Four Blind Mice Read online

  Patience. Wait on them. They have questions and doubts too.

  I watched Sampson’s body for another few seconds, then I had to turn away. I couldn’t think about him now. I mustn’t, or I would die too.

  I never heard it coming — a sudden blast of deafening gunfire. One or both of them had gotten between me and the cabin. I spun in the direction of the shots. Then a voice pierced the darkness.

  Close behind me.

  “Put down the gun, Cross. I don’t want to kill you. Not just yet.”

  Warren Griffin was down in the hollow with me. I saw him now. He had a rifle aimed at my chest. He wore night goggles and looked like an alien.

  Then Thomas Starkey appeared, also wearing goggles. He was above the gully, staring down. He had an M-16 aimed right at my face, and he was smiling horribly. His victory grin.

  “You couldn’t leave it alone, asshole. So now Brownley’s dead. So’s your partner,” said Starkey. “You satisfied yet?”

  “You forgot the two women. And the lawyer,” I said.

  It was strange to be looking at Griffin and Starkey through the night vision goggles, knowing that they were seeing me the same way. I wanted to take them down so much it hurt. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.

  “What the hell happened in Vietnam?” I asked Starkey. “What started all of this? What the hell was it?”

  “Everybody who was over there knows what happened. Nobody wants to talk about it. Things got out of hand.”

  “Like what, Starkey? How did it get this bad?”

  “At first, there was a rogue platoon on the loose. That’s what we were told anyway. We were sent to the An Lao Valley to stop them. To clean it up.”

  “You mean murder our own soldiers? Those were your orders, Starkey? Who the hell is behind this? Why the murders now?”

  I was going to die, but I still wanted answers. I needed to know the truth. Hell of an epitaph. Alex Cross. Died seeking the truth.

  “I don’t even fucking know,” Starkey hissed. “Not all of it. I’m not going to talk about it anymore either. Maybe what I’m going to do is cut you into little pieces. That happened over there. I’ll show you what was done in the An Lao Valley. See this knife. It’s called a K-Bar. I’m really good with it. I’ve had some practice recently.”

  “I know you have. I’ve seen some of your butchery.”

  Then the strangest thing I could ever imagine happened. It blew my wheels off, completely blew my mind into a thousand pieces.

  I was staring past Starkey. But something was different in the background. At first I didn’t know what, then I did and my knees were weak.

  Sampson was gone!

  I didn’t see his body anyway. At first, I figured I was just disoriented. But then I was sure I wasn’t. His body had been over there — near a tall beech tree. Now it wasn’t.

  No warnings, Alex.

  No prisoners.

  Do you understand what I’m saying?

  I heard his words echo inside my head. I could hear the exact sound of it.

  “Put down your guns,” I said to Starkey and Griffin. “Drop them right now. Now!”

  They looked puzzled, but Starkey and Griffin kept their guns aimed at me.

  “I’m going to cut you everywhere,” Starkey said. “This is gonna take hours. We’ll be here till morning. I promise.”

  “Put down the guns!” I heard Sampson’s voice before I saw him walk out from behind a beech tree. “And the knife, Starkey! You’re not cutting anybody.”

  Warren Griffin spun around. Two shots instantly caught him in the throat and upper chest. His gun went off as he fell over backward to the ground. Arterial blood pumped from his wounds as he died.

  “Starkey, no!” I yelled. “No!”

  Thomas Starkey had raised his gun at me. Then he took one high in the chest. It didn’t stop him. A second shot stung Starkey in the side and spun him full around. A third blasted through Starkey’s forehead, and he went down for good in a bloody heap. His gun and K-Bar fell into the gully near my feet. His blank eyes stared into the night sky.

  No prisoners.

  Sampson was weaving toward me. As he came forward he rasped, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

  Just before he collapsed into my arms.

  Part Five

  FOUR BLIND MICE

  Chapter 100

  AS IT TURNED out, Jamilla was a godsend after the shootings in Georgia.

  She called every day, often two or three times, and we talked until she could tell I was healing some. Sampson was the one who’d been physically wounded, and he was healing now too, but I was the one who seemed hurt the most. There had been too much killing, for too long, in my life.

  Early one morning Dr. Kayla Coles arrived at the house on Fifth Street. She marched right into the kitchen where Nana and I were eating breakfast.

  “What’s that?” she asked with an arched eyebrow, pointing an accusatory finger.

  “It’s decaf. Just terrible. A memory of real coffee, and a bad one at that,” Nana told her with a straight face.

  “No, I’m talking about Alex’s plate. What are you eating?”

  I pointed out the ingredients for her. “These are two eggs, over easy. What’s left of two hot sausage patties. Home fries, slightly burned. The remains of a homemade sticky bun. Mmm-mmm good.”

  “You made this for him?” She looked at Nana in horror.

  “No, Alex made it for himself. He’s been cooking most of the breakfasts since my fainting spell. He’s treating himself this morning because his big murder case is finally over. And he’s feeling better.”

  “Then I take it you don’t always eat like this?”

  I smiled at her. “No, Doctor. I don’t usually eat eggs, sausage, sticky buns, and greasy potatoes. I was almost killed down in Georgia, and I’m celebrating that I wasn’t. I guess that I prefer death by breakfast. Care to join us?”

  She laughed out loud. “I thought you’d never ask. I smelled something heavenly when I opened the car door. I followed it all the way to the kitchen door.”

  Kayla Coles asked a few questions about the case while she ate — a single egg, orange juice, just a bite of a sticky bun. I glossed over most of the details of the case, but I gave her a feel for the three killers and what they had done, and what I knew about why — which wasn’t enough, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

  “Where’s John Sampson now?” she wanted to know.

  “Mantoloking, New Jersey,” I said. “He’s recovering from his wounds, among other things. He has a nurse. A live-in, I hear.”

  “She’s his girlfriend,” said Nana. “That’s what he really needed anyway.”

  After breakfast, Dr. Coles gave Nana a physical right in the house. She took her temperature, pulse, blood pressure, listened to her chest with a stethoscope, then did a P and A. She checked for fluid buildup in Nana’s ankles, the tops of her feet and hands, under her eyes. She looked into Nana’s eyes and ears, tested her reflexes, looked at the color of her lips and nail beds. I knew all the elements of the test and possibly could have done the exam myself, but Nana liked getting visits from Kayla Coles.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Nana during the checkup. She just sat there, and she seemed like a little girl to me. She never said a word, never complained.

  When Kayla was finished, Nana finally spoke up. “Am I still alive? I haven’t passed, have I? Like that scary movie with what’s-his-name Willis.”

  “Bruce Willis . . . No, you’re still with us, Nana. You’re doing beautifully.”

  Nana took a deep breath and sighed. “Then I guess tomorrow’s the big day. Go in for my catheter ablation, my radio-frequency ablation, whatever it is.”

  Dr. Coles nodded. “You’ll be in and out of the hospital in a snap. I promise you that.”

  Nana narrowed her eyes. “You keep your promises?”

  “Always,” said Kayla Coles.

  Chapter 101

  IN THE EARLY evening Nana and I
took a ride out to Virginia in the old Porsche. She’d asked if we could take the drive, just the two of us. Aunt Tia was home with the kids.

  “Remember when you first got this car? We used to take a ride just about every Sunday. I looked forward to it all week,” she said once we were out of Washington and on the highway.

  “Car’s almost fifteen years old now,” I said.

  “Still runs pretty good, though,” Nana said. She patted the dash. “I like old things that work. Long, long time ago, I used to go for a car ride every Sunday with Charles. This was before you came to live with me, Alex. You remember your grandfather?”

  I shook my head. “Not as much as I’d like to. Just from the photographs around the house. I know the two of you came to visit in North Carolina when I was little. He was bald and used to wear red suspenders.”

  “Oh, those awful, awful suspenders of his. He had a couple of dozen pairs. All red.”

  She nodded. Then Nana seemed to go inside herself for a moment or two. She didn’t talk about my grandfather very often. He had died when he was just forty-four. He’d been a teacher too, just like Nana, though he taught math and she was English. They had met while working at the same school in Southeast.

  “Your grandfather was an excellent man, Alex. Loved to dress up and wear a nice hat. I still have most of his hats. You go through the Depression, things we saw, you like to dress up sometimes. Gives you a nice feeling about yourself.”

  She looked over at me. “I made a mistake, though, Alex.”

  I glanced over at her. “You made a mistake? This is a great shock. I’d better pull over to the side of the road.”

  She cackled. “Just one that I can recall. See, I knew how good it could be to fall in love. I really loved Charles. After he died, though, I never tried to find love again. I think I was afraid of failing. Isn’t that pathetic, Alex? I was too afraid to go after the best thing I ever found in this life.”

  I reached over and patted her shoulder. “Don’t talk like you’re leaving us.”

  “Oh, I’m not. I have a lot of confidence in Doc Kayla. She would tell me if it was time for me to start collecting on all my old debts. Which I plan to do, by the way.”

  “So, this is a parable, a lesson?”

  Nana shook her head. “Not really. Just an anecdote while we’re taking this nice ride in your car. Drive on, young man. Drive on. I’m enjoying this immensely. We should do it more often. How about every Sunday?”

  The whole ride out to Virginia and back, we never once talked about Nana’s procedure in the hospital the next morning. She obviously didn’t want to, and I respected that. But the operation, at her age, scared me as much as any murder case could. No, actually it scared me more.

  When we got back to the house I went upstairs and called Jamilla. She was at work, but we talked for nearly an hour anyway.

  Then I sat down at my computer. For the first time since I got back from Georgia I pulled up my notes on the Three Blind Mice. There was still one big question I needed to answer if I could. Big if.

  Who was behind the three of them?

  Who was the real killer?

  Chapter 102

  I FELL ASLEEP at my work desk, woke up about three in the morning. I went down to my bedroom for a couple of hours. The alarm sounded at five.

  Nana was scheduled to be at St. Anthony’s Hospital at six-thirty.

  Dr. Coles wanted her to be one of the first operations of the day, while everybody on the staff was fresh and alert. Aunt Tia stayed at the house with Little Alex, but I brought Damon and Jannie with me to the hospital.

  We sat in the typically antiseptic-looking waiting room, which really started to fill up with people about seven-thirty. Everybody in there looked nervous and concerned and fidgety, but I think we were probably right up there with the worst of the lot.

  “How long does the operation take?” Damon wanted to know.

  “Not long. Nana might not have gone in first, though. It all depends. It’s a simple procedure, Damon. Electrical energy is delivered to the AV node. The electricity is a little like the heat in a microwave. It disconnects the pathway between the atria and the ventricles and will stop the extra impulses causing Nana’s irregular heartbeat. Got all that? Don’t hold me to it, but that’s fairly close to what’s happening.”

  “Is Nana wide-awake while it’s happening?” Jannie wanted to know.

  “Probably. You know your Nana. They gave her a mild sedative and then local anesthesia.”

  “Won’t touch her,” Jannie said.

  So we talked and waited, fretted and worried, and it took longer than I thought it should. I tried not to let my mind wander to bad places. I wanted to stay in touch with the moment.

  I conjured up good memories of Nana, and they were a little like prayers. I thought about how much she had meant to me, but also to the kids. None of us would be where we were without Nana’s unconditional love, her confidence in us, and even her needling — irritating as it could be sometimes.

  “When is she coming out?” Jannie looked at me. Her beautiful brown eyes were full of uncertainty and fear. It struck me that Nana had really been a mother to all of us. Nana Mama was more mama than nana.

  “Is she all right?” Damon asked. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Don’t you think this is taking too long?”

  Unfortunately, I thought so too. “She’s just fine,” I said to the children.

  More time passed. Slowly. Finally, I looked up and saw Dr. Coles coming into the waiting room. I took a quick breath and tried not to let the kids see how anxious and nervous I really was.

  Then Kayla Coles smiled. What a beautiful, glorious smile that was, the very best I’ve seen in a long while.

  “She’s all right?” I asked.

  “Aces,” she said. “Your nana is a tough lady. She’s asking for you already.”

  Chapter 103

  WE VISITED WITH Nana in the recovery room for an hour, then we were asked to leave. She needed to rest up.

  I dropped the kids off at school about eleven that morning. Then I went home to do a little more scut work in my office.

  I was looking into something for Ron Burns, a strange but intriguing case involving convicted sex offenders. In return, he’d gotten me some U.S. Army records that I wanted to check out. Some of it had come off ACIRS and RISS, but most came straight from the Pentagon. One of the subjects was the Three Blind Mice.

  Who was the real killer? Who gave orders to Thomas Starkey? Who sanctioned the murders? Why were these particular men targeted?

  And, most important, why were they set up instead of just having the Three Blind Mice kill them? Was the goal to show them fear — fear that they were being hunted, fear that someone else had taken over their lives?

  I kept thinking about Nana, and how tough she was and how much I would have missed her if something had gone wrong that morning. The terrible, guilt-ridden fantasy kept running through my head that I was going to get a call from Kayla Coles and she would say, I’m sorry, Nana passed away. We don’t know what went wrong. I’m so sorry.

  The call didn’t come, and I threw myself into the work. Nana would be home tomorrow. I needed to stop worrying about her and put my mind to better use.

  The army records were interesting but also about as depressing as an IRS audit. Obviously, there had been rogue activity in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The army, at least officially, seemed to turn a blind eye and not look too closely at what had happened. There weren’t civilian review boards, of course, like the police departments had to investigate misconduct. The press had no way to judge what was going on either. They rarely interviewed victims’ families in the small villages. Few of the American reporters spoke much Vietnamese. The good and the bad of it was that the army had sometimes fought fire with fire. Maybe it was the only way to effectively fight a guerilla war. But I still didn’t know what had happened over there to inspire the murders stateside during the past few years.

  I spent several
grueling hours looking through more records of Colonel Thomas Starkey, Captain Brownley Harris, and Sergeant Warren Griffin. I saw that their army careers were exemplary, at least in written form. I went back as far as Vietnam, and the pattern continued. Starkey was a highly decorated officer; Harris and Griffin were good soldiers. There was nothing in the records about assassinations in Vietnam committed by the trio. Not a single word.

  I wanted to know when they had met and where they had served together. I kept leafing through records, hoping, but not finding the connect point. I knew they’d fought together in Vietnam and Cambodia. I went through every page a second time.

  But there was nothing in any of the records to indicate they’d worked together in Southeast Asia. Not a goddamn word.

  I sat back and stared out onto Fifth Street, letting my eyes glaze over. There was only one conclusion I could come up with, and I didn’t like it.

  The army records had been doctored.

  But why? And by whom?

  Chapter 104

  IT WASN’T OVER yet.

  I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, and I hated the queasy feeling, the uncertainty, the lack of closure. Or maybe I just couldn’t let go. All those unsolved murders. Who was the real killer? Who was behind the strange murders?

  A week after the shooting in Georgia, I sat in Ronald Burns’s office on the fifth floor of FBI headquarters in Washington. Burns’s assistant, a crew-cut male in his mid-twenties, had just brought us coffee in beautiful china cups. There were also fresh mini-pastries on a silver tray.

  “Pulling out all the stops?” I asked the director. “Hot coffee and Danish.”

  “You got it,” he said, “shameless manipulation. Go with it.”

  I’d known him for years, but it was only during the past few months that I’d worked closely with Burns. What I’d seen so far, I liked, but I’d been fooled before.

  “How’s Kyle Craig doing?” I asked him.