Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Also by James Patterson
Worst Case
Prologue: Give Peace a Chance . . . or Else
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Part One: Ashes to Ashes
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
Part Two: Final Exam
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
Chapter 36
Part Three: Sign of the Cross
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: Charity Case
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
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
We managed to get hold of Detective Michael Bennett for an extremely rare interview
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Epub ISBN: 9781409069782
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Published by Century, 2010
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Copyright © James Patterson, 2010
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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
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Also by James Patterson
ALEX CROSS NOVELS
Kiss the Girls
Along Came a Spider
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
DETECTIVE MICHAEL BENNETT SERIES
Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)
Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)
STAND-ALONE THRILLERS
Sail (with Howard Roughan)
Swimsuit (with Maxine Paetro)
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 WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB SERIES
1
st to Die
2
nd Chance (with Andrew Gross)
3
rd Degree (with Andrew Gross)
4
th of July (with Maxine Paetro)
The 5
th Horseman (with Maxine Paetro)
The 6
th Target (with Maxine Paetro)
7
th Heaven (with Maxine Paetro)
8
th Confession (with Maxine Paetro)
9
th Judgement (with Maxine Paetro, to be
published April 2010)
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 (to be published February 2010)
Manga Volume 1
(with NaRae Lee)
Manga Volume 2 (with NaRae Lee)
DANIEL X SERIES
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with
Michael Ledwidge)
Daniel X: Alien Hunter Graphic Novel (with
Leopoldo Gout)
Daniel X: Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)
Daniel X: Demons and Druids (with Adam
Sadler, to be published July 2010)
WITCH & WIZARD SERIES
Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)
For Susan Maloney, Sue Najork, Marlene Stang,
and Kary Tangredi—J.P.
For Mary Ann O’Donnell, World’s Greatest Adviser.
Special thanks to “Uncle” Ed Kelly and Judge Joe Len—M.L.
WORST CASE James Patterson&Michael Ledwidge CENTURY • LONDON
Prologue
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE . . . OR ELSE
One
THE STOCKY MAN with the salt-and-pepper hair felt light-headed as he crossed beneath the marble arch into Washington Square Park. He dropped his backpack, took off his circular glasses, and blotted the sudden tears in his eyes with the sleeve of his ancient jeans jacket.
He hadn’t planned on breaking down, but My God, he thought, wiping at his rugged, lined face. Now he knew how Vietnam veterans felt when they visited their Wall down in Washington, DC. If veterans of the antiwar movement had a monument—a Wall of Tears—it was here, where it all began, Washington Square Park.
Staring out over the windy park, he remembered all the incredible things that had occurred here. The antiwar demonstrations. Bob Dylan in the 4th Street basement clubs, singing about which way the wind was blowing. The candlelit faces of his old friends as they passed bottles and smoke. The whispered promises they had made to one another to change things, to make things better.
He looked out over the Friday-afternoon crowd by the center fountain, the people hovering over the chess tables, as if he might find a familiar face. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? he thought with a shrug. They’d all moved on, like he had. Grown up. Sold out. Or were underground. Figuratively. Literally.
That time, his time, was almost completely faded now, just about dead and gone.
Just about, he thought as he knelt and removed the box of flyers from his knapsack.
But not quite.
On each of the five hundred sheets was a three-paragraph message entitled LOVE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.
Who says you can’t go home? he thought. A quote from Keith Richards popped into his head as he stacked the sheets.
“I got news for you. We’re still a bunch of tough bastards. String us up and we still won’t die.”
You said it, Keith, he thought, giggling to himself. Right on, brother. You and me both.
More and more over the last year, his thoughts kept coming back to his youth. It was the only time in his entire life when he’d felt like he meant something, when he’d felt he was making a positive difference.
Was coming back now after all this time a midlife crisis? Maybe. He didn’t care. He’d decided he wanted that feeling again. Especially in light of recent events. The world now was in even more dire straits than the one he and his friends had fought to affect. It was time to do it again. Wake people up before it was too late.
That’s why he was here. It had worked once. They had, after all, stopped a war. Maybe it could happen again. Even if he was a lot older, he wasn’t dead yet. Not by any means.
He licked his thumb and took the first sheet from the stack. He smiled, remembering the countless flyers he’d handed out in Berkeley and Seattle, and in Chicago in ’68. After all this time, here he was. Unbelievable. What a crazy life. Back in the saddle again.
Two
“HI THERE,” he said, offering the flyer to a young black woman pushing a toddler in a stroller.
He smiled at her, making eye contact. He was good with people, always had been. “I have a message here that I think you should take a look at, if it’s not too much trouble. It concerns, well, everything.”
“Leave me the hell alone with that nonsense,” she said with surprising vehemence, almost smacking it out of his hand.
Had to expect a little of that, he thought with a nod. Some people were a hard sell. Came with the territory. Unfazed, he immediately walked over toward a group of teenagers skateboarding by the statue of Garibaldi.
“Afternoon, guys. I have a message here that I’d like you to read. Only take a second out of your day. If you’re concerned about the state of affairs and about our future, I think it’s something you should really consider.”
They stared at him, dumbfounded. Up close, he was surprised to see the crow’s-feet around their eyes. They weren’t teenagers. They were in their late twenties and early thirties. Hard-looking. Kind of mean, actually.
“Holy shit! It’s John Lennon!” one of them said. “I thought somebody shot you. Where’s Yoko? When you getting back with Paul?”
The rest of them burst into sharp laughter.
Jerks, he thought, heading immediately over toward the center fountain, where a street comedian was giving a performance. Yeah, the fate of the world was a real rip, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t let those assholes get to him. He just needed to hit on the right person and things would start rolling. Persistence was the name of the game.
People averted their eyes as he approached them. Not one person would take a flyer. What the hell was this? he wondered.
It was fifteen fruitless minutes later when a petite woman walking past took the flyer from his hand. Finally, the man thought. His smile collapsed as the woman crumpled it and dropped it to the paved path. He ran forward and scooped it up before he caught up to her.
“The least you could do was wait until you were out of sight before you threw it out in a garbage can,” he said as he whirled in front of her. “You have to litter, too?”
“I’m . . . sorry?” the woman said, pulling the white iPod buds from her ears. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Were all young people today idiots? Didn’t they see where everything was heading? Didn’t they care?
“You certainly are,” he mumbled as she walked off. “You are sorry. A sorry excuse for a human being.”
He stopped dead when he got back to the park’s entrance. Someone had kicked over the stack, and most of the flyers were wafting away under the arch, over the sidewalk, whipping north up Fifth Avenue.
He ran out of the park and chased them for a while. He finally stopped. He felt completely drained and idiotic as he sat on the curb between a couple of parked cars.
He held his head in his hands as he wept. For twenty minutes he cried, listening to the wind, watching the relentless roll of traffic in the street.
Flyers? he thought, sniffling. He thought he could change things with a sheet of paper and a concerned expression? He looked down at the antique jeans jacket he’d taken from the back of his closet. So proud that it still fit. He really was a complete fool.
There was only one thing that could get people to sit up straight, only one thing that would open their eyes.
Only one thing then.
And only one thing now.
He nodded, finally resolving himself. He wasn’t going to be getting any help. He had to do it himself. Fine. Enough of this nonsense. The clock was ticking. He didn’t have any more time to fool the fuck around.
He discovered he was still holding on to a crumpled flyer. He smoothed it out on the cold pavement beside him, took out a pen, and made a vital correction. It snapped like an unfurled flag as he let the wind take it from his fingers.
The broad man with the graying hair wiped his eyes as the sheet he’d written on caught high on the corner lamppost behind him.
The word LOVE in the title had been X’ed out. Against an ash-gray sky above him it now said,
Blood CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!
Part One
ASHES TO ASHES
Chapter 1
BOUND IN THE dark, Jacob Dunning thought abo
ut all the things he would give for a shower.
All his possessions? Done. One of his toes? In a heartbeat. One of his fingers? Hmmm, he thought. Did he really need his left pinkie?
Unidentified mudlike filth stuck to his cheek, his hair. Wearing only his NYU T-shirt and boxers, the handsome brown-haired college freshman lay on a soiled concrete floor in a very tight space.
An angry industrial hum raged in the vague distance. He was blindfolded, and his hands were cuffed to a pipe behind him. A gag around his mouth was knotted tight against the hollow indentation at the base of his skull.
The indentation was called the foramen magnum, he knew. It was where your spinal cord passed into your skull. Jacob had learned about it in anatomy class a month or so ago. NYU was step one in his lifelong dream to become a doctor. His father had an 1862 edition of Gray’s Anatomy in his study, and ever since he was a little kid, Jacob had loved going through it. Kneeling in his father’s great padded office chair with his chin in his hands, he’d spend hours poring over the elegant, fascinating sketches, the topography of the human body shaded and named like distant lands, like treasure maps.