“I know,” she replied, “but there could be something else. A pattern, maybe. Something.”
“OK,” Morgan allowed. “Follow your nose—”
He was about to add more when he saw Lewis looking anxiously behind them. “What is it?”
“Black BMW. I’ve seen it three times today.”
“Can you m
ake out the plates?”
“No. Too far back.”
“I’ll pull over. See if you can get the plates as they go past.”
Lewis nodded. Morgan noticed that her hand was on her pistol.
He pulled the car onto the side of the road.
“Shit,” Lewis growled. “They went up a side street.”
“That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
The police officer nodded. “He was following us.”
Morgan pulled back onto the road. “At least we shook him.”
He called in to Private London’s headquarters. “What’s the ETA on our security team?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan,” the operative in the personnel department replied, “but all our agents are in the field.”
“What about freelance contractors?” Morgan asked, confused. There were dozens of personal security companies that could be hired in these situations.
“I’m afraid none of them are bidding on the contract,” the operative explained. “It’s really quite unusual, Mr. Morgan. I’ve never come across this before. I have no idea why no one is taking the job.”
But Morgan had.
The reason’s name was Michael Gibbon.
Chapter 21
MORGAN HUNG UP the call. He looked into the mirror, and Jane Cook’s eyes meet his.
“It’s Flex, isn’t it?”
Morgan nodded. Michael “Flex” Gibbon was a former SAS soldier who owned and operated one of the biggest private security companies in the country.
He had also taken an embarrassing beating two years earlier at the hands of Morgan and Cook as they’d searched for Abbie Winchester. Flex had broken no laws when he’d facilitated the hiring of the men that carried out the kidnapping, but he had broken Morgan’s code. For that, he had suffered a ruptured knee, and now Morgan could see that Flex was enacting his revenge.
“He’s blacklisted us with the other companies.”
“Can he do that?” Cook asked.
“Enough of the bigger companies are run by former SAS that he only needs to bring a few onside. The others will fall in line because they don’t want to piss off the big boys.”
“We can do this without their help,” Cook assured him.
“We can,” Morgan agreed, no trace of doubt in his voice as he pushed the subject from his mind and addressed Lewis. “You have anything more to tell me about Sophie?”