He was a hundred yards away from his target now, so he pulled his car to the curbside and got out next to a narrow alley that led between two patches of greenery. Checking Google Earth, Morgan saw that the alley led to a pathway that ran behind the houses, before emerging onto a park and sports field. He turned the bright screen of the phone off, put it into his pocket and followed the path used by dog walkers and football-mad children during the day. Tonight, it would serve a darker purpose, and Morgan took the semi-automatic pistol in his right hand before pushing it into his jacket pocket. If need be, he could fire through the material and off the hip.
Counting off his paces, as taught to him in Marine training, Morgan measured the distance, the practice accurate enough for him to know that he had come to a stop behind the correct building, a two-story brick home that showed no light and emitted no sound. The house was separated from the footpath by a thin fence and a few trees, and it was no effort for Morgan to raise himself over the fence and drop quietly into the back garden. There he waited. There was nothing. Deep in suburbia as it was, Morgan did not expect Flex to have the garden defended as if it were Fort Knox—nothing drew suspicion like a big musclehead with sirens in his garden—but even so, he inched slowly across the open space to the back wall, his hand twisting the pistol’s grip so that the barrel was aimed through the material at the back door.
Morgan was halfway across the small garden when the sensor light flicked to life. He had expected it, and now covered the remaining distance in a split second, pressing himself against the back wall. He was cloaked from view from the windows, but he would be looming proudly on any CCTV screens that were inside the building—Morgan was willing to take a chance on that, having seen no flicker of lights inside to indicate that anyone was awake. He could only hope that the house wasn’t empty.
It wasn’t. Morgan saw him as he peered through the corner of the window, nothing but a pair of feet raised up at the end of a sofa. Confident that the man was sleeping and not watching TV, Morgan moved to the door and considered the lock—it was garden variety, the same as almost any suburban home. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out one of the items he had instructed to be placed in the old Ford’s glove box—it was a lock-picking kit, and Morgan made short work of the old Chubb. Then, pressing delicately, he depressed the handle and pushed open the door.
The house alarm sounded shrill and violent in the calm night. Morgan had been prepared for it, and as the first note pierced his eardrums he ditched his plan A of quiet calm and resorted to plan B, keeping in mind the three principles of close-quarter battle.
Surprise: Morgan had taken the sleeping man unaware, and he had a few seconds to act before the man regained full function of mind and body.
Speed: Morgan raced across the threshold and into the living room like a charging bull, pulling the pistol free of his jacket.
Violence of action: before the man could even raise himself off the sofa, Morgan had gripped him by the throat and pressed the cold steel of the pistol’s muzzle into the man’s ear.
“Alarm,” Morgan hissed. “Turn it off. Now.”
Gripping the man by his trachea, he lifted him to his feet. The man saw that his situation was hopeless, and he used his wide white eyes to guide Morgan to the alarm box, jabbing his finger awkwardly at the digits. Within ten seconds of the door opening, all had returned to silence but for the man’s gasped breaths. Morgan shoved him to the floor and trained the pistol onto the back of his head. Only then did he notice the man’s left arm and shoulder were bandaged.
“You got shot in the forest,” he guessed.
The man said nothing, but when Morgan delivered a blow onto the recent gunshot wound, he groaned like an animal.
“I’ll open up another one in the back of your head if you don’t start talking,” Morgan promised. “You know who I am, and you know I’m working outside the law, so talk. Are you Rider?”
“I’m not,” the man spat through clenched teeth.
“Then who the hell are you?” Morgan demanded, pressing the gun into the back of the man’s skull.
“Herbert. Chris Herbert.”
“You work for Flex?”
“I work for myself.”
A finger into the recently sutured gunshot wound convinced the man to change his answer. “Yes! Flex! Yes!”
“You’re a mercenary? Well, I have a proposition for you. You help me get Flex, and I pay you back by not blowing your brains out over the carpet.”
“Ram it, you Yank tart.”
Morgan pressed his thumb into torn flesh and broken bone. Then he let Herbert tell him everything.
Chapter 95
THE THOUGHT OF his children, and the implications of a life without them, weighed heavily on Peter Knight as he watched the row of offices in Tottenham. He rubbed at his eyes, certain that the long hours and excitement had got to him, but he was not wrong in what he was seeing.
Flex.
There was no mistaking the size and shape of the muscle-bound man as he slinked quickly inside of his building. Fingers almost fumbling, Knight tried Morgan’s phone. It went straight to voicemail.
“Dammit, Jack,” he cursed. He then tried Hooligan’s number, and it connected. “Jez? Flex has shown up at his office. Keep trying Jack from your end. I’m going to call Elaine and see if she can move some units closer, without us having to spill all the beans on why.”
“All right. But stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid, Peter.”
“I’ll watch from the car,” Knight promised, hanging up. A moment after he did so, he heard a metallic object tapping on the glass of his driver’s window.
In that split second Peter Knight knew the game was over.