Four Blind Mice

another folder. “This might help too. It’s information about the former leader of the Viet gang.”
    “Tran Van Luu.”
    Burns nodded. “I did a tour in ’sixty-nine and ’seventy. I was in the Marines. We had our own recon people. They’d get dropped into hostile territory, just like Starkey and company. Vietnam was a guerilla war, Alex. Some of our people acted like guerillas. Their job was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. They were tough, brave, but more than a few of them got incredibly desensitized. Sometimes they practiced situational ethics.”
    “Wreak havoc?” I said. “You’re talking about terrorism, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah.” Burns nodded. “That’s what I just said.”

Chapter 106
    THE FBI FLEW me out to Colorado this time. Ron Burns had made this his case now too. He wanted the person or persons behind the long string of murders.
    The isolation unit at Florence seemed as oppressive as it had been on my first visit there. As I entered the Security Housing Unit, guards in khaki uniforms watched me through bulletproof-glass observation windows. The doors were either bright orange or mint green — odd. There were cameras every ten feet along the bland, sand-colored walls.
    The cell where Tran Van Luu and I met had a table and two chairs, which were bolted to the floor. Three guards in body armor and thick gloves brought him to me this time around. I wondered if there had been trouble recently? Violence?
    Luu’s hands and ankles were cuffed and manacled for our meeting. The gray hairs hanging from his chin seemed even longer than at our last visit.
    I took the jacket patch Burns had given me out of the pocket of my coat. “What does this mean? No more bullshit.”
    “Ghost Shadows. You know that already. The crossbar is just folklore. Just a design.”
    “And the straw doll?”
    He was silent for a moment. I noticed that Luu’s hands were curled into fists. “I believe I told you that I was a scout for the American army. Sometimes we left calling cards in villages. One, I remember, was a skull and crossbones with the words
When you care enough to send the very best
. The Americans thought that was very funny.”
    “What does the straw doll mean? Is it your calling card? Was it left at all the murder scenes? Or afterward at the soldiers’ homes?”
    He shrugged. “Perhaps. You tell me, Detective. I wasn’t at the murder scenes.”
    “What would this particular calling card mean? The straw doll?”
    “Many things, Detective. Life is not so simple. Life is not merely sound bites and easy solutions. In my country, popular religion is flexible. Buddhism from both China and India. Taoism. Confucianism. Ancestor worship is the oldest and most indigenous belief throughout Vietnam.”
    I tapped my finger on the jacket patch.
    “Straw dolls are sometimes burned or floated away on a river as part of rituals honoring the dead. Evil spirits are the ghosts of those who were murdered or who died without proper burial. The straw doll is a threatening message reminding the offending person it is
they
who should rightfully be in the doll’s place.”
    I nodded. “Tell me what I need to know. I don’t want to have to come back here.”
    “Nor should you. I don’t have any need for confession. That’s more a Western concept.”
    “You don’t feel any guilt about what’s happened? Innocent people have died.”
    “And will continue to. What is it that you really want to know? Do you believe I owe you something because of your crackerjack detective work?”
    “You admit that you used me?”
    Luu shrugged. “I don’t admit anything. Why should I? I was a guerilla fighter. I survived in the jungles of An Lao for nearly six years. Then I survived in the jungles of California and New York. I use whatever is provided to me. I try to make the most of the situation. You do the same, I’m sure.”
    “Like at this prison?”
    “Oh, especially in prison. Otherwise, even a reasonably bright man could go mad. You’ve heard the phrase ‘cruel and unusual.’ A cell that is seven by twelve feet. Twenty-three hours a day in it. Communication only through a cell slot in the door.”
    I leaned across the table, my face close to Luu’s. Blood was pounding inside my head. Tran Van Luu was 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