The next camp he came upon was close another couple, still asleep in a two-person dome tent. Harris couldn't help thinking how easy it would be to take them out right now. Ducks on a pond. Everybody was so vulnerable and trusting out here. What a bunch of loonies. Didn't they ever read the funny papers? There were killers on the loose in America, lots of them.

A little less than a mile beyond, he reached the camp of another family. Someone was already up.

He hid in the pine trees and watched. A fire had been started and was throwing up sparks. A woman of about forty was futzing around with a rucksack. She wore a red Speedo swimsuit and seemed in good physical shape -well-muscled arms and legs; a nice ass, too. She called out,“Wakee, wakee!”

Moments later, two shapely teenage girls emerged from the larger tent. They had on one-piece bathing suits, and they were slapping their lithe bodies with their arms and hands, trying to get warm in a hurry, trying to 'wakee, wakee'.

“Mama bear and two baby bears,” Brownley Harris muttered. “Interesting concept.” Maybe too close to the murders at Bragg, though.

He watched as the three women huddled for a moment around the fire, then took off at a run. Soon he could hear a chorus of war whoops and screams, then laughter and loud splashes as they hit the small brook that ran directly behind their camp.

Brownley Harris moved quickly and silently through the trees until he reached a choice point where he could watch the mother and her pretty daughters frolic in the cold stream. They sure reminded him of the women in the massacre in Fayetteville, outside Fort Bragg. Still, they could be the secondary target.

He returned to his camp at a little past six-thirty. Griffin had prepared breakfast: eggs, bacon, plenty of coffee. Starkey was sitting in a familiar lotus position, thinking and plotting. He opened his eyes before Harris announced himself. “How'd you do?” he asked.

Brownley Harris smiled. “We're right on schedule, Colonel. We're good. I'll describe the targets while we eat. Coffee smells good. Hell of a lot better than napalm in the morning.”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Forty-Four

Starkey took full command that morning. Unlike the other hikers on the AT, he kept his men deep in the woods, unseen by their fellow travelers or anyone else.

It wasn't hard to do. In their past lives they'd spent days, sometimes weeks, being invisible to enemies who were out to find and kill them, but who frequently ended up getting killed themselves. One time it had been a team of four homicide detectives in Tampa, Florida.

Starkey demanded that they treat this like a real-life combat mission, in real-life war. Total silence was imperative. They used hand signals most of the time. If someone had to cough, he did so in his neck rag, or in the crook of an arm. Their rucksacks had been packed tight by Sergeant Griffin so that nothing shook or rattled as they walked.