Private Games by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

that we can’t stop him. He’s saying this is not over, that it could be just the beginning.’
    Jack nodded, and said, ‘When you start with a beheading, you’re taking a long walk down Savage Street.’
    ‘I’ll start running tests,’ Hooligan said. He was looking at the card that played the music. ‘These chips are in a lot of greeting cards. We should be able to trace the make and model.’
    Knight nodded, saying, ‘I want to read through the letter one more time.’
    While Pope and Jack watched Hooligan slice out the working components of the musical greeting card, Knight returned to the letter and began to read as the flute music died in the lab.
    The first sentence was written in symbols and letters that Knight did not recognise but guessed was ancient Greek. The second and all subsequent sentences in the letter were in English.
     
The ancient Olympic Games have been corrupted. The modern Games are not a celebration of gods and men. They are not even about goodwill among men. The modern Games are a mockery, a sideshow every four years, and made that way by so many thieves, cheats, murderers, and monsters.
Consider the great and exalted Sir Denton Marshall and his corpulent partner Richard Guilder. Seven years ago, Marshall sold out the Olympic movement as a force for honest competition. From the documents that accompany this letter, you will see that they suggest that in order to ensure that London would be selected to host the 2012 games, Marshall and Guilder cleverly siphoned funds from their clients and secretly moved the money into overseas bank accounts owned by shell corporations that were in turn owned by members of the International Olympic Selection Committee. Paris, runner-up in the selection process, never had a chance.
And so, to cleanse the Games, the Furies and I found it just that Marshall should die for his offences, and so that has come to pass. We are unstoppable beings far superior to you, able to see the corruption when you cannot, able to expose the monsters and slay them for the good of the Games when you cannot.
    – Cronus

Chapter 16
    AS HE FINISHED reading the letter a second time, Knight felt more upset, more anxious than before. Thinking of the letter in the light of what had been done to Marshall, Cronus came across as a madman – albeit a rational one – who made Knight’s skin crawl.
    Making it worse, the creepy flute melody would not leave Knight’s thoughts. What kind of mind would produce that music and that letter? How did Cronus make it work together to produce such a sense of imminent threat and violation?
    Or was Knight too close to the case to feel any other way?
    He got a camera and began shooting close-ups of the letter and the supporting documents. Jack came over. ‘What do you think, Peter?’
    ‘There’s a good chance that one of the Furies, as he calls them, tried to run Lancer down this afternoon,’ Knight replied. ‘A woman was driving that cab.’
    ‘What?’ Pope exclaimed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’
    ‘I just did,’ Knight said. ‘But don’t quote me.’
    Hooligan suddenly brayed, ‘Big mistake!’
    They all turned. He was holding something up with a pair of tweezers.
    ‘What’ve you got?’ Jack asked.
    ‘Hair,’ Hooligan said in triumph. ‘It was in the glue on the envelope flap.’
    ‘DNA, right?’ Pope asked, excited. ‘You can match it.’
    ‘Gonna try, eh?’
    ‘How long will that take?’
    ‘Day or so for a full recombinant analysis.’
    Pope shook her head. ‘You can’t have it for that long. My editor was specific. We had to turn it all over to Scotland Yard before we publish.’
    ‘He’ll take a sample and leave them the rest,’ Jack promised.
    Knight headed towards the door.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Pope demanded.
    Knight paused, not sure of what to tell her. Then he gave her the truth. ‘I’m guessing that first sentence is written in ancient Greek so I’m going to pay a call on that bloke James Daring