Sam Bourne 4-Book Thriller Collection

Twenty-Seven (#ulink_30780cb6-5987-5982-9720-bfd8088f35be)

Twenty-Eight (#ulink_7f9815bc-c145-5da4-b556-9e6c7018f62f)

Twenty-Nine (#ulink_58ada5ee-1e31-5d25-b294-11896732640c)

Thirty (#ulink_21de337c-a654-5a86-a4ba-d595d34dc3bd)

Thirty-One (#ulink_3b3d314d-a8a0-521f-8c27-d82bb51c24ab)

Thirty-Two (#ulink_42d2e152-ca92-518e-a19a-9519fbf28d7f)

Thirty-Three (#ulink_43b3c278-ea3e-5ede-b6c9-78524ff838a6)

Thirty-Four (#ulink_13c695b6-28b0-53cb-870e-e88d76bc4b8e)

Thirty-Five (#ulink_2906a775-30e1-532b-8405-d7acfc33be58)

Thirty-Six (#ulink_047591ff-d933-5d3f-9d68-113487e10463)

Thirty-Seven (#ulink_b2f7408b-da3d-567c-be0c-585e635c42a7)

Thirty-Eight (#ulink_b2f6d2e9-4b9c-5314-9aca-97ba276df32e)

Thirty-Nine (#ulink_d3d1ab23-6559-5eea-95b1-76d82d982719)

Forty (#ulink_8794451e-d5ff-5d65-8ee2-6c2bb71ac088)

Forty-One (#ulink_4e052e0a-be01-5fec-ac3e-46d540fb3068)

Forty-Two (#ulink_a5769af4-6eac-5e91-91ec-9d55eea0e065)

Forty-Three (#ulink_e5f005c0-64b8-50b9-b10d-fa127f9bf698)

Forty-Four (#ulink_206dd8d1-3b2b-5527-8cd5-5807ec3580ff)

Forty-Five (#ulink_737892aa-b3bf-5bb7-ab66-48bacf5632db)

Forty-Six (#ulink_cf8da08e-e148-5a83-8566-5a54f0834499)

Forty-Seven (#ulink_add7515f-a80c-580f-9cc7-966586f7b217)

Forty-Eight (#ulink_354a1cc2-4954-516c-9d66-2b748a0f960f)

Forty-Nine (#ulink_32397b61-2bef-5de7-be48-9b9a18c75fcb)

Fifty (#ulink_0587abf6-94eb-5d7c-9c1f-627668136388)

Fifty-One (#ulink_cb411416-f0ac-5c49-8a8e-ee60515fc4e2)

Fifty-Two (#ulink_470ae483-6a8c-52c6-aba4-267e6297bd4a)

Fifty-Three (#ulink_c078ef5c-2d5d-5b55-bb80-f85d5a142d91)

Fifty-Four (#ulink_066c25cd-6249-588c-bbc7-04bd96e796b2)

Fifty-Five (#ulink_b7049835-51d3-5b9d-be31-fb2b3f72d2dc)

Fifty-Six (#ulink_421922b6-515e-5074-a145-0c71370162e5)

Fifty-Seven (#ulink_373e3968-e9fb-5c6f-a8c0-b4d6d0c7feff)

Fifty-Eight (#ulink_05855867-9256-517a-b29f-fc2dc803fcb4)

Fifty-Nine (#ulink_238bb081-3ac4-5247-a4a1-2860a98f614f)

Sixty (#ulink_c8c5d3da-f231-5566-a6a5-bc9ac46cc650)

Sixty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Sixty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

ONE (#ulink_086acd48-7f1c-5511-aeca-4e46444b0bd8)

Friday, 9.10pm, Manhattan

The night of the first killing was filled with song. St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan trembled to the sound of Handel’s Messiah, the grand choral masterpiece that never failed to rouse even the most slumbering audience. Its swell of voices surged at the roof of the cathedral. It was as if they wanted to break out, to reach the very heavens.

Inside, close to the front, sat a father and son, the older man’s eyes closed, moved as always by this, his favourite piece of music. The son’s gaze alternated between the performers – the singers dressed in black, the conductor wildly waving his shock of greying hair – and the man at his side. He liked looking at him, gauging his reactions; he liked being this close.

Tonight was a celebration. A month earlier Will Monroe Jr had landed the job he had dreamed of ever since he had come to America. Still only in his late twenties, he was now a reporter, on the fast track at the New York Times. Monroe Sr inhabited a different realm. He was a lawyer, one of the most accomplished of his generation, now serving as a federal judge on the second circuit of the US Court of Appeals. He liked to acknowledge achievement when he saw it and this young man at his side, whose boyhood he had all but missed, had reached a milestone. He found his son’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

It was at that moment, no more than a forty-minute subway ride across town but a world away, that Howard Macrae heard the first steps behind him. He was not scared. Outsiders may have steered clear of this Brooklyn neighbourhood of Brownsville, notorious for its drug-riddled deprivation, but Macrae knew every street and alley.

He was part of the landscape. A pimp of some two decades’ standing, he was wired into Brownsville. He had been a smart operator, too, ensuring that in the gang warfare that scarred the area, he always remained a neutral. Factions would clash and shift, but Howard stayed put, constant. No one had challenged the patch where his whores plied their trade for years.

So he was not too worried by the sound behind him. Still, he found it odd that the footsteps did not stop. He could tell they were close. Why would anybody be tailing him? He turned his head to peer over his left shoulder and gasped, immediately tripping over his feet. It was a gun unlike any he had ever seen – and it was aimed at him.