Run for Your Life - James Patterson [0]
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Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: February 2009
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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.
ISBN: 978-0-316-04073-0
Contents
Prologue: FIGHT THE POWER
One
Two
Three
Part One: THE TEACHER
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
Part Two: PUKE BY THE GALLON
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
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Part Three: LIFE LESSONS
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
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Part Four: THE POOR BOX THIEF
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
Epilogue: HOCKEY STYX
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
About the Authors
BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON
Featuring Michael Bennett
Run for Your Life (with Michael Ledwidge)
Step on a Crack (with Michael Ledwidge)
A complete list of books by James Patterson is on pages 376–377.
For previews of upcoming books by James Patterson
and more information about the author,
visit www.JamesPatterson.com.
For Kathy, Eileen, and Jean
Prologue
FIGHT THE POWER
One
GETTING STUCK ON a bus in New York City, even under normal circumstances, is a lesson in frustration.
But when the bus belongs to the NYPD Tactical Assistance Response Unit, and it’s parked at a barricade that’s swarming with cops, and you’re there because you’re the only person in the world who might have a chance at keeping several hostages from being killed, you can cancel your dinner plans.
I wasn’t going anywhere on that Monday night. Much worse, I wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Where’s my money, Bennett?” an angry voice shouted through my headset.
I’d gotten to know that voice really well over the past seven and a half hours. It came from a nineteen-year-old gang hit man known as D-Ray—his real name was Kenneth Robinson—who was the main suspect in a triple drug murder. In truth, he was the only suspect. When police had come after him earlier today, he’d holed up in a Harlem brownstone, now behind police barricades, threatening to kill five members of his own family.
“The money’s coming, D-Ray,” I said, speaking gently into the headset. “Like I told you, I got Wells Fargo to send an armored truck up from Brooklyn. A hundred thousand dollars in unmarked twenties, sitting on the front seat.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t see no truck!”
“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” I lied. “They run on bank schedules. You can’t just call them like a taxi. They don’t carry that kind of cash around, either—they’ve got to go through a complicated procedure to get it. And drive through