife high, aiming to plunge the blade into Knight’s rapidly beating heart. Waldron knew it was over – but he didn’t see Knight’s left hand, or what it had grasped from the car’s cluttered centre console.

Knight’s arm shot out from inside the car like a viper, ploughing a ballpoint pen into Waldron’s neck. The big man staggered back and roared like an injured bull. It wasn’t enough of a wound to kill his opponent, but as Waldron clutched at the pen and blood spilled over his fingers, Knight had precious moments to extract himself from the car window.

‘Call the police!’ he shouted at the frozen onlookers, some of whom were preoccupied with filming the incident. ‘Call the police!’ he shouted again as Waldron came for him, KA-BAR in hand.

Knight sidestepped the first thrust, his body singing out in agony at the sudden movement. Waldron was fast, even with the wound that had left his neck with a bright red scarf of blood. He thrust again and again, but somehow Knight was able to evade the blows, and his confidence began to soar. Perhaps, after all, he could survive long enough for the police to arrive.

It was only when his left hand touched a wall that he realised he’d been played. Waldron had herded him like a sheep.

‘Dumb fuck,’ the Recon Marine growled, enjoying Knight’s shock and driving the blade forward.

This time there was no escaping it.

The knife ploughed into Knight’s midsection. If it wasn’t for the protection of his leather and Kevlar biker jacket it would have driven below his ribs and up into his lungs, but the protective material fought back enough that only an inch of metal penetrated his skin. He gasped in agony, but took the opportunity to deliver a swift headbutt, smashing the bridge of the American’s nose.

Waldron stepped back in surprise, the blade pulling free. Knight followed up his attack, pouncing on Waldron and taking him down to the ground as the bigger man stumbled back on the uneven paving.

For the frightened onlookers, there was no way of seeing who was gaining the upper hand. It was a rapid exchange of punches and elbows – a gutter fight, the blade changing ownership several times as both men fought for life.

But only one of them stood. The other lay bleeding out on the pavement, the KA-BAR blade buried deep in his thigh, his face twisted in terror as he tried in vain to stop the flow.

Some bystanders screamed. Others ran. Some of the younger ones stayed and continued to film.

Through their lenses, they saw a man stagger towards a truck. There was a padlock key in his hand.

THE AIR INSIDE
the Range Rover was thick, and it had little to do with the weather of a warm and muggy June morning.

‘I hate this,’ Morgan growled. ‘Where the hell is Peter, Hooligan? How far from them are we now?’

‘Three minutes.’

‘And the police?’

‘Maybe a minute behind you.’

Beside Morgan, Cook was silent, her hands tight on the wheel.

‘What’s up?’ he asked her.

‘The same as you,’ she replied, not taking her eyes from the road.

‘No,’ Morgan insisted calmly. ‘We’ve been on the back foot for a long time. It’s only in the past few minutes you’ve started gripping the wheel like you’re trying to choke it.’

Cook said nothing.

‘Talk it out,’ he pressed gently.

‘Something has set me off,’ she admitted. ‘A trigger. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like there’s a piece of the puzzle right in front of my eyes.’

‘You just need to take your mind off it. If you try and focus too hard on it, you’ll never get it. Keep busy with something else. Here.’ Morgan handed over a radio and headset. ‘Monitor this channel.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the police frequencies. The more open ones, anyway.’

Cook’s mouth dropped open. ‘The police, Jack! The police!’

‘What about them?’ he said.

‘The kidnapper – he called them the filth! He called the police the filth!’

‘So what?’

‘So, you didn’t know what that means!’ she said. ‘You didn’t know what that means, because you’re an American!’

‘And so is Waldron,’ Morgan said, his stomach turning sour as he came to the inevitable conclusion. ‘Our kidnapper’s not alone.’

ABBIE THREW UP
again.

She was on her hands and knees, vomit on her chin and in her hair. The comedown from her drug high had already kicked in when her world had begun to violently sway and screech, the contents of her toilet bucket sent spilling across the floor and over her bare feet. It had all been too much for Abbie’s stomach. She had puked, crying with misery as she did so.

She had then been thrown forward like an empty dress, crashing into the hard metal wall, blood running from her nose, her bones aching. She had stayed there for a while, curled into a ball and content to moan in her misery, but then the bile had returned and she’d rolled onto her hands and knees as she gagged.

It was in this position that she saw one of the walls to her cell pulled away. Seeing blue skies replace the swirling patterns of black and white, Abbie wondered if she was still tripping after all.

The harsh sunlight that flooded into the room made her squint, and she turned her head away quickly, only vaguely aware of a silhouette that appeared in front of her.

It was the silhouette of a man. The way he leaned heavily to one side reminded her of the injured soldiers she had once visited in hospital.

‘Abbie.’ She heard her name. The word was spoken through pain. ‘Abbie,’ the voice said again. A man’s voice.

‘I’m Peter,’ he told her, and she looked up.

She saw a face that was dirty with blood, but there was kindness beneath it. An open honesty. Abbie didn’t know why, but she felt as if she should trust this man.

He put out his hand.

‘I’m here to take you home.’ He managed to smile, but Abbie didn’t see it.

She was watching a second silhouette appearing next to Peter.

And then Peter fell down.

‘GOOD GOD,’ COOK
said softly, hitting the brakes hard as the traffic ground to a halt behind the mangled wreckage of Waldron’s truck and Knight’s smashed motorbike.

Morgan was already flying from the door.

‘Hooligan, ETA on the police?’ he shouted into the mic on his collar.

‘Ninety seconds.’

‘Jane! Stay behind the wheel!’ Morgan shouted. ‘We’ve got sixty seconds! We can’t get caught up with the police!’

He quickly moved about the scene, seeing the rear door to the truck’s cargo container open. A glance inside was all it took to confirm that it had been Abbie’s prison. There was blood on the floor, Morgan saw, but not enough to be fatal.

He then looked inside the cab. There was a bag there, a military-style backpack. He grabbed it and slung it over his shoulder. Then he saw a crowd of people looking at the ground and taking photos on their phones.

He ran over to them, and there he saw the body. There was KA-BAR buried deep in the corpse’s meaty thigh.

‘Oi!’ someone shouted out as Morgan bent to retrieve the knife. ‘You can’t do that. We called the police.’

Morgan pulled the blade free. It came loose with a wet sucking sound. All it took then was a look with the bloodied knife in his hand, and no one challenged him again.

He glanced at his watch – twenty seconds until the police arrived.

He frisked Waldron’s body, coming away with nothing.

The Range Rover’s horn blared.

‘They’re fifteen seconds away!’ he heard Cook call.

Time was up. Taking the blade and the bag, Morgan sprinted to the Range Rover, throwing himself into the passenger seat as Cook jumped onto the accelerator pedal.

The car roared away, leaving the carnage of the scene to the arriving sirens of the Metropolitan Police.

‘SEE ANYONE FOLLOW
us?’ Morgan asked. Cook shook her head. ‘OK. Pull over,’ he instructed.

She took the Range Rover to the kerb.

‘What about Knight?’ she asked.

‘We’ll find him,’ Morgan promised. He opened up the rucksack he’d taken from Waldron’s truck and peered inside.

‘What’s in it?’ she asked.

‘A disposal kit,’ he answered. ‘Hacksaw. Plastic sheeting. A hammer.’

‘Jesus.’ Cook shook her head. ‘You find anything on his body?’

‘Nothing. No wallet. No ID.’

‘Maybe the other kidnapper cleaned up. Took them with them.’

‘Maybe,’ Morgan allowed. ‘But I didn’t really expect to find anything. He was Recon. He’d know to go out into the field sterile.’

‘That may be,’ Cook thought aloud, ‘but you don’t get into Trooping the Colour without a ticket and ID.’