Four Blind Mice

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 uong nua,” 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, sitting down on the couch. “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. He was cool and calm. He reached over to the radio 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 súng ong sang mot bên di bô.”
    No, 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 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 yêu tôi di, anh 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, who had his gun out now too, and his friend knew. He just
knew
.
    They fired their 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
pfftht
s. The sound of falling bodies, Susie and Hoa. Warren Griffin had been waiting for them. He knew too.
    It was just like in the An Lao Valley, Vietnam.
    Where the madness had started.

Chapter 67
    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. There was no blue paint this time, and none of the other victims had been set up to look like suicides. But it still
felt
the same.
Force to bear without 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 whether they were connected to the others, whether 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?”
    Sampson 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 Burns. He wasn’t in, so I left a message. I wanted to call Jamilla, but it was too early in California, so I logged on to my computer and left her a long e-mail.
    Then I saw that I had a message.
Now what?
    It turned out to be from Jannie and Damon. They were busting 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.
    Or Jamilla.

    Detective Cross. While you are at West Point, you ought to see Colonel Owen Handler. He teaches political science. He might have some answers for you. He’s a friend of the Bennetts. He might even know who killed them.
    I’m just trying to be helpful. You need all the help you can