by John Lutz
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John Lutz
“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 NIGHT VICTIMS
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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 uni-son, 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.” NIGHT VICTIMS
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“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 dis-tress 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?
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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.” 382
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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.”
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“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 strug -
gle 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.
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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.”
“Fuckin’ right!” Those of us who did! The winners! “We survived because in situations like this we toughened up.
There’s nothing new for us here, Joe. We deal with it or it 386
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buries us. And we can deal with it if we’ve got the guts. You got the guts, Joe?”
“I’m fine in the guts department. Anyway, like I told you, there really isn’t a choice. Not for me. I’m on my way to kill the cunt who ruined my son.”
“There’s always a choice. You throw up your hands and get fucked, or you become the fucker.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Truth is, I know that, Joe. In this, you don’t have any real choice. It’s why I’m here with you, helping you in what you have to do.”
Vine pulled himself up to sit straighter, though he continued his intent stare out the windshield at the headlight beams and rushing highway. Kray hoped Vine was going to be okay. Vine was at the edge. His blood lust might overwhelm his reason, or worse, his madness might shut him down, paralyze him.
“Closer than brothers, Joe. That’s how we got it done.
That’s how we’ll get this done. You ready?” Vine didn’t answer for a while. The intermittent splat! of insects on the windshield was the only sound other than the hum of motor and moan of wind.
Finally Vine said, “Fuckin’-A. I’m better than ready. I’m eager.”
Kray smiled tightly. Confidently. Those words from Vine had been good enough before. They’d be good enough again.
Horn got the call that evening at his brownstone. He’d just snuffed out a cigar and was getting ready for bed when the phone rang.
Rollie Larkin.
“We don’t have the DNA yet,” he said to Horn, “but I thought you’d like to know that microscopic analysis matches the strand of hair found stuck beneath Alice Duggan’s duct-tape gag with hair taken from Joe Vine’s comb. Vine killed her, not that there was much doubt.” NIGHT VICTIMS
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“No doubt at all,” Horn said, “but thanks for calling.
Everythin
g in place for Anne?”
“I’m in tight communication with the operation. Everyone’s in place. Men in the woods and in the creek bed, sentries watching the road. An officer is sitting guard while the cabin sleeps.”
“I guess I can sleep then.”
“Go ahead, Horn. Drink some of that scotch of yours, if it’ll help.”
Horn smiled. “I might do that. Then I’ll drive up to the cabin in the morning.”
After hanging up the phone, Horn was glad the conversation hadn’t been on the cell phone. It would have been more likely overheard.
On the other hand, given the capabilities of Joe Vine, the phone line to the brownstone might be tapped.
Horn decided he probably wouldn’t sleep very well, scotch or no scotch.
But he did—for less than an hour.
Then he was wide awake and fumbling for the phone.
Larkin said a thick hello, as if Horn had woken him.
Horn didn’t care. “Rollie, I’ve thought of something!”
“I’m thinking of something right now, too,” Larkin said sleepily.
“Cindy Vine,” Horn said. “I remembered something she said during her interrogation, about when her husband confessed the murders to her. She said, ‘ . . . they never told their wives or anyone else about the murders.’”
“Yeah,” Larkin said.
“Vine said they. And he said wives. Mandle never had a wife. ”
“This means? . . .”
“Joe Vine was telling her about more than one other killer besides himself. He must have been referring to Victor Kray. The three of them—Mandle, Vine and Kray—
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took up murder together during the SSF’s black operations.”
“It’s possible,” Larkin said cautiously. He sounded all the way awake now and somewhat skeptical. “But why Kray?”
“Mandle stayed in the SSF and was never called on the murder Vine witnessed, so Vine must not have talked.”
“True,” Larkin said.
“Unless he did go to his commanding officer, and it went no further.”
“Makes sense.”
“And it went no further because Mandle must have had something on Kray.”
“So why didn’t Vine go over Kray’s head?”
“My guess is by that time he was in too deep,” Horn said.