Thirty minutes of press-ups and crunches did something to clear his mood, his skin slicked with sweat, muscles pumped with blood. He looked to the Rolex on his wrist, seeing the hands creep delicately onto the hour. It was 6 a.m., and time to call Peter Knight.
“Jack,” Knight answered. “The rest of the night was quiet?” Morgan had briefed him about the attack the moment they had left the hotel.
“Security is tight,” Morgan assured his friend, “but we’re useless while we’re here. We need to get back to Brecon, and find out what’s worth killing me over.”
“I’m sure there are a few things,” Knight replied, trying to lift Morgan’s mood. “Do you think they’ll call off the hunt?”
Morgan had asked himself the same question. Princess Caroline hiring an investigation agency to find her friend was one thing. Having one of the agents killed in that search was another. The whole point of hiring Private was to avoid public knowledge and scandal, and Morgan’s brains on his bed sheet could hardly get buried in the back pages.
“If they don’t, I’ll need more manpower,” he told Knight.
“I can be there in a few hours.”
“Thanks, but no,” Morgan said, abreast of Knight’s own investigation. “Stick with Sir Tony. Has Hooligan cracked the USB’s encryptio
n yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Then you have to stay with it. If someone’s gone to that much trouble to hide what’s on that USB, then there must be a good reason.”
“Or a bad one,” Knight added.
Morgan heard footsteps and turned to the bedroom’s door. This time it was knuckles against the wood, not bullets. “Come in.”
It was Sharon Lewis.
She took in the sight of the sweat-shined American. If she was attracted to the man, she showed no sign. “Take a shower, Morgan. You’ve been invited to breakfast with a princess.”
Chapter 15
PETER KNIGHT PUT his phone away and poured himself another coffee. Despite having a major investigation under way, he was still responsible for the running of Private London, and so he was casting his eye over the agency’s ongoing tasks when a call came through from Hooligan’s lab. He let it go unanswered. Instead, he ran down to the facility.
“You cracked it?” he asked as he entered the lab, certain the call would be to signal the successful decoding of the USB drive.
“Cracked it?” Hooligan replied. “I’m a delicate instrument, Peter, not a hammer. I slipped inside that code like a Navy SEAL.”
Knight listened patiently as Hooligan spent the next two minutes telling him that the encryption would have collapsed in on itself and wiped the data clean had he come at it like “a bone-headed Neanderthal.”
“Nothing but class and finesse here,” Hooligan concluded.
“You have stains on your shirt,” Knight smirked, proud of his technician.
“That was Perkins’ fault!” Hooligan shouted. “He told me Millwall would win the FA Cup this year and I spat me brew out!”
Knight began to laugh, but the sound died in his throat as Hooligan tapped at his keyboard and the contents of the USB stick flashed up onto a big screen.
“Not good, is it?” Hooligan said.
Knight shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
“It gets worse.”
Hooligan hit play on a video. Knight’s jaw dropped.
Revealed on the screen, in graphic detail, was the reason for Sir Tony’s death.
Chapter 16