John Miller - Inside Out

“Where's your warrant?” the man asked, unfazed. “Mr. Deputy, that pistol ain't a search warrant.”

Winter shifted the magnum slightly and fired. The explosion was a muted whomp to Winter, thanks to the earplugs, but deafening for the driver. First vaporizing the lobe of the man's left ear, the bullet punched a black circle into the refrigerator door. The muzzle blast also blew the Braves cap off and left a comet-shaped powder burn the width of a silver dollar on his cheek. Blood trickled down the man's neck, staining his collar bright red.

The shocked driver reached slowly up to cover his ruined ear with his hand. “You shot me?”

“Wrong!” Winter yelled. “You shot yourself with your own gun and I couldn't stop you.” Winter spoke loudly so the driver could hear him over the ringing in his ears. Immediately Winter swung the barrel to the left, aiming at the other ear. “And you are going to keep shooting pieces off yourself until you tell me where they are.”

“You're a cop!” he shrieked.

“Not today.”

“I don't knooow!” the man hollered, his terrorized eyes now the size of quarters.

Trammel exploded into the room aiming the AR-15 before him. He was red-faced, wet from the rain, and breathless, but obviously relieved to find Winter was all right.

“He shot me!” the driver wailed.

“He'll do that,” Hank said. “I'll see you kids aren't interrupted.” Hank pushed the door open and took up position behind the doorjamb so he could see down the hall to the front door and have cover.

“I swear ta God! I don't know! They took her off in the green van. That's all I know,” he pleaded.

“Who took her?”

“I don't know!”

“Blow his dick off!” Trammel called out. “That's an order.”

Winter dropped his aim accordingly and the man collapsed into a fetal position on the floor tiles. “What make van?” Winter yelled.

“I don't know where or why. An eyeless Ford! Mr. Sam and some of his guys.”

“What do you mean, eyeless?”

Three ambulatory members of the SWAT team came in through the open front door and scattered through the house, yelling, “FBI! FBI!” Special Agent Finch hobbled in behind them.

“United States marshals!” Hank hollered.

The Crown Victoria's airbag had skinned Finch's forehead and nose, and he was walking like a hunchback in an old Frankenstein film. The knees of his trousers were open and bloody flesh was visible through the holes. He stared down at the driver and then up at Winter holding the driver's pistol. “Where are Manelli and Mrs. Devlin?” he asked. Finch managed to bow and lift the Braves cap by the bill from the floor. “This is our bug,” he said. “Where is she now?”

“Manelli outsmarted you,” Winter said acidly. “Did you people even make sure that he was here to begin with?”

“We didn't have enough time,” Finch protested.

“She was never in his car! This putz put your cap on a dummy so you would think it was her. There's nobody else here-not so much as a guard. They are somewhere else, you idiot. Where's Archer?”

“There was some kind of a booby trap in the road. I never saw it. Archer's dead,” Finch said solemnly.

“Know how you said that lever the guard threw before the Caddy rolled in might have something to do with that bridge? Winter, the end of that damn bridge shot straight up in the air and Finch here drove right slam into it-Archer's head did its best to go through the windshield, but I guess it broke his fool neck,” Hank said.

“He didn't have his belt on,” Finch said defensively.

“House and basement are clear!” a voice yelled from the hallway, bringing Finch around a little.

“Maybe there's hidden doors, false walls… a secret cave,” Finch said.

“Secret cave?” The driver, still lying on the floor, laughed.

“He knows where they are,” Winter said, pointing down at the driver. “Leave us alone and I'll get it out of him.”

“He's FBI,” the driver said. “He ain't gonna let you shoot me no more. You crazy ass-bite. I'm suing all you bastards!”

Finch shook his head and stared at Winter. “You interfered with an FBI operation, Massey. The attorney general is going to-”

“The only thing I interfered with was that bastard making a sandwich, you moron,” Winter snapped. He wanted to scream with rage and beat the truth out of the driver. The FBI had screwed up and he had followed right along with them. Finch sat down on a stool and stared at the half-made sandwich. The SWAT team leader came in. “The houth is keer, thir,” he said. The words sounded wet and soft because he was missing his front teeth and his lips were like torn pillows filled with meat.

“Check all the walls for-” Finch started.

“Secret caves,” Hank offered.

“We're done here,” Winter said. “Let's go, Hank.”

“You're both under arrest,” Finch said.

“I got a permit,” the driver said. “I wasn't doing nothing wrong and he shot me!”

“Massey, put that gun down,” Finch said. “It's obvious that she informed the driver about the cap. No telling where she is.”

“No way she did that,” Winter snapped. He put the driver's gun on the sandwich. “You think this is gonna stay a secret, Finch? I know Archer wanted Sam to kill Sean and that he planned to have your SWAT team kill Manelli. I know it and so does Director Shapiro, and soon the world will, too. You're finished and Archer is going to be glad he's dead. And if anything happens to her you'd better hide where I can't find you.” Winter started from the room with Hank behind him.

“Hawt!” The jar-headed SWAT team leader aimed his MP5 at Winter's back.

“You planning to stop me, Finch, you tell him to kill me.”

“Let them go,” Finch said, resigned.

Winter stopped at the open door to Sam's den. On his way up the hall earlier, he had looked in. Now he was drawn into the room by the multiple cabinets packed with guns.

Sean clenched the wheel as she steered through the French Quarter. Two blocks from the parking garage, light bloomed in her periphery and, seconds later, again. She could only pray the aspirin tablets could stop the migraine, or slow it. She cursed herself for having left her pills behind at the hotel in Arlington. Dear God, not now. Archer either hadn't believed she was getting sick or didn't care. She fought back the urge to panic.

Squinting now just to see, Sean drove up to the fourth floor of the garage, where the Cadillac's driver, facing her from the far ramp, flashed his headlights at her. The brilliant lights brought the headache whipping into her brain like a tornado. Sean pulled into the first open space, her left tire rolling up over the concrete stop. In her pocket she carried a note that she had written in her hotel room: FBI following me. I'll call after I shake them. All she had to do was somehow get Archer's stupid baseball cap inside the Cadillac while the driver was reading the note. If the FBI would just follow the Caddy a few blocks-long enough for her to get away. She had made no plans beyond surviving the day.

The plan. She fought to keep her thoughts ordered despite the pain in her head. She wanted nothing but to curl up in the backseat.

She forced herself to climb from her car, steadying herself by putting her left hand on the roof. The driver slid the window down. She was looking at him as though through a dimly lit tunnel. She had the note clenched in her fist, but before she could pass it on, she was aware of the sounds of someone approaching fast. Before she could turn, a hand covered her mouth. Another set of hands felt her roughly all over. Someone snatched off her cap and she caught sight of a man opening the Cadillac's back door and slipping the hat on a figure seated in the rear. While the men wrestled her inside a van parked nearby, the Cadillac pulled off, tires chirping. She was trying to fight, to escape. This is all wrong! Not yet! Please, God! The men pressed her into the bench seat between them and one of them belted her in.