John Miller - Inside Out

“I know who the killers were and I think I can prove Greg wasn't involved. After I talk to Chief Marshal Shapiro, I believe he can put a stop to all this.”

“Time's up.” Finch was standing in the doorway.

Winter kept his eyes on Sean's. Finch turned his back.

“You watch yourself,” he told her. “I'll do everything I can as fast as possible.”

“Winter, can I hug you? For luck?”

He squeezed her to him and held her there, then kissed her on the forehead. “I'm going to do whatever it takes to make sure nobody hurts you.”

She looked into his eyes. “No. You go home to your family. I'll call you when this is over. I'll be fine.”

Winter released her. “After this is over, nobody will have to order me to watch over you.”

She smiled and hugged him again, squeezing very hard. “I'd like that. Now, go.”

He walked out, leaving Sean in an expensively appointed den of wolves.

The Delacroix Hotel had been constructed in New Orleans's pre-World's Fair building frenzy in the 1980s with profits from the importation of cocaine. It had been seized by the DEA and, although it was managed by a private company, it remained property of the United States of America. As it was a seizure, every penny above direct operating costs was profit. The fact of government ownership was not publicized, but when upper echelon officials of the Department of Justice stayed there, it was at a reduced rate.

Winter and Hank talked en route to the hotel, located a few blocks away from the Windsor Court. As soon as they got into their room on the fourth floor, Hank unpacked the laptop Shapiro had sent. He reached into his bag and took out a FedEx envelope. “This is the package Reed sent you from Norfolk.”

“Great.” Winter read Fletcher Reed's note:

Massey,

If I spoke to you, I didn't want to mention over the telephone that this package containing my originals was coming to you because if I am right, some of the people mentioned on these pages will do whatever it takes to stop it. They may not come after you immediately if they think they have all the copies I made of these. I sent one to your director and left another set in my office for them to find. I sent yours from another department so it might slip through. If they are smart enough to find this, then they're too smart to be stopped by us anyhow. I hope I'll be around to see you nail these animals. If not, we sure gave it the old college try. Enclosed are the original print cards I pocketed on Rook Island as well as the matching print cards from their military records and their first death certificates, all dated well before that night. The thing they all have in common is that in each case the corpse's identification had to be made using dental records or DNA. Also included are all of the suspicious deaths of Special Forces guys (back to 1980) who are likely candidates for membership in the black-bag club.

I have no idea how you can use this, but you seem the industrious type and I hope you'll figure something out.

I still owe you that drink.

Fletcher Reed

“Fifteen didn't tell me that a dart had anything to do with Reed's accident.”

“Sounds to me this Fifteen character didn't expect you to live long enough to check out the details.”

After reading the note, Winter flipped through the files, studying the faces of the young men. Some of them had become killers, while the others had suffered actual fatal accidents during or just after their Special Forces training. There were whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians on the pages, but no women at all, because Special Forces were supposedly boys' clubs. But, according to what Sean had told Hank, there had been at least two women, certainly cutouts.

“Fifteen told me that Herman Hoffman developed the test to single the murderers out from the herd. I don't have any proof of it, but Hoffman and Manelli had a long-running relationship and I bet Hoffman sold Manelli intelligence, or maybe Manelli gave Hoffman wet work for a price. He told me that Hoffman was with the CIA until the Bay of Pigs. I heard while I was living here that Dominick Manelli was involved with other mobsters in plots to kill Castro, and the CIA trained some of the Cuban liberation soldiers on land owned by the Manellis. Maybe their relationship started with that.”

Hank finished connecting his cell phone to the USMS computer and turned it on. Winter watched Hank type in the commands to make the connection before he looked back at the papers on the table in front of him.

“Just because Sean knows Sam Manelli,” Winter said, “it doesn't mean anything.”

“She's holding out, Winter. There's a lot more to her and those gangsters than she's admitted to.”

“I trust her.”

“You're too involved to be objective.”

“You like her, too,” Winter said.

“Oh, she's easy to like. There's something about her you can't help but admire.””

“She agreed to swap herself for me, Hank.”

“She's definitely fond of you. But I missed the part where she had a choice.”

“I'm not going to let anything happen to her,” Winter told him.

“The FBI will protect her,” Hank said. “They can't afford-”

“I'm not about to leave her safety up to Archer,” Winter said. “He's tied into Fifteen as sure as I'm sitting here.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Archer'll set her up as bait for Manelli. The last thing in this life Sam Manelli is going to do is admit killing anyone, especially to her. I'd venture to say, after the FBI's been trying for forty years to get him on anything, Archer knows that, too. Say Sam's brain-dead enough, or wants to kill her bad enough, to actually meet with her. The question is what is better for the FBI? A recording of Manelli admitting to being behind the killings? Sam threatening to kill her? Him making an attempt on her life? Or the FBI catching the old bastard in the room with her still-warm body?”

“No contest,” Hank admitted, without looking from the computer's screen.

“The only thing better for everybody concerned is if a desperate Sam Manelli, who has just killed this woman, is then killed in a gunfight with Archer's adrenaline-revved SWAT team. Even if I wanted to turn my back on her, and I don't, Fifteen isn't going to sit still as long as there's a chance I'll help people find him.”

“You never did know when to quit a thing,” Hank said. “I expect if anybody can do something about this Fifteen character, it'll be Shapiro, not you.”

“You can walk away from this, Hank.”

“I was never good at knowing when to quit a thing, either. Let's see what Shapiro thinks,” Hank said. “He's online.”

Hank pecked at the keyboard using his index fingers.

Winter's here.

“You best do this, Winter.”

Trammel put the laptop on the coffee table in front of Winter. Shapiro had answered,

I want everything Winter has.

He typed for ten minutes, relaying what he had learned that was relevant, even describing Fifteen and his threats against his family. He told Shapiro that he believed it was possible Archer got his fabricated evidence from the CIA, which was protecting Fifteen's dark operatives. He told his director that, although he had no proof, he believed the FBI was still working with the CIA.

Shapiro typed:

Good work, Winter. I'll figure out how I can best use your information. You've earned yourself a rest. Take the plane and go home.

Winter wasn't finished. He typed:

Sir, after all we've lost trying to protect Sean, I don't see how we can throw away our investment now. Winter-obviously we have no authority to interfere in the operation of another agency. At this juncture I don't know how to get around that.

Winter had already worked out his response: