Four Blind Mice

trying.
    They were good at this, but Harris had been good too. He was experienced, and now he was lying dead in a ditch. I had his rifle in my hands.
    Patience. Wait on them. They have questions and doubts too.
    I watched Sampson’s body for another few seconds, then I had to turn away. I couldn’t think about him now. I mustn’t, or I would die too.
    I never heard it coming — a sudden blast of deafening gunfire. One or both of them had gotten between me and the cabin. I spun in the direction of the shots. Then a voice pierced the darkness.
    Close behind me.
    “Put down the gun, Cross. I don’t want to kill you. Not just yet.”
    Warren Griffin was down in the hollow with me. I
saw
him now. He had a rifle aimed at my chest. He wore night goggles and looked like an alien.
    Then Thomas Starkey appeared, also wearing goggles. He was above the gully, staring down. He had an M-16 aimed right at my face, and he was smiling horribly. His victory grin.
    “You couldn’t leave it alone, asshole. So now Brownley’s dead. So’s your partner,” said Starkey. “You satisfied yet?”
    “You forgot the two women. And the lawyer,” I said.
    It was strange to be looking at Griffin and Starkey through the night vision goggles, knowing that they were seeing me the same way. I wanted to take them down so much it hurt. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.
    “What the hell happened in Vietnam?” I asked Starkey. “What started all of this? What the hell was it?”
    “Everybody who was over there knows what happened. Nobody wants to talk about it. Things got out of hand.”
    “Like what, Starkey? How did it get this bad?”
    “At first, there was a rogue platoon on the loose. That’s what we were
told
anyway. We were sent to the An Lao Valley to stop them. To clean it up.”
    “You mean murder our own soldiers? Those were your orders, Starkey? Who the hell is behind this? Why the murders now?”
    I was going to die, but I still wanted answers. I needed to know the truth. Hell of an epitaph.
Alex Cross. Died seeking the truth.
    “I don’t even fucking know,” Starkey hissed. “Not all of it. I’m not going to talk about it anymore either. Maybe what I’m going to do is cut you into little pieces. That happened over there. I’ll
show
you what was done in the An Lao Valley. See this knife. It’s called a K-Bar. I’m really good with it. I’ve had some practice recently.”
    “I know you have. I’ve seen some of your butchery.”
    Then the strangest thing I could ever imagine happened. It blew my wheels off, completely blew my mind into a thousand pieces.
    I was staring past Starkey. But something was different in the background. At first I didn’t know what, then I did and my knees were weak.
    Sampson was gone!
    I didn’t see his body anyway. At first, I figured I was just disoriented. But then I was sure I wasn’t. His body had been over there — near a tall beech tree. Now it wasn’t.
    No warnings, Alex.
    No prisoners.
    Do you understand what I’m saying?
    I heard his words echo inside my head. I could hear the exact
sound
of it.
    “Put down your guns,” I said to Starkey and Griffin. “Drop them right now. Now!”
    They looked puzzled, but Starkey and Griffin kept their guns aimed at me.
    “I’m going to cut you everywhere,” Starkey said. “This is gonna take hours. We’ll be here till morning. I promise.”
    “Put down the guns!”
I heard Sampson’s voice before I saw him walk out from behind a beech tree. “And the knife, Starkey! You’re not cutting anybody.”
    Warren Griffin spun around. Two shots instantly caught him in the throat and upper chest. His gun went off as he fell over backward to the ground. Arterial blood pumped from his wounds as he died.
    “Starkey, no!” I yelled. “No!”
    Thomas Starkey had raised his gun at me. Then he took one high in the chest. It didn’t stop him. A second shot stung Starkey in the side and spun him full around. A third blasted through Starkey’s forehead, and he went down for good in a bloody heap. His gun and K-Bar fell into the gully near my feet. His blank eyes stared into the night sky.
    No prisoners.
    Sampson was weaving toward me. As he came forward he rasped, “I’m okay, I’m okay.”
    Just before he collapsed into my arms.

Chapter 100
    AS IT TURNED out, Jamilla was a godsend after the shootings in Georgia.
    She called every day, often two or three times, and we talked until she could tell I was healing some.