One of the intruders pulled shut the colorful curtains on the two kitchen windows. He used a free arm to sweep the dinner plates, chicken, salad and wine glasses onto the kitchen floor. Bennett understood this was for dramatic effect.

Another man held an automatic weapon pressed to Barbara Bennett's forehead.

The kitchen was totally silent.

Colonel Bennett looked at his wife and his heart nearly broke. Her blue eyes were stretched wide and she was trembling. “It's going to be all right,” Bennett said in the calmest voice he could manage.

“Oh, is it, Colonel?” Starkey spoke for the first time. He signaled the third intruder, and the man grabbed the front of Barbara's white peasant blouse and tore it off. Barbara gasped and tried to cover herself. The bastard then yanked off her bra. It was for effect, again, but then the man stared at Barbara's breasts.

“Leave her alone! Don't hurt her! ”Bennett yelled, and it sounded like a command, as if he were in a position to give them.

The one he knew to be Starkey hit him with the butt of his handgun. Bennett went down and thought that his jaw was broken. He almost blacked out, but managed to stay conscious. His cheek was pressed into the cold tile of the kitchen floor. He needed a plan even a desperate one would do.

Starkey stood directly over him. And now it got insane. He spoke in Vietnamese.

Colonel Bennett understood some of the words. He'd done enough interrogations during the war, when he'd run several Kit Carson scouts in Vietnam and Laos.

Then Starkey spoke in English. “Be afraid, Colonel. You'll suffer tonight. So will your wife. You have sins to pay for. You know what they are. Tonight your wife will know about your past, too.”

Colonel Bennett pretended to pass out. When one of the gunmen leaned over him, he pushed off the floor and grabbed at his handgun. Getting the gun was the only thought in Bennett's brain. He had it!

But then he was struck viciously on the head. Then on the shoulders and back. He was being screamed at in Vietnamese as the severe beating continued. He saw one of the bastards punch his wife right in the face. For no reason at all.

“Stop it. Don't hurt her for Christ sakes.”

“May se nkin co ay chet,” Starkey yelled in Vietnamese.

Now you get to watch her die.

“Trong luc tao hoi may.”

While I interrogate you, pig.

“May thay cank nay co quen khong, Robert?”

Does that sound familiar, Robert?

Starkey then forced his pistol inside Colonel Bennett's mouth. “Remember this, Colonel? Remember what happens next?”

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Sixty-Three

Sampson and I got to West Point at a little past five o'clock on Friday evening. All hell had broken loose there.

I'd received an urgent heads-up from Ron Burns at the FBI. There'd been a murder-suicide at the Point that had immediately aroused suspicions when the news got to Quantico. A highly decorated colonel had supposedly killed his wife, then himself.