Four Blind Mice

Chapter One Hundred and Five

More of the Bureau's resources that you want me to I see,"

I said, and smiled at Burns.

“You'll like this. It's real good stuff. I hope it's helpful. I want to see you get some closure on this Army case. We're interested in this one, too.”

I reached into one of the folders and pulled out what looked like a faded patch off of a jacket. I held it up to examine the cloth more closely. The patch was green khaki with what looked like a crossbow sewn into the fabric. There was also a straw doll on the patch. An eerie, awful straw doll. The same kind I'd first seen in Ellis Cooper's house.

“The patch came from the jacket of a sixteen-year-old gang member in New York City. The gang he belonged to is named Ghost Shadows. They use different coffee shops on Canal Street in New York as headquarters. It's called roving turf,” Burns said.

“A task force we ran with the NYPD brought the gang banger in. He decided to trade some information he thought might be valuable to them. It wasn't. But it could be valuable to you.”

“How so?”I asked.

“He says he's sent you several e-mails during the past month, Alex. He used computers at a technical high school in New York.”

“He's Foot Soldier?” I asked, and shook my head in amazement.

"No. But he may be a messenger for Foot Soldier. He's Vietnamese. The symbol of the crossbow is from a popular folktale. In the story, the crossbow could kill ten thousand men every time it was fired. The Ghost Shadows think of themselves as very powerful. They're big into symbols, myth, magic.

“As I said, this kid and his fellow gang bangers spend most of their time in the coffee shops. Playing ding lung, drinking Cafe Su Da. The gang moved to New York from Orange County in California. Over one hundred fifty thousand Viet refugees have settled in Orange County since the seventies. The gang in New York favored Vietnamese-style criminal activities. Smuggling illegal aliens called snake heads credit card fraud, software and computer parts heists. That help you?”

I nodded. “Of course it does.”

Burns handed me another folder. “This might help too. It's information about the former leader of the Viet gang.”

TranVan Luu."

Burns nodded. “I did a tour in sixty-nine and seventy. I was in the Marines. We had our own re-con people. They'd get dropped into hostile territory, just like Starkey and company. Vietnam was a guerrilla war, Alex. Some of our people acted like guerrillas. Their job was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. They were tough, brave, but more than a few of them got incredibly desensitized. Sometimes they practiced situational ethics.”

“Wreak havoc?” I said. “You're talking about terrorism, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Burns nodded. “That's what I just said.”