Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

It was past dark when a black Ford Bronco turned into the driveway of a large Colonial-style house that was flanked by elm trees and ringed by fort-style fencing.

General Mark Hutchinson stepped out of his vehicle. The interior lights illuminated his face for a few seconds. He didn't look one bit worried. Why should he? He had been to war several times, and he'd always survived.

I waited about ten minutes for him to put the house-lights on, then get settled in. I knew that Hutchinson was divorced and lived alone. Actually, I knew a lot about the general by now.

I walked up the front steps, much as I'd gone up the steps to the general's office earlier that afternoon. The same deliberate pace. Relentless, unstoppable, stubborn as hell. I was going to talk to Hutchinson today, one way or the other. I had business to finish. This was my 'last case', after all.

I banged the front door's iron knocker a couple of times, a tarnished winged goddess that I found to be more imposing than inviting.

Hutchinson finally came to the door in a blue-checked sport shirt and pressed khaki slacks. He looked like a corporate executive caught at home by a pesky door-to-door salesman, and none too happy about the interruption at this time of night.

“I'm going to have you arrested for trespassing,” he said when he saw me. As I'd told the soldier in his reception area, the general knew who I was.

"That being the case I pushed my way in the front door. Hutchinson was a broad-shouldered man, but in his sixties. He didn't try to stop me, didn't touch me at all.

“Haven't you caused enough trouble?” he asked. “I believe you have.”

“Not really. I'm just getting started.”

I walked into a spacious living room and sat down. The room had deep couches, brass floor lamps, curtains in warm blues and reds. His ex-wife's taste, I assumed.

“This won't take too long, General. Let me tell you what I know about An Lao.”

Hutchinson tried to cut me off. “I'll tell you what you don't know, mister. You don't know how the Army works, and you don't seem to know much about life in power circles either. You're out of your depth here. Leave. Now. Take your goddamn stories to the Washington Post.”

“Starkey, Griffin and Brownley Harris were military assassins assigned to you in Vietnam,”I began.

The general frowned and shook his head, but finally seemed resigned to hearing me out. He sat down. “I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I've never heard of any of those men.”

“You sent ten-person teams into the An Lao Valley specifically to intimidate the Vietnamese. It was a guerrilla war, and your teams were instructed to act like guerrillas. They committed murders, mutilations. They slaughtered non-combatants. They had a calling card they painted their victims red, white or blue. It got out of control, didn't it, General?”