I mentioned Starkey, Harris and Griffin, casually.

“I'm surprised Tom and Brownie aren't here already. They usually stop in on a Friday. How do you know those boys?” he asked, but didn't seem surprised that I did.

“We served together a long time ago,” said Sampson. “Back in sixty-nine and seventy.”

The supervisor nodded. “You Rangers too?” he asked.

“No, just regular Army,”said Sampson. “Just foot soldiers.”

We talked to some other H and K employees, and they spoke positively about the company. The guys we talked to knew Starkey, Harris and Griffin, and everybody knew they'd been Rangers. I got the impression that the three men were popular and might even be local heroes.

Around quarter past seven, Sampson leaned in close and whispered into my ear. “Front door. Look who just blew in,” he said. “Three business suits. Don't much look like killers.”

I turned slowly and looked. No, they didn't look like killers.

“But that's what they are,” I said to Sampson. Army assassins who look like the nicest guys in the bar, maybe in all of North Carolina."

We watched the three of them for the rest of the night -just watched the trio of hit men.

Alex Cross 8 - Four Blind Mice

Chapter Eighty

Sampson and I were staying out at a Holiday Inn near the Interstate. We were up the next morning by six.

We had a potentially heart-stopping, but rather tasty breakfast at a nearby Benny's (omelets and 'home fries covered and smothered'). Then we planned out our big day. We'd learned the night before that Heckler and Koch had a big family-style picnic going that afternoon. We were planning to crash it. Cause a little trouble if we could.

After breakfast we took a spin past the houses of the three murder suspects. A slick DC group we liked called Maze was playing from the CD. Nice contrast to the folksiness of Rocky Mount. City meets country.

The killers' houses were in upscale developments called Knob Hill, Falling River Walk, and Greystone. It looked as if a lot of young professionals with families lived there. The new South. Quiet, tasteful, civilized as hell.

“They know how to blend in,”Sampson said as we drove by Warren Griffin's two-and-a-half story Colonial. “Our three killer boys.”

“Good at what they do,” I said. “Never been caught. I really want to have a chat with them.”

Around eight, we went back to the Holiday Inn to get ready for the picnic and whatever else might happen today. It was hard to believe that the three killers fit so well into Rocky Mount. It made me wonder about pretty, innocent-looking small towns and what might be lurking behind their facades. Maybe nothing, maybe a whole lot of everything.

Sampson and I were originally from North Carolina, but we hadn't spent that much time here as adults, and unfortunately, most of it had been working on a couple of celebrated murder cases. The gun-company picnic was scheduled to start at eleven, and we figured we would show up at around one when the crowds were large. We knew from the night before that just about everybody from H and K, from the mailroom to stockroom to the corporate suite, would be on hand for the big day.