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A THREE-QUARTER MOON made the going easier through the woods. Starkey had known about the moon beforehand. He wasn’t just a control freak, he was obsessive about details because getting them wrong could get you killed, or caught. He knew they could expect mild temperatures, low wind, and no rain. Rain would mean mud, and mud would mean a lot of footprints, and footprints would be unacceptable on their mission.
They didn’t speak as they moved through the woods. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to be so cautious out here, but it was habit, the way they had been conditioned for combat. A simple rule had always been drummed into them: remember how you were trained, and don’t ever try to be a hero. Besides, the discipline helped them concentrate. Their focus was on the killings that would soon take place.
The three men were in their own private worlds as they walked: Harris fantasized about the actual kills with real-life faces and bodies; Starkey and Griffin stayed very real-time, and yet they hoped that Harris wasn’t pulling their chain with his description of the target. Starkey remembered one time Brownley had reported that the prey was a Vietnamese schoolgirl, whom he went on to describe in elaborate detail. But when they got to the kill zone, a small village in the An Lao Valley, they found an obese woman well into her seventies, with black warts all over her body.
The reveries were cut short by a male voice piercing the woods.
Starkey’s hand flew up in warning.
“Hey! Hey! What’s going on? Who’s out there?” the voice called. “Who’s there?”
The three of them stopped in their tracks. Harris and Griffin looked at Starkey, who kept his right arm raised. No one answered the unexpected voice.
“Cynthia? Is that you, sweetie? Not funny, if it is.”
Male. Young. Obviously agitated.
Then a bright yellow light flashed in their direction, and Starkey walked forward in its path. “Hey” was all he said.
“What the hell? You guys army?” the voice asked next. “What are you doing out here? You training? On the Appalachian Trail?”
Starkey finally flicked on his Maglite flashlight. It lit up a white male in his late twenties, khaki walking shorts down around his ankles, a thick roll of toilet paper in one hand.
Skinny kid. Longish black hair. A day’s growth on his face. Not a threat.
“We’re on maneuvers. Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Starkey said to the young man squatting before him. He chuckled lightly, then turned to Harris. “Who the hell is he?” he whispered.
“Couple Number Three. Shit. They must have fallen behind Target Two.”
“All right then. Change of plans,” Starkey said. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Yes, sir.”
Starkey felt a coldness in his chest and knew that the others probably did too. It happened in combat, especially when things went wrong. The senses became more heightened. He was acutely aware of everything going on, even at the periphery of his eyesight. His heartbeat was strong, even, steady. He loved these intense feelings — just before it happened.
“Can I get a little privacy here?” the shitter asked. “You guys mind?”
A brighter light suddenly flashed on — Brownley Harris was shooting another video movie.
“Hey, is that a fucking camera?”
“Sure is,” Starkey said. He was on top of the crouching, shitting man before he knew what was happening. He picked the victim up by his long hair, and slit his throat with the K-Bar.
“What’s the woman like?” Griffin turned to Harris, who was still shooting with the handheld camera.
“Don’t know, you horny bastard. The girlfriend was sleeping this morning. Never saw her.”
“Boyfriend wasn’t too bad-looking,” said Griffin. “So I’m hopeful about the chick. Guess we’ll soon find out.”
Chapter 46
SAMPSON AND I were riding on I-95 again, heading toward Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. There had been a brutal double murder near there. So far, it didn’t make sense to the FBI or the local police. But it made perfect sense to us. The three killers had been there.
We hadn’t had this much time to talk in a long while. For the first hour we were cops discussing the murder victims, two hikers on the Appalachian Trail, any possible connection to Ellis Cooper or the victims in Arizona and New Jersey. We had read the investigating detectives’ notes. The descriptions were bleak and horrific. A young couple in their twenties, a graphic artist and an architect, had their throats slit. Innocents. No rhyme or reason for the murders. Both of the bodies had been marked with red paint, which was why I got the call from the FBI.
“Let’s take a break f
rom the mayhem for a while,” Sampson finally said. We had reached about the halfway point of our ride south.
