Private Royals (Private 12.50)

Cook joined Morgan at the window in silence, the pair enjoying the tranquillity of the city’s glittering lights.

‘Aaron Shaw,’ Flex announced on his way back in, tossing the file in his hand onto the spacious desk. ‘He applied to work for me two years ago, but you’re shit out of luck I’m afraid, Jack.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Shaw was in the Household Cavalry Regiment, and I only take on ex-infantry or special forces. I don’t trust a soldier who doesn’t want to look his enemy in the eye when he kills him.’

‘I was a helicopter pilot.’

‘I know.’ The big man grinned. ‘But I like you anyway, Jack, so I’ll make some calls.’

CHAPTER 13

ABBIE OPENED HER eyes. She looked around her, and she wanted to cry.

The plate was empty. The powder was gone.

She ran her finger across the metal, hoping a few remaining grains might stick to her skin. She rubbed what little there was into her gums. They numbed, slightly, but it did little to take the edge off her anxiety – the fear of the inevitable crash after the highs, and the crushing realisation that she was not in her home.

Nor in anyone’s home, as far as she could tell.

Abbie looked at the four walls around her, hating the way the swirling patterns made her vision swim. She looked at the bed, and for the first time noted that it was bolted to the floor. Then she saw the lonely bucket in the corner of the small room, and the black object above her on the ceiling.

It was a camera, she realised.

Why the hell was there a camera on the ceiling?

Her heart beat faster, the pounding of blood in her temples at first obscuring the sounds from beyond the walls, but then she was sure of it. It reminded her of the mice in the family’s country manor house, scratching and scuffling out of sight – but this was too big to be any rodent.

And then Abbie heard the voices. Not words. Only voices. They were commanding. They were angry. Someone was arguing, and amongst that chaos there was the plaintive pleading of a person struck by the most terrible fear.

She stumbled to her feet, putting her ear to the cold metal wall.

‘Who’s out there?’ she shouted.

‘Abbie?’ someone sobbed. And then came a scream.

The kind of scream that marks the end of a life.

CHAPTER 14

WITH THE SECURITY-CLEARED Major Cook acting as his chaperone, Morgan decided it was time to take a look at where the kidnapper had threatened to play his endgame.

‘Security’s impressive,’ he assessed as they cleared their second checkpoint, this one taking them from Birdcage Walk to Horse Guards Road and along the eastern edge of St James’s Park, now cloaked in darkness.

‘They’ll start ramping it up in the morning,’ Cook assured him. ‘By the time the crowds begin to turn up, there’ll be police and military all over the st

reets.’

‘And in the buildings,’ Morgan was certain. ‘There’ll be a few bored snipers eyeballing us right now.’

The pair walked on in silence, both searching for vulnerable points around the parade ground.

There were many.

‘What’s to stop someone coming in from the War Rooms on the southern side?’ Morgan asked. ‘The public have access to that. Could someone hide out in there?’

‘It’s closed the day of the Trooping,’ Cook explained, ‘and it was searched with dogs last night. The same will happen again this morning.’