Inside Out

40

Due to their tight cylindrical cabins, Lear jets were often referred to as executive mailing tubes. Winter and Sean belted themselves into the bench seat in the rear. Archer and Finch were in the foremost seats, across the narrow aisle from each other. Sean's briefcase fit edgewise in the space between her and Winter on the sofalike, forward-facing bench. Winter had stowed their bags in the cargo section behind them.

Winter didn't want to think about Greg. He wanted his mind to stop replaying the images of the night before-Martinez, the flight across the island, the UNSUBs-but he had no choice. He listed in his head what he knew about the UNSUBs. They were as cold-blooded as men get. They'd been trained by the military, probably Special Forces. People didn't learn high-altitude, low-opening jumps from watching television. They had access to the latest weaponry. Two operations, like the simultaneous assaults at Cherry Point and Rook Island, didn't just happen. The killers didn't fly by the seats of their pants, improvising, and they didn't luck into anything. They had known Devlin was being kept on Rook Island. The killers had to have had an inside source for the intelligence their mission required. Winter thought Archer's assessment, that the assassins who landed on Rook were there as insurance in case Dylan's travel plans were changed at the last minute, was probably correct.

Winter stared out the window at the ground passing below, unseeing. His inner theater replayed the last few seconds he and Greg had been together like it was on a video loop.