Private Princess

Chapter 75

Jack Morgan was still furious as Knight eased off the gas and drove them back onto the roads.

“Have you gone crazy?” the American shouted. “Flex was there, Peter! I had him!”

“He had you.” Knight spoke calmly. “He was pulling you into a trap, Jack. They could have had Hooligan if they wanted to. Think about it. This was a trap for you.”

“It felt like they wanted me,” Hooligan protested as adrenaline and shock shook his body. “Who the hell are they?”

Morgan was in a silent rage. Nostrils flaring, he turned his head to look out the window but all he could see was the image of Flex as he taunted him, within reach. Deep inside, Morgan knew that Knight was right — it had been a trap, with Hooligan the bait — but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow the fact that Flex still drew breath.

“Flex Gibbon’s behind it,” Knight answered Hooligan from behind the wheel, with a concerned look toward Morgan.

“Flex Gibbon?” Hooligan asked, fishing in his memory for the name. “He was the SAS guy that Jack and Jane beat up to find Abbie Winchester?”

“He was.”

“Where is Jane?” Hooligan then asked, cautiously, his intellect connecting the dots between Morgan’s behavior and Cook’s absence. “Guys? Where’s Jane?”

The silence told Hooligan all he needed to know.

“Oh God. Oh God, no,” he uttered, slipping down his seat. “Not Jane.” He trembled, his lip shaking violently.

“Flex killed her,” Morgan pushed out through clenched teeth, his eyes like lasers as he stared out the window. “And he’s still out there.”

“You’d be dead if you’d have followed Flex,” Knight ventured, as neutrally as possible. “What use is that to her, Jack? That’s not what she’d want. Think about it like this: when Flex goes down, do you want hundreds of witnesses?”

“No,” Morgan replied. No witnesses. Not unless he wanted to spend a lifetime in a British prison.

“Flex will get what’s coming to him,” Knight promised. “But when we decide. Not him.”

For a while the car was silent. In the back seat, Hooligan held his head between shaking hands.

“You’re a good man, Peter,” Morgan finally said. “You too, Hooligan.”

“I ran,” Hooligan stammered. “I left Perkins out there.”

“Perkins will be OK. The police will have got him to a hospital,” Knight reassured him. “They didn’t want Perkins, they wanted you. You did what you had to do.”

“You lived,” added Morgan. “And now you can help us finish this.”