Inside Out

6

Concord, North Carolina

Sunday

An hour before the sun rose Winter climbed from his bed, dropped to the floor, and did one hundred push-ups. Immediately afterward he locked his ankles under the bed's frame and did as many crunches. Over the course of a day he would try to do another two hundred of each to stay limber and maintain his muscle tone.

He put on shorts, a gray T-shirt, and his running shoes. On the way out, he unleashed Nemo from Rush's bed.

Winter and Nemo ran around to Union Street, picking out an even stride that would take them to the end of Union, to Highway 136, back the five miles to Corban Street, and home.

On his street Winter saw a figure leaning against the grill of a pickup truck. As he approached the man, Nemo started wagging his tail.

“Howdy, old pal,” the man said as he bent to stroke the dog's head.

“Hank,” Winter said. “What brings you all the way up here?”

“Lydia's coffee.”

Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Hank Trammel was Winter's boss. Trammel was exactly what most people would expect a U.S. marshal to look like. His preretirement paunch protruded over his belt, obscuring the big buckle-a Texas-size silver and turquoise oval. Test samples of paint in the weather-abuse simulators at the Dutch Boy laboratories didn't get the wear and tear Hank's skin had received as a child on a ranch exposed to wind-driven sand and scorching sun. His duty piece was a stag-handle 1911 Colt. 45 cradled in an Austin holster designed by Brill and made by the El Paso Saddle Company in 1950 for a new Texas ranger named Trent Trammel, Hank's father. Hank's father and grandfather had both died by the gun.

“I wanted to congratulate you on the Tucker capture. Media's going to be all over it. They'll be after interviews.”

“They'll waste their time, because I'm not talking about it.” Winter never spoke to the media unless he was ordered to, but normally there was someone else involved who was happy to instead.

“You could have congratulated me tomorrow,” Winter said.

“There's this. Faxed to me yesterday morning.” Hank reached into his pocket and handed Winter a folded-up sheet of paper.

Winter read it, then offered it back. “I'm not interested.”

“I didn't see where it asked if you are interested.”

“Aw, come on, Hank. Why me?”

The chief deputy shrugged. “It's got to be a big deal. You see the signature.”

“Hank, the twentieth is Rush's birthday. That's next Sunday. It'll be the first one I've been here for in three years. I don't plan to disappoint him again. It means a

lot. Why do they need me? I'm not WITSEC.”

“Maybe they figure you can give an account of yourself in a tight spot.”

Winter grimaced involuntarily.

“I like to believe that every once in a while the big guys know what they're doing,” Hank said. “They issued this, and I expect what they want is more important than what you want.”

“Doesn't make sense.”

“I couldn't agree more. There's a world of men a lot better qualified than you. Nice, even-tempered fellows who don't get edgy sitting in a cheesy motel room watching some criminal pace the carpet. I got a million other things I'd like to throw your lazy ass at, Massey, but I'm not being paid to run the Justice Department. John Katlin is.”

Winter took a shower while Hank sat in the kitchen and talked to Lydia. After he toweled off and slipped on his boxers, he picked up the orders and reread them. It was temporary assignment to Witness Security. He was to report to Spitfire Aviation at the Concord Regional Airport on Sunday at thirteen hundred hours to meet his transportation. The order was signed by John T. Katlin, attorney general of the United States, and countersigned by Richard Shapiro, chief U.S. marshal and director of the United States Marshals Service.

Winter was surprised. The Witness Security program, WITSEC, was a specialty. In his course of duties, he often transported prisoners, often kept them overnight in rooms or houses. If the USMS had been a medical discipline, Winter would have been a general practitioner who could operate in an emergency, whereas the WITSEC deputies were surgeons.

There were just two things left to do: pack his bag and say good-bye.