Patterson, James - Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Thi Nguyen looked up at me. “I have names for the assassins,” she said. And I think I have a code name for the operation. I believe it was called Three Blind Mice."

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

PART FOUR

EXIT WOUNDS

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Seventy-Nine

I had three names now three men who had been dispatched to the An Lao Valley to stop the murder of civilians there. I needed to be extremely careful with the information, and it took Sampson and I another week to track the men down and find out as much as we could about them.

The final confirmation that I needed came from Ron Burns at the FBI. He told me that the Bureau had suspected these men of doing two other professional hits: one a politician in Cincinnati, the second a union leader's wife in Santa Barbara, California.

The names were:

Thomas Starkey.

Brownley Harris.

Warren Griffin.

The Three Blind Mice.

The following weekend, Sampson and I went to Rocky Mount, North Carolina. We were chasing men who had played a part in mysterious violence in the An Lao Valley thirty years before. What in hell had really happened there? Why were people still dying now?

Less than five miles outside the city limits of Rocky Mount, tracts of farmland and crossroad county grocers still dominated the landscape. Sampson and I drove out into the country, then back to town again, passing the Rocky Mount-Wilson Airport and Nash General Hospital, as well as Heckler and Koch where Starkey, Harris and Griffin worked as the sales team for several military bases, including Fort Bragg.

Sampson and I entered Heels, a local sports bar, at around six o'clock. Race-car drivers as well as a few basketball players from the Charlotte Hornets frequented the place, so it was racially mixed. We were able to fit into the crowd, which was noisy and active. At least a dozen TVs blared from raised platforms.

The sports bar was less than a mile from Heckler and Koch US, where some of these men and women worked. Other than the thriving high-tech business community, Heckler and Koch (pronounced "Coke') was one of the largest places of employment in town, just behind Abbott Laboratories and Consolidated Diesel. I wondered if the gun company might have some connection to the murders. Probably not, but maybe.

I struck up a conversation with a plant supervisor from H and K at the bar. We talked about the plight of the Carolina Panthers, and then I worked in the subject of the gun manufacturer. He was positive about his company, which he referred to as' like a family and definitely one of the best places to work in North Carolina, which is a good state to work in'. Then we talked about guns, the MP5 submachine gun in particular. He told me the MP5 was used by the Navy SEALS and elite SWAT teams, but it had also found its way into inner-city gangs. I already knew that about the MP5.

I mentioned Starkey, Harris and Griffin, casually.

“I'm surprised Tom and Brownie aren't here already. They usually stop in on a Friday. How do you know those boys?” he asked, but didn't seem surprised that I did.

“We served together a long time ago,” said Sampson. “Back in sixty-nine and seventy.”

The supervisor nodded. “You Rangers too?” he asked.

“No, just regular Army,”said Sampson. “Just foot soldiers.”

We talked to some other H and K employees, and they spoke positively about the company. The guys we talked to knew Starkey, Harris and Griffin, and everybody knew they'd been Rangers. I got the impression that the three men were popular and might even be local heroes.

Around quarter past seven, Sampson leaned in close and whispered into my ear. “Front door. Look who just blew in,” he said. “Three business suits. Don't much look like killers.”

I turned slowly and looked. No, they didn't look like killers.

“But that's what they are,” I said to Sampson. Army assassins who look like the nicest guys in the bar, maybe in all of North Carolina."

We watched the three of them for the rest of the night -just watched the trio of hit men.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Eighty

Sampson and I were staying out at a Holiday Inn near the Interstate. We were up the next morning by six.

We had a potentially heart-stopping, but rather tasty breakfast at a nearby Benny's (omelets and 'home fries covered and smothered'). Then we planned out our big day. We'd learned the night before that Heckler and Koch had a big family-style picnic going that afternoon. We were planning to crash it. Cause a little trouble if we could.

After breakfast we took a spin past the houses of the three murder suspects. A slick DC group we liked called Maze was playing from the CD. Nice contrast to the folksiness of Rocky Mount. City meets country.

The killers' houses were in upscale developments called Knob Hill, Falling River Walk, and Greystone. It looked as if a lot of young professionals with families lived there. The new South. Quiet, tasteful, civilized as hell.

“They know how to blend in,”Sampson said as we drove by Warren Griffin's two-and-a-half story Colonial. “Our three killer boys.”

“Good at what they do,” I said. “Never been caught. I really want to have a chat with them.”

Around eight, we went back to the Holiday Inn to get ready for the picnic and whatever else might happen today. It was hard to believe that the three killers fit so well into Rocky Mount. It made me wonder about pretty, innocent-looking small towns and what might be lurking behind their facades. Maybe nothing, maybe a whole lot of everything.

Sampson and I were originally from North Carolina, but we hadn't spent that much time here as adults, and unfortunately, most of it had been working on a couple of celebrated murder cases. The gun-company picnic was scheduled to start at eleven, and we figured we would show up at around one when the crowds were large. We knew from the night before that just about everybody from H and K, from the mailroom to stockroom to the corporate suite, would be on hand for the big day.

That included Starkey, Harris, Griffin and their families.

And of course, Sampson and I. It was time for a little payback.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Eighty-One

It was a hot, humid day and even the cooks at the company picnic were checking the grill infrequently. They much preferred to stay in the shade and sip cold Dr. Pepper soft drinks in their "BBQ from Heaven' aprons. Everybody seemed to be taking it easy, having a good time on a pretty Saturday. Another cat's-eye marble bites the dust.

Sampson and I sat under an ancient, leafy oak tree and listened to the symphony of local birds. We drank iced tea from Lucite cups that looked like real glass. We wore H and K Rules tee-shirts and looked as if we belonged, and always had.

The smell of ribs was strong in the air. Actually, the smoke from the grills was probably keeping the bugs from becoming an immediate problem.

“They sure know how to cook those ribs,” Sampson said.

They did, and so did I. Ribs, to cook properly, need indirect heat, and the fires had been built with two piles of charcoal one in front, one in the back, but none in the middle where the racks with the ribs had been placed. I

had learned about ribs, and all kinds of cooking, from Nana. She'd wanted me to be as good in the kitchen as she was. That wasn't going to happen real soon, but I was decent, at least. I could fill in when needed.

I even knew that there was a standing argument in the grilling world about the relative merits of the 'dry rub' versus the 'wet mop'. The dry rub was a mixture of salt, pepper, paprika and brown sugar, which was said to have both the heat and the sweetness to bring out the true flavor of the meat. The wet-mop mix had a base of apple cider, with added shallots, jalapeno peppers, ketchup, brown sugar and tomato paste. I liked the mop and the rub just fine so long as the meat was cooked until it just about fell off the bone.