Four Blind Mice (Alex Cross 8)

About nine-thirty the three killers reconnoitered on the seventeenth fairway of the West Point golf course. They didn’t see anyone on the hilly course that formed one of the boundaries of the military academy. Route 9W was just to the west.

“This might be easier than we thought,” Warren Griffin said. “They’re both home. Relaxing. Guard down.”

Starkey looked at Griffin disapprovingly. “I don’t think so. There’s a saying here, ‘Always the hard way, sir.’ Don’t forget it. And don’t forget that Robert Bennett was Special Forces. This isn’t some big-city architect having a sleepover on the Appalachian Trail.”

Griffin snapped to attention. “Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

Just before ten o’clock, the three of them made their way through the bramble and woods that bordered the backyard of Quarters 130. Starkey pushed back a stubborn branch of a pine tree and saw the house.

Then he spotted Colonel Robert Bennett in the kitchen.

War hero, father of five, husband for twenty-six years, former Special Forces in Vietnam.

Bennett was holding a goblet of red wine and seemed to be supervising the preparation of a meal. Barbara Bennett stepped into view. She was doing the real work. Now she too took a sip of his wine. Robert Bennett kissed the back of her neck. They seem loving for a couple married well over twenty years. That’s too bad, Starkey thought, but kept it to himself.

“Let’s do it,” he said. “The

last piece in the puzzle.”

And it truly was a puzzle — even to the killers.

Chapter 62

ROBERT AND BARBARA Bennett were just sitting down to dinner when the three heavily armed men burst through the back door into the kitchen. Colonel Bennett saw their guns and camouflage dress, also noting that none of the men were wearing masks. He saw all of the faces and knew this couldn’t be worse.

“Who are you? Robert, who are they?” Barbara sputtered out a few words. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Unfortunately, Colonel Bennett was afraid that he knew exactly who they were, and maybe even who had sent them. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he recognized one of them from a long time ago. He even remembered a name — Starkey. Yes, Thomas Starkey. Good God, why now? After all these years?

One of the intruders pulled shut the colorful curtains on the two kitchen windows. He used a free arm to sweep the dinner plates, chicken, salad, and wineglasses crashing onto the kitchen floor. Bennett understood this was for dramatic effect.

Another man held an automatic weapon pressed to Barbara Bennett’s forehead.

The kitchen was totally silent.

Colonel Bennett looked at his wife, and his heart nearly broke. Her blue eyes were stretched wide, and she was trembling. “It’s going to be all right,” Bennett said in the calmest voice he could manage.

“Oh, is it, Colonel?” Starkey spoke for the first time. He signaled the third intruder, and the man grabbed the front of Barbara’s white peasant blouse and tore it off. Barbara gasped and tried to cover herself. The bastard then yanked off her bra. It was for effect, of course, but then the man stared at Barbara’s breasts.

“Leave her alone! Don’t hurt her!” Bennett yelled, and it sounded like a command, as if he were in a position to give one.

The man he knew to be Starkey hit him with the butt of his handgun. Bennett went down and thought that his jaw was broken. He almost blacked out, but managed to stay conscious. His cheek was pressed into the cold tile of the kitchen floor. He needed a plan — even a desperate one would do.

Starkey stood directly over him. And now it got insane. He spoke in Vietnamese.

Colonel Bennett understood some of the words. He’d done enough interrogations during the war, when he’d run several Kit Carson scouts in Vietnam and Laos.

Then Starkey spoke in English. “Be afraid, Colonel. You’ll suffer tonight. So will your wife. You have sins to pay for. You know what they are. Tonight your wife will know about your past too.”

Colonel Bennett pretended to pass out. When one of the gunmen leaned over him, he pushed off the floor and grabbed at his handgun. Getting the gun was the only thought in Bennett’s brain. He had it!

But then he was struck viciously on the head. Then on the shoulders and back. He was being screamed at in Vietnamese as the severe beating continued. He saw one of the bastards punch his wife right in the face. For no reason at all.

“Stop it. Don’t hurt her, for Christ’s sake.”

“Mày se nhìn cô ay chet,” Starkey yelled in Vietnamese.

Now you get to watch her die.