Kill Alex Cross ac-18 Read online

  Kill Alex Cross

  ( Alex Cross - 18 )

  James Patterson

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by James Patterson

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Book One: Unaccounted for

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  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

  Book Two: Alphabet Soup

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Book Three: War!

  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

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Book Four: Necessary Evils

  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

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Book Five: Rush to the Finish

  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

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Epilogue: Family Ties

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The President’s children have been kidnapped. The water supply for Washington DC has been poisoned. Alex Cross is on both cases.

  The only way

  Detective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close.

  To stop Alex Cross

  A deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge.

  Is to kill him

  With each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. But even the highest security clearance doesn’t get him any closer to the kidnapper – and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes in.

  A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patterson has ever written.

  About the Author

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past decade – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club and Detective Michael Bennett novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

  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 specifically for young readers. James has formed a partnership with the National Literacy Trust, an independent, UK-based charity that changes lives through literacy. In 2010, he was voted Author of the Year at the Children’s Choice Book Awards in New York.

  Also by James Patterson

  ALEX CROSS NOVELS

  Along Came a Spider

  Kiss the Girls

  Jack and Jill

  Cat and Mouse

  Pop Goes the Weasel

  Roses are Red

  Violets are Blue

  Four Blind Mice

  The Big Bad Wolf

  London Bridges

  Mary, Mary

  Cross

  Double Cross

  Cross Country

  Alex Cross’s Trial

  (with Richard DiLallo)

  I, Alex Cross

  Cross Fire

  DETECTIVE MICHAEL BENNETT SERIES

  Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Worst Case (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Tick Tock (with Michael Ledwidge)

  PRIVATE SERIES

  Private (with Maxine Paetro)

  Private London (with Mark Pearson)

  STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

  Sail (with Howard Roughan)

  Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)

  Don’t Blink (with Howard Roughan)

  Postcard Killers (with Liza Marklund)

  Toys (with Neil McMahon)

  Now You See Her (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Kill Me If You Can (with Marshall Karp, to be published November 2011)

  NON-FICTION

  Torn Apart (with Hal and Cory Friedman)

  The Murder of King Tut

  (with Martin Dugard)

  ROMANCE

  Sundays at Tiffany’s (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

  The Christmas Wedding (with Richard DiLallo, to be published November 2011)

  THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB SERIES

  1st to Die

  2nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)

  3rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)

  4th of July (with Maxine Paetro)

&n
bsp; The 5th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro)

  The 6th Target (with Maxine Paetro)

  7th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro)

  8th Confession (with Maxine Paetro)

  9th Judgement (with Maxine Paetro)

  10th Anniversary (with Maxine Paetro)

  FAMILY OF PAGE-TURNERS

  MAXIMUM RIDE SERIES

  The Angel Experiment

  School’s Out Forever

  Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

  The Final Warning

  Max

  Fang

  Angel

  DANIEL X SERIES

  The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge)

  Daniel X: Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)

  Daniel X: Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler)

  Daniel X: Game Over (with Ned Rust)

  WITCH & WIZARD SERIES

  Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)

  Witch & Wizard: The Gift (with Ned Rust)

  Witch & Wizard: The Fire (with Jill Dembowski, to be published October 2011)

  ILLUSTRATED NOVELS

  Daniel X: Alien Hunter Graphic Novel (with Leopoldo Gout)

  Maximum Ride: Manga Vol. 1 (with NaRae Lee)

  Maximum Ride: Manga Vol. 2 (with NaRae Lee)

  Maximum Ride: Manga Vol. 3 (with NaRae Lee)

  Maximum Ride: Manga Vol. 4 (with NaRae Lee)

  Middle School (with Chris Tebbetts and Laura Park)

  For more information about James Patterson’s novels, visit

  www.jamespatterson.co.uk

  Or become a fan on Facebook

  For Steve Bowen, Leopoldo Gout, Stuart Manashil,

  and Bill Block — the Four Musketeers

  Book One

  UNACCOUNTED

  FOR

  IT BEGAN WITH President Coyle’s Children, Ethan and Zoe, both high-profile personalities since they had arrived in Washington, and probably even before that.

  Twelve-year-old Ethan Coyle thought he had gotten used to living under the microscope and in the public eye. So Ethan hardly noticed anymore the news cameramen perpetually camped outside the Branaff School gates, and he didn’t worry the way he used to if some kid he didn’t know tried to snap his picture in the hall, or the gymnasium, or even the boys’ bathroom.

  Sometimes, Ethan even pretended he was invisible. It was kind of babyish, kind of b.s., but who cared. It helped. One of the more personable Secret Service guys had actually suggested it. He told Ethan that Chelsea Clinton used to do the same thing. Who knew if that was true?

  But when Ethan saw Ryan Townsend headed his way that morning, he only wished he could disappear.

  Ryan Townsend always had it in for him, and that wasn’t just Ethan’s paranoia talking. He had the purplish and yellowing bruises to prove it — the kind that a good hard punch or muscle squeeze can leave behind.

  “Wuzzup, Coyle the Boil?” Townsend said, charging up on him in the hall with that look on his face. “The Boil havin’ a bad day already?”

  Ethan knew better than to answer his tormenter and torturer. He cut a hard left toward the lockers instead — but that was his first mistake. Now there was nowhere to go, and he felt a sharp, nauseating jab to the side of his leg. He’d been kicked! Townsend barely even slowed down as he passed. He called these little incidents “drive-bys.”

  The thing Ethan didn’t do was yell out, or stumble in pain. That was the deal he’d made with himself: don’t let anyone see what you’re feeling inside.

  Instead, he dropped his books and knelt down to pick them back up again. It was a total wuss move, but at least he could take the weight off his leg for a second without letting the whole world know he was Ryan Townsend’s punching and kicking dummy.

  Except this time, someone else did see — and it wasn’t the Secret Service.

  Ethan was stuffing graph paper back into his math folder when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, Ryan? Wuzzup with you?”

  He looked up just in time to see his fourteen-year-old sister, Zoe, stepping right into Townsend’s path.

  “I saw that,” she said. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

  Townsend cocked his head of blond curls to the side. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Why don’t you just mind your own —”

  Out of nowhere, a heavy yellow textbook came up fast in both of Zoe’s hands.

  She swung hard, and clocked Townsend with it, right across the middle of his face. The bully’s nose spurted red and he stumbled backward. It was great!

  That was as far as things progressed before Secret Service got to them. Agent Findlay held Zoe back, and Agent Musgrove wedged himself between Ethan and Townsend. A crowd of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders had already stopped to watch, like this was some new reality TV show — The President’s Kids.

  “You total losers!” Townsend shouted at Ethan and Zoe, even as blood dripped down over his Branaff tie and white button-down shirt. “What a couple of chumps. You need your loyal SS bodyguards to protect you!”

  “Oh yeah? Tell that to my algebra book,” Zoe yelled back. “And stay away from my brother! You’re bigger and older than him, you jerk. You shithead!”

  For his part, Ethan was still hovering by the lockers, half of his stuff scattered on the floor. And for a second or two there, he found himself pretending he was part of the crowd — just some kid nobody had ever heard of, standing there, watching all of this craziness happen to someone else.

  Yeah, Ethan thought. Maybe in my next lifetime.

  AGENT FINDLAY QUICKLY and efficiently hustled Ethan and Zoe away from the gawkers, and worse, the kids with their iPhones raised: Hello, YouTube! In a matter of seconds, he’d disappeared with them into the otherwise empty grand lecture hall off the main foyer.

  The Branaff School had once been the Branaff Estate, until ownership had transferred to a Quaker educational trust. It was said among the kids that the grounds were haunted, not by good people who had died here, but by the disgruntled Branaff descendants who’d been evicted to make room for the private school.

  Ethan didn’t buy into any of that crap, but he’d always found the main lecture hall to be supercreepy — with its old-time oil portraits looking down disapprovingly on everybody who happened to pass through.

  “You know, the president’s going to have to hear about this, Zoe. The fight, your language back there,” Agent Findlay said. “Not to mention Headmaster Skillings —”

  “No doubt, so just do your job,” Zoe answered with a shrug and a frown. She put a hand on top of her brother’s head. “You okay, Eth?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, pushing her off. “Physically, anyway.” His dignity was another question, but that was too complicated for him to think about right now.

  “In that case, let’s keep this parade moving,” Findlay told them. “You guys have assembly in five.”

  “Got it,” said Zoe with a dismissive wave. “Like we were going to forget assembly, right?”

  The morning’s guest speaker was Isabelle Morris, a senior fellow with the DC International Policy Institute and also an alum of the Branaff School. Unlike most of the kids he knew, Ethan was actually looking forward to Ms. Morris’s talk about her experiences in the Middle East. Someday he hoped to work at the UN himself. Why not? He had pretty good connections, right?

  “Can you give us a teeny-tiny second?” Zoe asked. “I want to talk to my brother — alone.”

  “I said I’m fine. It’s cool,” Ethan insisted, but his sister cut him off with a glare.

  “He tells me things he won’t say to you,” Zoe went on, answering Findlay’s skeptical look. “And private conversations aren’t exactly easy to come by around here, if you know what I mean. No offense meant.”

  “None taken.” Findlay looked down at his watch. “Okay,” he said. “Two minutes is all I can give you.”

  “Two minutes, it is. We’ll be right out, I promise,” Zoe said, and closed the heavy wooden door behi
nd him as he left.

  Without a word to Ethan, she cut between the rows of old desk seats and headed to the back of the room. She hopped up on the heating register under the windows.

  Then Zoe reached inside her blue and gray uniform jacket and took out a small black lacquered case. Ethan recognized it right away. His sister had bought it in Beijing this past summer, on a trip to China with their parents.

  “I’m all about a ciggie right now,” Zoe whispered. Then she grinned wickedly. “Come with?”

  Ethan looked back at the door. “I actually don’t want to miss this assembly,” he said, but Zoe just rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, please. Blah, blah, blah, Middle East, blah, blah. You can watch it on CNN any hour of the week,” she said. “But how often do you get a chance to ditch Secret Service? Come on!”

  It was a totally no-win situation for him and Ethan knew it. He was either going to look like a wimp — again — or he was going to miss the assembly speech he’d been looking forward to all week.

  “You shouldn’t smoke,” he said lamely.

  “Yeah, well you shouldn’t weenie out so much,” Zoe answered. “Then maybe assholes like Ryan Townsend wouldn’t be all over you all the time.”

  “That’s just because Dad’s the president,” Ethan said. “That’s all, right?”

  “No. It’s because you’re a geek,” Zoe said. “You don’t see Spunk-Punk messing with me, do you?” She opened the window, effortlessly pulled herself through, and dropped to the ground outside. Zoe thought she was another Angelina Jolie. “If you’re not coming, at least give me a minute to get away. Okay, Grandma?”

  The next second, Zoe was gone.

  Ethan looked over his shoulder one more time. Then he did the only thing he could to maintain his last shreds of dignity. He followed his sister out the lecture hall window — and into trouble he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  No one could.

  AS SOON AS the door to the lecture hall slammed shut behind Agent Clay Findlay, he checked the knob — still unlocked. Then he checked the sweep hand on his stainless-steel Breitling. “I’m giving them another forty-five seconds,” he said into the mike at his cuff. “After that, we’ve got T. Rex going to assembly and Twilight headed to the principal’s office.”

  Word from the president and First Lady had been to allow Ethan and Zoe as normal a school experience as possible, including their own conflicts — within reason. That was easier said than done, of course. Zoe Coyle didn’t always operate within reason. In fact, she usually didn’t. Zoe wasn’t a bad kid. But she was a kid. Willful. And smart, and devoted to her younger brother.