Private Royals

Chapter 31

As a married man Knight had been forbidden by his wife from owning a motorcycle, despite the amount of time it would have taken off his daily commute. In the years following her passing, he had taken up riding as a way to escape London, and to empty his mind of every painful thought as he concentrated solely on the road ahead.

He was in that zone now, weaving and cutting through traffic, the bike’s 850cc engine roaring as he opened up the throttle and pushed through the crawling vehicles.

Knight glanced at the GPS strapped to the bike’s handle. It showed two dots controlled from Private HQ by Hooligan. One was the position of the truck that was assumed to be the kidnapper’s. Another showed Knight’s own location. As he turned onto Horseferry Road, the two dots became one.

‘I see him.’ Knight spoke into the mic in his helmet. ‘I’m going in closer.’

‘Peter,’ Morgan’s voice came through the speakers in the helmet. ‘Just stay on his ass.’

‘How far are you guys from me?’

‘Too far. At least five minutes.’ He heard Cook curse.

‘Then I’m getting tight on him,’ said Knight. ‘If he goes off script and makes a move, I need to be in place to stop it.’

‘Roger that,’ Morgan answered, realising there was no other option, but hating it nonetheless.

Knight eased his way around the final few cars and positioned himself in the blind spot for the truck’s mirrors, seeing that the rear shutter-type door had been secured by a thick, shiny new padlock.

‘Brand-new lock on the truck’s door,’ he told those listening in to his radio. ‘I need to take a look at the sides and confirm this is our guy. Maybe the paint got washed out by the showers.’

Knight edged his bike out to the side of the truck and saw that his hunch was correct — the black of the Jones Brothers lettering was showing faintly beneath the fresh coat of white.

‘This is our guy!’ he said excitedly.

But their guy was a Recon Marine before he was a kidnapper, and as such, Alex Waldron knew something about being scouted as a target. The black bike and its rider had aroused his suspicion, and now Knight saw a thick-jawed brute staring death at him in the wing mirror. He’d been spotted.

And that was when Waldron tried to kill him.