Private Royals

Chapter 32

Waldron hit a hard left and a right on the wheel, causing the truck’s rear end to shoot out, hoping to send Knight and his bike smashing into the line of cars parked nose to tail at the roadside.

Knight saw the truck’s movement just in time, and with a flick of the throttle the bike’s powerful engine pushed him forward and out of danger. He was now level with the cab. Waldron threw caution to the wind and began to drag the corner of the cab along the line of stationary vehicles. Knight would either be ground between the truck and the cars, or if he hit the brakes and dropped back, another flick of the wheel would send the truck’s rear end slamming into him.

He had less than a second to make a decision that would either save or end his life.

He took it, and with adrenaline pumping through his veins, he made the impossible leap to the rear of the truck’s cab. The bike fell to the tarmac and smashed to pieces under the truck’s wheels.

Somehow, amidst the chaos and destruction, Knight found a handhold, gripping on by his fingertips.

It was enough. Acting purely on impulse and instinct, he hauled himself to safety in the narrow refuge between the cab and its cargo container.

With a soldier’s sixth sense, Waldron had seen the narrow escape of his prey and began to throw the truck into a series of wild manoeuvres in an attempt to shake Knight loose, the blare of horns echoing as other drivers sought to avoid the menace that barged through the London streets.

Knight knew he had to act before the inevitable happened and someone was killed by this rampaging truck.

He pulled the helmet from his head, grasping it in one hand, and used his other to pivot himself outwards so that the Kevlar crashed against the driver’s window, cracking it. Through the spider’s web of glass, Knight saw a look of pure animal rage on the face of a man who seemed to hold no value for life.

Knight swung again, and this time the glass smashed. Waldron threw a savage punch through the now open window that connected with Knight’s jaw. The blow struck like a hammer, and Knight’s feet slipped beneath him on the narrow perch of the door ledge.

Inches away from becoming a bloody smear on the roadside, Knight managed to regain his footing. He grabbed hold of the driver and the two men grappled, Waldron oblivious to the pedestrians and motorists who fled in panic from the weaving truck. Grasping wildly, Knight felt his hand come into contact with the truck’s steering wheel. Seeing a line of parked cars, the pavement clear of pedestrians, he turned it hard left with all of his strength.

The truck slewed. Metal screamed as the cab ploughed into a lamp post that bent like a broken toothpick, the echo of the crash ringing out across the streets.

It all happened in a split second, and in that moment Peter Knight was thrown through the air like a rag doll.