Cohen - Cotton FBI collection no. 1: episodes 1-4

Your name is Jeremiah Cotton. You are a small-time cop in the NYPD, a rookie that no one takes seriously. But you want more. You have a score to settle with the world. And anyone who calls you Jerry will be sorry.

A new time. A new hero. A new mission. Experience the birth of a digital cult-series: Cotton FBI is the remake of JERRY COTTON, the most successful series of German novels with more than one billion copies sold, and it tells an entirely new story in e-book form.

Cotton FBI is published twice a month, with each episode a self-contained story.

Mario Giordano, was born 1963 in Munich, studied psychology in Dsseldorf and writes novels for adults old and young as well as screenplays (his credits include Tatort , Schimanski , Polizeiruf 110 , Das Experiment ). He lives in Cologne.

Peter Mennigen was born in Meckenheim near Bonn. He studied art and design in Cologne before he turned to writing fiction. His novels have been published by Bastei Lbbe, Rowohlt, Ravensburger and other publishing houses. He also writes scripts for graphic novels and audio dramatizations as well as screenplays for TV shows and series.

Jan Gardemann was born in Hamburg in 1961. After receiving his vocational diploma in graphics and design, he worked jobs at the Port of Hamburg and as a fashion designer, amongst others. He traveled extensively through Europe and later through the African desert and to Bali. Since 1991, he has worked as a freelance author. He currently lives with his wife and their three children in a quaint town between Hamburg and Hanover.

Alexander Lohmann was born in 1968 in Munich. He studied computer science, German philology, and history, and has worked as a magazine editor. Reading The Lord of the Rings early on awoke his love of fantasy, which he has employed in several different novels. His penchant for tension-filled conflict led him to COTTON RELOADED. Alexander Lohmann is a freelance author, editor, and translator based in Leichlingen.

BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lbbe AG

Copyright for the German edition 2012 by Bastei Lbbe AG, Cologne, Germany

Copyright for the English edition 2014/2015 by Bastei Lbbe AG, Cologne, Germany

Written by Mario Giordano, Peter Mennigen, Jan Gardemann, Alexander Lohmann

Translated by Frank Keith, Sharmila Cohen

Cover design: Sandra Taufer, Munich

Cover illustration: shutterstock / Dmitry Prudnichenko; Irina Solatges;
Pavel K; Birsen Cebeci / ferrantraite / iStockphoto / iconspro

E-book-production: Urban SatzKonzept

ISBN 978-3-7325-0586-9

www.bastei-entertainment.com

The Beginning

Mario Giordano

Translated by Frank Keith

You are running on and on and on

This, in particular, is whats haunting you night after night. Going down the whole length of South Lexington, and then taking a hard right onto 26 th Street, into the deep shadows between the closely-spaced brick buildings with their fire escapes.

You remember the tourists taking photos of the fire escapes as if they didnt exist in any other place. Whats so great about fire escapes? you ask yourself. And then youve forgotten about the brief encounter, the fire escapes, and the tourists, because you run on and have no time to concentrate on anything else. You will remember all that much later, and when you do, you will remember every damned detail of that morning, each and every night from now on.

In that moment, you hardly notice anything else around you. The scenery just whooshes right past you without leaving even a scratch on your memory. The coffee shops, seedy real-estate agencies, and the cockroach-infested delis, too; the closed-down medical-supply businesses, the garbage men hollering something after you, and all the other people you swerved around and bumped into all this seems like a mere daydream. It is all so trivial to you during those fleeting moments.

You simply keep on running. Your legs hurt and your lungs are burning, but you still have enough strength to run two or three blocks and maybe even more. If you have to, youll run all the way to Timbuktu to catch that black dirtbag. So what are a few city blocks?

You will not let this crook get away with that wallet. And when youve got him then youll still have enough strength left over to beat the shit out of him if you have to.

Four hundred and fifty-three dollars is what it contains thats all you have. You wanted to buy some cool clothes, clothes you can only find in New York City; a new pair of pants and some sneakers, a gift for Meg something really nice perhaps a ring if theres enough money.

But maybe therell be no spending spree with the money now, because that dirtbag in front of you has it, and he is damned fast. Hell get away if you dont catch him soon. So what now? Give up and listen to Dads I-told-you-so story?

Never!

You went on a lot of hunting trips with your dad when you were growing up and you always liked it, until it came to the shooting part. Though you can handle a weapon just fine, and youre actually pretty good with that old Browning, your problem has always been putting yourself in the position of the prey. You always have to try to imagine what it would be like to be hunted down. Thats how youve learned to sense that moment when fleeing turns into panic. And it seems like that jerk, barely twenty yards ahead of you, has reached that point. He no longer has a clear plan for where he should run. It is fear alone that is driving him onward. You can tell it from the way he keeps glancing back at you. It is now simply a matter of who is in better shape.

So, onward your feet carry you. The crook veers off to the left onto 2 nd Avenue, and then to the right after that, onto 26 th , going straight for two blocks, crossing over onto Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Along the four-lane highway that runs parallel to the East River, the morning traffic crawls like a huge metallic worm, pressing cars and people into the city.

And what does this son-of-a-bitch who has your money do? He simply runs right across the busy strip of concrete. Every night you remember how he weaved between the cars as if it were nothing, and how he bounded over the concrete barrier running down the center of the highway and then sprinted on towards the river. And you go after him, because giving up is not an option not when the end seems so near.

It is odd, but you remember every detail of this morning. It was a mild late-summer morning with the promise of another hot day. The air was crisp and clear. You were wondering at how clean the New York air was. You had imagined everything differently, but it was your first time in this city that never sleeps.

Gosh, New York City! Two days ago you arrived here from Grinnel, Iowa, with your parents to visit your sister. You are a country boy, a hick from a small town in the Midwest; a flat and empty nothingness that seems to consist of nothing but rows of corn a place that was just a wild and desolate prairie a hundred and eighty years ago. A land of grass and buffaloes, of untouched nature, and the hunting grounds of the Iowa and Sioux tribes. Today, it is basically nothing but a huge cornfield.

In high school, you are just an average student who fails to meet his full potential your teachers keep saying. Meg thinks its because of your fiery temper, which gets the better of you, like a thunderstorm you cannot avoid. Youve been dating Meg for a year now. Shes a pretty girl, uncomplicated, and with a laugh that is downright infectious. Shes good for you, your mother told you.