Collateral Damage by H. Terrell Griffin Page B

away.”
    â€œRage?”
    â€œSometimes when I’m in very stressful situations like today, I’m overcome with a rage that comes out of left field. I don’t see it coming. It’s just there. It turns me into somebody I’m not, or at least don’t want to be. Then it goes away. It’s like the better part of my brain takes over and pushes the rage back into the gutter where it belongs.”
    â€œDoes this happen often?”
    â€œNo. But sometimes I feel like the rage is there, hiding just beneath my skin, ready to break out if I let my guard down. I have to fight it off. I used to drink it away, but that only caused more trouble. Now I exercise like crazy. Get the endorphins flowing and the rage goes away.”
    â€œDo you think the war caused it?”
    â€œNo. It was there before.”
    I was uneasy talking about this and wanted to change the subject. “What else can I tell you about today’s attack?” I asked.
    â€œCan you give me a description of the man and woman?”
    I stared at her for a moment. “They were Asian.”

CHAPTER TWENTY
    My doorbell rang. I looked out the window to see Chief Bill Lester’s unmarked parked in front of my house. “Door’s open,” I called.
    Bill came in, a worried look on his face. “You okay, Matt?”
    â€œYeah. A little shook up, but none the worse for wear.”
    â€œMorning, Chief,” said J.D. “Want some coffee?”
    â€œI could use a cup. Tell me what happened.”
    I related the facts to him. Including the ethnicity of my attackers.
    He frowned. “Does the fact that they were Asians mean anything to you?”
    J.D. broke in and told him what we had learned about Jim Desmond’s time in Laos, and that we thought there might be an Asian hit team that went after Jim.
    Bill said, “You don’t think they’d still be hanging around almost two months after the murder.”
    â€œNo,” I said, “but it seems a pretty big coincidence that for reasons I don’t understand a couple of Asians tried to take me out.”
    Bill was quiet for a moment, sipping his coffee. “I wonder why they didn’t just shoot you. Why the knife?”
    â€œI’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “There was nobody on the beach or in the parking lot, but you know those North Shore condos are right next to the boardwalk. It was very quiet out there and a gunshot would have drawn attention.”
    â€œNot if they’d used a silencer.”
    â€œTrue. I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe they didn’t have a silencer.
    Or maybe the guy just likes knives.”
    â€œWhat happened to the knife?” J.D. asked.
    â€œI forgot about it in the rush to get home. It’s on the front seat of my car.”
    â€œI’ll go get it,” J.D. said and got up and walked out the front door.
    â€œYou know,” the chief said, “those folks on
Dulcimer
were killed with a knife or knives. Big ones.”
    â€œWas the M.E. able to come up with the kind of knife that was used?”
    â€œOnly in general terms. It may have been the same knife or it could have been two different ones. Whichever, they were big knives with straight edges. They could have been KA-BARS, like the ones issued to Marines.”
    â€œThat’s what this guy came at me with.”
    J.D. came in with the knife wrapped in a cloth. “Maybe there’ll be prints on this.”
    â€œI doubt it,” I said. “After I took it away from him I would have obliterated his prints with mine.”
    â€œYou said he was hurt,” Lester said.
    â€œI’m pretty sure I broke his elbow. Probably ripped up all the ten-dons. He’s going to need medical attention. Soon. The pain has got to be terrible.”
    The chief’s cell phone rang. He answered, grunted into it a couple of times, and hung up. “The car they were in was reported stolen