Private Games (Private 3)

But then the oldest Fury kicked him in the ribs and ripped the gun from his hands. Gasping – and grinning in triumph – she aimed the muzzle at Knight’s unconscious son.

‘Watch him die,’ she snarled.

The shot this time sounded distant and otherworldly to Knight, but it was aimed perfectly at his breaking heart. He fully expected Luke’s small body to jump at the bullet’s impact.

Instead, Marta’s throat exploded in a slurry of blood before the war-criminal nanny crumpled and sprawled dead between Knight and his son.

Dumbfounded and slack-jawed, Knight twisted his head around and saw Kate’s older sister rising from a shooting crouch.

Part Five

THE FINISH LINE

Chapter 107

TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AFTER Pottersfield had shot and killed the wanted war criminal Senka Brazlic, the police inspector and Knight were in her car, sirens and lights on, racing through the streets of Chelsea and heading towards The Mall where the top runners were well into their fourth and final lap of the marathon route.

Ordinarily, the men’s marathon, the final event of the summer Games, would end in the host city’s Olympic stadium. But the London organisers – largely at Lancer’s urging, it turned out – had decided that sending the runners through the scruffy East End was not the best way to sell the city’s stunning attributes to the world.

Instead, the organisers opted to have the marathon contestants run four 6.5-mile laps, each of them featuring some of London’s most notable landmarks as telegenic backdrops for the race: from Tower Hill to the Houses of Parliament along the Thames, past the London Eye and Cleopatra’s Needle. The start and finish would take place on The Mall, well in sight of Buckingham Palace.

‘I want his picture in everyone’s mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry,’ Pottersfield shouted into her radio. ‘Find him! Having the marathon here was his idea!’

Knight was thinking about how bloody brilliant she was at her job. She’d called up the Trace Angels site, seen that the children had been put on trains, but then thought to look at their whereabouts earlier and saw the address on Porchester Terrace.

After contacting the trains and getting word from conductors that there was no one matching the Knight children’s description aboard, she’d led the police contingent to the building near Lancaster Gate. They’d been in the Furies’ flat when the crudely silenced gun had gone off next door and they’d heard it. They’d discovered the entrance to Lancer’s place behind that tapestry on the wall, and had then thrown a stun grenade a moment after Knight had fired the weapon.

Setting down her radio, Pottersfield said shakily, ‘We’ll get him. Everybody’s hunting him now.’

Knight grunted, staring out the window into the glaring sunlight, still feeling dizzy and sore from the blows he’d taken. ‘You okay, Elaine? Having to shoot?’

‘Me? You shouldn’t even be here, Peter,’ Pottersfield scolded. ‘You should be back there in that ambulance with your kids, going to hospital. You need to be looked at yourself.’

‘Amanda and Boss are on their way to meet Luke and Bella. I’ll get examined when Lancer’s stopped.’

Pottersfield changed down and shot out onto Buckingham Palace Road. ‘You’re sure Lancer said the attack was on the marathon?’

Knight struggled to remember before replying: ‘Before he left, I told him that no matter what he might do, the Olympic spirit would never die. I told him that Mundaho had proved it, and Shaw, and Dr Pierce. That got him insanely angry, and I was certain he would kill me. But then the starting gun for the marathon went off. And he said something like: “The men’s marathon. The final game has begun. And because I’m the superior man, I’m going to let you live to see the ending. Before Marta kills you, she’s going to let you witness exactly how I snuff out that Olympic spirit once and for all.” ’

Pottersfield skidded the car to a stop in front of the police barrier opposite St James’s Park and got out, holding up her badge to the officers guarding it. ‘He’s with Private and with me. Where’s Inspector Casper?’

The policeman who looked miserable in the stifling heat, pointed north towards the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace, and said, ‘You want me to call him?’

Knight’s sister-in-law shook her head before vaulting the barrier and battling her way through the crowd onto Birdcage Walk with Knight following somewhat woozily right behind her. Runners who were well behind the leaders were heading painfully towards the Queen Victoria Memorial at the centre of the roundabout.

Billy Casper was already hustling towards Knight and Pottersfield. ‘Sweet Jesus, Elaine,’ he said. ‘I had the bastard right in front of me not an hour ago. He went into St James’s Park.’

‘Did you get Lancer’s picture?’

‘Everyone in the force got it ten seconds ago,’ Casper replied, and then looked grim. ‘The route is more than ten kilometres long. There’s half a million people – maybe more – lining the route. How the hell are we going to find him?’

‘At the finish, or somewhere near it,’ Knight said. ‘It fits his flair for the dramatic. Have you seen Jack Morgan?’

‘He’s way ahead of you, Peter,’ Casper said. ‘As soon as he heard Cronus was Lancer and that he was still on the loose, he went straight to the finish arena. Smart guy for a Yank.’

But twenty-six minutes later, as roars went up from back along the marathon route south of St James’s Park, Lancer had still not been sighted, and every aspect of the timing system had been re-examined for possible booby traps.

Standing high atop stands erected along The Mall, Knight and Jack – who had shown up minutes after Knight had asked after him – were using binoculars to look up into the trees to see if Lancer had climbed one and taken up position as a sniper. Casper and Pottersfield were doing much the same on the other side of the street. But their views were hampered by scores of large Union Jack and Olympic flags fluttering on poles