I spent several grueling hours looking through more records of Colonel Thomas Starkey, Captain Brownley Harris and Sergeant Warren Griffin. I saw that their Army careers were exemplary, at least in written form. I went back as far as Vietnam and the pattern continued. Starkey was a highly decorated officer; Harris and Griffin were good soldiers. There was nothing in the records about assassinations in Vietnam committed by the trio. Not a single word.

I wanted to know when they had met and where they had served together. I kept leafing through records,

hoping, but not finding the connect point. I knew they'd fought together in Vietnam and Cambodia. I went through every page a second time.

But there was nothing in any of the records to indicate they'd worked together in Southeast Asia. Not a goddamn word.

I sat back and stared out onto Fifth Street, letting my eyes glaze over. There was only one conclusion I could come up with, and I didn't like it.

The Army records had been doctored.

But why? And by whom?

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Four

It wasn't over yet. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, and I hated the queasy feeling, the uncertainty, the lack of closure. Or maybe I just couldn't let go. All those unsolved murders. Who was the real killer? Who was behind the strange murders?

A week after the shootings in Georgia, I sat in Ronald Burns's office on the fifth floor of FBI headquarters in Washington. Burns's assistant, a crew-cut male in his mid-twenties, had just brought us coffee in beautiful china cups. There were also fresh mini-pastries on a silver tray.

“Pulling out all the stops?” I asked the director. “Hot coffee and Danish.”

“You got it,” he said, 'shameless manipulation. Go with it."

I'd known him for years, but it was only during the past few months that I'd worked closely with Burns. What I'd seen so far, I liked, but I'd been fooled before.

“How's Kyle Craig doing?” I asked him.

“We're trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible for him out in Colorado,” Burns said. He allowed himself a smile. “We have to keep him in solitary most of the day. For his own protection, of course. He hates being by himself. Drives him crazier. No one to show off to.”

“No psychiatrists in there trying to figure him out?”

Burns shook his head. “No, no. Not a good idea. That would be too dangerous for them.”

“Besides, Kyle would like the attention. He craves it. He's a junkie for it.”

“Exactly.”

We smiled at the image of Kyle locked away in seclusion, hopefully for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, I knew he had made contact with others in the max security unit -particularly Tran Van Luu.

“You don't think Kyle had anything to do with these killings?” Burns finally asked.

“I checked that out as much as I could. There's no evidence he knew Luu before he was assigned to Florence.”