John Miller - Inside Out

“Your point being?” Winter asked.

“Under those conditions, most people would have been lucky to have hit the guy with a shotgun, that's all. You went for the head, not the torso.”

“He was wearing armor.” Winter could not explain how he was able to put his bullets exactly where he wanted them to go. It was an ability that he had discovered while training at Glynco. He didn't know how he did it, he was just glad he could.

“The men have no identification on them. Their weapons aren't available outside our Special Forces.”

“Maybe they got them from wherever they got that Navy chopper they flew here in. They look like soldiers to me.”

“This stinks,” Reed said. “You outwit and kill four men with superior weapons, obviously professionals, without breaking a sweat-”

“Hey!” Sean yelled, startling the men, who turned to her. Color rose in her cheeks. “I have nothing to add to what Deputy Massey has already said, and I am getting sick of watching you men bump chests.” She pointed a finger at Reed. “Unless you have some new torture to subject me to, I am going to walk back to the house, take a hot shower, and change into some dry clothes.”

And with that she whirled and strode off toward the trees.

“She's not accustomed to this,” Winter said, watching her go.

“Neither am I,” Reed said sourly.

Winter followed Sean.

“Marshal!” Reed called out. “I need that suit you're wearing. It's evidence.”

Winter caught up with Sean. “God in heaven,” she muttered.

Winter couldn't think of anything to say, so they walked to the safe house together in silence.

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.