Inside Out (39 page)

92

Inside the USMS ordnance room, United States Chief Deputy Marshal Chet Long handed Hank and Winter a pair of vests to put on under their coats. He pointed to a box on the table. “There's two pairs of binoculars, a tactical radio with earphones. Your FBI pals have been using the encrypted tactical channel it's set on. We'll communicate with cell phones. What else?”

“Manpower?” Winter asked as he inventoried the box.

“Best I could do out of my office on this short notice is the pair I have watching the Windsor Court, and five others I've called back in. I have three more coming in off leave. Shapiro has a high-test, four-man team en route—be here in three hours. If we're lucky, this won't get under way until after they get in, and you'll have the specialists.”

“That would be nice,” Winter said absently. He wasn't going to put his faith in what might make it, but in what he had.

“There are a few locals, men with integrity I can trust in a pinch—damn few around not on Manelli's payroll one way or another. My brother-in-law's a highway patrol captain. He's agreed to put some of his men at our disposal, and he has started moving some additional units into the area. To make sure this doesn't leak out, the patrolmen won't know what exactly we're up to until the operation is well under way.”

“I think this will go down soon,” Winter said. “Archer doesn't strike me as a patient man.”

“We're looking at only another hour of daylight,” Chet said. “Guys, I'm not set up for major assaults at the moment. No heavy weapons—my MP-fives and most of my chest armor is in Lafayette with a Fugitive Recovery detail. I have a half a dozen ARs, and a few Mossy twelves.” He lifted two long guns from his cabinet and handed them to Hank. “Take an AR and a Mossberg. Two twenty-round mags for the carbine and thirty double-ought shells for the scattergun should be plenty. Oh, I put rounds for your Walther in there.”

“Appreciate it,” Winter said.

“I put the Manelli file material in the box. Afraid there's not much in there except for the layout of his house and office and a list of property he owns.”

Chet's cell phone rang and he answered it, listened, and hung up. “Damn if you weren't right. My deputies say they're moving out of the Windsor Court.”

“Let's go, Hank,” Winter said.

“Nice to have time for planning,” Hank quipped.

“The covered wagon has left the barn for the lower forty?” Hank Trammel said, snickering. “Sounds like that old boy got his code inspiration from watching John Wayne movies.”

“Whatever works.”

Winter watched the FBI vehicles parked across the Jax lot from them through binoculars. According to one of Chet's deputies there were two agents in a white Taurus sitting outside a parking garage one block off Canal Street—the city's main traffic artery and one of the four streets that enclosed the French Quarter.

Winter was no stranger to the city, but as he was sitting in the Jeep, rain peppering the roof, he wasn't waxing nostalgic, or thinking about the city in any terms other than it being where Sean Devlin was located. The restaurants and shops, and every other place he knew and loved, were like so many cardboard boxes, facing streets he might need to navigate to keep her alive.

“I wish we knew what the grand plan is,” Hank said. “Think Manelli's meeting her in the parking lot that team is watching? It seems too public a place for such a private man.”

Winter punched in the speed dial number for Chet, who was monitoring the deputy watching the agents who were watching the parking garage. “Is there just one way into the garage?” Winter asked.

“Yes,”
Chet answered.

“Sounds like Archer's people are watching Manelli's house or office. So ‘lower forty' should be the parking garage.”

Chet said,
“I can tell from how long it takes Manelli to get to the garage whether he's coming from his house. His office is six minutes away tops. House is at least fifteen minutes from there.”

Winter rang off. He knew that the SWAT team and the techs were in the step van and Archer, Finch, and Sean in the Crown Vic. “We'll stick with Sean,” he told Hank.

“Nothing is going to happen without her,” Hank agreed.

“Car door's opening.” Winter watched Finch climb out and enter the motor home. Seconds later he returned to the car and got behind the wheel. Winter put his binoculars on the female deputy marshal sitting in a minivan across the lot from the FBI vehicles. If the vehicles split up, she was supposed to stick with the van and Winter with whatever vehicle had Sean in it.

Winter figured that the last thing the FBI was worried about was anyone trailing them. He'd decided that he wanted to remain in the best position he could manage to extricate her from any potentially disastrous situation.

Winter had read through Chet's files on Sam Manelli to get to know Manelli better. They were of very little help, since they held only information the marshals would need to serve a federal warrant on the gangster. Manelli's bodyguards were private investigators licensed by the state to carry concealed firearms. Sam owned the security firm and had a sweet deal that allowed the firm to own twenty-five John Doe licenses and give them out without having to clear the guards through local law enforcement for a year. That arrangement alone showed how much political power Manelli had.

“There's Sean,” Winter said, watching as she climbed from the Ford and slipped into the convertible parked beside Archer's Crown Victoria. She pulled off, leaving the step van and Archer sitting there. “She's heading for the garage.”

“Covered wagon is entering the lower forty,”
a new voice on the radio announced. Winter assumed it was one of the agents watching the parking garage.

“Let me know when it pulls out with the cowgirl,”
Archer's voice answered.

“Keep her in sight, Hank.”

Hank followed the convertible, allowing other vehicles to get between them.

“He's meeting her in the lot, Winter,” Hank said. “I can beat her there and wait. We could even slip into the lot if you want to.”

“No.” Winter was trying to keep his head clear, to keep his emotional attachment to Sean out of the equation. He wanted to do what Hank suggested and maybe get into the lot so he could watch her with his own eyes, but that might further endanger her. He wanted more men. He wanted better ways to keep up with her. He wanted to know exactly what Archer's intentions were, what Manelli was thinking. He was terrified that Manelli had someone waiting in the lot to ambush and kill her. He wanted to head her off, take her out of the convertible, and run away with her and keep her safe, which he could not do.

The telephone buzzed and Winter put it to his ear.
“Guys, there's a black Caddy that pulled inside the lot, must be the covered wagon,”
Chet said.
“The driver is alone. He's too tall to be your guy.”

“His driver is picking her up,” Winter said. “Chet, let me know if your guy can see her in the car when the Caddy leaves the garage. She's wearing a red and white ball cap and black leather jacket.”

Hank kept going straight toward Canal Street after she turned and entered the lot.

Chet added,
“The van and Archer's sedan are rolling.”

“What do you want to do?” Hank asked, slowing.

“Pull over and wait for her to come out. What the hell else can we do?”

“There's no place to pull over,” Hank told him. “Should I make the block?”

“I'm thinking!” Winter snapped. He spotted the feds seated in a white Taurus that was parked at the curb. Winter, having flown from New York with the agents, recognized them. The driver was yawning.

93

Winter had decided to run ahead of the Cadillac carrying Sean. While he had kept it in view, Hank drove to Manelli's country home on Lake Pontchartrain, north of the Mississippi River. Hank pulled off the road and parked on a driveway that wound through a wooded lot across the road from Manelli's place.

Gazing between the trees through the binoculars, Winter had a view of the gatehouse and the driveway up to where it passed behind the hills. The deputy following the van had told them that the FBI caravan, now including the second Bucar, the Taurus, was parked just off the Interstate behind a Texaco station a mile away. Winter didn't think they were close enough to protect Sean.

Manelli's Cadillac came flying up the road, turned right at the intersection, and pulled up to the gate, which opened to allow the car to enter, then closed behind it. Winter, studying the lone gatekeeper, saw him reach up by the gate shack door and flip a lever before the Cadillac pulled away. The operator didn't move but watched the car. The vehicle slowed to a crawl to cross a low bridge, then the Cadillac sped off. Winter swung the binoculars back to watch the gatehouse and saw the keeper flip the lever back in the original position, then go back inside.

Winter had nothing but respect for Sean's bravery, her calmness under fire and her intelligence. He didn't want to interfere unless he was sure she was going to be harmed.

What was eating at him now was the fact that Sam Manelli had a well-earned reputation for staying one step ahead of everybody, so reckless or suicidal behavior—like bringing Sean Devlin to his home and killing her there—simply didn't make sense. Once Sean was inside his compound, Sam would be cornered, and if he killed her, he'd be stuck with the corpse of a person the agents knew was alive when she'd arrived.

Both Hank and Winter had binoculars up to their eyes.

“She's in the car, all right,” Hank said. “I can see her cap.”

“The guard at the gate flipped that lever again after the car passed the bridge,” Winter said.

“Some sort of signal, maybe? An alarm?”

“I don't know. Something about the bridge.”

The FBI radios fell silent after Archer learned that the Cadillac was back on Manelli's property. So far, according to the reports from “ears” to Archer, Sean had remained silent and only music had come over the air. After five minutes, Archer's calm voice came over the radio and asked for an update on the “cowgirl” and asked if the “range boss” was with her yet.

The voice filled the police radio.
“She's in there, sir. I heard the car doors and the barn door closing. No voices at all. Just kitchen sounds and singing.”

“She's singing?”

“No, a man.”

“We wait for the words from the range boss,” Archer said calmly. “And then everybody will sit tight until I give the order to go in.”

“Something's wrong. I'm going in.” Winter could no longer force himself to believe everything was all right. He took a pair of earplugs Hank had brought him and inserted them into his ear canals. The plugs were fitted with a valve designed to close at any sudden loud noise while allowing normal sounds to enter.

“Sam's guys'll shoot you for trespassing.”

Winter's mind was suddenly filled with questions he needed answered.
Where are all those bodyguards? Why hasn't Sean said anything? How do I know they knew that Sam was in there before this started?

“Cover me, Hank.” Winter sprang from the Jeep, ran across the road, scaled the fence, and sprinted across the lawn toward the house. Trammel opened the window and aimed the AR-15 at the gatehouse as Winter ran. Hank watched Winter through the gray curtain of rain.

The guard, visible through a window, had his back to Winter and didn't see him, but a well-hidden FBI watcher did. The voice that had first announced the covered wagon leaving the barn came over the radio once again.
“Sir, Massey is over the fence, running toward the barn.”

Archer's curses filled the airwaves.

Hank pulled down the Velcro flaps exposing the large gold letters—
U.S. MARSHAL
—so the FBI didn't take him for an armed guard. Taking up the carbine, he climbed from the Jeep.

Hank was dropping down on the other side of the wrought-iron wall, when the caravan came roaring up the road from the interstate. Archer's Crown Victoria led, the Taurus third after the van. Archer's tires screamed as Finch made a sliding turn onto the road, then slammed to a stop at the gate. Archer held his badge out the window so the gatekeeper could see it.

As the gate opened, the step van arrived. A SWAT team member sprang out and wrestled the gatekeeper down, cuffing him. Archer blasted off down the driveway with the van trailing right behind him. The white sedan with FBI agents stopped to block the gate.

Hank crossed the wet grass heading for the driveway where it entered the hillocks surrounding the house. He was almost there when he heard an earsplitting explosion. He turned around to see Archer's Crown Victoria stopped and enveloped in a cloud of steam. Archer's head had made a six-quart-bowl-size impression in the passenger's side of the windshield.

The step van's driver swerved to avoid Archer's car, and went headlong into the gully. Its rear end rose dramatically as the grill slammed into the bank.

Hank stopped dead in his tracks, staring in disbelief.

The SWAT team members and FBI techs, who poured out the side door of the van and into the ditch, moved like they were injured, in shock, or both. As the steam faded, Hank saw that the front end of the Crown Victoria was mushroomed against the end of the bridge, which had risen into the air. There was little help he could offer them, but he lifted the phone and dialed Chet.

“You best order up a mess of ambulances to Manelli's house, Chet,” he said. “Damn near Archer's whole bunch is in need of medical attention.”

Sure his efforts were best put elsewhere, Hank turned and ran up the driveway, following Winter.