Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

by Patterson, James

  I leaned across the table, my face close to Luu's. Blood was pounding inside my head. Tran Van Luu was the Foot Soldier. He had to be. And he had the answers that I wanted. Was he also responsible for all these murders?

  “So why did you kill Sergeant Ellis Cooper? The others? Why did they have to die? Is it all just revenge? Tell me what the hell happened in the An Lao Valley. Tell me and I'll go away.”

  He shook his head. “I've told you enough. Go home, Detective. You don't need to hear anymore. Yes, I am Foot Soldier. The other answers you seek are too much for the people in your country to hear. Let these murder cases go. Just this once, Detective, let them go.”

  Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

  Chapter One Hundred and. Seven

  I made no move to get up and leave. Iran Van Luu stared at me impassively, then he smiled. Had he expected this? Stubbornness? Obtuseness? Was that why he'd involved me in the first place? Had he talked to Kyle Craig about me? How much did he know? Everything, or just more pieces of the puzzle?

  "Your continuing journey is interesting to me. I don't understand men like you. You want to know why terrible things happen. You want to make things right, if only occasionally.

  “You've dealt with vicious killers before. Gary Soneji, Geoffrey Shafer, Kyle Craig, of course. Your country has produced so many killers, Bundy, Dahmer, all the others. I don't know why this happens in such a civilized country. A place with so many blessings.”

  I shook my head. I really didn't know either. But Luu wanted to hear what I had to say on the subject. Had he asked Kyle the same questions?

  “I've always felt it has something to do with high expectations. Many Americans expect to be happy, expect to be loved. When we aren't, some of us go into a rage. Especially if it happens to us as children. If instead of love, we experience hatred and abuse. What I don't understand is why so many Americans abuse their children.”

  Luu stared at me, and I could sense his eyes probing into mine. Was he a strange new kind of killer a lord executioner? He seemed to have a conscience. He was philosophical. A philosopher-warrior? How much did he know? Did the case end here?

  “Why did someone orchestrate the murder of Ellis Cooper?” I finally asked. “Simple question. Will you answer it for me?”

  He frowned. "All right. I will do that much. Cooper lied to you and your friend Sampson. He had no choice but to lie. Sergeant Cooper was in the An Lao Valley, although his records don't say so. I saw him execute a girl of twelve. Slender, beautiful, innocent. He killed the girl after he had raped her. I have no reason to lie about that. Sergeant Cooper was a murderer and rapist.

  "They all committed atrocities; they were all murderers. Cooper, Tate, Houston, Etra, Bennett and richter. Harris, Griffin and Starkey, too. The Blind Mice. They were among the worst, the most bloodthirsty. That's why I chose them to hunt down the others. Yes, I was the one, Detective. But I'm already condemned to death here. There's nothing more you can do to me.

  "Colonel Starkey was never told why the murders were taking place in the US. He didn't know my identity. He was an assassin; he never asked. He just wanted his money.

  “I believe in rituals and symbolism, and I believe in revenge. The guilty have been punished and their punishments fit the crimes. Our unburied dead have been revenged and their souls can finally rest. Your soldiers left their calling cards, and so did I. I had plenty of time to think about it in here, plenty of time to make my plans. I hungered for revenge, and I didn't want it to be simple or easy. As you Americans say, I wanted payback. I got it, Detective. Now I am at peace.”

  Nothing was as it seemed. Ellis Cooper hadn't been entirely straight with us from the start. He'd proclaimed his innocence to Sampson and me. But I believed Tran Van Luu. The way he told the story was entirely convincing. He had witnessed atrocities in his country, and maybe even committed them himself. What was the phrase Burns had used wreak havoc?

  “There was a saying the Army had in the An Lao Valley. Do you want to hear it?” he asked.

  “Yes. I need to understand as much as I can. It's what drives me.”

  “The phrase was, If it moves, it's VC.”

  “Not all our soldiers did that.”

  “Not many actually, but some. They came into villages in the out country. They would kill everyone they found. If it moves... They wanted to frighten the Viet Cong, and they did. They left calling cards like the straw dolls, Detective. In village after village. They destroyed an entire country, a culture.”

  Luu paused for a moment, possibly to let me think about what I had heard so far. "They liked to paint the faces and bodies of the dead. The favorite colors were red, white and blue. They thought this was so humorous. They never buried the bodies, just left them for their loved ones to find.

  “I found my family with their faces painted blue. Their ghost shadows have been haunting me since that day.”

  I had to stop him for a moment. “Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you go to the Army when this was happening?”

  He looked straight into my eyes. “I did, Detective. I went to Owen Handler, my first CO. I told him what was happening in An Lao. He already knew. His CO knew. They all knew. Several teams had gotten out of control. So had the assassins sent in to clear up the mess.”

  “One more question,” I said to Luu while everything he'd told me was boiling inside my head.

  Ask. Then I want you to leave me alone. I don't want you to come back."

  “You didn't kill Colonel Handler, did you?”

  “No. Why should I put him out of his misery? I wanted Colonel Handler to live with his cowardice and shame. Now go. We are finished.”

  “Who killed Handler?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps there is a fourth blind mouse.”

  I got up to leave and the guards came into the cell. I could see they were afraid of Luu, and I wondered what he had done in his time here. He was a scary and complicated man, a Ghost Shadow. He had plotted several murders of revenge.

  “There's something else,” he finally said. Then he smiled. The smile was horrible a grimace no joy or mirth in it. “Kyle Craig says hello. The two of us talk. We even talk about you sometimes. Kyle says that you should stop us while you can. He says that you should put us both down.” Luu laughed as he was led from the cell. “You should stop us, Detective.”

  “Be careful of Kyle,” I offered some advice. “He isn't anybody's friend.”

  “Nor am I,” saidTranVan Luu.

  Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

  Chapter One Hundred and Eight

  As soon as Luu was taken away, Kyle Craig was brought into the interview room in the isolation unit on death row. I was waiting for him. With bells on.

  “I expected you'd stop by and visit, Alex,” he said as he was escorted inside by three armed guards. “You don't disappoint. Never, ever.”

  “Always one step ahead, isn't that right, Kyle?”I asked.

  He laughed, but without a trace of mirth as he looked around at the cell, the guards. “Apparently not. Not anymore.”

  Kyle sat across from me. He was so incredibly gaunt and seemed to have lost even more weight since I'd seen him last. I sensed that his mind was going a mile a minute inside that bony skull.

  “You were caught because you wanted to be caught,” I said. “That's obvious.”

  “Oh Christ, spare me the psycho-babble. If you've come as Dr. Cross, the psychologist, you can rum around and leave right now. You'll bore me to tears.”

  “I was talking as a homicide detective,” I said.

  “That's a little better, I suppose. I can stomach you as a sanctimonious cop. You're not much of a shrink, but then again it's not much of a profession. Never did anything for me. I have my own philosophy: Kill them all, let God sort'm out. Analyze that.”

  I didn't say anything. Kyle had always liked to hear himself talk. If he asked questions, he often wanted to ridicule whatever you said in response. He lived to bait and taunt. I doubted that anythi
ng had changed with him.

  Finally, he smiled. “Oh, Alex, you are the clever one, aren't you? Sometimes I have the terrifying thought that you're the one who's always a step ahead.”

  I didn't take my eyes away from his.

  “I don't think so, Kyle.”

  “But you're persistent as an attack dog from hell. Relentless. Isn't that right?”

  “I don't think about it much. If you say so, I probably am.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Now you're being condescending. I don't like that.”

  “Who cares what you like anymore?”

  “Hmmm. Point taken. I must remember that.”

  “I asked before if you could help me with Tran Van Luu, the murders he's involved in. Have you changed your mind? I suspect there's still one murderer out there.”

  Kyle shook his head. His eyes narrowed. “I'm not the Foot Soldier. I'm not the one trying to help you. Some mysteries just never get solved. Don't you know that yet?”

  I shook my head. “You're right,” I said. “I am relentless. I'm going to try to solve this one, too.”

  Then Kyle slowly clapped his hands, making a hollow popping sound. “That's our boy. You're just perfect, Alex. What a fool you are. Go find your murderer.”

  Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

  Chapter One Hundred and Nine

  Sampson was recuperating on the Jersey shore with Billie Houston, his own private nurse. I called him just about every day, but I didn't tell John what I'd heard about Sergeant Ellis Cooper and the others.

  I also called Jamilla every day, sometimes a couple of times a day, or she'd call or e-mail me. The distance separating us was becoming more and more of an issue. Neither of us had a good solution for now. Could I ever move the family to California? Could Jamilla move to Washington? We needed to talk about it face to face, and pretty soon.

  After I returned from Colorado I spent a couple of days working in Washington. I knew that I had one more important trip to make, but I needed some more preparation first. Measure twice, cut once. Nana had always preached that to me.

  I spent countless hours on Lexis, but also the military databases, AC IRS and RISS. I made a visit to the Pentagon and talked to a Colonel Peyser about violence against civilians committed by American soldiers in Southeast Asia. When I brought up the An Lao Valley, Peyser abruptly cut off the interview, and then he refused to see me again.

  In a strange way, that was a very good sign. I was close to something, wasn't I?

  I talked to a few friends who had served in Vietnam. The phrase, “If it moves, it's VC was familiar to most of them. Those who knew about it justified it, since violent outrages were constantly being committed by the North Vietnamese. One Army vet told this story: He'd overheard other soldiers talk about a Vietnamese man, in his mid-eighties, who'd been shot down. ”Got to hand it to him,“ a gunnery sergeant had joked, 'man his age and he volunteers for the Viet Cong.”

  And one name kept coming up whenever I talked about the An Lao Valley.

  In the records.

  Everywhere I looked.

  One name that was a link to so much that had happened there, and here.

  The fourth of the blind mice?

  I had to find that out now.

  Early on Thursday morning I left for West Point. It would be about a five-hour drive. I was in no particular hurry. The person I wanted to see there wasn't going anywhere. He didn't think he had any reason to run and hide.

  I loaded up the CD player with the blues mostly, but also the new Bob Dylan which I wanted to hear at least once. I brought along a thermos of coffee as well as sandwiches for the road. I told Nana that I would try to be home tonight, to which she curtly replied, “Try harder. Try more often.”

  The drive gave me time to think. I needed to be sure that I was doing the right thing by going to West Point again. I asked myself a lot of tough but necessary questions. When I was satisfied with the answers, I gave some more thought to taking a job with the FBI. Director Ron Burns had done a good job showing me the kind of resources I'd have at Quantico. The message was clear, and it was also clever: I would be better at what I did working with the FBI.

  Hell, I didn't know what I wanted to do, though.

  I knew that I could make it in private practice as a psychologist, if that was what I really wanted. Maybe I could do a better job with the kids if I had a regular job instead of the Job. Use those marbles wisely, savor those precious Saturdays. Make a go of it with Jamilla, who was constantly in my thoughts, and should be.

  Eventually, I found myself on Route 9W, following road signs for Highland Falls and West Point.

  As I got close to the Point, I checked my Clock and put a clip in. I wasn't sure if I'd need a gun. Then again, I hadn't thought I'd need one the night Owen Handler was murdered near here.

  I entered West Point through the Thayer gates at the north end of Highland Falls.

  Cadets were all over the Plains, practicing for parade, still looking beyond reproach. Smoke curled lazily from a couple of chimneys on top of Washington Hall. I liked West Point a lot. I also admired most of the men and women I'd met in the Army. But not all of them, and everybody knows what a few bad apples can do.

  I pulled up in front of a redbrick building. I had come here for answers.

  One name was left on my shopping list. A big name. A man beyond reproach.

  General Mark Hutchinson.

  The commandant of West Point.

  He had avoided me the night Owen Handler had been murdered, but that wasn't going to happen again.

  Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

  Chapter One Hundred and Ten

  I climbed steep stone steps and let myself into the well-kept, redbrick building that housed the offices of the commandant of West Point. A soldier with a 'high and tight' haircut was sitting behind a dark wood desk that held a highly polished brass lamp and orderly stacks of papers and portfolios.

  He looked up, cocking his head like a curious and alert grade-school student. “Yes, sir. Can I help you, sir?”

  “My name is Detective Alex Cross. I believe General Hutchinson will see me. Please tell him that I'm here.”

  The soldier's head remained tilted at the curious angle. “Yes, sir, Detective. Could you tell me something about your business with the general, sir?”

  “I'm afraid that I can't. I believe the general will see me, though. He already knows who I am.” I went and sat on a stuffed chair across the room. “I'll be right here waiting for him.”

  The soldier at the desk was clearly frustrated; he wasn't used to civil disobedience, especially not in General

  Hutchinson's office. He thought about it, then he finally picked up the plain black phone on his desk and called someone farther up the chain of command. I figured that was a good thing, a necessary next step.

  A few minutes passed before a heavy wood door behind his heavy wood desk opened. An officer in uniform appeared and walked straight over to me.

  “I'm Colonel Walker, the general's adjudicator. You can leave now, Detective Cross,” he said. “General Hutchinson won't be seeing you today. You have no jurisdiction here.”

  I nodded. “But I do have some important information General Hutchinson should listen to. It's about events that took place during his command in the An Lao Valley. This was in sixty-seven through seventy-one, but in particular sixty-nine.”

  “I assure you, the general has no interest in meeting with you or hearing any old war stories you have to tell.”

  “I have a meeting set up with the Washington Post about this particular information,” I said. “I thought the general should hear the allegations first.”

  Colonel Walker nodded his head once, but he didn't seem impressed or worried. “If you have someone in Washington who wants to listen to your story, you should go there with it. Now please leave the building or I'll have you escorted out.”

  “No need to waste the manpower,” I said, and got up from the cushy armchair. “I'm goo
d at escorting myself.”

  I went outside on my own steam and walked to my car. I got in and slowly drove up the pretty main drag that cuts through West Point. I was thinking hard about

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  what to do next. Eventually I parked on a side street lined with tall maples and oaks that had a majestic view of the Hudson.

  I waited there.

  The general will see me.

  A.V,

  Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

  Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

  It was past dark when a black Ford Bronco turned into the driveway of a large Colonial-style house that was flanked by elm trees and ringed by fort-style fencing.

  General Mark Hutchinson stepped out of his vehicle. The interior lights illuminated his face for a few seconds. He didn't look one bit worried. Why should he? He had been to war several times, and he'd always survived.

  I waited about ten minutes for him to put the house-lights on, then get settled in. I knew that Hutchinson was divorced and lived alone. Actually, I knew a lot about the general by now.

  I walked up the front steps, much as I'd gone up the steps to the general's office earlier that afternoon. The same deliberate pace. Relentless, unstoppable, stubborn as hell. I was going to talk to Hutchinson today, one way or the other. I had business to finish. This was my 'last case', after all.

  I banged the front door's iron knocker a couple of times, a tarnished winged goddess that I found to be more imposing than inviting.

  Hutchinson finally came to the door in a blue-checked sport shirt and pressed khaki slacks. He looked like a corporate executive caught at home by a pesky door-to-door salesman, and none too happy about the interruption at this time of night.