Private Games (Private 3)

KNIGHT HEARD THE gunshots and Lancer’s booming threat through an exhaust grate in the ceiling of the ductwork several feet beyond the gas line and the triggering device.

He didn’t have time to try and defuse the trigger, and for all he knew Lancer had booby-trapped it to go off if it was tampered with.

‘How about cutting off the tanks?’ he asked over his radio.

‘It’s a disaster, Peter,’ Jack shot back. ‘He’s welded the valves open.’

Above him, Lancer launched into a longer tirade, beginning with the doctors in Barcelona who had drugged him to prevent him from winning gold in the decathlon, from being named the greatest all-around athlete in the world. And in the background, Knight could hear the petrified crowd trying to escape the stadium. He understood he had only one chance.

He pushed the blowtorch forward and crawled after it, past the gas line and the triggering device, until he lay beneath the exhaust grate.

Through the slats he saw flashes of approaching lightning and the billowing glow of the Olympic flame still burning.

Four bolts held the grate in place. All of them looked sealed in some kind of chemical resin. Maybe he could melt it.

Knight grabbed the blowtorch and ignited it. As fast as he could, he heated the resin until it melted. Then he grabbed the nearest bolt head with the pliers on the Leatherman tool that Meeks had given him and wrenched at it. He felt thrilled when it gave.

Chapter 119

LIGHTNING INSCRIBES THE sky and thunder booms like close cannon fire as I bellow at the crazed crowd trying to escape the stadium, ‘For these reasons and a thousand others, the modern Games must end. Surely you understand!’

But instead of screams of terror, or even calls of agreement, I’m hearing something I did not expect in return. The monsters are booing me. They’re catcalling, and casting filthy slurs on my genius, my superiority.

These are the final indignities of a martyr for a just cause – stabbing, hurtful. But nothing like a roadside bomb, or even a rock, nothing that can stop me from seeing my fate fulfilled.

Still, this rejection is enough to raise a wave of hatred in me like no other, a tsunami of loathing for all the monsters in the stadium before me.

Looking up into the thundering dark sky that is now spitting lightning and hurling rain, I cry, ‘For you, Gods of Olympus. I do this all for

you!’

Chapter 120

KNIGHT WAS ALREADY well beyond the exhaust vent, up on the raised platform surrounding the cauldron, and now charging at full tilt through the pouring rain.

Before the madman’s thumb could hit the mobile’s send button, Knight hit Lancer low, hard, and from the side, a stunning blow that caused the crazed Olympian to lurch and fall to the floor of the platform. His automatic weapon skittered away.

Knight landed on top of Lancer, who was still clutching the mobile phone. The former decathlon champion was some ten years older than Knight. But he quickly proved bigger, stronger, and more skilled as a fighter.

Lancer backhanded Knight so hard that the Private London agent was thrown off, and almost slammed his face against the searing wall of the cauldron. The infernal heat and the drenching rain revived him almost instantly.

He twisted, seeing that Lancer was trying to regain his feet. But Knight kicked viciously at the madman’s ankle and connected. Lancer howled, stumbled to one knee and was rising again when Knight got his right forearm around the man’s bull neck from behind, trying to get a choke hold on him and seize the mobile before the gas bomb could be triggered.

He squeezed Lancer’s throat and grabbed at his thumb, trying to pry loose his grip on the phone. But then Lancer jammed his chin down on Knight’s forearm, twisted his torso, and threw elbow punches that struck Knight hard on ribs still bruised from the Fury’s attempt to run him down.

The Private London agent grunted in dire pain but held on, thinking of Luke and Isabel before taking a cue from his son. He bit brutally at the back of the insane man’s head, feeling a chunk of thick scar tissue tear away from Lancer’s scalp. Lancer screamed in agony and rage.

Knight bit again, this time lower, his teeth sinking into neck muscles as a lion might try to cripple a buffalo.

Lancer went berserk.

He swung and bucked, bellowing in blind primal fury and throwing meaty fists over his shoulder, hitting Knight in the head before pummelling his torso with elbow blows again, left and right, blows so hard that several of the Private agent’s ribs cracked and broke.

It was too much for him.

Knight’s breath was knocked out of him and the pain in his side erupted with such force that he grunted, releasing both his bite and the chokehold that he’d had on Lancer’s neck. He fell to the platform in the rain, groaning and fighting for air and a relief from the agony that now consumed him.

Blood dripping from his bite wounds, Lancer turned and glared down at Knight in triumph and in loathing.