Cross the Line: (Alex Cross 24) Read online

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by James Patterson

  Praise

  Title Page

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Part One: A COP KILLING

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two: A VIGILANTE KILLING

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part Three: MERCURY RISING

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Part Four: THE REGULATORS

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Part Five: A BLIMP RUNNETH

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Extract from Cross Kill

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  SHOTS RING OUT IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS IN THE SUBURBS OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

  WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARS, A HIGH-RANKING COP LIES DEAD.

  Under pressure from the mayor, Alex Cross steps into the leadership vacuum to investigate the audacious killing. But before Cross can make any headway, a wave of murders erupts across the city. The victims have one thing in common – they are all criminals.

  And the only thing more dangerous than a murderer without a conscience is a killer who thinks he has justice on his side.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 325 million copies worldwide and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past nine years in a row. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

  James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James is the proud sponsor of the World Book Day Award and has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  Find out more at www.jamespatterson.co.uk

  Become a fan of James Patterson on Facebook

  Also by James Patterson

  Have You Read Them All?

  ALONG CAME A SPIDER

  Alex Cross is working on the high-profile disappearance of two rich kids. But is he facing someone much more dangerous than a callous kidnapper?

  KISS THE GIRLS

  Cross comes home to discover his niece Naomi is missing. And she’s not the only one. Finding the kidnapper won’t be easy, especially if he’s not working alone …

  JACK AND JILL

  A pair of ice-cold killers are picking off Washington’s rich and famous. And they have the ultimate target within their sights.

  CAT AND MOUSE

  An old enemy is back and wants revenge. Will Alex Cross escape unharmed, or will this be the final showdown?

  POP GOES THE WEASEL

  Alex Cross faces his most fearsome opponent yet. He calls himself Death. And there are three other ‘Horsemen’ who compete in his twisted game.

  ROSES ARE RED

  After a series of fatal bank robberies, Cross must take the ultimate risk when faced with a criminal known as the Mastermind.

  VIOLETS ARE BLUE

  As Alex Cross edges ever closer to the awful truth about the Mastermind, he comes dangerously close to defeat.

  FOUR BLIND MICE

  Preparing to resign from the Washington police force, Alex Cross is looking forward to a peaceful life. But he can’t stay away for long …

  THE BIG BAD WOLF

  There is a mysterious new mobster in organised crime.

  The FBI are stumped. Luckily for them, they now have Alex Cross on their team.

  LONDON BRIDGES

  The stakes have never been higher as Cross pursues two old enemies in an explosive worldwide chase.

  MARY, MARY

  Hollywood’s A-list are being violently killed, one-by-one. Only Alex Cross can put together the clues of this twisted case.

  CROSS

  Haunted by the murder of his wife thirteen years ago, Cross will stop at nothing to finally avenge her death.

  DOUBLE CROSS

  Alex Cross is starting to settle down – until he encounters a maniac killer who likes an audience.

  CROSS COUNTRY

  When an old friend becomes the latest victim of the Tiger, Cross journeys to Africa to stop a terrifying and dangerous warlord.

  ALEX CROSS’S TRIAL

  (with Richard DiLallo)

  In a family story recounted here by Alex Cross, his great-uncle Abraham faces persecution, murder and conspiracy in the era of the Ku Klux Klan.

  I, ALEX CROSS

  Investigating the violent murder of his niece Caroline, Alex Cross discovers an unimaginable secret that could rock the entire world.

  CROSS FIRE

  Alex Cross is planning his wedding to Bree, but his nemesis returns to exact revenge.

&
nbsp; KILL ALEX CROSS

  The President’s children have been kidnapped, and DC is hit by a terrorist attack. Cross must make a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes in.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEX CROSS

  Robbery, hostages, terrorism – will Alex Cross make it home in time for Christmas … alive?

  ALEX CROSS, RUN

  With his personal life in turmoil, Alex Cross can’t afford to let his guard down. Especially with three bloodthirsty killers on the rampage.

  CROSS MY HEART

  When a dangerous enemy targets Cross and his family, Alex finds himself playing a whole new game of life and death.

  HOPE TO DIE

  Cross’s family are missing, presumed dead. But Alex Cross will not give up hope. In a race against time, he must find his wife, children and grandmother – no matter what it takes.

  CROSS JUSTICE

  Returning to his North Carolina hometown for the first time in over three decades, Cross unearths a family secret that forces him to question everything he’s ever known.

  A list of more titles by James Patterson

  is printed at the back of this book

  Why everyone loves

  James Patterson and Alex Cross

  ‘It’s no mystery why James Patterson is the world’s most

  popular thriller writer. Simply put: nobody does it better.’

  Jeffery Deaver

  ‘No one gets this big without amazing natural

  storytelling talent – which is what Jim has,

  in spades. The Alex Cross series proves it.’

  Lee Child

  ‘James Patterson is the gold standard

  by which all others are judged.’

  Steve Berry

  ‘Alex Cross is one of the

  best-written heroes in American fiction.’

  Lisa Scottoline

  ‘Twenty years after the first Alex Cross story, he has

  become one of the greatest fictional detectives

  of all time, a character for the ages.’

  Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

  ‘Alex Cross is a legend.’

  Harlan Coben

  ‘Patterson boils a scene down to the single, telling detail,

  the element that defines a character or moves a plot along.

  It’s what fires off the movie projector in the reader’s mind.’

  Michael Connelly

  ‘James Patterson is The Boss. End of.’

  Ian Rankin

  Prologue

  A DEATH ON ROCK CREEK

  ONE

  HE CHANGED IDENTITY like many warriors do before battle. He called himself Mercury on nights like these.

  Dressed in black from his visor helmet to his steel-toe boots, Mercury had his motorcycle backed up into a huge rhododendron bush by the Rock Creek Parkway south of Calvert Street. He sat astride the idling bike and cradled a U.S. Army surplus light detection and ranging device. He trained the lidar on every vehicle that went past him, checking its speed.

  Forty-five miles an hour, on the money. Forty-four. Fifty-two. Routine stuff. Safe numbers. Boring numbers.

  Mercury was hoping to see a more exotic and inflated figure on the screen. He had good reason to believe a bloated number like that would appear before this night was over. He was certainly in the right place for it.

  Built in the 1920s, Rock Creek Parkway had been designed to preserve the natural scenic beauty of the area. The winding four-lane road ran from the Lincoln Memorial north through parks, gardens, and woods. It was 2.9 miles long and split in Northwest DC. Beach Drive, the right fork, headed northeast, deeper into the park. The parkway itself continued on to the left and curled back northwest to the intersection with Calvert Street.

  Forty-three miles an hour, according to the lidar display. Forty-seven. Forty-five.

  These numbers were not surprising. The parkway was on the National Register of Historic Places and was maintained by the National Park Service; it had a set speed limit of forty-five miles an hour.

  But the parkway’s meandering route was about as close to a Grand Prix circuit as you could find in or around the District of Columbia. Elongated S curves, chicanes, a few altitude changes, straightaways that ran down the creek bottom—they were all there, and the road was almost twice the length of the fabled Grand Prix course at Watkins Glen, New York.

  That alone makes it a target, Mercury thought. That alone says someone will try. If not tonight, then tomorrow, or the night after.

  He’d read an article in the Washington Post that said that on any given night, the odds were better than one in three that some rich kid or an older prick sucking big-time off the federal teat would bring out the new Porsche or the overhorsed BMW and take a crack at Rock Creek. So might the suburban kid who’d snuck out the old man’s Audi, or even a middle-aged mom or two.

  All sorts of people seemed obsessed by it. One try every three nights, Mercury thought. But tonight, the odds were even better than average.

  A few days ago, a budget crisis had closed the U.S. government. All funding for park law enforcement had been frozen. No salaries were being paid. Park rangers had been sent home for liability reasons. There was no one looking but him.

  Hours went by. Traffic slowed to a trickle, and still Mercury aimed the lidar gun and shot, read the verdict, and waited. He was nodding off at a quarter to three that morning and thinking that he should pack it in when he heard the growl of a big-bore engine turning onto the parkway from Beach Drive.

  On that sound alone, Mercury’s right hand shot out and fired up the bike. His left hand aimed the lidar at the growl, which became a whining, buzzing wail of fury coming right at him.

  The instant he had headlights, he hit the trigger.

  Seventy-two miles an hour.

  He tossed the lidar into the rhododendrons. He’d return for it later.

  The Maserati blew by him.

  Mercury twisted the accelerator and popped the clutch. He blasted out of the rhododendrons, flew off the embankment, and landed with a smoking squeal in the parkway not a hundred yards behind the Italian sports car.

  TWO

  THE MASERATI WAS brand-new, sleek, black; a Quattroporte, Mercury thought, judging by the glimpse he had gotten of the car as it roared past him, and probably an S Q5.

  Mercury studied such exotic vehicles. A Maserati Quattro-porte S Q5 had a turbo-injected six-cylinder engine with a top speed of 176 miles per hour, and it boasted brilliant transmission, suspension, and steering systems.

  Overall, the Maserati was a worthy opponent, suited to the parkway’s challenges. The average man or woman might think a car like that would be impossible to best on such a demanding course, especially by a motorcycle.

  The average person would be wrong.

  Mercury’s bike was a flat-out runner of a beast that could hit 190 miles an hour and remain nimble through curves, corkscrews, and every other twist, turn, and terrain change a road might throw at you. Especially if you knew how to drive a high-speed motorcycle, and Mercury did. He had been driving fast bikes his entire life and felt uniquely suited to bring this one up to speed.

  Eighty miles per hour; ninety. The Maserati’s brake lights flashed in front of him as the parkway came out of the big easterly curve. But the driver of the Italian sports car was not set up for the second turn of a lazy and backward S.

  Mercury pounced on the rookie mistake; he crouched low, gunned the bike, and came into the second curve on a high line, smoking-fast and smooth. When he exited the second curve, he was right on the Maserati’s back bumper and going seventy-plus.

  The parkway ran a fairly true course south for nearly a mile there, and the Italian sports car tried to out-accelerate Mercury on the straight. But the Maserati was no match for Mercury’s custom ride.

  He drafted right in behind the sports car, let go of the left handlebar, and grabbed the Remington 1911 pistol Velcroed to the gas tank.

  Eighty-nine. Ninety.


  Ahead, the parkway took a hard, long left turn. The Maserati would have to brake. Mercury decelerated, dropped back, and waited for it.

  The second the brake lights of the Italian sports car flashed, the motorcyclist hit the gas and made a lightning-quick jagging move that brought him right up next to the Maserati’s passenger-side window. No passenger.

  Mercury got no more than a silhouette image of the driver before he fired at him twice. The window shattered. The bullets hit hard.

  The Maserati swerved left, smacked the guardrail, and spun back toward the inside lane just as Mercury’s bike shot ahead and out of harm’s way. He downshifted and braked, getting ready for the coming left turn.

  In his side-view mirror, he watched the Maserati vault the rail, hit trees, and explode into fire.

  Mercury felt no mercy or pity for the driver.

  The sonofabitch should have known that speed kills.

  Part One

  A COP KILLING

  CHAPTER

  1

  LEAVING THE GLUTEN-FREE Aisle at Whole Foods, Tom McGrath was thinking that the long, lithe woman in the teal-colored leggings and matching warm-up jacket in front of him had the posture of a ballerina.

  In her early thirties, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, and jet-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, she was lovely to look at, exotic even. She seemed to sense his interest and glanced back at him.

  In a light Eastern European accent, she said, “You walk like old fart, Tom.”

  “I feel like one, Edita,” said McGrath, who was in his mid-forties and built like a wide receiver gone slightly to seed. “I’m stiff and sore where I’ve never even thought of being stiff and sore.”