Chapters (124)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Acclaim for Frank Gardner’s Luke Carlton thrillers
- Also by Frank Gardner
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
Luke stayed silent. He had learned from bitter experience that trying to defend himself in these situations only made matters worse. The trouble was, he knew she was right. Elise had a point and he couldn’t blame her for sounding off. He just wanted this episode to be over.
21
King’s Cross Station, London
Wednesday, 9 March, 0832hrs GMT
SHE LOOKED JUST like any one of the thousands of others milling around the concourse in one of London’s busiest railway stations at that time of the morning. Jeans, trainers, baseball cap pulled down low over her forehead and a canvas tote bag over her shoulder. She walked past WHSmith, past Pret, past the ticket machines and the information desk, stopping just short of the Platform 9¾ shop. She joined others beneath the huge black departures board, squinting up at the flickering columns, appearing to search for her platform number. From high up on the walls above, the Tannoy burst into life.
‘Security teams are in twenty-four-hour operation at this station,’ crackled the voice. ‘CCTV footage is being recorded for your safety.’ Noted. ‘See it, say it, sorted,’ concluded the pre-recorded announcement. She had seen just one uniformed policeman so far, a bobby on the beat, wearing one of those old-style custodian helmets, his bulky, overweight frame crammed inside a yellow hi-vis waistcoat. But she knew there would be others, not necessarily in uniform, plain-clothes officers from British Transport Police, working in pairs. They had warned her about them.
She cast a final glance up at the departures board, made a point of checking her watch, then strolled over to a kiosk selling coffee and croissants. She bought herself a flat white in a takeaway cup and took it with her. She walked over to Platform 9¾, past the throng of Harry Potter fans, and took out her phone. Just another tourist taking pictures. She photographed everything: the white station pillars, the black cordon set up to manage the queue, then further off, the Harry Potter shop, the Parcel Yard pub, a Caffè Nero. She checked her watch once more and flinched, as if suddenly realizing she was about to miss her train. Apologizing with a smile, she pushed her way past the fans and out into the concourse, leaving King’s Cross station by a different exit from the one she had used to come in.
She had seen what she needed to; every detail was now committed to memory. The reconnaissance was complete.