by John Lutz
“You’re the only one in any sort of position to help your husband,” Millhouse was telling Cindy.
She glanced at Twigg, who sat motionless and might have been thinking about a Macy’s sale.
“And help yourself, of course,” Millhouse added. “Unfortunately your husband’s crossed a threshold into a lot of serious difficulty. I sincerely believe he wouldn’t want you to follow him, but I’m afraid that’s what you’ll do if you continue your refusal to cooperate—”
Cindy squirmed. Twigg remained unmoving, maybe wondering how crowded Macy’s would be.
“Damn her,” Larkin said, on the other side of the thick glass.
He punched out a number on his cell phone. The phone in Millhouse’s pocket vibrated soundlessly, and Larkin broke the connection.
“I’m authorized to offer a deal,” Millhouse said.
Twigg looked over at him without moving her head.
“If your client is completely truthful and cooperative—”
“She walks,” Twigg finished for him. Twigg knew the score, the inning, the pitch count. “It’s her husband you want. My client has done nothing actionable.”
“Being an accessory to murder is actionable,” Millhouse said. “But even so—”
“She walks.”
Millhouse glanced over at the glass behind which Larkin and Horn stood unseen. Twigg made it a point not to follow his gaze, but she smiled slightly.
“Okay,” Millhouse said. “Charges won’t be brought as long as she’s truthful. I’m authorized to make the offer. You have my word.”
Twigg looked over at Cindy and nodded. Cindy began to sob.
“Agreement in writing,” Twigg said.
“Sure,” Millhouse said. “I’ll set it up.”
49
Afghanistan, 2001
SSF trooper Joe Vine used a polymer line and belayer to rappel down the rocky mountain face to the cave entrance they’d spotted from the ground. The main cave was still being explored. The Taliban had been driven from the area, or deeper into the caves, so there shouldn’t be much danger in Vine checking out this cave by himself. Judging by the contours of the mountain, it was probably small and shallow and not much more than a grotto. This region was full of such minor caves, sometimes man-made, with dark entrances that usually led nowhere.
The mission was to mop up any remaining Taliban resistance, then search the caves for records and munitions. That could, of course, be extremely dangerous.
Vine stopped his descent about a yard to the side of the cave entrance. He saw now that the cave might be reachable by using a narrow path below, but it would be difficult, and, in places, the rocky path disappeared.
He would have tossed a grenade into the cave before entering, only the unit didn’t want to make its presence known.
The sound of the grenade explosion would echo around the mountainous terrain, and the resultant smoke might be visible for miles.
So Vine readied his automatic weapon, gathered his guts, and pushed off from the mountain face to swing in through the cave entrance and take anyone inside by surprise.
From sunlight to dimness. It took a fraction of a second for Vine’s vision to adjust.
Which was a good thing, or he might have squeezed the trigger.
Inside was his fellow SSF unit member Aaron Mandle. He was stooped over a bundle of some sort and staring up at him in surprise.
“Shit!” Vine said, relaxing. “You beat me to this one.”
Mandle didn’t answer, didn’t move.
And Vine looked down at the bundle at Mandle’s feet and knew why.
It was a young Afghan girl, wound tightly in her burka, which was darkly stained. Vine knew the stain and the faint metallic scent in the cave. Fresh blood.
“What the fuck did you do, Aaron?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mandle said, standing straight now and smiling, his automatic weapon slung beneath his right arm, the knife in his left. “I found her in here.”
“Like this?”
Mandle actually smiled. “Not exactly, Joe.”
Vine sat down on the hard earth. “Fuck! Oh, fuck!”
“I didn’t do that to her.”
“What I mean,” Vine said, “is that you can’t get by with something like this, Aaron. It’s murder.”
“It’s war, Joe. Total fuckin’ war. The small and the crawl—that’s us, Joe—we get fucked in total war. Any goddamn thing goes.”
“Not that!” Vine said, pointing to the dead girl, marveling at how pale and angelic her face looked in the dim cave. She must have lost most of her blood before she died.
“Yeah, that,” Mandle said. “It’s what we trained for, Joe. Don’t shit yourself, it’s what we trained for.”
“That kid’s not the enemy!”
“Sure she is, just like all those Kraut and Jap civilians we bombed in World War Two. You ever read history, Joe?”
“Yeah, history . . .” Vine was feeling a little sick. The heat, even in the dim, shallow cave. The dead girl and the smell. Jesus! . . .
“I want you to do me a favor, Joe.”
“I know. Forget about this.”
“For a while, is all I’m asking. Until we can both think some more. Talk some more. Maybe straighten this thing out. Will you do that for me? I’d sure as fuck do it for you.”
Vine worked his way to his feet, still feeling woozy. He glanced at his watch.
“We gotta rejoin the unit,” Mandle said.
“Yeah, Aaron.”
“Thanks, brother,” Mandle said. “I owe you big.”
Vine wasn’t quite sure if he’d agreed to anything. He had to get away and find some time. Think about this.
He led the way out of the cave.
Closer to the base of the mountain, at the mouth of the main cave, they heard gunshots.
Mandle and Vine looked at each other. Then training took over. Crouched and fast, they moved into the cave with weapons at the ready.
The firefight was over when they reached the bend in the cave. Three al-Qaida lay dead in limp bundles like the girl in the other cave. Colonel Kray had a brown metal box tucked beneath his left arm.
Vine almost said something to him then, even though it wasn’t the right time. The girl in the cave. Probably no more than twelve or thirteen. She was a kid . . .
Mandle was staring at him.
And for the first time Vine felt afraid of Aaron Mandle.
And felt his resolve waver.
After all, Mandle could simply deny Vine’s story. Might even say he, Vine, killed the girl. Simply reverse their roles. There were no witnesses, only a dead Afghan girl. Dead in a country of death.
Gotta think about this, Vine told himself, and held his silence.
Think about it.
“. . . time we shag-ass outta here,” Kray was saying. “We got what we wanted. Looks like it could be a schematic for some kinda biological weapon or some such shit. We get it back to base, no matter what. Understood?”
“Understood, sir!” answered twelve voices almost in unison, heavy on the sir.
Kray motioned with his right arm and led the way out of the cave, toward sunlight and heat.
Vine spat on the cave floor and fell in behind Mandle, knowing he’d turned a corner in his mind, trying to convince himself he hadn’t.
Think about it.. .
50
New York, 2004
Ten minutes after Cindy Vine had agreed to talk, Horn and Larkin were in the interrogation room with Millhouse, Twigg, and Cindy.
It was warm in there. Horn could feel the body heat and smell the sweat and fear emanating from Cindy. Getting mixed up with the wrong man was every woman’s potential pitfall, he thought. It worked the other way, too, but not as often and not as severely. Not a lot of wives turned out to be serial killers.
“Joe had a lot of pressure,” Cindy began, with the recorder running. “So did I, so maybe that’s why I didn’t notice how odd he was behaving. He was full
of hate, and something else. Then, a couple of months ago, he told me about Aaron Mandle killing those women.”
“The Night Spider murders?” Millhouse asked softly.
“No, the ones that happened while they were in the SSF, when they were on missions in various trouble spots around the world. Mandle was sick, dangerous. In Afghanistan, Joe walked in on him right after he’d killed a girl.”
“Did Joe tell his commanding officer?”
“No, he couldn’t. Their unit was separate from the main force, like usual when they were on a nearly suicidal mission. That’s how Joe described it. So he waited before saying anything. He figured out that the girl Mandle killed wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. Then, after a while, he realized it was too late to speak out. It would have looked bad for him if he’d said something, maybe ended his career in disgrace. He said that until now they never told their wives or anyone else about the murders. Joe thought Mandle was dead, until he was arrested for the Night Spider killings. He watched the news and followed the trial, the conviction . . .” Cindy started to sob again but bit her lip. She held in her distress like a great pressure, without breathing for a long time.
Finally she sighed, in control of herself, but seeming to become smaller as she exhaled. “Then came the phone call the night Mandle escaped. We were in bed, but I heard Joe on the phone. I knew he must be talking to Mandle. Joe hung up and started getting dressed in the dark. It surprised him when I asked where he was going. He’d thought I was asleep.”
“What did Joe say?” Millhouse asked casually, isolating and emphasizing the answer for the recorder.
“That he had to go out. An old friend who was in trouble had called. I asked him what old friend, but all he said was not to worry about it. He kissed me good-bye and went.”
“When did he return?”
“I’m not sure. I’d taken pills. We’d both been drinking. The stress of our son . . . what was happening in our lives. When I woke up at about nine the next morning, Joe was next to me in bed.” Cindy couldn’t hold back her tears now. She dropped her head onto the table, hid her face in the crook of her arm, and began to sob uncontrollably.
“Enough for now,” Twigg said.
“Joe’s not an evil man!” said Cindy from the shelter of her bent arm. “Joe is not an evil man!”
Horn kept his teeth clenched. Oh, really? Is this the Joe who wants to torture and kill my wife?
But he said nothing, glancing at Vicki Twigg. She nodded slightly, as if to say, I understand. We both know about evil.
Horn was again humbled by the realization that what was profound in life usually lay unspoken.
And what needed to be said was usually spoken too late.
51
Afghanistan, 2001
The next evening at base camp, Aaron Mandle spoke to his commanding officer in private in the captain’s tent.
Kray listened silently, rubbing his chin.
When Mandle was finished, Kray said, “You’re telling me you and Vine killed this Afghan girl without provocation?”
“Vine was only the accessory, sir. I administered the fatal wounds.”
Kray stared at him in disbelief. “Why the fuck are you telling me this, Aaron?”
“Because I knew you’d understand.”
Kray studied him carefully, the pockmarked face, the creepy dark eyes. It was a face that was impossible to read. Kray often thought Mandle would make a hell of a poker player; he wondered if he might be playing poker now.
“Why might I understand?”
“Because we’re all brothers, here or in hell. You’ve said so yourself, over and over. And we have to look out for each other no matter what. You, me, Vine.”
Kray felt himself tighten inside. “I don’t quite follow.” But he did follow.
“I mean,” Mandle said, “what would it do to your military career, two of your men doing murder under your command? What would it do to our unit and others like ours? Those pussy politicians in Washington get hold of this information and we’ll all go down hard. Nobody’ll be without blame. They’ll go right up the line far as they can, chopping off heads, one right after the other, and not much worrying about whose heads they are.”
“That’s the way it works,” Kray agreed.
“The word gets out,” Mandle said, “it’d ruin a lot of careers, a lot of lives. Have an adverse effect on everybody it touched. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Those things never are.”
“So I figured I’d keep quiet about this, and I thought you’d see it the same way. It’s not really like we have much choice, ‘less we want to be brothers in the brig or gas chamber. We all owe each other, sir. It’s like combat—if we’re gonna survive we have to care for each other. Brothers all the way.”
“You’re saying we’re in the same boat,” Kray said carefully. “But the fact is, your end of the boat has a bigger leak in it.”
“Whole boat sinks, though, sir. Who’s even to say you didn’t know about the murders from the beginning?”
There was the whole boat. “Yes, Aaron, I suppose you have a point.”
“I figure we all three keep quiet, everything’ll be fine, sir.”
“That would be my suggestion, Aaron.”
“Joe Vine, he’s a good man but he needs to understand.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“He waited too long already before saying anything. And hell, it mighta been him killed the girl, if push comes to shove.”
“It won’t come to shove, Aaron. I’ll speak with Trooper Vine. He’ll understand that in time of war—in the world we live in—some things should be left unsaid.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I suppose we should thank each other, Aaron.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mandle about-faced and was gone from the tent. Kray had to fight himself so he wouldn’t go after him and kill him.
Mandle, Vine, and Captain Kray never mentioned the matter again.
Four days later, on the outskirts of an Afghan village they were clearing of Taliban, Kray led Mandle, Vine, and a trooper named Reever into a mud-brick dwelling at the end of a narrow street.
At first the place looked empty. Then they saw that what looked like a rag pile in a corner was actually three huddled Afghan women in burkas.
They stood up slowly. Two of them raised their hands. The third flipped her wrist and expertly tossed a knife that stuck in Reever’s throat.
The women went for the door.
Kray, Mandle, and Vine stopped them.
And didn’t stop themselves.
The counterattack on the women turned into a gory struggle and then a sadistic bloodletting.
Crossing the river Styx, Mandle thought, watching life leave the women one by one. Their eyes. It was wondrous what happened to, what happened in, their eyes. The mystery just beyond grasping. Crossing over, crossing over, passing . . . The small and the crawl . . .
It was a bonding in blood for the killers.
They dragged Reever’s body outside the mud dwelling, then Kray tossed a grenade in through the doorway.
Artillery and rocket fire were coming in on the other side of the village. In the hell and panic of the greater din, the muffled sound of the exploding grenade was barely noticeable.
52
New York, 2004
The night after Cindy Vine’s statement, Will Lincoln rotated the valve to extinguish the flame of his welding torch. A wisp of smoke and the stench of hot metal lingered.
He’d come out to his garage studio to work, thinking it would take his mind off what he’d just seen the TV news saying: that the police suspected Joe Vine of killing the last four Night Spider victims.
When he’d heard that, Will set down the Budweiser he’d been drinking. Kim had bitched, telling him the bottle would leave a ring on the table, he should use a coaster. Didn’t he see the stack of coasters right there on the table?
At first Will hadn’t even heard
her, then he calmly told her he didn’t care if the bottle left a ring. She was yelling at him as he stood up and walked out of the house. He heard her for a while after he shut the front door, even after he entered the garage, until he’d turned the air conditioner on high.
Then he set to work on Flying Vengeance, the steel American eagle sculpture he’d been working on.
But it hadn’t helped. He hadn’t been able to shake his concern for Vine.
Joe Vine . . .
Will remembered Vine very well. He could recall his face in minute detail: tense going into action; relieved and looser around the eyes and mouth afterward. He was never really afraid enough for it to show. Watching Vine had helped Will steel himself for the things they’d had to do, the things he never talked about and that no one would believe. Not in their worst nightmares.
Will stepped away from his workbench and peeled off his tinted welder’s glasses. He didn’t feel like working anymore. Not after the news and the memories that had been stirred.
He felt like having another beer, but not at home.
He felt like talking to someone, but not his wife.
Joe Vine and Kray were in Kray’s black rental Ford Explorer, driving north. They had everything they needed. Kray had seen to it.
Vine was slumped against the door in the passenger seat, staring intently ahead into darkness. His gaze didn’t seem to carry, as if he were concentrating on the bugs occasionally flitting in the headlight beams and smacking against the windshield. Kray didn’t like the way he looked.
“We can pull it out, Joe,” he said, shooting glances sideways while paying attention to the highway. “We’ve been in deeper shit.”
“I’m not in any shit. I’m gonna get what I want.”
“We’re trained for the impossible,” Kray reminded him. “Don’t change your mind and go pussy on me, Joe.”
“You know I won’t. I want to kill her more than you do.”
“Closer than brothers. That’s how the unit survived.”
“Those of us who did.”