NYPD Red 6

by James Patterson

  Another yelp from Nick, and she turns her head to him. Nick had wanted to go Navy ROTC, but a bad set of lungs prevented him from doing so, and even though she knows Dad wishes he’d get a haircut, his Southie background and interest in the Navy scored Nick in the plus side of the boyfriend column with Dad.

  Nick lowers himself farther into the water, until it reaches his strong shoulders. “Did you see the sign-up list for the overnight at the cabin?” he asks. “Sorry to say, Cam Carlucci is coming.”

  “I know,” she says, treading water, leaning back, letting her hair soak, looking up at the sharp blue and empty sky.

  “You know he’s going to want you to—”

  Mel looks back at Nick. “Yeah. He and his buds want to go to the Seabrook nuclear plant this Labor Day weekend, occupy it, and shut it down.”

  Poor Nick’s lips seem to be turning blue. “They sure want you there.”

  In a mocking tone, Mel imitates Cam and says, “‘Oh, Mel, you can make such an impact if you get arrested. Think of the headlines. Think of your influence.’ To hell with him. They don’t want me there as me. They want a puppet they can prop up to get coverage.”

  Nick laughs. “You going to tell him that tonight?”

  “Nah,” she says. “He’s not worth it. I’ll tell him I have plans for Labor Day weekend instead.”

  Her boyfriend looks puzzled. “You do?”

  She swims to him and gives him a kiss, hands on his shoulders. “Dopey boy, yes, with you.”

  His hands move through the water to her waist, and she’s enjoying the touch—just as she hears voices and looks up.

  For the first time in a long time she’s frightened.

  Lake Marie

  New Hampshire

  After getting out of the shower for the second time today (the first after taking a spectacular tumble in a muddy patch of dirt) and drying off, I idly play the which-body-scar-goes-to-which-op when my iPhone rings. I wrap a towel around me, picking up the phone, knowing only about twenty people in the world have this number. Occasionally, though, a call comes in from “John” in Mumbai pretending to be a Microsoft employee in Redmond, Washington. I’ve been tempted to tell John who he’s really talking to, but I’ve resisted the urge.

  This time, however, the number is blocked, and puzzled, I answer the phone.

  “Keating,” I say.

  A strong woman’s voice comes through. “Mr. President? This is Sarah Palumbo, calling from the NSC.”

  The name quickly pops up in my mind. Sarah’s been the deputy national security advisor for the National Security Council since my term, and she should have gotten the director’s position when Melissa Powell retired to go back to academia. But someone to whom President Barnes owed a favor got the position. A former Army brigadier general and deputy director at the CIA, Sarah knows her stuff, from the annual output of Russian oilfields to the status of Colombian cartel smuggling submarines.

  “Sarah, good to hear from you,” I say, still dripping some water onto the bathroom’s tile floor. “How’re your mom and dad doing? Enjoying the snowbird life in Florida?”

  Sarah and her family grew up in Buffalo, where lake effect winter storms can dump up to four feet of snow in an afternoon. She chuckles and says, “They’re loving every warm second of it. Sir, do you have a moment?”

  “My day is full of moments,” I reply. “What’s going on?”

  “Sir…,” and the tone of her voice instantly changes, worrying me. “Sir, this is unofficial, but I wanted to let you know what I learned this morning. Sometimes the bureaucracy takes too long to respond to emerging developments, and I don’t want that to happen here. It’s too important.”

  I say, “Go on.”

  She says, “I was sitting in for the director at today’s threat-assessment meeting, going over the President’s Daily Brief and other interagency reports.”

  With those words of jargon, I’m instantly transported back to being POTUS, and I’m not sure I like it.

  “What’s going on, Sarah?”

  The briefest of pauses. “Sir, we’ve noticed an uptick in chatter from various terrorist cells in the Mideast, Europe, and Canada. Nothing we can specifically attach a name or a date to, but something is on the horizon, something bad, something that will generate a lot of attention.”

  Shit, I think. “All right,” I say. “Terrorists are keying themselves up to strike. Why are you calling me? Who are they after?”

  “Mr. President,” she says, “they’re coming after you.”

  Invisible

  When I started writing Invisible, it seemed like every other TV network was telling the same kind of police stories, robberies, and crime twists. So I wanted to tell a different kind of suspense story, one that would really make your jaw drop. In the novel, Emmy Dockery is a researcher for the FBI who believes she has stumbled on one of the deadliest serial killers in history. There’s only one problem—he’s invisible. The mysterious killer leaves no trace. There are no weapons, no evidence, no motive. But when the killer strikes close to home, she must crack an impossible case before anyone else dies. Prepare to be blindsided because the most terrifying threat is the one you don’t see coming—the one that’s invisible.

  And don’t miss Emmy Dockery’s second mystery, Unsolved, available now.

  The First Lady

  The US government is at the forefront of everyone’s mind these days and I’ve become incredibly fascinated by the idea that one secret can bring it all down. What if that secret is a US President’s affair that results in a nightmarish outcome? Sally Grissom, leader of the Presidential Protection Division, is summoned to a private meeting with the President and his chief of staff to discuss the disappearance of the First lady. What at first seemed an escape to a safe haven to get away from the revelation of her husband’s indiscretion turns into a kidnapping when a ransom note arrives along with what could be the First Lady’s finger. It’s a race against the clock to collect the evidence that all leads to one troubling question: Could the kidnappers be from inside the White House?

  The Cornwalls Vanish

  There’s nothing more terrifying than coming home and knowing that something is wrong. Army intelligence officer Amy Cornwall experiences that when she finishes a tour filled with haunting sites and she walks in the front door to find her home empty. She receives a phone with very specific instructions and failure to complete them will mean the death of her husband and ten-year-old daughter. Now Amy has to defy Army Command and use every lethal skill they’ve taught her to save her family. There’s no boundary that she won’t cross in order to find them because without her family, she might as well be dead.

  Texas Ranger

  So many of my detectives are dark and gritty and deal with crimes in some of our grimmest cities. That’s why I’m thrilled to bring you Detective Rory Yates, my most honorable detective yet.

  As a Texas Ranger, he has a code that he lives and works by. But when he comes home for a much-needed break, he walks into a crime scene where the victim is none other than his ex-wife—and he’s the prime suspect. Yates has to risk everything in order to clear his name, and he dives into the inferno of the most twisted mind I’ve ever created. Can his code bring him back out alive?