Inside Out (17 page)

37

Winter stood for ten minutes in the shower and let the hot water pound him. Then he cut the heat and stood in a chilled stream. Reed and his partner had already opened Winter's drawers and searched everything before he and Sean had reentered the house. The only thing he had come to the assignment with that he cared about taking out again was his life.

He dressed and went to the kitchen, where Reed was seated at the table reading what appeared to be the preliminary report of the SEAL commander. The younger shore patrolman was standing at the counter reading through his notebook.

“Feel better?” Reed asked, without looking up.

“Much,” Winter said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“The men didn't come in on that helicopter. Appears it was for their escape.”

“Sorry?”

“We found three chutes near the radio shack, so three of them parachuted in. According to a trace I ran, that chopper was turned into a spare-parts donor due to questionable airworthiness.”

“Obviously the record is wrong.”

“A King Air passed by at twenty-five thousand feet,” Reed told him. “The trio jumped from it and sailed four miles using membranes, wings stretched between their ankles and wrists.”

“HALO jumpers.”

“The helicopter probably came in below radar after the radio shack was knocked out. The drop plane is in the Caribbean at the moment, on auto pilot. F14s are flying alongside waiting for it to run dry.

“Massey, we both know those assailants were here because of whatever you people were doing here. You and Martinez, Ms. Devlin, or maybe one of the people who left earlier was their main target.”

Winter sipped the coffee and grimaced remembering it was stale. “In your place, I would contact Attorney General Katlin to get the information I can't give you without his authorization. You have the guys' fingerprints. The NCIS can find out who they were in a few hours. I can't tell you anything that would be of any help.”

“Won't
tell me.”

“Won't because I can't. I can't tell the NCIS, either, without the AG's permission.”

“This was a WITSEC operation.”

“If you say so.”

“There's six dead kids whose families are going to ask who killed them, why, and what we're doing about it.”

“I understand.”

“Why did Jet Washington leave this morning?”

“Her cat died,” Sean said from the doorway.

Sean's eyes met Winter's, and he tried to communicate that she had said the wrong thing. It was a small thing, a throwaway piece of information, but it was from before Martinez was shot and opened a line of questioning.

“Her cat died? From what?”

Sean sat down, crossed her legs at the ankles, and shrugged. “I'm not a veterinarian.”

Winter watched Sean tell that fib. She had a face so beautiful and innocent that it would be impossible to imagine her being untruthful. She lied so effectively that Reed didn't even pursue it.

As a civilian, Sean could say whatever she liked, but Winter needed her to keep quiet, to speak only to the right people when the time came.

“This is my job,” Reed reminded them silkily.

“Never said otherwise,” Winter replied. They both knew that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service would look into the incident, as they did all military homicides. Reed, despite his understandable desire to collect the information, was just a traffic cop, a military flatfoot who busted drunk sailors, escorted prisoners from one brig to another, and filed reports on petty crime.

A strange buzz filled the air in the kitchen. Reed pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket.

“Reed.”

He listened with a bored expression that was quickly displaced by one of intense interest and concentration.

“Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. At once, sir.”

Reed dropped the phone back into his pocket. He went to the counter, opened a briefcase, and removed Winter's gun and magazine—both in clear plastic bags. He placed them on the table before Winter. His face had turned red, his lips pressed tightly together.

“You can hand your weapon over to the FBI for comparison purposes, Deputy.” Reed turned to his partner. “We are to turn over all evidence gathered so far to the FBI.”

“What's going on?” Winter asked.

“Classified,” Reed snapped triumphantly. He left the kitchen through the screen door, letting it slam shut behind him.

Winter followed him.

Quartz halogen lights on telescoping stands made it daytime on the front porch. Reed stood in the gazebo area at the railing like a ship's captain watching the lifeboats being lowered. He slipped a set of fingerprint cards into his shirt pocket as Winter approached.

Martinez's body and that of the first man Winter had shot were covered by sheets and enclosed in a rectangle of crime scene tape.

“I've seen the admiral who called me on only one previous occasion. He was at Norfolk to attend the dedication of a new building named for him. He called me to tell me to stop what I was doing—the FBI is handling this investigation.”

“The Bureau taking over the investigation isn't unusual,” Winter replied evenly.

“The FBI comes in after NCIS has investigated and requested their help. The point is that it didn't take an admiral to give me the command. It's like sending the president of a power company to read an electrical meter. I don't have a problem handing this over to the FBI, but this one is queer. Maybe because of you,” he said, looking him straight in the eye.

“This had nothing whatsoever to do with me.”

“Before I joined the Navy, I was a rookie on a small police force in Georgia. One night I pulled over a car. The kid driving was so drunk he couldn't tell me his name. He blew two point eight. There was a loaded .357 magnum under the seat. A pillowcase packed with marijuana and a bag with over a pound of cocaine and a hundred and thirty grand and change were in his trunk. I arrested the kid as a John Doe, wrote up a report, impounded the car, put the drugs, gun, and money in the evidence vault.”

Fletcher Reed took a small cigar from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. “The chief was tickled pink. I was a hero. Two months on the job and I had this kid by the balls. I mean it was the biggest drug bust that town had ever seen. I sent the prints off. Next morning I come in and the other cops wouldn't look me in the eye. I ask the chief what's going on, and he calls me into his office and closes the door, says there was no kid, no speeding car, drugs, money, or gun.

“I had made two sets of fingerprint cards because the first one wasn't perfect. I ran that second set of prints. Turns out the kid was the governor's stepson. Rich man with businesses that were vital to the economy. Half the county worked for him in some capacity. I left the department and joined the Navy so I could be a cop, thinking it would be cleaner. Less political.”

“Which do you think is the case here?”

“Nothing new about bunk buddies swapping hand jobs under the blanket. Only a problem when it's justice that gets kicked out of the bed.”

“Reed, the oath I took was to uphold the laws of the United States, and I've done that to the best of my ability. Part of my job is to make sure that if men like those four UNSUBs who ended up here ever come along, I make sure they fail. That's all I did—no more, no less.”

“It seems like armed assassins don't live long when you're around,” Reed commented laconically. “Four here.” He lit the cigar with a kitchen match. “Three in Florida. I found out about your fracas in Tampa seven years back. Wasn't for that report, I'd have thought you were CIA or NSA guarding a defector, not a deputy marshal guarding a killer.”

Winter was surprised that Reed knew they had been watching a killer but suspected he was still fishing.

“Sean Devlin drew a blank with NCIS, but there was a hit from New Orleans Homicide on a Dylan Devlin who was caught with two dead bodies three weeks back. And I know about a certain Mafia dinosaur who got himself arrested two days later, which I assumed was connected. I figure Dylan Devlin left Cherry Point earlier this evening and those men you killed came here looking for him. What bothers me is why you stayed here with his wife, or sister, when you should have been where the action would most likely be.”

Winter was very impressed by this man he thought was just another flatfoot.

Reed surprised Winter by extending his hand, which Winter tentatively shook. “I'm glad you killed those assholes, Massey. It was justice handed out the only way men like that understand it. Do me one favor?”

“Keep away from wherever you are?”

Now Reed did smile. “You are definitely one of those individuals best admired from a distance. After the smoke clears on this mess, look me up and I'll buy the drinks while you tell me what the real deal was.”

A roar signaled twin Blackhawks that thundered in and alighted on the beach. As soon as the side doors slid open, figures carrying equipment cases swarmed out and swept toward the house like an invading army.

“FBI,” Reed muttered.

The man leading the caravan stomped up the steps to them. “Fred Archer, supervising FBI special agent. I'm the case officer,” he said. “You must be Lieutenant Commander Reed.”

Reed nodded.

“You're Massey?” Archer asked.

“I am,” Winter replied.

“We'll take over now, Lieutenant Commander,” Archer said. “Deputy Massey, accompany me inside.”

38

Winter sat beside Sean on the living room couch while Archer talked with Reed. They watched as FBI technicians wearing white coveralls and blue surgical gloves went over the inside of the Rook Island house as if it were a crime scene, using vacuums and dusting every imaginable surface for prints. Unlike at most crime scenes, they were wiping the surfaces clean afterward.

“Angela never knew what hit her, did she?” Sean asked him.

“No,” Winter lied. “I don't believe she did.” He remembered how she was trying to get her gun out of the holster but couldn't. A few seconds had passed from the time she was hit until the second shots ended her life. He didn't want to imagine what thoughts had gone through her mind in those final seconds.

“I was thinking about her family—how close she was to them. It'll be hard on them.”

“Yes, it will.”

His conversation at an end, Fred Archer sat in a wing chair across from the pair. He looked like a forty-something high school football coach straight from 1962 who went through life with a Bible in one hand and a playbook in the other—and often confused them. His hair was perfectly combed and his alert gray eyes would have seemed at home set below an eagle's brow. He wore an FBI windbreaker over his suit coat and tie. Sand filled the ornamental holes in his shiny black wing tips.

Special Agent Finch, Archer's partner, was a small-framed, pinch-faced man with narrow shoulders and an oddly distended stomach. He had a weak chin, wispy blond hair, and a small pug nose. Archer opened the conversation by clasping his meaty hands in front of him. “Okay, Deputy Massey, tell me everything that happened.”

Sean protested, “He already told Officer Reed.”

Archer kept his eyes on Winter. “Mrs. Devlin, let me do my job,” he said condescendingly.

“I'd like to speak to Director Shapiro,” Winter said before Sean could blow up again. “Mrs. Devlin is right. I went through it with Reed, and his partner wrote it down in copious detail, which I assume he shared with you.”

“Well, answer this one thing, then. Wasn't there some way you could have captured just one of them?”

“Absolutely not.”

“The one you fired on point-blank, from slightly above?”

“He—” Sean started.

“Mrs. Devlin. You can stay here, but only if you can refrain from butting in,” Archer interrupted coldly.

“I was there, too,” she said angrily. “Winter told him to surrender and he didn't. He tried to shoot me and Winter fired only to stop him.”

“Deputy Massey was in charge, was he not? You were just being dragged around, weren't you?”

Sean raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.

“Ms. Devlin wasn't being dragged anywhere,” Winter told Archer. “She was extremely helpful and, despite terrifying circumstances, she kept a very cool head.”

“Is that so? And that man?”

“I assumed that the UNSUB's decision to bring the muzzle of his machine gun around despite my warning meant he wasn't contemplating surrender. Regretfully, he presented the only opportunity I had to dialogue meaningfully with the UNSUBs. Perhaps if you had been here, you could have ordered them all to surrender.”

Archer stared into Winter's eyes. “Deputy, I represent the attorney general of the United States. I take exception to your disrespectful manner, which under the circumstances, I find particularly offensive.”

“I'd like to speak to Director Shapiro,” Winter said again, dismissing him.

“The chief marshal's got his hands full at the moment. You told Reed that everything that happened before the lady deputy was killed is classified. Let me clarify something, Deputy. This WITSEC detail was never a secret to the attorney general, and he has ordered me here to find out what happened, which I intend to do. You will cooperate fully with me, or there will be serious consequences.”

Winter nodded reluctantly. He knew that Archer was right.

“What I hope you can help me figure out is how the four deceased UNSUBs knew where Devlin was. Who do you think furnished them with that information?”

“How could I know that?”

“You have never been assigned to witness security before—is that right?”

“Inspector Greg Nations asked for me.”

“I know Nations requested you. Tell me how you came to strike the witness.”

“Winter . . .” Sean began. Archer's lifted brow made her pause. Then, resolutely, she continued, “Deputy Massey was protecting me from my husband. You can ask Inspector Nations about it.”

Winter saw something change in Archer's eyes—a softening perhaps. “I'd like to.”

Winter wondered why he hadn't said, “I fully intend to, or I will.”

“Devlin drugged Dixon and Martinez. Then he killed the cook's cat and left it in his wife's drawer,” Winter said. “We assumed initially that he did it to gain access to guns, but he was simply trying to torture his wife.”

“Wasn't the altercation between you and Mr. Devlin why you remained here with Mrs. Devlin?”

“Yes. After Devlin killed the cat, Mrs. Devlin was upset. He had been warned not to approach her, but he confronted her and she struck him.”

“She struck him first?”

“I sure did!” Sean cried. “He
wanted
me to. He knew I was about to explode over Midnight.”

“Midnight?”

“The cat was black,” Winter explained.

“Did you ever strike him before?” Archer asked Sean.

“Do I seem like someone who would physically confront another person?” She scowled. “Don't answer that.”

“May, I?” Winter interposed. He explained how the altercation had started, what he did, and why he did it. Archer didn't interrupt, but his expression was one of dissatisfaction.

“Mrs. Devlin, is there anything you'd care to add?”

“First of all,” she told Archer, “I am not easily provoked and I have never struck my husband, or anyone else, before. I didn't know my husband was a violent person. If I had I would never have married him. Deputy Massey saved me from being hurt, and last night he saved my life.”

“You didn't know your husband was violent?” Archer asked, incredulous.

“I believed he was a marketing consultant,” she replied. “He told me that his boss in Washington had dealings with Russian mobsters and that he was cooperating with the government in the prosecution of the Russian Mafia—certain politicians and lawyers. I learned differently only when Mr. Whitehead confirmed that my husband had been killing people.”

Archer sat in silence, contemplating what she'd said.

“If that's all?” Winter asked. “Ms. Devlin needs some rest.”

“The bedrooms are all being processed,” Archer said curtly.
“Mrs.
Devlin can use this couch.” Archer stood. “We'll need your prints for comparison purposes, Mrs. Devlin.”

Sean said, “Aren't you wasting time dusting for prints? The killers wore gloves and you have their bodies. So what's the point?”

“That's our business,” Archer shot back.

Winter was accustomed to long periods awake punctuated by catnaps, but Sean was obviously getting punchy. After giving her prints and washing her hands, she rejoined Winter in the living room.

“I thought Dylan was being protected from the bad guys,” she said under her breath. “Not because he had been killing people
for
the bad guys. I can't blame Archer for not believing that. It must be hard to imagine anyone being so ignorant about somebody they were married to.”

“If all you heard was his lies, they probably made sense—especially if you wanted to believe them.”

“If it had been you bringing the coat out, instead of Angela, all three of us would be dead now and nobody would know who did it.”

“Maybe not, but they'd have known his boss ordered it.”

“I know it made you furious that he killed a dozen people and because he testifies, he gets off without a scratch. Now more innocent people are dead because of Dylan.”

“Hopefully when he testifies it'll end up saving more lives because it will stop the man who paid him to do it. All I can hope is that there's a net gain on some tally sheet somewhere. If I spent my time worrying about what the courts do or don't do, or how disgusting and unfair the deals the prosecutors cut are, I'd be in a mental hospital on a Thorazine drip. Like the serenity prayer says: Don't waste your life worrying about crap you can't fix.”

She began to cry softly and, uncertain how he should respond, Winter put a tentative hand on her shoulder. It had been three years since any woman had been this close to him. He felt for her, an innocent who through no fault of her own had been in the company of ravenous wolves, having to fight for her life.

She regained control, wiping her eyes with her hands.

“Thanks,” she said. Her voice was stronger. “For everything, Winter. I mean, even if you did let that man shoot me.”

“If it would make you feel better, you can let somebody shoot me sometime,” he teased.

She scooted away from Winter, but to his surprise, she lay down, placing her head on his leg like it was a pillow.

Eleanor used to sleep with her head on his leg just as Sean was doing. Sometimes Rush still did. He was glad that she felt secure enough with him to fall asleep. But once the initial impact of the life-and-death struggle they had experienced together wore away, she would probably associate him with an unpleasant experience and do her dead-level best to forget him.

Winter looked down and studied her delicate features. He found himself drinking in the scent of her, daring to imagine what being in bed with her would be like. He realized that this woman sleeping against his leg was a mystery to him. With a sense of unease, he remembered how easily she'd lied to Reed about the cat.

He closed his eyes. Her lie didn't matter. Tomorrow she would be gone and he would go to Washington for debriefing and then home. Later he and Greg would meet somewhere, open some bottles, and dissect the entire operation. Maybe by then—with Greg—he would be able to laugh at the funny parts and not cry at the sad.