Colonel Bennett looked at his wife and his heart nearly broke. Her blue eyes were stretched wide and she was trembling. “It's going to be all right,” Bennett said in the calmest voice he could manage.
“Oh, is it, Colonel?” Starkey spoke for the first time. He signaled the third intruder, and the man grabbed the front of Barbara's white peasant blouse and tore it off. Barbara gasped and tried to cover herself. The bastard then yanked off her bra. It was for effect, again, but then the man stared at Barbara's breasts.
“Leave her alone! Don't hurt her! ”Bennett yelled, and it sounded like a command, as if he were in a position to give them.
The one he knew to be Starkey hit him with the butt of his handgun. Bennett went down and thought that his jaw was broken. He almost blacked out, but managed to stay conscious. His cheek was pressed into the cold tile of the kitchen floor. He needed a plan even a desperate one would do.
Starkey stood directly over him. And now it got insane. He spoke in Vietnamese.
Colonel Bennett understood some of the words. He'd done enough interrogations during the war, when he'd run several Kit Carson scouts in Vietnam and Laos.
Then Starkey spoke in English. “Be afraid, Colonel. You'll suffer tonight. So will your wife. You have sins to pay for. You know what they are. Tonight your wife will know about your past, too.”
Colonel Bennett pretended to pass out. When one of the gunmen leaned over him, he pushed off the floor and grabbed at his handgun. Getting the gun was the only thought in Bennett's brain. He had it!
But then he was struck viciously on the head. Then on the shoulders and back. He was being screamed at in Vietnamese as the severe beating continued. He saw one of the bastards punch his wife right in the face. For no reason at all.
“Stop it. Don't hurt her for Christ sakes.”
“May se nkin co ay chet,” Starkey yelled in Vietnamese.
Now you get to watch her die.
“Trong luc tao hoi may.”
While I interrogate you, pig.
“May thay cank nay co quen khong, Robert?”
Does that sound familiar, Robert?
Starkey then forced his pistol inside Colonel Bennett's mouth. “Remember this, Colonel? Remember what happens next?”
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter Sixty-Three
Sampson and I got to West Point at a little past five o'clock on Friday evening. All hell had broken loose there.
I'd received an urgent heads-up from Ron Burns at the FBI. There'd been a murder-suicide at the Point that had immediately aroused suspicions when the news got to Quantico. A highly decorated colonel had supposedly killed his wife, then himself.
Sampson and I flew into Stewart Field in Newburgh, then I drove eighteen miles by car to West Point. We had to park our rented car and walk the last several blocks to the officers' housing
The streets were roped off and closed to through traffic. The press was on hand, but they were being kept away by military police. Even the cadets couldn't help looking curious and concerned.
“You're getting chummy with Burns and the FBI,” Sampson said as we walked to the murder scene on Bartlett Loop. “He's giving a lot of help.”
“He has it in his head that I might want to work with them,” I told Sampson.
“And? Might you?”
I smiled at Sampson, didn't confirm or deny.
“I thought you were getting out of police work, sugar. Wasn't that the big master plan?”
“I don't know anything for sure right now. Here I am though, headed to another completely fucked-up murder scene with you. Same shit, different day.”
“So you're still hooked, Alex. Bad as ever, right?”
I shook my head. “No, I'm not hooked on the case, John. I'm helping you out. Remember how this started? Payback for Ellis Cooper?”
“Yeah, and you're also hooked. You can't figure out this puzzle. That makes you angry. And curious as hell. That's who you are, Alex. You're a hunter.”
“I am what I am,” I shook my head and finally smiled, 'said Popeye the sailor man. The killers were here, John. The three of them were here."
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter Sixty-Four
The Bennett house was roped off and secured. Sampson and I identified ourselves to a nervous-looking MP at the perimeter of the crime scene. I could tell that he'd never seen anything like this before. Unfortunately, I had.
After we put on disposable paper boots, we were permitted to climb three stone steps that led into the house. Then we went looking for aCID officer named Pat Conte. The Army was 'cooperating' because of the other cases. They'd also let in a couple of FBI techs to show their good faith.
I found Captain Conte in the narrow hallway leading from the living room. The murders had apparently taken place in the kitchen. Techies were dusting for fingerprints and photographing the scene from every angle.
Conte shook hands and then he told us what he knew, or thought that he knew at this point.
“All I can give you so far is the obvious. From the looks of things, Colonel Bennett and his wife were engaged in an argument that seems to have turned violent. For a while, she must have given as good as she got. Then Bennett retrieved his service revolver. He shot her in the temple, then shot himself. Friends say that he and his wife were close, but that they fought a lot, sometimes violently. As you can see, the shooting took place in the kitchen. Some time last night.”
“That's what you think happened?” I asked Conte.
“At this point, that's my statement.”
I shook my head and felt my anger rising. “I was told that because of the possible connection between these deaths and the others that we could expect cooperation here.”
Captain Conte nodded. “That's what you just got, my full cooperation. Excuse me, I have work here. ”He walked away.
Sampson shrugged as we watched the CID officer shuffle off. “Can't say that I blame him too much. I wouldn't want you and me messing around at my crime scene either.”
“So, let's go mess around.”
I went over to see if I could get anything from the FBI people, the Evidence Response Team, also known as ERTs. They were being their usual thorough selves in the kitchen, where the murders had taken place. Given the normal level of dislike for the FBI, it's remarkable how much respect is given to ERTs. The reason is, they're very, very good.
Two members of the ERTs were taking Polaroid shots in the kitchen. Another, wearing a white coverall called a 'bunny suit', was looking for fibers and hairs using an alternative light source. Everybody had on rubber gloves and paper booties over their shoes. The head man was named Michael Fescoe, and I had already met him down on the Appalachian Trail, where he had supervised the crime scene investigation in the woods.
“CID giving you their full cooperation too?” I asked.
He scratched his light brown crew cut,“ I can tell you my version, and it's a little different from Captain Conte's.”
“Please,” I said.
Fescoe began, “The killers, whoever they were, did a thorough job with both the setup and the cleanup. They've done this before. They're professionals through and through. Just like the killers in Virginia.”
“How many of them?” I asked.
Fescoe held up three fingers. Three men. They surprised the Bennetts at dinner. And then they murdered them. These men, they bring force to bear without conscience. You can quote me on that."
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter Sixty-Five
It was time to celebrate! The war was over. Starkey, Harris and Griffin ordered obscenely large, very rare Porterhouse steaks topped with jumbo shrimp at Spark's restaurant on West Forty-sixth Street in Manhattan. For anyone with wads of the green stuff, there was no better place to get happy in a hurry than in New York City.
“Three years, but it's finally over,” said Harris, and raised a glass of cognac, his fourth after-dinner drink of the evening.
“Unless our mysterious benefactor changes his mind,” cautioned Starkey. “It could happen. One more hit. Or maybe a complication that we didn't plan on. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't party tonight.”
Brownley Harris finished his cheesecake and dabbed his mouth with a cloth napkin. Tomorrow we go home to Rocky Mount. The good life. That's not so terrible bad. We're finally out of the game, undefeated and unscored on. Nobody can touch us now."
Warren Griffin just grinned. He was pretty well plowed.
They all were, except Starkey, who said, “But tonight, we party. We damn well deserve it. Just like the old days, Saigon and Bangkok, Hong Kong. The night is young, and we're full of mischief, piss and vinegar. ”He leaned in close to his friends. “I want to rape and pillage tonight. It's our right.”
After they left the restaurant, the three friends strolled to East Fifty-second, between First and York. The brown-stone they stopped at was a walk-up that had seen better days. Four stories. No doorman. Starkey knew it as "Asia House'.
He rang the front buzzer and waited for the intercom. He had been here before.
A woman answered in a sultry voice. “Hi. May I have your code please, gentlemen.”
Starkey gave it in Vietnamese. Silver. Mercedes Eleven.
They were buzzed inside. “Xin moi len lau. Cac em dang cho,” the voice said in Vietnamese. The ladies are waiting, and they are stunning.
“So are we. ”Thomas Starkey said, and laughed.
Starkey, Harris and Griffin climbed the flight of red-carpeted stairs. As they reached the first landing, a plain gray door opened.
An Asian girl, slender and young, no more than eighteen, and gorgeous, stood legs akimbo in the doorway. She had on a black bra and matching panties, thigh-high stockings, sling backs with high-heels.
“Hi there,” she said in English,“ I'm Kym. Welcome. You very good-looking men. This will be fun for us, too.”
“You're very beautiful, Kym,”Starkey said in Vietnamese.
“And your English is flawless.” He then pulled out a revolver and pointed it between the girl's eyes. “Don't say another word or you die. Right here, right now, Kym. Your blood all over the carpet and those walls.”
He shoved the girl into a living room, where three other girls were seated on two small couches. They were also young, Asian, very pretty. They wore silk negligees, lavender, red and pink, with color-coordinated high-heels and stockings. Victoria's Secret.
“Don't speak, ladies. Not a word,” Starkey said, and pointed his gun at one then the other.
“Shhh,” Brownley Harris held a finger to his lips. “Nobody gets hurt. We don't want that either. Trust me, my little Asian dolls.”
Starkey threw open the door at the rear of the living room. He surprised an older woman, probably the voice over the intercom, as well as a husky bouncer in gym shorts and black tee-shirt with CRUNCH stenciled on it. They were greedily eating Chinese food out of cardboard containers.
“Nobody gets hurt,” Starkey said in Vietnamese as he shut the door behind him. “Hands up high.”
The man and woman slowly raised their hands, and Starkey shot them dead with the silenced revolver. He wandered over to some high-tech equipment and calmly removed a tape. The surveillance camera at the front entrance had recorded their arrival, of course.
Starkey left the slumped, bloody bodies and returned to the living room. The party had begun without him. Brownley Harris was kissing and fondling the pretty
young girl who had answered the door. He had lifted Kym up and held her tiny mouth pressed against his. She was too frightened to resist.
“May cai nay moi dem lai nhieu ky niem,” Starkey said, and smiled at his friends, but also at the women.
Memories are made of this.
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter Sixty-Six
They had done this many times before, and not just in New York. They'd 'celebrated' victories in Hong Kong, Saigon, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, even in London. It had all started in South Vietnam when they were just boys in their teens and early twenties, when the war was on and the madness was everywhere around them. Starkey called it' blood lust'.
The four Asian girls were terrified, and that was the thrill for Starkey. He totally got off on the look of fear in their eyes. He believed that all men did, though few would admit it.
"Ban too muon lien hoanl' he shouted.
We want to party now!
“CM lien hoan, the thoi.”
It's a celebration.
Starkey found out the girls' names: Kym, Lan, Susie and Hoa. They were pretty, but Kym was truly beautiful. A slender body with small breasts; delicate features -the best of a complicated heritage that could be
Chinese, French and Indian.
Harris found bottles of Scotch and champagne in a small kitchen. He passed the hootch around and made the girls drink, too.
The alcohol calmed them, but Kym kept asking about the owner. Occasionally, the bell rang downstairs. Kym's English was the best and she was told to say that the girls were busy for the night a private party. “Come back another time, please. Thank you.”
Griffin took two of the girls upstairs to another floor. Starkey and Harris looked at each other and rolled their eyes. At least he'd left two pretty ones for Brownley and himself. Kym and Lan.
Starkey asked Kym to dance. Her eyes were gleaming slants of dark purple. Except for her three-inch heels, she was naked now. An old song by the Yardbirds played on the radio. As he danced, Starkey remembered that Vietnamese women had a thing about their height, at least when they were around American men. Or maybe it was American men who had a thing about height? Or length?
Harris was speaking in English to Lan. He handed her a bottle of champagne. “Drink,” he said. “No, drink it down there, babe.”
The girl understood, either the words or lewd gestures. She shrugged, then dropped onto the couch and inserted the champagne bottle in herself. She poured the champagne, then comically wiped her lips. “I was thirsty!” she said in English.
The joke got a good laugh. Broke the tension.
“Ban cung phai wong raa,” the girl said.
You drink, too.
Harris laughed and passed the bottle to Kym. She lifted one leg and put it inside without sitting down. She kept it there while she danced with Starkey, spilling champagne all over the carpet and her shoes. Everybody was laughing now.
“The bubbles tickle,” Kym said. “I have an itch inside me now. You want to scratch it? ”she asked Starkey.
The switchblade seemed to come from nowhere. Kym jabbed it at Starkey without actually stabbing him. She screamed, “You go! Leave right now. Or I cut you bad!”
Then Starkey had his gun out again. He was so cool and calm. He reached and shut off the loud music. Silence. And dread. Incredible tension in the room. Everywhere except on Thomas Starkey's face.
“Dung, dung!” cried Kym. "Hay dep sung ong sang mot ben di boNo, no! Put the gun away.
Starkey moved toward little Kym. He wasn't afraid of the switchblade, almost as if he knew he wasn't going to die like this. He twisted the knife out of her hand, then he held the revolver against the side of her skull.
Tears ran down the girl's smooth cheeks. Starkey brushed them away. She smiled up at him. “Hay yew toi di, ank ban,” she whispered.
Make love to me, soldier man.
Starkey was there in the apartment, but his head was in Vietnam. Kym was shaking and he loved that, the total control he felt, the evil he was capable of, the electricity it could bring into his system.
He looked at Harris and his friend knew. He just knew.
They fired the guns simultaneously.
The girls flew back against the wall and then slid down onto the floor. Kym was shaking all over, very close to death. “Why?” she whispered.
Starkey just shrugged at her.
Upstairs there were two more pffthts. The sound of falling bodies, Susie and Hoa. Warren Griffin h
ad been waiting for them. He knew, too.
It was just like in the An Lao Valley, Vietnam.
Where the madness had started.
Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice
Chapter Sixty-Seven
When we finished up at Colonel Bennett's house, Sampson and I checked into the Hotel Thayer, right on the grounds of West Point. I continued to think about the three killers and how they kept getting away. Force without any conscience. That was what Agent Fescoe had called it.
In the morning I met Sampson for breakfast in the hotel dining room overlooking the majestic Hudson, which appeared almost steely gray in the distance and was topped by whitecaps. We talked about the grisly Bennett murders and wondered if they were connected to the others, and if the killers had changed their pattern.
“Or maybe there are more murders that we just don't know about,” Sampson said. “Who knows how many have been killed at this point, or how far back the murders go?” He poured himself another steaming cup of coffee. “It has to come down to the three killers. They were here, Alex. It has to be the same three men.”
I couldn't disagree with him. "I have to make a few calls,
then we're out of here. I want to make sure the local police are checking into whether anybody actually saw three men who don't belong on the grounds or in Highland Falls."
I went upstairs to my room and called Director Bums. He wasn't in, so I left a message. I wanted to call Jamilla, but it was too early in California so I logged onto my computer and sent her a long e-mail.
Then I found that I had a new message. Now what?
It turned out to be from Jannie and Damon. They were breaking my chops about being away from home again, even' for a night. When was I coming back? Would they get a neat souvenir from West Point? How about a shiny new sword for each of them? And one for little Alex, too.
There was a second message for me.
It wasn't from the kids.
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