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 created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.
HILARY LIFTIN has collaborated on numerous New York Times bestsellers and is the author, most recently, of the novel Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
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
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
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
Cover design by Kapo Ng; photograph by Sue Patterson
Cover copyright © 2016 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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ISBN: 9780316361354
E3-20160804-NF-DA
James Patterson, $10,000,000 Marriage Proposal
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