Private Games

Chapter 109

KNIGHT AND JACK were inside the Olympic Park by four that afternoon. The sunlight was still glaring and the heat shimmered off the track. According to Scotland Yard and MI5, which had together seized control of security under orders from the Prime Minister, Mike Lancer had made no effort to get inside the park with his security pass, which someone had smartly flagged immediately after the warning about him had been issued.

Around four-thirty, Knight’s head was still aching as he followed Jack into the empty stadium where teams with sniffer dogs were patrolling. At the moment, his thoughts were less about finding Lancer than they were about his children. Were they all right in hospital? Was Amanda by their side?

Knight was about to make a call to his mother when Jack said, ‘Maybe he did get spooked at the marathon. Maybe that was his last chance: he saw it wasn’t going to work, and he’s making his escape.’

‘No,’ Knight said. ‘He’s going to try something here. Something big.’

‘He’ll have to be Houdini,’ Jack observed. ‘You heard them, they’ve gone to war-zone security levels. They’re putting double teams of SAS snipers up high and every available cop in the halls and stairways.’

‘I’m hearing you, Jack,’ Knight said. ‘But given what the insane bastard has done so far, we can’t be sure that any security level is going to work. Think about it. Lancer oversaw a billion and a half dollars in security spending for the Olympics. He knows every contingency that Scotland Yard and MI5 provided for in their plans. And for much of the past seven years that lunatic has had access to every inch of every venue as it was built. Every goddamn inch.’