Jack Morgan 02 - Private London by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

narrow street made it darker than it would otherwise have been. A muffled scream ahead snapped Chloe out of her thoughts, sobering her in an instant. She charged round the next corner, breathing quickly to pump some oxygen into her blood.
    Ahead of her was a group of five hooded and dark-clothed men, three of whom had grabbed her friends. Two had hold of Laura and one had a chokehold on Hannah. The remaining two were leaning against a black van.
    ‘Let them go, you bastards,’ Chloe tried to scream, but her voice came out in a hoarse, painful croak again. Adrenalin kicked in. She ran towards them. One of the men turned to face her. A disdainful sneer on his lips, although she couldn’t see his eyes that were shaded by the hood he was wearing. She kicked him hard in the groin and the sneer vanished as he crumpled, groaning, to to the ground.
    She felt an arm pulling her back and she spun round, knocking the arm away, spearing a hard fist into her assailant’s sternum and then uppercutting him as he doubled forward. But she was sluggish, far more sluggish than she should have been. The uppercut was off target, and the man moved aside so that her punch only grazed the side of his head. He snapped a blow straight back at her. But Chloe had anticipated it – she stepped inside his swing, grabbing his arm and using the momentum of the missed punch to pull him forward towards her. She lowered her head as she did so and smashed her forehead into the bridge of his nose. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage. The man squealed like a stuck pig and dropped to his knees, hands cradling his wrecked nose that was now spilling blood.
    Chloe breathed deeply and turned towards the van. Two of the remaining three men moved towards her – more cautiously than their colleagues had. One of them holding Laura tight to his body with a muscular arm wrapped around her. She saw the flash of steel as that man pulled a long-bladed knife from his jacket, watched Hannah stumble, heard a scream. Laura fell down and was yanked rudely up.
    ‘What do you want?’ Chloe shouted at the men, holding her hands forward ready to strike.
    ‘Just leave now and you won’t get hurt,’ came a quiet hiss from the hooded figure who now held a terrified Hannah against the side of the black van.
    Chloe shook her head. ‘Just let them go!’ she said, putting one foot forward, hands held like blades as she moved slowly towards the two men facing her. Her head was clearing now. Something the man holding Hannah had said triggering some kind of memory. She tried to catch hold of the thought but couldn’t, the synapses in her brain still not firing at a hundred per cent – despite the adrenalin that was coursing through her blood now.
    She moved forward slightly again, her foot not leaving the ground as she slid it along the uneven surface of the street, doubly glad now that she hadn’t worn heels. The hooded man who didn’t have hold of either Laura or Hannah took a step forward himself. Chloe tilted sideways quicker than he could register and snapped out her right foot, slamming it into his knee.
    ‘It’s okay, Laura,’ she said to her terrified friend. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
    Laura shook her head, her eyes widening with panic, with shock.
    ‘Trust me, babe,’ Chloe said, misunderstanding her friend’s reaction. ‘They are not getting away with this!’
    She saw the man holding Laura take a step backwards as she inched her foot forward once more. She felt the movement of air behind her. But before she could react a baseball bat swung against the back of her head, crunching into the fragile bone. She collapsed forward and hit the cold cobbled ground.

Chapter 20
    DOCTOR HARRIET WALSH knelt down and examined the gaping wounds.
    ‘Cause of death?’ asked DI Ken Harman.
    Doctor Walsh looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. ‘Can’t tell at this stage. No bruising to the neck, no evidence of gunshot damage. The soft tissue and