Heirs of Cain by Tom Wallace

was George Armstrong, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Seneca.”
    Lucas nodded. “It’s comforting to know we continue to think alike.”
    “Look, the lady’s probably right, but …”
    “What’s troubling you, my boy?”
    “The use of explosives—that’s just enough of a worm in the salad to cast a cloud of doubt. Seneca prefers more intimate methods of killing.”
    “The use of a knife, if memory serves.”
    “Arlington is a question mark, but one thing is for certain: Seneca didn’t waste Cardinal.”
    “What makes you so sure?”
    “Careless work. Seneca never went one on one with a target and left him breathing. Never. No, Lucas, someone else took out Cardinal.”
    “Maybe he’s slipping.”
    Collins eyed Lucas hard and laughed.
    “Do those marvelous instincts of yours detect a connection between Seneca, Cardinal, and the bombing in Arlington?” Lucas asked.
    “You can wager those four stars and your pension on it,” Collins answered. “And since Seneca didn’t take out Cardinal, that means he’s not working solo.”
    “My, my, what is one to make of such nasty business?”
    “Fallen angels. Our mission into North Vietnam. Into Hanoi.”
    “And a dying man’s last words.”
    “Cardinal was obviously telling us someone has been targeted for a hit.”
    “Yes,” Lucas said. “And if Seneca is involved, that someone must be big.”
    Collins briefly stared at the decanter, then set it on the table. After several seconds of silence, he looked at Lucas.
    “I tried to warn you people about Seneca, but you wouldn’t listen. Tried to tell you he was a time bomb waiting to go off. I begged you to let me cut him loose, but you said no. The only time in all those years that you bucked me, and now this.”
    “Seneca had the tools, the skills. He was a useful, effective soldier. You know that.”
    “He was a psycho.”
    Lucas set his glass on the table and leaned forward. He smiled a weary smile. “Hell, man,
you’re
a psycho. You had to be a psycho to do the things you did. It was one of the job qualifications.”
    Collins knew that what Lucas said was both right and wrong, but at the moment he was in no mood to debate the distinction. He suddenly felt overwhelmed by fatigue.
    “Why have you come to me?” he asked, leaning back, waiting for an answer he already knew.
    “Because it’s time for Cain to be born again.”

Lucas White picked up the leather briefcase, opened it, pulled out a swollen folder, and handed it to Collins. “This is only a refresher course,” he said. “There’s nothing in it you don’t already know.”
    Collins placed the unopened folder on the table, walked to the liquor cabinet, took a piece of ice, and popped it into his mouth. “Your timing couldn’t have been worse,” he said. “I still have a week before the semester is over. I can’t just up and leave.”
    “A week shouldn’t be a major problem,” Lucas said, “although time is of the essence. There’s no chance you can finish early?”
    “No.”
    Lucas took a drink. “Seneca will be a problem, won’t he?”
    “Seneca will be a problem.”
    Collins stood next to the window and looked outside. The night was darker now than it had been when he was racing toward his house, toward blood time. Darker than the first night he met Seneca. All those years ago.
    All those deaths.
    Collins felt a hand on his shoulder. “The killing never ends, does it, my boy?” Lucas’s voice was soft, sad. “It just goes on and on.”
    “Tell me about Seneca. The last I heard, he was working for the Russians as an adviser in Afghanistan. But that was twenty, twenty-five years ago. What’s he been up to lately?”
    “It’s all in the file. At least as much as we know, which isn’t considerable.”
    “To hell with the file, Lucas. Tell me.”
    “Fact is, no one knows for sure. Afghanistan, Libya—we’ve heard rumors, but nothing we could nail down. There had been previous intel connecting him to bin Laden, back when