John Miller - Inside Out

“I had made two sets of fingerprint cards because the first one wasn't perfect. I ran that second set of prints. Turns out the kid was the governor's stepson. Rich man with businesses that were vital to the economy. Half the county worked for him in some capacity. I left the department and joined the Navy so I could be a cop, thinking it would be cleaner. Less political.”

“Which do you think is the case here?”

“Nothing new about bunk buddies swapping hand jobs under the blanket. Only a problem when it's justice that gets kicked out of the bed.”

“Reed, the oath I took was to uphold the laws of the United States, and I've done that to the best of my ability. Part of my job is to make sure that if men like those four UNSUBs who ended up here ever come along, I make sure they fail. That's all I did-no more, no less.”

“It seems like armed assassins don't live long when you're around,” Reed commented laconically. “Four here.” He lit the cigar with a kitchen match. “Three in Florida. I found out about your fracas in Tampa seven years back. Wasn't for that report, I'd have thought you were CIA or NSA guarding a defector, not a deputy marshal guarding a killer.”

Winter was surprised that Reed knew they had been watching a killer but suspected he was still fishing.

“Sean Devlin drew a blank with NCIS, but there was a hit from New Orleans Homicide on a Dylan Devlin who was caught with two dead bodies three weeks back. And I know about a certain Mafia dinosaur who got himself arrested two days later, which I assumed was connected. I figure Dylan Devlin left Cherry Point earlier this evening and those men you killed came here looking for him. What bothers me is why you stayed here with his wife, or sister, when you should have been where the action would most likely be.”

Winter was very impressed by this man he thought was just another flatfoot.

Reed surprised Winter by extending his hand, which Winter tentatively shook. “I'm glad you killed those assholes, Massey. It was justice handed out the only way men like that understand it. Do me one favor?”

“Keep away from wherever you are?”

Now Reed did smile. “You are definitely one of those individuals best admired from a distance. After the smoke clears on this mess, look me up and I'll buy the drinks while you tell me what the real deal was.”

A roar signaled twin Blackhawks that thundered in and alighted on the beach. As soon as the side doors slid open, figures carrying equipment cases swarmed out and swept toward the house like an invading army.

“FBI,” Reed muttered.

The man leading the caravan stomped up the steps to them. “Fred Archer, supervising FBI special agent. I'm the case officer,” he said. “You must be Lieutenant Commander Reed.”

Reed nodded.

“You're Massey?” Archer asked.

“I am,” Winter replied.

“We'll take over now, Lieutenant Commander,” Archer said. “Deputy Massey, accompany me inside.”

Winter sat beside Sean on the living room couch while Archer talked with Reed. They watched as FBI technicians wearing white coveralls and blue surgical gloves went over the inside of the Rook Island house as if it were a crime scene, using vacuums and dusting every imaginable surface for prints. Unlike at most crime scenes, they were wiping the surfaces clean afterward.

“Angela never knew what hit her, did she?” Sean asked him.

“No,” Winter lied. “I don't believe she did.” He remembered how she was trying to get her gun out of the holster but couldn't. A few seconds had passed from the time she was hit until the second shots ended her life. He didn't want to imagine what thoughts had gone through her mind in those final seconds.

“I was thinking about her family-how close she was to them. It'll be hard on them.”

“Yes, it will.”

His conversation at an end, Fred Archer sat in a wing chair across from the pair. He looked like a forty-something high school football coach straight from 1962 who went through life with a Bible in one hand and a playbook in the other-and often confused them. His hair was perfectly combed and his alert gray eyes would have seemed at home set below an eagle's brow. He wore an FBI windbreaker over his suit coat and tie. Sand filled the ornamental holes in his shiny black wing tips.

Special Agent Finch, Archer's partner, was a small-framed, pinch-faced man with narrow shoulders and an oddly distended stomach. He had a weak chin, wispy blond hair, and a small pug nose. Archer opened the conversation by clasping his meaty hands in front of him. “Okay, Deputy Massey, tell me everything that happened.”

Sean protested, “He already told Officer Reed.”

Archer kept his eyes on Winter. “Mrs. Devlin, let me do my job,” he said condescendingly.

“I'd like to speak to Director Shapiro,” Winter said before Sean could blow up again. “Mrs. Devlin is right. I went through it with Reed, and his partner wrote it down in copious detail, which I assume he shared with you.”

“Well, answer this one thing, then. Wasn't there some way you could have captured just one of them?”

“Absolutely not.”

“The one you fired on point-blank, from slightly above?”

“He-” Sean started.

“Mrs. Devlin. You can stay here, but only if you can refrain from butting in,” Archer interrupted coldly.

“I was there, too,” she said angrily. “Winter told him to surrender and he didn't. He tried to shoot me and Winter fired only to stop him.”

“Deputy Massey was in charge, was he not? You were just being dragged around, weren't you?”

Sean raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.

“Ms. Devlin wasn't being dragged anywhere,” Winter told Archer. “She was extremely helpful and, despite terrifying circumstances, she kept a very cool head.”

“Is that so? And that man?”

“I assumed that the UNSUB's decision to bring the muzzle of his machine gun around despite my warning meant he wasn't contemplating surrender. Regretfully, he presented the only opportunity I had to dialogue meaningfully with the UNSUBs. Perhaps if you had been here, you could have ordered them all to surrender.”

Archer stared into Winter's eyes. “Deputy, I represent the attorney general of the United States. I take exception to your disrespectful manner, which under the circumstances, I find particularly offensive.”

“I'd like to speak to Director Shapiro,” Winter said again, dismissing him.

“The chief marshal's got his hands full at the moment. You told Reed that everything that happened before the lady deputy was killed is classified. Let me clarify something, Deputy. This WITSEC detail was never a secret to the attorney general, and he has ordered me here to find out what happened, which I intend to do. You will cooperate fully with me, or there will be serious consequences.”

Winter nodded reluctantly. He knew that Archer was right.

“What I hope you can help me figure out is how the four deceased UNSUBs knew where Devlin was. Who do you think furnished them with that information?”

“How could I know that?”

“You have never been assigned to witness security before-is that right?”

“Inspector Greg Nations asked for me.”

“I know Nations requested you. Tell me how you came to strike the witness.”

“Winter…” Sean began. Archer's lifted brow made her pause. Then, resolutely, she continued, “Deputy Massey was protecting me from my husband. You can ask Inspector Nations about it.”

Winter saw something change in Archer's eyes-a softening perhaps. “I'd like to.”

Winter wondered why he hadn't said, “I fully intend to, or I will.”

“Devlin drugged Dixon and Martinez. Then he killed the cook's cat and left it in his wife's drawer,” Winter said. “We assumed initially that he did it to gain access to guns, but he was simply trying to torture his wife.”