John Miller - Inside Out

She lay in the dark, like a rabbit in tall grass, listening for the elevator, a step on the fire escape. She tilted her head and studied the light strip at the base of the door, knowing that any breaking shadows could be a fox's feet.

Concord, North Carolina

As Winter lay in the dark, sleepless, his mind swarmed with troubling questions he had few answers for. He wanted to do something, but he was helpless unless Reed's discovery would help Shapiro make a difference. He wanted to be able to put this horror behind him, not become obsessed with things he had no way of resolving.

The doorbell rang, jolting Winter out of his thoughts. Twelve past ten. He slipped from his bed, put on jeans, lifted the Walther, and went to the front door, passing a worried Lydia standing in the hallway.

“I'll see who it is,” he said.

He turned on the porch light and saw the top of a man's head through the half circle of glass in the door. He held the pistol behind his back as he opened the door.

The man standing there had a crew cut. A dark jacket over a knit shirt and chinos gave him a casual air.

“Sorry to disturb you, Deputy Massey.” The badge case in his hand identified him as an FBI agent.

“What can I do for you?”

“If you'll accompany me,” the man said. “Agent Archer would like to have a word with you. If you'll come with us to the airport, you should be back in a couple of hours.”

“What's this about?”

The agent smiled. “It's about new information on a case.”

Winter relaxed. He welcomed a chance to talk to Archer, hopeful that the agent had new information on the investigation. “Come in. I'll get dressed.”

The agent came inside and stood with his hands clasped behind him at parade rest. “We should hurry.”

“Give me one minute.”

Winter passed by Lydia, who was peering up the hall at the stranger standing inside the doorway.

“I'll be back in a couple of hours, Mama. Official business.”

Winter put on a cotton shirt, his running shoes, and a zip-up leather jacket. He pocketed his wallet and badge case and slid the Walther into his jacket's right pocket, cell phone in the other. He kissed his mother on his way out.

A Chrysler waited at the curb, its driver a silhouette. The agent got into the rear, so Winter climbed into the passenger's seat.

“I know this is a bit unusual,” the agent behind him said.

“Nothing is usual these days,” Winter replied.

“Ain't that the truth,” the driver said, nodding solemnly.

Winter felt the cold muzzle of a gun against the left side of his neck and the hand that came around the seat reached into his pocket for the Walther.

“Who are you?” Winter asked. He thought about Reed's concern about someone listening in on their conversations. Christ, how could he have been so stupid?

“Just stay calm and you'll be fine,” the man behind him said. “If I intended to hurt you, I'd have popped you when you opened the door.”

He supposed that was true enough. He also figured the odds of his staying alive to see the sun rise were slim.

Ten minutes later, the driver turned off onto the road to the airport. After going through the gate, the driver went down the alley formed by large hangars and pulled out to a parked Lear 35.

“We're all going to get out and walk to the plane,” the driver said.

The man who had been seated behind him climbed out and opened Winter's door. He motioned Winter out with a silenced SIG Sauer.

Winter got out. “Can I call my mother and tell her I won't be home? She'll be worried.”

“Later,” the man holding the pistol said.

Winter slipped out of the car. The driver entered the Lear's cabin ahead of Winter, the other man behind him. The pilots were going through their checklist when Winter sat down in the seat the driver pointed to and fastened his seat belt.

While the man with the pistol kept Winter covered, the car's driver reached into his pocket and took out a syringe loaded with clear liquid. As Winter stared into the barrel of the handgun, the driver pressed the needle into the side of his neck. At first, nothing happened, then slowly Winter's eyelids drooped.

Richmond, Virginia

Just before dawn, a gray van edged to the curb across the street from the pay phone that Sean had used to make a couple of calls four hours earlier. Until after those calls were made, the hunter in the van had never heard of Sean Devlin, and even now he had no idea what she had done to warrant his attention.

The hunter, known as Hawk, had taken a leased jet from Memphis, arriving an hour after his assigned partner, a man he had never met, who'd had the necessary vehicles waiting when he arrived.

He stared out at the stretch of street and studied the environment surrounding his prey. He opened the envelope, slipped out its contents, and flipped through the pictures, physical description, and background information he had downloaded before he left home.

He lifted his secure cell phone, keyed in a number, waited for the line to be answered, and said, “Hawk. I'm in position.”

“Hawk, I'm waiting for another voice intercept. As soon as I have it, I'll call.”

After Hawk ended the call, he glanced at his own reflection in the window, noting the deep Y-shaped scar on the side of his chin, his dark eyes like dry flints in the dim light, the parting in his long hair sharp as a knife's edge. “If she's still here, I'll know soon enough,” he said to himself.

He put the phone down beside the target's picture. She was attractive. He scanned the biographical information. Exceptional student. Financially independent. Self-starter. Nothing in the bio suggested why she would be in Richmond. But she had come here, most likely because she needed something-money, a secret lover, shelter. He liked the area. There were lots of vagrants, vacant buildings, not much traffic, an old hotel. If he was her, he'd be in there. Eight floors, lots of rooms.

The hunter's mind was racing. Maybe she was just passing through town, but even so, why pass through this neighborhood? The street was not that close to the main traffic arteries. On the phone she had told the deputy she was moving around, and mentioned a flight out. Would she ask a cabdriver to take her to a bleak neighborhood just so she could make a call? Not likely. She came here. Such an elegant woman would stick out, and either she had picked the phone in this neighborhood knowing people would notice and recognize her picture if it was shown around, or she was disguised so she wouldn't be noticed.

Hawk was expert in prey behavior and how a woman like his target might think-if she was a normal woman. According to her file she was not a professional, she had merely married one. But the hunter knew from experience that files could be falsified.

Nothing Sean had done of late seemed to point to her being a citizen. According to his information she had not panicked when she and the deputy had faced pros, so she was calm under fire, which belied what he had been told. And she had slipped a very competent team of deputy marshals.

Hawk was like a pilot in the fog who had to trust his instruments-his instincts. Even if she was pants-pissing terrified, a bullet fired by a scared woman was just as deadly as one fired by a professional.

The hunter was in his element, feeling the thrill of the hunt. He scanned the shadowy street and leaned the seat back, prepared for a long wait.

Atlanta, Georgia

Tuesday

A pair of guards came to escort Sam Manelli from his cell to processing and, an hour later, he passed a trio of scowling FBI agents and strolled out through the prison gates toward where Johnny Russo stood waiting beside a limousine. A group of reporters gathered behind a fence shouted questions.