James Patterson
Authors: Season of the Machete
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 1977, 1995 by James Patterson
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Dale Fiorillo
Caver art by James Montalbano
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Originally published in hardcover by Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 978-0-7595-6757-3
First eBook Edition: April 1995
Contents
PART 1: THE SEASON OF THE MACHETE
THE EPILOGUE: The Summer Season
RAVES FOR JAMES PATTERSON AND HIS NOVELS ALONG CAME A SPIDER
“A first-rate thriller—fasten your seat belts and keep the lights on.”
—
Sidney Sheldon
“As engrossing as it is graphic,
Along Came a Spider
is an incredibly suspenseful read with a one-of-a-kind villain who is as terrifying as he is intriguing. Has to be one of the best thrillers of the year.”
—
Clive Cussler
“What a large charge it is to come upon such a good writer so unexpectedly.”
—
Richard Condon
“All at once comes
Along Came a Spider,
with terror and suspense that grabs the reader and won’t let go. Just try running away from this one.”
—
Ed McBain
BLACK MARKET
“A taut thriller that rivals the best of Ludlum and Follett.”
—
Chattanooga Times
“A gripper!”
—
United Press International
“A tough, twisting tale that will keep even the bulls and bears reading past the opening bell,”
—
New York Daily News
“You cannot put it down… tense, gripping… pays off in gilt-coated, hard-edged entertainment.”
—
Atlanta Journal & Constitution
“A gripping, fast-moving yarn that will keep the reader turning pages.”
—
Houston Post
The novels of James Patterson
F
EATURING
A
LEX
C
ROSS
Double Cross
Cross
Mary, Mary
London Bridges
The Big Bad Wolf
Four Blind Mice
Violets Are Blue
Roses Are Red
Pop Goes the Weasel
Cat & Mouse
Jack & Jill
Kiss the Girls
Along Came a Spider
T
HE
W
OMEN’S
M
URDER
C
LUB
The 6th Target
(and Maxine Paetro)
The 5th Horseman
(and Maxine Paetro)
4th of July
(and Maxine Paetro)
3rd Degree
(and Andrew Gross)
2nd Chance
(and Andrew Gross)
1st to Die
O
THER
B
OOKS
You’ve Been Warned
(and Howard Roughan)
The Quickie
(and Michael Ledwidge)
Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
Step on a Crack
(and Michael Ledwidge)
Judge & Jury
(and Andrew Gross)
Maximum Ride: School’s Out — Forever
Beach Road
(and Peter de Jonge)
Lifeguard
(and Andrew Gross)
Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
Honeymoon
(and Howard Roughan)
santaKid
Sam’s Letters to Jennifer
The Lake House
The Jester
(and Andrew Gross)
The Beach House
(and Peter de Jonge)
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas
Cradle and All
Black Friday
When the Wind Blows
See How They Run
Miracle on the 17th Green
(and Peter de Jonge)
Hide & Seek
The Midnight Club
Season of the Machete
The Thomas Berryman Number
For previews of upcoming James Patterson novels and information about the author, visit wwwjamespatterson.com.
April 30, 1980; Turtle Bay
On the gleaming white-sand lip of the next cove, Kingfish and the Cuban can see a couple walking on the beach. They are just stick figures at this distance. Absolutely perfect victims.
Perfect.
Hidden in palm trees and sky blue wild lilies, the two killers cautiously watch the couple slowly come their way and disappear into the cove.
The Cuban wears a skull-tight, red-and-yellow bandanna; rip-kneed khaki trousers; scuffed, pale orange construction boots from the Army-Navy Store in Miami. The man called Kingfish has on nothing but greasy U.S. Army khakis.
The muscles of both men ripple in the hard, beating Caribbean sun.
The bright sun makes diamonds and blinking asterisks all over the sea. It glints off a sugar-cane machete hanging from the belt of the Cuban.
The weatherbeaten farm implement is two and a half feet long and sharp as a razor blade.
South of their hiding place, a great wrecked schooner—the
Isabelle Anne
—sits lonely and absurd, visited only by yellow birds and fish. Thirty yards farther south, the beach elbows around steep black rocks and makes a crystal path for walking. At this sharp bend lie reef fish, coral, sargassum, oyster drills, sea urchins.
Soon now, the two killers expect the couple to emerge from the cove and reappear on the narrow white path. The victims.
Perhaps a dark, bejeweled prime minister up on holiday from South America? Or an American politician with a coin- and milk-fed young woman who was both secretary and mistress?
Someone worth their considerable fees and passage to this serene and beautiful part of the world. Someone worth $50,000 apiece for less than one week’s work.
Instead, a harmless-looking pair of adolescents turn the seaweed-strewn bend into Turtle Bay.
A bony, long-haired rich boy. A white-blond girl in a
Club Mediterranee
T-shirt. Americans.
On the run, they clumsily get out of their shirts, shorts, sandals, and underwear. Balls and little tits naked, they shout something about last one in is a rotten egg and run into the low, starry waves.
Twenty or thirty feet over their heads, seagulls make a sound almost like mountain sheep bleating.
Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa! Aaaaaa!
The man called Kingfish puts out an expensive black cigar in the sand. A low, animal moan rises out of his throat.
“ We couldn’t have come all this way to kill these two little shits.”
The Cuban cautions him, “Wait and see. Watch them carefully.”
“Aaagghh! Aaagghh!”
The boy offers tin-ear bird imitations from the rippling water.
The slender blond girl screams, “I can’t stand it. It’s so goddamn unbelievably beautiful!”
She dives into sparkling aquamarine waves. Surfaces with her long hair plastered against her head. Her white breasts are small, nubby; up-pointed and rubbery from the cool water.
“I love this place already. Don’t
ever
want to go back. Gramercy Park—
yeck!
I spit on East Twenty-third Street. Yeck! Yahoo! Yow!”
The Cuban slowly raises his hand above the blue lilies and prickle bushes. He waves in the direction of a green sedan parked on a lush hill overlooking the beach.
The sedan’s horn sounds once. Their signal.
An eerie silence has come over the place.
Heartbeats; surf; little else.
The boy and girl lie on fluffy beach towels to dry under the sun. They close their eyes, and the backs of their eyelids become kaleidoscopes of changing color.
The girl sings, “‘Eastern’s got my sunshine …’”
The boy makes an impolite gurgling sound.
As the girl opens one eye, she feels a hard slap on the top of her head. It is painfully hot all of a sudden, and she feels dizzy. She starts to say
“Aahhh”
but chokes on thick, bubbling blood.
Pop … pop …
The slightest rifle shots echo in the surrounding hills.
Bullets travel out of an expensive West German rifle at 3,300 feet per second.
Then Kingfish and the Cuban come and stand over the bodies on the blood-spotted towels. Kingfish touches the boy’s cheek and produces an unexpected moan, almost a growl.
“I don’t think I like Mr. Damian Rose,” he says in a soft, French-accented voice. “Very sorry I left Paris now. He’s let this one live … for us.”
The dying nineteen-year-old coughs. Blue eyes rolling, he speaks. “Why?” the boy asks. “Didn’t do anything….”
The Cuban swings the machete high. He chops down as if he were in the thickest jungle brush, as if he were cutting a tree with a single stroke.
Chop, wriggle, lift.
The killer meticulously attacks both bodies with the long broadsword. Clean, hard strokes. Devastating. Blood squirts high and sprays the killer. Flesh and bone part like air in the path of the razor-sharp knife. Puddles of frothy blood are quickly soaked up by the sand, leaving dark red stains.
When the butchering is over, the Cuban drives the machete deep into the sand. He sets a red wool hat over the knife’s handle and hasp.
Then both killers look up into the hills. They see the distant figure of Damian Rose beside the shiny green car. The handsome blond man is motioning for them to hurry back. He is waving his fancy German rifle high over his head.
What they can’t quite see is that Damian Rose is smiling in triumph.
The Damian and Carrie Rose Diary
Consider the raw power and unlimited potential of the good old-fashioned “thrill kill.” Under proper supervision, of course.
The Rose Diary
January 23, 1981; New York City
At 6:30
A.M
. on the twenty-third of January, the birth date of his only child, Mary Ellen, Bernard Siegel—tall, dark, slightly myopic—began his “usual” breakfast of loose scrambled eggs, poppyseed bagel, and black coffee at Wolfs Delicatessen on West Fifty-seventh Street in New York City.
After the satisfying meal, Siegel took a Checker cab through slushy brown snow to 800 Third Avenue. He used his private collection of seven keys to let himself into the modern dark-glass building, then into the offices of the publisher par excellence for whom he worked, and finally into the largest
small
office on that floor—his office—to try to get some busywork done before the many-too-many phones began to ring; to try to get home early enough to spend time with his daughter. On her twelfth birthday.
A young woman, very, very tan, squeaky clean, with premature silver all through her long, sandy hair, was standing before the dark, double-glazed windows.
The woman appeared to be watching 777 Third Avenue (the Building across and down Third Avenue), or perhaps she was just staring at her own reflection.