Private Games (Private 3)

Pope said, ‘Somewhere in Knightsbridge, I think. If Oladuwa had a mobile we could call him, but he said his wife’s got it.’

Pottersfield thought a moment. ‘Milner Street in Kensington, perhaps?’

‘That was it,’ Hooligan grunted.

‘Knight was at his mother’s, then,’ the inspector said. ‘Amanda must know something.’ She yanked out her phone and started scrolling for her number.

‘Here we are,’ Hooligan said, raising his head from two sensors clipped to a surviving piece of Knight’s sim card to look at the screen, which was covered with the gibberish of code.

He leaned over to a keyboard and began typing even as Pope heard Pottersfield say hello, identify herself as both a police detective and the sister of Knight’s dead wife, and ask to speak with Amanda Knight. Then the inspector left the lab.

Two minutes later, Hooligan’s screen mutated from electronic hieroglyphics to a blurry screen shot of a website. Pope said, ‘What is that?’

‘Looks like a map of some sort,’ Hooligan replied as the inspector burst back into the lab. ‘Can’t read the URL, though.’

‘Trace Angels!’ Pottersfield shouted. ‘It says Trace Angels!’

Chapter 102

THE CROWD ALONG the south side of Birdcage Walk, facing St James’s Park, is bigger and deeper than I had anticipated. But then again, the men’s marathon is one of the final competitions of the Games.

It’s beastly hot, half-past eleven, and the leaders are coming around to start the second of four long laps that constitute the racetrack. I hear the crowd’s roar, and spot the runners heading west towards the Victoria Memorial and Buckingham Palace.

Carrying a small shoulder sack, I push to the front of the crowd, holding aloft my Olympic security pass, which was never taken from me. It’s critical that I be seen now, here, at this moment. I’d planned to find any policeman I could. But when I look down the side of the course, I see someone familiar. I duck the tape and walk towards him, holding up the pass.

‘Inspector Casper?’ I say. ‘Mike Lancer.’

The inspector nodded. ‘Seems to me you got a raw deal.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, then add, ‘I’m no longer official, of course, but I was wondering if I could cut across the street when there’s a gap in the runners. I wanted to watch from the north side if I could.’

Casper considered the request, then shrugged and said, ‘Sure, why not?’

Thirty seconds later, I’m across the stre

et, pushing back through the crowd and into the park. Inside, I move east, glancing at my watch and thinking that Marta will release Daring in ninety minutes or so, right around the end of the marathon, a move that should attract heavy police attention and give me enough of an edge to ensure that I can’t possibly be beaten.

I won’t be defeated today, I think. Not today. And never again.

Chapter 103

FOR THE LAST thirty minutes, his mouth taped shut, his head pounding and painful, Knight had alternated between trying to break free of his bonds, gasping in frustration, and looking longingly at his comatose children, dully aware of the marathon coverage blaring from the television in Lancer’s spare bedroom.

It was 11:55. In mile eleven – kilometre nineteen – just shy of an hour into the race, runners from the UK, Ethiopia, Kenya and Mexico had broken away from the main pack along the Victoria Embankment. They were using each other to chew up ground as they headed past the London Eye towards Parliament at sub-Olympic-record pace despite the blistering heat.

Knight wondered grimly what atrocity Lancer had waiting somewhere along the marathon route. But he refused to contemplate what Marta might have in store for him and the twins in the aftermath of the last race of the Games.

He closed his eyes and began to pray to God and to Kate, pleading with them to help him save their children. He told them he’d be fine about dying if that meant he’d be with Kate again. But the children, they deserved to …

Marta walked into the room, carrying the black assault weapon that Knight had seen the night before as well as a plastic bag containing three litre-sized Coke bottles. Her dark locks had been chopped and dyed, leaving her hair a violent blonde tipped with silver highlights that somehow matched the black leather skirt, tank top and calf-length boots she wore. Her heavy make-up changed her appearance still further. If Knight hadn’t spent so much time around her in the last two weeks he might never have recognised her as the plain nanny who’d first approached him at the playground.

Marta paid Knight no mind, as if he and everyone else in the room were afterthoughts. She set the Coke bottles on a dresser, then cradled the gun and went to Daring’s side. She set the gun down, picked up a hypodermic needle and shot it into the IV line that had been inserted into the museum curator’s arm.

‘Time to wake up,’ she said, and gathered up the gun again.

She fished an apple from her pocket and bit into it. Her attention shifted lazily to the marathon coverage.

Luke stirred and opened his eyes, looking right at his father. His eyes went wide. Then his brows knitted, his face grew beet-red and he began making whining noises, not of fear but as if he desperately wanted to tell his father something. Knight recognised that red-faced expression and understood the meaning behind the stifled cries immediately.