Private Princess

Chapter 78

Jack Morgan pulled his car off Whitehall and into Great Scotland Yard, where he spied a parking space beside the Clarence pub. It was a private spot, but Morgan took care of that by giving the pub’s bouncer a handshake loaded with a couple of fifty-pound notes. Then, with the lightest of rains falling on his skin, he walked back onto Whitehall, and in the direction of Horse Guards Parade.

The majesty of London had always impressed Morgan, and its effect was even more striking at night. The buildings that lined Whitehall had been part of the seat from which the British Empire had been ruled. It was now home to the Ministry of Defence, the road itself watched over by statues of men who had led British armies to great victories overseas. Morgan’s eyes glanced over the brass plaques as he walked, recognizing the names from lessons he had been taught as a young Marine Corps officer: Earl Haig, who had presided over the slaughter in the trenches; Viscount Montgomery, who had turned back Rommel’s Africa Korps, before serving beneath Eisenhower in Europe; the Viscount Slim, who had routed the Japanese in Asia. All leaders who had been blessed with remarkable men and women to serve under them, just as Morgan had. Looking at their faces, Morgan wondered if they suffered as he did when any one of the people under their command were hurt, or died in the line of duty.

Morgan looked away from the statues, his eyes drawn to a brilliantly lit up structure in the road’s center. It was the Cenotaph, Morgan remembered — the central point of remembrance for all British and Commonwealth fallen soldiers. Jane had told him that when they had walked these streets together, looking for vulnerabilities in security ahead of the Trooping the Color parade, where kidnappers had threatened to execute Abbie Winchester should a ransom for her release not be paid. It was during those hours alone with her that Morgan had begun to develop an attraction for Jane Cook that was more than physical, and her memory had drawn him here. Their time together had been as short as it had been electric, and Morgan wanted to feel her presence as he sought out the road ahead. He wanted to recall memories of her that were exciting and promising, rather than the grotesque images of her death.

His feet crunching on the stone of Horse Guards Parade, Morgan closed his eyes and tried to imagine her own set of footsteps beside his. Then in the center of the square he halted and raised his face to the sky.

“I’m sorry, Jane,” he whispered to the night. “I’m so sorry.”

He breathed deeply, holding back tears behind closed eyelids. He knew he had become a runaway train, and that he had to hold back his emotions — or at least channel them — if he was to bring justice to Jane’s killers. Killers, because now he knew the face of Flex’s accomplice.

Morgan breathed out and opened his eyes. The square about him was deserted, the magnificent buildings surrounding him standing as proud as Guardsmen in their lit-up glory. Such a sense of history and scale helped to focus Morgan’s mind. How many men who had stood on this square had gone on to war, never to come back? They had taken on danger and death because they had believed in a cause — a mission. Morgan’s mission was one he believed in with every fiber of his being: to avenge Jane. A strange sense of calm settled upon him as he realized, without the slightest trace of doubt, that he would die to avenge her.

“There’s no other way,” he said out loud.

And so, resolved to his mission, Morgan’s boots crunched the gravel as he strode toward the arched gate of the parade ground, and out into his war. If he was going to win it, though, he’d need firepower.

He pulled out his phone and called an unlikely ally.