Джеймс Паттерсон - Hawk

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 © 2020 by James Patterson

Cover design by Liam Donnelly

Cover art by Getty Images and Shutterstock

Cover © 2020 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 permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

JIMMY Patterson Books / Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

JimmyPatterson.org

facebook.com/JimmyPattersonBooks

twitter.com/Jimmy_Books

First ebook edition: July 2020

JIMMY Patterson Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The JIMMY Patterson Books® name and logo are trademarks of JBP Business, LLC.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

ISBN 978-0-316-49441-0

E3-20200623-JV-NF-ORI

Contents

COVER

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

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

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

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 THREE

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

CHAPTER 103

CHAPTER 104

CHAPTER 105

CHAPTER 106

CHAPTER 107

CHAPTER 108

CHAPTER 109

CHAPTER 110

CHAPTER 111

CHAPTER 112

EPILOGUE

MORE EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

JIMMY PATTERSON BOOKS FOR YOUNG ADULT READERS

NEWSLETTERS

PROLOGUE

I solemnly promise this one thing to myself: I swear that this is the last day, absolutely the very last day, I will ever wait for those heartless bastards: my parents.

I leaned back against the corner of this building, the fading gray stucco chipped and pitted and slowly coming off. Five years ago it had been a bank; now there were no banks anywhere. I don’t know why. Now the only things this building is good for are squatters, who’d broken in through the heavy glass door; looters, who’d taken anything of value from it; and me. I used it to prop myself up during my daily pointless wait. Today I was extra mad at myself for being the gullible smack that I am. We’re talking way gullible. Why else would I be here ?

“Hawk.” The ragged homeless woman shot me a quick worried glance as she hobbled down the street with surprising speed.

I nodded at her. “Smiley.” So-called because she’d lost a lot of her teeth. You hang out on a street corner long enough, you get to know the natives. I’d been hanging out here every day—we’re talking every single fricking day —for ten years.

Every day at five o’clock, whether it’s raining, blistering hot, freezing, snowing, wind blowing, whatever. Every day from five to five thirty. I was here.

And, like, why ? Such a good question. One that I ask myself a hundred times every day, when I pretend not to notice what time it is, when really, it’s ticking in my head, down to the minute. Like a bomb I keep playing with, every day, one that I actually want to explode. Because if it did, maybe this time, I really wouldn’t go.

So why do I keep doing it?

The answer’s always the same: because they asked me to. My parents.

And you know, I can remember just about every face I’ve ever seen. I’m like a super recognizer . I should work for the government, I’m not kidding. Not this government, obvs. But some government, somewhere. Anyhow, a million faces, good, bad, and ugly locked away in my mind-vault, and yet…

Yet I don’t remember them. Mom and Dad. I remember my father’s hands, standing me on this street corner. For some reason I feel like we were afraid. I could feel a tremor in his fingers, tight in mine. I think I remember this so clearly because my hands were clean and haven’t been since then. One of them said, “It’s five o’clock now. Stay here for half an hour, till your watch says five thirty. A friend of ours will come get you—or we’ll be back. Promise.”

I don’t remember the voice, whether it was soft and warm, or harsh, or desperate, or whispered. I don’t even know if it was my mom or dad that said it.

I lost my watch years ago. Actually, it got broken in a fight. Along with my nose, that time. Other things have been broken and bruised since then, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. The one thing that hasn’t broken yet is my spirit. But a few more days of keeping this lonely watch on this crap corner might do it.

My parents’ muted voices, the fogged-out faces—that was ten years ago . No friend ever came. My parents never came back. Remembering that makes me laugh at myself.

What kind of a pathetic idiot waits on the same corner every day from five to five thirty for their whole life? Or at least ten years of it? The biggest idiot in the world.

This was the last, very, very last time.

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

5:12. Splat! I winced and jerked as something wet and gushy exploded on the wall right next to my head. Ick! I wiped rotten… onion? off my forehead, its sharp, rancid odor making my nostrils twitch and my eyes tear up.

Oh, goddamnit, not today…

Instinctively I dropped into a crouch just as a bullet ricocheted off the wall where my head had been.

I immediately straightened, eyes easily finding Tony Two-Toes and Racelli.