‘We’ll check the trucks,’ he whispered.
The company’s lorries were arranged in a single row, a mixture of flat-panel and dump trucks. Morgan and Cook made their way slowly around the dozen vehicles, looking into the cabs and listening for any trace of sound.
‘Jack,’ Cook whispered. ‘Over here.’
Morgan came to her side and found himself looking at a truck-sized space between two other vehicles. It was the only one missing from the neatly arranged line.
‘The ground’s dry,’ he declared, looking up to the sky and thinking of the recent shower. ‘We just missed them. Damn it!’
‘You don’t know that,’ Cook said, trying to be positive, but Morgan pointed to a rusty-coloured patch at the edge of the dry ground.
‘That’s blood. Probably Grace’s blood. They held Abbie in a truck here, and now they’re moving closer to the parade.’
Cook tried, but could find no flaw in the logic.
‘It’s nine forty,’ she told him, looking at her watch. ‘Twenty minutes until they call to arrange the drop. Will the Duke have the money?’
Morgan shook his head. ‘He was never supposed to pay, but Waldron heard “Duke” and thought “billionaire”.’
‘So what now?’
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. ‘We’ve got an hour to find that truck, or Abbie dies.’
Chapter 27
In the lab of Private HQ, Hooligan turned in his chair to watch Knight pacing the room like a caged animal. ‘You want to be out there, mate,’ he stated to his friend and superior.
Knight shrugged. Of course he did, but he also knew that the Duke was their only tangible link to Abbie and her kidnapper, and Morgan had wanted him to be on hand to handle the next and final ransom call that was expected in nineteen minutes’ time. Knight was also the head of Private London, and sometimes — as much as he hated to admit it to himself — that meant delegating the tasks on the ground to others.
He told Hooligan as much.
‘Bollocks.’ The Londoner laughed, his tone quickly becoming serious as he saw the incoming call from Jack Morgan. ‘Go ahead, boss,’ Hooligan told him, patching Morgan through the lab’s speakers. ‘Peter’s with me.’
‘Peter,’ Morgan said, the Range Rover’s revving engine audible in the background, ‘he’s been holding Abbie in a flat-panel truck. The company is Jones Brothers, but he’s probably pulled off the decals or painted over them. I think he’s moving Abbie closer to Horse Guards before he makes the last call.’
‘Where are you?’ Knight asked.
Hooligan pulled up a GPS tracking screen to show him as Morgan answered.
‘Heading for Westminster Bridge,’ said Morgan, ‘but the traffic is packed. We need the police’s help on this now, Peter. But low-key. Can you make the call to Elaine?’
‘I can.’
‘Put out a description of the van. See if we can get a location, but no intervention.’
‘You’ve got it,’ said Knight.
‘Check back in with me after you talk to her,’ Morgan told him and hung up.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Hooligan said over his shoulder before realising he was talking to an empty space.
‘I’ve got my own plan,’ Knight said, running through the door.
Chapter 28
Despite his moniker — given to him as a rowdy teenager by his siblings — Jeremy ‘Hooligan’ Crawford, a few speeding tickets notwithstanding, rarely broke the law.
‘I’m a bloody model citizen,’ he said firmly, as if trying to convince himself.
He had grounds to believe the statement. After all, Jeremy Crawford had shown that, no matter what circumstances a person was born into, they could rise high with a dash of natural talent and a bucketful of hard work.
Hooligan had earned degrees in both mathematics and biology from Cambridge University by the age of nineteen. By twenty, he’d added a masters in criminal and forensic science from Staffordshire University. There he’d been headhunted by MI5. Hooligan had worked in the government’s domestic intelligence agency for eight years before Private had lured him away with a staggering pay rise. In those eight years the East Ender had played a key role in building the systems that monitored London’s surveillance grid for signs of terrorism, and as one of its architects, he knew of the system’s weak points, its windows and its doors.
‘I must be bloody mad,’ he giggled nervously under his breath.
Because he was about to break into one of those weak points.
Chapter 29
Inspector Elaine Pottersfield was a long-term servant of the Met, the service giving her a salty edge that had led to her blaming Peter Knight for the death of her beloved sister — Knight’s adored wife. It had taken the events of the London Olympics to reconcile the pair, and now Elaine was the doting aunt to Knight’s two children that he’d always wanted her to be. Early on a Saturday morning, she expected that her brother-in-law’s phone call would be an invitation to lunch, or perhaps to join him and the children in the park.
It wasn’t.
‘We’re in the shit,’ Knight told her over the phone whilst running at speed through the corridors of Private HQ.
‘Let’s hear it,’ Elaine said, switching from loving aunt to ice-cold detective in the blink of an eye.
‘There’s a flat-panel truck around Westminster with precious cargo. Either Jones Brothers signage or freshly painted over. We need it found.’
‘That’s not much to go on.’
‘I know,’ said Knight. ‘And we’ve got less than an hour to find it.’
‘Bloody hell, Peter! If you want me to work miracles, I need a little more information.’
‘You can narrow the radius down to one mile around Horse Guards.’
‘Horse Guards?’ Elaine asked. ‘Today’s Trooping the Colour. If there are lives at stake here, Peter, then you need to come clean — like right bloody now.’
‘One life,’ Knight confessed. ‘And if I thought a full blues-and-twos response was the best way to keep them alive, then you know that’s what I’d do, Elaine.’
There was a pause as his sister-in-law thought it over.
‘I’ll put out a call. Find and follow, no intervention.’
‘Thank you,’ Knight said and hung up the phone. He came to a halt at a desk to the rear of Private HQ’s large offices.
‘Can I help you, Mr Knight?’ the motor pool attendant asked.
‘Get me a bike,’ Knight told him. ‘A fast one.’
Chapter 30
Hooligan’s finger hovered over the speed dial. With a wry smile he realised that what he was about to do could possibly spell the end of his career.
He pushed the button.
‘Boss?’ he asked as the call connected.
‘Go ahead,’ Morgan answered, his voice thick with frustration.
‘I’m gonna give you bad news, bad news, good news, good news.’
‘Spit it out, Hooligan.’
‘Bad news number one is that Peter has left the building.’
‘What? Where’s he gone?’
‘More bad news first, boss.’
‘Jesus. Just tell me, Hooligan.’
‘I may have hacked into the security service’s CCTV network.’ Hooligan held his breath, as Morgan let out his.
‘You know that’s a terrorism charge if they catch you?’ said Morgan.
‘I know. And I take full responsibility, boss, but there’s a girl’s life at stake.’
‘You’re a good guy, Hooligan.’