I nodded. “Of course it does.”

Burns handed me another folder. “This might help too. It's information about the former leader of the Viet gang.”

TranVan Luu."

Burns nodded. “I did a tour in sixty-nine and seventy. I was in the Marines. We had our own re-con people. They'd get dropped into hostile territory, just like Starkey and company. Vietnam was a guerrilla war, Alex. Some of our people acted like guerrillas. 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.”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Six

The FBI flew me out to Colorado this time. Ron Bums had made this his case now. 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 posts. 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 dead-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 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 his 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 afterwards 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 burnt 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.”