Hellbent

“What does that mean?” Bennett said, only now realizing he’d rushed his response.

The disembodied voice said, “You greenlit Jack Johns’s death. And the girl’s death. And so many others.”

Bennett reseated his eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose, which felt suddenly moist. “I’m listening.”

Orphan X said, “This is me greenlighting yours.”

The phone clicked, the line severed.

Bennett breathed and breathed again. He placed the phone receiver back in its cradle. He circled the Resolute desk, sat down, and set his hands on the blotter.

They were shaking.

Acknowledgments

Despite his propensity for operating alone, Evan Smoak gets a lot of air support. I owe a slew of thanks to my team and to my advisers.

I am privileged to have an exceptional crew at Minotaur Books. Thanks to Keith Kahla, Andrew Martin, Hannah Braaten, Hector DeJean, Jennifer Enderlin, Paul Hochman, Kelley Ragland, Sally Richardson, and Martin Quinn.

And to Rowland White and his team at Michael Joseph/Penguin Group UK, as well as my other foreign publishers who have deployed Evan around the world.

And to my representatives — Lisa Erbach Vance and Aaron Priest of the Aaron Priest Agency; Caspian Dennis of the Abner Stein Agency; Trevor Astbury, Rob Kenneally, Peter Micelli, and Michelle Weiner of Creative Artists Agency; Marc H. Glick of Glick & Weintraub; and Stephen F. Breimer of Bloom, Hergott, Diemer et al.

And to my subject-matter experts — Geoff Baehr (hacking), Philip Eisner (early-warning system), Dana Kaye (propaganda), Dr. Bret Nelson and Dr. Melissa Hurwitz (medical), Billy S__ (___), Maureen Sugden (IQ), Jake Wetzel (cubing), and Rollie White (geography).

And my family. In the words of the Beach Boys, patron saints of the sun-kissed and the charmed: God only knows what I’d be without you.

Also by Gregg Hurwitz

THE ORPHAN X NOVELS

Orphan X

The Nowhere Man

OTHER NOVELS

The Tower

Minutes to Burn

Do No Harm

The Kill Clause

The Program

Troubleshooter

Last Shot

The Crime Writer

Trust No One

They’re Watching

You’re Next

The Survivor

Tell No Lies

Don’t Look Back

YOUNG ADULT NOVELS

The Rains

Last Chance

About the Author

GREGG HURWITZ is a New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels. Critically acclaimed, Hurwitz is a two-time finalist for the International Thriller Writers’ Best Novel prize and a finalist for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Steel Dagger. In addition, Hurwitz is a screenwriter, TV producer, and comic book writer. The Orphan X series has been published in twenty-two languages around the globe. Hurwitz lives in Los Angeles.

Visit the author’s website at www.gregghurwitz.net, or sign up for email updates here.

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Epigraph

1. No Version of Being Too Careful

2. Dark Matter

3. Everything He Held Dear

4. Are You Ready?

5. Common Interests Are Important

6. The Brink of Visibility

7. Two Graves

8. Serve with Gladness

9. From Beyond the Grave

10. A Goodly Amount of Damage

11. Enemy of My Enemy

12. Increasingly Rural Tangle

13. Dying Only Meant One Thing

14. A Pang of Something Unfamiliar

15. Just Geometry

16. The Turn to Freedom

17. A Single Hungry Lunge

18. Short on Time and Short on Crowbars

19. More Than a Mission

20. Wayward Pieces

21. Quick and Easy

22. Dead Man’s Pocket

23. Damaged Goods

24. A Teaching Moment

25. Honor-Bound

26. How Can You Know You’re Real?

27. Never Been and Never Was and Never Will Be

28. Her Version of Normal

29. End-Stopped

30. Do Your Business

31. Sprint the Marathon

32. Cleaning Agent

33. A Lot of Variables

34. The Job to End All Jobs

35. Patron Saint of Dispossessed Orphans

36. Fresh Air

37. Blood In, Blood Out

38. Steel Bones

39. Visions of the Occult

40. Enhanced Interrogation

41. Borrowed Time

42. Undone by Target

43. Grown-Man Problems

44. Running the Same Race

45. A Bit More Incentive

46. Menu of Even More Specialized Services

47. The Language of Comfort

48. Something Akin to Pride

49. Good Isn’t Enough

50. The Best Hat Trick

51. Push a Little More

52. Chess-Matching

53. My Breath on Your Neck

54. Illegal in Police Departments from Coast to Coast

55. Vanished in Plain Sight

56. Crimson Firework

57. What He Thought He Knew

58. An Ad for Domesticity

59. All Fucked Up

60. Not Good

61. Unacceptable

62. Not Easy

63. Devil Horns

64. Steady as a Metronome

65. Not an Innocent

66. Friction Heat

67. The Pretty One

68. Locked-Room Mystery

69. A Drool Not of Saliva

70. Negative Space

71. Bring the Thunder

72. Thin the Herd

73. The Black Hereafter

74. Brightness Off Her Skin

75. The Blackness to Come

76. Something Flat and Unchanging