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  He watched me buckle up, then he hit the sirens and stepped on the gas.

  We were about five minutes from the Vault, a class A nightclub on the second floor of a former Bank of America building.

  “Fill me in,” I said to my partner.

  “Call came in to 911 about ten minutes ago,” Conklin said as we tore up California Street. “A kitchen worker said he recognized Kingfisher out in the bar. He was still trying to convince 911 that it was an emergency when shots were fired inside the club.”

  “Watch out on our right.”

  Richie yanked the wheel hard left to avoid an indecisive panel truck, then jerked it hard right and took a turn onto Sansome.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I had been known to get carsick in jerky high-speed chases when I wasn’t behind the wheel.

  “I’m fine. Keep talking.”

  My partner told me that a second witness reported to first officers that three men were talking to two women at the bar. One of the men yelled, “No one screws with the King.” Shots were fired. The women were killed.

  “Caller didn’t leave his name.”

  I was gripping both the dash and the door, and had both feet on imaginary brakes, but my mind was occupied with Kingfisher. He was a Mexican drug cartel boss, a psycho with a history of brutality and revenge, and a penchant for settling his scores personally.

  Richie was saying, “Patrol units arrived as the shooters were attempting to flee through the front entrance. Someone saw the tattoo on the back of the hand of one of the shooters. I talked to Brady,” Conklin said, referring to our lieutenant. “If that shooter is Kingfisher and survives, he’s ours.”

  I wanted the King on death row for the normal reasons. He was to the drug and murder trade as al-Baghdadi was to terrorism. But I also had personal reasons.

  Earlier that year a cadre of dirty San Francisco cops from our division had taken down a number of drug houses for their own financial gain. One drug house in particular yielded a payoff of five to seven million in cash and drugs. Whether those cops knew it beforehand or not, the stolen loot belonged to Kingfisher—and he wanted it back.

  The King took his revenge but was still short a big pile of dope and dollars.

  So he turned his sights on me.

  I was the primary homicide inspector on the dirty-cop case.

  Using his own twisted logic, the King demanded that I personally recover and return his property. Or else.

  It was a threat and a promise, and of course I couldn’t deliver.

  From that moment on I had protection all day and night, every day and night, but protection isn’t enough when your tormentor is like a ghost. We had grainy photos and shoddy footage from cheap surveillance cameras on file. We had a blurry picture of a tattoo on the back of his left hand.

  That was all.

  After his threat I couldn’t cross the street from my apartment to my car without fear that Kingfisher would drop me dead in the street.

  A week after the first of many threatening phone calls, the calls stopped. A report came in from the Mexican federal police saying that they had turned up the King’s body in a shallow grave in Baja. That’s what they said.

  I had wondered then if the King was really dead. If the freaking nightmare was truly over.

  I had just about convinced myself that my family and I were safe. Now the breaking news confirmed that my gut reaction had been right. Either the Mexican police had lied, or the King had tricked them with a dead doppelganger buried in the sand.

  A few minutes ago the King had been identified by a kitchen worker at the Vault. If true, why had he surfaced again in San Francisco? Why had he chosen to show his face in a nightclub filled with people? Why shoot two women inside that club? And my number one question: Could we bring him in alive and take him to trial?

  Please, God. Please.

  Our car radio was barking, crackling, and squealing at a high pitch as cars were directed to the Vault, in the middle of the block on Walnut Street. Cruisers and ambulances screamed past us as Conklin and I closed in on the scene. I badged the cop at the perimeter, and immediately after, Rich backed our car into a gap in the pack of law enforcement vehicles, parking it across the street from the Vault.

  The Vault was built of stone block. It had two centered large glass doors, now shattered, with a half-circular window across the doorframe. Flanking the doors were two tall windows, capped with demilune windows, glass also shot out.

  Shooters inside the Vault were using the granite doorframe as a barricade as they leaned out and fired on the uniformed officers positioned behind their car doors.

  Conklin and I got out of our car with our guns drawn and crouched beside our wheel wells. Adrenaline whipped my heart into a gallop. I watched everything with clear eyes, and yet my mind flooded with memories of past shoot-outs. I had been shot and almost died. All three of my partners had been shot, one of them fatally.

  And now I had a baby at home.

  A cop at the car to my left shouted, “Christ!”

  Her gun spun out of her hand and she grabbed her shoulder as she dropped to the asphalt. Her partner ran to her, dragged her toward the rear of the car, and called in, “Officer down.” Just then SWAT arrived in force with a small caravan of SUVs and a ballistic armored transport vehicle as big as a bus. The SWAT commander used his megaphone, calling to the shooters, who had slipped back behind the fortresslike walls of the Vault.

  “All exits are blocked. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Toss out the guns, now.”

  The answer to the SWAT commander was a fusillade of gunfire that pinged against steel chassis. SWAT hit back with automatic weapons, and two men fell out of the doorway onto the pavement.

  The shooting stopped, leaving an echoing silence.

  The commander used his megaphone and called out, “You. Put your gun down and we won’t shoot. Fair warning. We’re coming in.”

  “WAIT. I give up,” said an accented voice. “Hands up, see?”

  “Come all the way out. Come to me,” said the SWAT commander.

  I could see him from where I stood.

  The last of the shooters was a short man with a café au lait complexion, a prominent nose, dark hair that was brushed back. He was wearing a well-cut suit that had blood splattered on the white shirt as he came out through the doorway with his hands up.

  Two guys in tactical gear grabbed him and slammed him over the hood of an SUV, then cuffed and arrested him.

  The SWAT commander dismounted from the armored vehicle. I recognized him as Reg Covington. We’d worked together before. Conklin and I walked over to where Reg was standing beside the last of the shooters.

  Covington said, “Boxer. Conklin. You know this guy?”

  He stood the shooter up so I could get a good look at his face. I’d never met Kingfisher. I compared the real-life suspect with my memory of the fuzzy videos I’d seen of Jorge Sierra, a.k.a. the King.

  “Let me see his hands,” I said.

  It was a miracle that my voice sounded steady, even to my own ears. I was sweating and my breathing was shallow. My gut told me that this was the man.

  Covington twisted the prisoner’s hands so that I could see the backs of them. On the suspect’s left hand was the tattoo of a kingfisher, the same as the one in the photo in Kingfisher’s slim file.

  I said to our prisoner, “Mr. Sierra. I’m Sergeant Boxer. Do you need medical attention?”

  “Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, maybe.”

  Covington jerked him to his feet and said, “We’ll take good care of him. Don’t worry.”

  He marched the King to the waiting paddy wagon, and I watched as he was shackled and chained to the bar before the door was closed.

  Covington slapped the side of the van, and it took off as CSI and the medical examiner’s van moved in and SWAT thundered into the Vault to clear the scene.

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and cre
ated more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Emily Raymond is the coauthor, with James Patterson, of First Love and Witch and Wizard: The Lost, as well as the ghostwriter of numerous novels for young adults. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her family.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Prologue

  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

  An Excerpt from “The Trial”

  About the Authors

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2016 by James Patterson

  Excerpt from The Trial copyright © 2016 by James Patterson

  Cover design by Kapo Ng

  Cover photograph by Sue Patterson

  Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights..

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  First ebook edition: July 2016

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  ISBN 978-0-316-27640-5

  E3-20160517-DA-NF