Inside Out

34

The assailant guarding the switchback fired too late to hit the running couple. The man readied his weapon and watched his partner slip inside the radio shack. Smoke from the flash-bang grenade poured over him through the rain and was sucked off by the wind. If his partner didn't come out pretty quick, he'd kill whoever did. The WITSEC deputy they had been pursuing was a lot better than they'd imagined. This cakewalk had cost them their team leader, a man they had all considered the best in their cell.

Within two minutes, his partner backed out of the building, dragging the woman out into the downpour by her ankle. He closed the distance between them just as his partner aimed his weapon down at the woman's head and fired a three-shot burst. The impact of the bullets splattered dark muck against the side of the building.

Curious, the killer joined his partner and kneeled beside her, gripped her drenched hair, and turned her face toward him to confirm the kill. “What about the deputy?” he asked his partner, who stood over him. The woman blinked.

“Live, or die,” an unfamiliar voice said. The killer didn't have to look up to know that he was on his knees below the deputy marshal who was wearing his partner's outfit.

The killer pivoted the MP5 in his hand intending to take out the woman, before he was shot himself, but…

Winter helped Sean to her feet. Using the rain and his palm, he wiped away the chunks of mud his bullets had splashed. Winter scanned the landscape through the night-vision goggles he had taken from the dead assailant inside the shack and saw nothing that was a danger to them. He didn't look down at the killer's ruined skull. He removed the goggles and tore off the rubber hood.

“I felt the heat from your gun when you shot. Did you have to shoot it so close to my head?” Unbelievably, Sean was angry.

“He wouldn't have fallen for it otherwise. Let's find a radio.”

“Where?”

“Should be one on the boat.” He reached into Sean's coat pocket, took out his SIG, and put it in her hand. He checked the magazine of the MP5 in his hand and, finding it too light, discarded it for a full one he robbed from the dead man at his feet.

He had expected to find the assassins' boat waiting at the dock for them, but there were only the two he had seen there earlier that day. Running down the switchback, he and Sean approached the dock through the freezing rain. Winter scanned the surrounding area all the way down to the sport-fishing boat. When he looked back up at the tree line he saw, off to the right, the shape of a Little Bird, a four-place military helicopter. He hoped there had been only the three assassins he had killed-one being the pilot.

Winter stepped over the transom after Sean.

“Watch the path,” he told her. He climbed into the cockpit of the boat. The windshield was smeared with water, obscuring his view of the dock, the switchback, and the radio tower. Sean stood in the rain with her hood up, aiming Winter's gun at the switchback,

Just as he discovered that the key was missing, Winter heard something hit the deck behind him and turned to see the styrene key fob on the floor at Sean's feet. She stood, staring up at the flying bridge above Winter, her face a frozen mask. A red dot danced in the center of her Navy-issue raincoat.

“Lady, throw that pistol over the side.” The Southern accent was thick.

Winter nodded at her to do so. She hesitated, then tossed the handgun out, the rain swallowing the splash. “Now, Deputy Massey, five seconds to toss out that chatterbox or I'll light the bitch up. You can't hit me without me doing her.”

He studied the crimson spot that moved from Sean's jacket to her face and back to her heart. He studied Sean's gaze to see exactly where her eyes were aimed. The only question was how close this fourth killer was standing to the edge. Winter switched the rate-of-fire selector to full automatic and raised the barrel.

“Five… four,” the killer mocked.

Winter concentrated on the red dot playing on Sean's face, now her neck, and down onto the coat.

Winter fired on three-the bullets ripping the fiberglass ceiling to shreds. As he fired, he was aware of Sean being knocked backward off the transom and into the water by a single shot from the man's weapon.

A black-clad body fell sprawling onto the deck. Where the man's legs were chewed up, arterial blood spewed. His pistol was stopped by the transom.

Winter ran to the stern and pulled Sean up into the boat. She began coughing immediately, fighting to breathe.

“It's okay,” he said. He checked her face and neck, and she opened her eyes. “Just knocked the breath out of you.” He tore open her coat and saw the. 45 round deformed against the ballistic vest under her coat.

“You let him shoot me.” Her voice was raspy.

“You're fine.”

“You let him shoot me!” She slapped him, hard.

He lifted the assailant's pistol, a SOCOM. 45-caliber H amp;K fitted with a noise suppressor. Leaving Sean, he moved to the supine killer, who stared up into the rain, blinking slowly. The bubbles of blood between his lips told Winter that one or more of the bullets had entered his chest after going under the vest-his shattered lungs were filled with blood.

“How did you know my name?” he asked the killer.

The man smiled, smearing dark blood over his teeth. His eyes were losing their focus. He grabbed Winter's ankle, coughing up blood. He said something but the sound was gobbled by the thundering rotors of the attack helicopter that seemed to be suspended over the dock like a wasp, blasting the boat with wind, drumming rain and blinding light. The Cobra's. 30-caliber minigun seemed to be aimed at his chest, about to blast him into confetti. He was dressed exactly like the dead man on the deck.

“You, on the deck-hands on your heads, do not move!” Winter waited for a second, then stood, locking his hands over his head.

The switchback swarmed with running men dressed in black.

“Sean!” Winter called out. “No matter what anyone asks, don't discuss anything that happened before Martinez went down. Understand?”

The men in black slammed Winter and Sean facedown onto the deck.