“I found my family with their faces painted blue. Their ghost shadows have been haunting me since that day.”

I had to stop him for a moment. “Why didn't you tell anyone? Why didn't you go to the Army when this was happening?”

He looked straight into my eyes. “I did, Detective. I went to Owen Handler, my first CO. I told him what was happening in An Lao. He already knew. His CO knew. They all knew. Several teams had gotten out of control. So had the assassins sent in to clear up the mess.”

“One more question,” I said to Luu while everything he'd told me was boiling inside my head.

Ask. Then I want you to leave me alone. I don't want you to come back."

“You didn't kill Colonel Handler, did you?”

“No. Why should I put him out of his misery? I wanted Colonel Handler to live with his cowardice and shame. Now go. We are finished.”

“Who killed Handler?”

“Who knows? Perhaps there is a fourth blind mouse.”

I got up to leave and the guards came into the cell. I could see they were afraid of Luu, and I wondered what he had done in his time here. He was a scary and complicated man, a Ghost Shadow. He had plotted several murders of revenge.

“There's something else,” he finally said. Then he smiled. The smile was horrible a grimace no joy or mirth in it. “Kyle Craig says hello. The two of us talk. We even talk about you sometimes. Kyle says that you should stop us while you can. He says that you should put us both down.” Luu laughed as he was led from the cell. “You should stop us, Detective.”

“Be careful of Kyle,” I offered some advice. “He isn't anybody's friend.”

“Nor am I,” saidTranVan Luu.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Eight

As soon as Luu was taken away, Kyle Craig was brought into the interview room in the isolation unit on death row. I was waiting for him. With bells on.

“I expected you'd stop by and visit, Alex,” he said as he was escorted inside by three armed guards. “You don't disappoint. Never, ever.”

“Always one step ahead, isn't that right, Kyle?”I asked.

He laughed, but without a trace of mirth as he looked around at the cell, the guards. “Apparently not. Not anymore.”

Kyle sat across from me. He was so incredibly gaunt and seemed to have lost even more weight since I'd seen him last. I sensed that his mind was going a mile a minute inside that bony skull.

“You were caught because you wanted to be caught,” I said. “That's obvious.”

“Oh Christ, spare me the psycho-babble. If you've come as Dr. Cross, the psychologist, you can rum around and leave right now. You'll bore me to tears.”

“I was talking as a homicide detective,” I said.

“That's a little better, I suppose. I can stomach you as a sanctimonious cop. You're not much of a shrink, but then again it's not much of a profession. Never did anything for me. I have my own philosophy: Kill them all, let God sort'm out. Analyze that.”