We watched as the red car bounced up the badly rutted dirt road. It pulled in behind the Suburban, screeching to a stop.
The front door of the cabin opened. Starkey, then Harris stepped outside onto the porch.
The doors of the sports car were flung open simultaneously, almost as if the action were choreographed.
Two dark-haired women stepped out. Asian and very pretty. They were wearing skimpy tops and short skirts. Both had on outrageous shoes with high heels. The driver held up a bottle in silver wrapping paper, smiled, and waved it at Starkey.
“Chào mung da den voi to am cua chúng tôi,” Starkey called from the front porch.
“Vietnamese,” Sampson said. “Starkey said something like ‘Welcome to our hootch.’”
Chapter 93
WE HAD BEEN observing the rustic cabin for more than two hours, and now we watched the sun dip behind the mountains; it had gotten much colder and my body was feeling stiff and I was tired from the drive. The wind whistled through the forest, whistled and sometimes roared. It felt as if it were blowing right through me.
“We’re going to get them,” Sampson whispered hoarsely. I think he was trying to cheer me up. “Maybe tonight, maybe not. They’re making mistakes, Alex.”
I agreed with that. “Yes, they are. They’re not invincible. I’m not even sure they have the whole story themselves. They’re just a piece of this.”
We could hear them inside the cabin — every word. Marc Sherman had apparently decided to stay for the party. Rock music echoed from the cabin. Janis Joplin was wailing, and one of the Asian women sang along. It sounded like bad karaoke, but nobody complained. Then the Doors came on. Memories of Vietnam, I suppose. “This is the end . . .”
Occasionally, someone would pass by a window. The Asian women had both taken off their tops. The taller of the two stepped outside for a few minutes. She smoked a joint, taking greedy puffs.
Harris came out and joined her. They spoke English on the porch of the cabin.
“I used to know your mama-san,” he said, and giggled.
“You’re kidding?” The girl laughed and blew out jets of smoke. “Of course you’re joking. I get it. Sort of.” She looked to be in her late teens, maybe early twenties. Her breasts were large and too round, augmented. She wobbled slightly on her high heels.
“No, I knew her. She was my hootch mama. I made it with her, and now I’m going to make it with you. See the irony?”
The girl laughed again. “I see that you’re stoned.”
“Well, there’s that too, my smart little dink. The thing is, maybe you’re my daughter.”
I tuned out on the conversation and stared at the outline of the A-frame cabin. It looked like some family’s vacation house. We’d heard that the three of them had been using the place since the mid-eighties. They’d already talked about murders committed in these woods, but it wasn’t clear who had been killed, or why. Or where the bodies were buried.
Jim Morrison was still singing “The End.” The TV was on too, a University of Georgia football game. Georgia versus Auburn. Warren Griffin was rooting loudly and obnoxiously for Auburn. Marc Sherman had apparently gone to Georgia, and Griffin was busting his chops.
Sampson and I stayed in a culvert a safe distance away. It was getting even colder, the wind screaming through the large hemlocks and beech trees.
“Starkey doesn’t seem to be partying,” Sampson finally said. “You notice that? What’s he doing?”
“Starkey likes to watch. He’s the cautious one, the leader. I’m going to move a little closer. We haven’t seen or heard from the other girl in a while. Makes me nervous.”
Just then, we heard Marc Sherman raise his voice. “Jesus, don’t cut her. Be careful! C’mon, man. Put away the K-Bar!”
“Why the hell not cut her?” Harris yelled at the top of his voice. “What the hell is she to you? You cut her, then. Try it, you’ll like it. You cut her, Counselor. Get your hands dirty for a change!”
“I’m warning you, Harris. Put the goddamn knife down.”
“You’re warning me? That’s pretty rich. Here — take the knife. Take it! Here you go!”
The lawyer groaned loudly. I was pretty sure he’d been stabbed.
The girls began to scream. Sherman was moaning in excruciating pain. Chaos had taken over inside the cabin.
“Cockadau!” Harris suddenly yelled in Vietnamese. He sounded a little nuts.
“Cockadau means kill,” Sampson told me.
Chapter 94
SAMPSON AND I were up in a flash and sprinting full-out toward the cabin. We reached the front door together. He went in first with his gun drawn.
“Police!” he yelled over the blaring rock music and TV. “Police! Hands in the air. Now!”
I was right behind Sampson when Starkey opened up with an MP5. At the same time, Griffin fired a handgun from across the room. The two Asian women were screaming as they scampered out the cabin’s rear door. They had enough street smarts to get out of there fast. I saw that the smaller woman had a deep gash across her cheek. Her face was dripping blood.
Marc Sherman lay on the floor, motionless. There were dark splatters of blood on the wall behind the lawyer’s body. He was dead.
The big gun erupted again, noise and smoke filling the room. My ears were ringing.
“Move out!” Sharkey yelled to the others.
“Di di mau!” Brownley Harris shouted, and actually seemed to be laughing. Was he completely mad? Were they all insane?
The three killers bolted out the back door. Warren Griffin covered the retreat with heavy fire. They didn’t want a final shootout inside the cabin. Starkey had other plans for his team.
Sampson and I fired at the retreating men, but they made it out. We approached the back door slowly. Nobody was waiting there, and no more shots were fired at us for the moment.
Suddenly there was the sound of shooting away from the cabin. Half a dozen hollow pops. I heard the shrill screams of the two women cut through the trees.
I peeked my head around the corner of the cabin. I didn’t like what I saw. The two women hadn’t made it to their car. Both lay on the dirt road. They’d been shot in the back. Neither of them moved.
I turned to Sampson. “They’ll come back for us. They’re going to take us out here in the woods.”
He shook his head. “No, they’re not. We’re going to take them out. When we see them, we open up. No warnings, Alex. No prisoners. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I did. This was an all-or-nothing fight. It was war, not police work. And we were playing by the same rules they were.
Chapter 95
IT WAS AWFULLY quiet all of a sudden. Almost as if nothing had happened, as if we were alone in the woods. I could hear the distant roar of the Jacks River, and birds twittering in the trees. A squirrel scampered up the trunk of a hemlock.
Otherwise, nothing moved. Nothing that I could see anyway.
Eerie as hell.
I was getting a really bad feeling — we were in a trap. They knew we would come here after them, didn’t they? This was their turf, not ours. And Sampson was right, this was war. We were in a combat zone, behind enemy lines. A firefight was coming our way. Thomas Starkey was in charge of the enemy, and he was good at this. All three of them were pros.
“I think one woman is moving a little,” he said. “I’m going to check on her, Alex.”
“We both go,” I said, but Sampson was already slipping away from the cover of the trees.
“John?” I called, but he didn’t look back.
I watched him run forward in a low crouch. Sampson was down close to the ground, moving fast. He was good at this — combat. He’d been there too.
He was about halfway to where the women lay when gunfire erupted from the woods to his right.
I still couldn’t see anybody, just wisps of gun smoke wafting up into tree branches.
Sampson was hit, and he went down hard. I could see his legs and
lower torso just over a bramble. One leg twitched. Then nothing.
Sampson didn’t move anymore.
I had to get to him somehow. But how? I crawled on my stomach to another tree. I felt weightless and unreal. Completely unreal. There was more gunfire. Pinging off rocks, thudding into nearby trees. I didn’t think I was hit, but they’d come damn close. The fire was heavy.
I could see wisps of smoke from the rifles rising to my right. I could also smell gunpowder in the air.
It struck me that we weren’t getting out of this one. I could see Sampson where he lay. He wasn’t moving. Not even a twitch. I couldn’t get to him. They had me pinned down. My last case. I had said that right from the start.
“John,” I called. “John! Can you hear me?”
I waited a few seconds, then called out again. “John! Move something. John?”
Please say something. Please move.
Nothing came back to me.
Except another round of heavy fire from the woods.
Chapter 96
I HADN’T EXPERIENCED anything like the explosive rage, but also the fear, that I felt. This happened in combat, I realized, and considered the irony. Soldiers lost buddies in the war and went a little mad, or maybe a great deal mad.
Is that what had happened in the An Lao Valley? There was a noisy buzzing inside my head, bright flashes of color in front of my eyes. Everything around me felt completely surreal.
“John,” I called again. “If you can hear me, move something. Move a leg. John!”
Don’t die on me. Not like this. Not now.
He didn’t move, didn’t respond. There was no sign that he was alive. He didn’t shiver or twitch.
Nothing at all.
More rifle fire suddenly erupted from the woods, and I hugged the ground, digging my face into leaves and dirt.
I tried to put Sampson out of my mind. If I didn’t, I would wind up dead. I had a terrible thought about John and Billie. Then I let it go. I had to. Otherwise, I’d die out here for sure.
Trouble was, I didn’t see how I was going to outmaneuver three Army Rangers in the woods, especially on terrain they were familiar with. These were experienced combat veterans. So they didn’t risk closing in on me right away. They’d wait until dark.
Not too long from now. Maybe half an hour. Then I was going to die, wasn’t I?
I lay behind a big hemlock, and a lot of disconnected thoughts shunted through my head. I thought about my kids, how unprepared I was to die, and how I would never see them again. I’d had so many warnings, so many close calls, but here I was.
I checked on Sampson again — he still hadn’t moved.
I raised my head a couple of times. Just for a second. I turkey-necked a look through the trees.
There were no moving shadows in the woods. I knew they were there, though, waiting me out. Three army assassins. Led by Colonel Thomas Starkey.
They’d been here before; they were patient as death itself.
They had killed a lot of people. In the army. And out of it.
I thought of something Sampson had said before he went to help the two women. When we see them, we open up. No warnings, Alex. No prisoners. Do you understand what I’m saying?
I understood perfectly.
Chapter 97
PATIENCE.
This was a waiting game, right? I understood that much about tonight. I even knew the military jargon for what I had to do next.
EE. Evade and escape.
I studied the rough terrain behind me and saw that I could slide down into a hollow that would give me some cover and also allow me to move laterally, east or west. I could change my position without their knowing it.
That would give me a small advantage.
And I’d take anything I could get right now. I felt that I was a dead man. I didn’t see any way out of this right now. So the hollow or gully looked awfully good to me.
I thought about Starkey, Griffin, and Harris. How good they were; how badly I wanted to bring them down, Starkey in particular. He was the smart one, the leader, the cruelest of the three. Then I thought of what Sampson had said: No prisoners. Only they had to be thinking the same thing.
I started to slide backward. I call it a slide, but I was almost burrowing into the wet leaves and soft ground.
At least I made it down into the hollow without being shot. Catbrier was stuck all over my legs and chest. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t think I could be seen from the woods. No one shot me in the head anyway. Not so far. That was a good sign, right? A victory in itself.
I crawled sideways in the hollow — slowly — with my face pressed deep into the cold dirt and leaves. I couldn’t breathe very well. I kept moving until I was a good fifteen or twenty yards from my original position. I didn’t risk looking up, but I knew my angle to the woods and the house had changed significantly.
Could they be watching me from somewhere close by? I didn’t think so. But was I right?
I listened.
I didn’t hear a twig break or brush being pushed aside. Just the steady whistle of the wind.
I pressed my ear to the ground, willing to try anything for an advantage. It didn’t help.
Then I waited some more.
Patience.
Things Sampson had told me about the Army Rangers surfaced in my head. Odd facts. They had supposedly killed fifty-five VC for every Ranger in the war. That was the story anyway. And they took care of their own. In the Vietnam War only one Ranger was listed MIA. All the others were accounted for, every single one.
Maybe they had gone, fled from the woods, but I doubted it. Why would they leave me here alive? They wouldn’t. . . . Starkey wouldn’t allow it.
I felt guilty that I’d left Sampson, but I wouldn’t let myself dwell on it. I couldn’t think about him. Not now. Later. If there was a later.
When we see them, we open up.
No warnings, Alex.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
I moved again, circling to the northeast, I figured. Were they moving on me too?
I stopped.
New position.
I waited there some more. Every minute seemed like ten. Then I saw something move. Jesus! What the hell? It was a bobcat, eating its own droppings. Maybe twenty, twenty-five yards away. Unconcerned with me. In its own world.
I heard someone coming, and he was very fucking close.
How had he gotten so close without my hearing him before?
Shit, he was right on top of me!
Chapter 98
HAD HE HEARD me too?
Did he know I was right there, a few feet away?
I didn’t dare breathe. Or even blink my eyes.
He moved again.
Very slow, very careful, a professional soldier. No, a professional killer. There was a big difference. Or was there?
I didn’t move an inch.
Patience.
No prisoners.
He was close — almost to the hollow I was lying in. He was coming for me. He had to know my position.
Which one of them was it? Starkey? Griffin? Harris — whom I had avoided crashing into during a softball game? Was he going to kill me now? Or would I kill him?
Somebody was going to die in less than a minute.
Who could it be?
Who was up there over my head?
I shifted my body so I’d see him the instant he came over the edge. Was that what he would do? What were his instincts? He’d done this kind of tracking before. I hadn’t. Not in the woods. And not in a war zone.
He moved again. Inches at a time.
Where the hell was he going? He was just about on top of me.
I watched the uneven ridge of the hollow and held my breath. Tried not to blink. I felt the sweat streaming through my hair and down the back of my neck, down my back. An incredible cold sweat. The buzzing in my ears was back.
Someone rolled over the edge.
Brownley Harris. His eyes widened when he s
aw me waiting there for him. My gun aimed at his face.
I fired just one shot. Boom. Then there was a dark hole where his nose had been an instant before. Blood spurted from the center of his face. His M-16 dropped from his hands.
“No warnings,” I whispered as I took the rifle. Were the others close behind him? I waited for them. Ready as I’d ever be for a shootout.
Sergeant Warren Griffin.
Colonel Thomas Starkey.
The woods were eerie. Silent again. I scuttled away under the cover of darkness.
Chapter 99
A THREE-QUARTER MOON was out, and that was both good and bad news. I was sure they would come for me now. It seemed logical, but was my logic the same as theirs?
I was back close to my original position in the woods. I thought so anyway.
Then I was certain.
My eyes teared involuntarily. I saw Sampson, lying still, right where he’d been shot. I could see the body clearly in the moonlight. And I started to shake. What had happened was finally hitting me with its full force. I swiped at my eyes. A fist seemed to clench my heart and hold it tight, wouldn’t let go.
I could see the dead women lying in the dirt road. Flies were buzzing around the bodies. An owl hooted from a nearby tree. I shuddered. In the morning perhaps a hawk or turkey vultures would come to feed on the bodies.
I slipped on the night goggles I’d brought with me. I hoped they would give me an advantage. Maybe not, probably not. Starkey and Griffin would have the best too. They worked for a company that manufactured high-tech equipment, didn’t they?
I kept reminding myself that I’d taken out Brownley Harris. It gave me some confidence. He’d looked utterly surprised to see me. Now he was dead, his arrogance gone, exploded in an instant by a bullet.
But how could I surprise Starkey and Griffin? They must have heard the shot. Maybe they thought it came from Harris. No, they had to know he was dead.
For a couple of minutes, I considered a flat-out run. Maybe I could get to the road. I doubted it, though. More likely I’d be shot down 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.