Inside Out Page 9

  The only problem was the potential negative impact on Greg's WITSEC career, maybe a black mark in Winter's file. It wasn't like he cared if he ever joined another WITSEC detail. He wanted nothing more than to go back home to his family and his nice, comfortable USMS satellite office.

  20

  Ward Field, Virginia

  The King Air 300 sat in the center of the cavernous hangar illuminated by a bank of quartz lights. Herman Hoffman surveyed the work in progress while the six members of his assault team stood nearby watching him. Even though he was worn out from the flight to the staging area, Herman took several minutes to study the craft's modifications, inspecting how the tubes and wires had been expertly rerouted. This was the level of craftsmanship he expected from his people, but he admired how rapidly they could accomplish their tasks and maintain the quality. When the trapdoor was closed, the belly of the plane would appear to be normal, but it would have a lot in common with military bombers.

  “Perfection,” he declared, clapping his hands together. The compliment was met with smiles. It was the first thing he had said since he walked into the hangar twenty minutes earlier. “As always.”

  He moved over to a line of folding tables and reviewed the hardware. As he passed the assembled articles, he touched and straightened here and there—a fastidious shopkeeper inspecting his merchandise in preparation for opening the doors to customers.

  He ran his finger along a kilo block of Semtex. Moving to the next table, he hoisted up one of the sleek MP5-SD machine guns, admiring the balance, the noise suppressor. He selected a magazine from a stack of forty and pressed it into the opening, drew the bolt back, and released it. He flipped the safety off and set the selector switch to automatic. Using the laser-aiming device, he pointed the weapon at a fifty-gallon barrel, positioning the red dot on the target someone had taped to it. When he squeezed the trigger there was a sound very much like quails taking wing, accompanied by the tinkling of the empty brass shell casings as they landed on the concrete floor. Sand poured to the floor from the holes in the drum.

  Herman handed the weapon to Ralph as though he was his caddy. “Please, carry on,” Herman said, cheerfully.

  Within seconds the hangar was filled with the sound of his men at work, which to Herman's ears was as comforting as classical music.

  21

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Sam Manelli had the patience of a python coiled in the shade. He sat on the edge of his mattress with his feet on the floor of his cell. It was cool enough that he had been tempted to drape the wool blanket over his shoulders, but he couldn't let anyone think of him as weak.

  Sam had no regrets. Everything he had ever done was necessary to build and maintain his business interests. He had successfully defended his world from any and all comers, and he hadn't done it by showing compassion.

  So much for his golden years of rest and relaxation. He had never been as focused on anything as he was on erasing Dylan Devlin from the face of the earth. The 3 million dollars Herman Hoffman had requested for taking Devlin out was chump change considering what was at stake. Sam would have given far more, and gladly. Devlin could steal from him the one thing Sam Manelli valued more than anything—his freedom.

  Sam heard the sound of approaching footsteps and braced himself. A young guard with a blond crew cut stopped at the door and peered inside at him. Sam stared back, keeping his expression neutral. The guard took his hand out of his pocket and held out a small black object. Sam slipped from the bed, crossed to the bars, and took it.

  “This is yours from midnight until two A.M.,” the guard said in a whisper, even though the cells on either side of Sam were unoccupied. “It's totally safe to use.”

  Sam nodded. The guard walked away.

  He sat on the cot, punched in the numbers, and pushed SEND. After two rings a familiar voice answered.

  “It's me,” Sam said in a low voice. “You sure this thing's clean?”

  “Squeaky,” Russo said. Sam didn't believe any electronic conversation was safe. He'd been speaking face-to-face and in code for so long he didn't know how to say anything incriminating.

  “So, how's things?”

  “I had a red thing leak dye in the washer ruined the gowns,” said Johnny.

  Sam's heart sped up. Someone was stealing. “Red thing leaking dye” was the code for red ink—someone skimming. Gown was high-dollar prostitution.

  “I'm gonna bleach it out tonight.”

  “Is the old man cleaning the pool?” He was referring to Herman Hoffman.

  “His boys are handling it. Soon as I know how it looks I'll let you know.”

  “Good.”

  “Can't wait to see you back home.”

  “You and me both,” Sam replied grimly. He pressed the END button.

  Johnny Russo was family by his marriage to Sam's niece, but Sam had known Johnny for all of the young man's thirty-nine years. He had stood as Johnny's godfather, and even though he wasn't a religious man, had taken that responsibility to heart. Johnny's father, Richie Russo, had been Sam's chief enforcer, a man he had been close to since his childhood. Richie had died in a warehouse fire when Johnny was ten. From that day on, Sam had sent Richie Russo's wife a nice monthly check and called it a pension. It was just a necessary business expense. He had genuinely cared about Richie, but Johnny had not made it into the son-he-never-had category.

  When Johnny was fourteen, Sam had hired him to work at one of his amusement companies, beginning with odd jobs and granting him more responsibility as he grew older. Johnny had been a polite kid, a hard worker who never made the same mistake twice. Always smiling, always ready to show Sam that he wanted to learn more. Sam's father had trusted only Italians, but Sam had discovered that limited business. Sam had ways of determining who was trustworthy, who would keep the necessary secrets and remain loyal. “Family” was a relative term, and ethnic lineage didn't ensure omerta. Sam had a system of rewards and punishment, both of which had to remain certainties in an uncertain world.

  Johnny ran the rackets effectively, but Sam had stayed on top of the business, making sure things ran smoothly under Johnny's care. The trust Sam had in the young man hadn't come easy. He had set a hundred traps over the years, hoping he wouldn't catch Johnny taking advantage of him, and, to his amazement and delight, he never had. Sam had rewarded Johnny by degrees, turning over more and more of his crime enterprise to his protégé, until he was competent enough to handle the day-to-day demands. From the start, Johnny had handled Sam's business and dealt with Sam's enemies like they were his own. Sometimes Johnny could get carried away with the violence, but a man's reputation was what kept people in line.

  Sam paid millions each year to the people who would otherwise arrest him and to those who knew when there was an imminent threat from law enforcement. The feds had never found enough evidence on Sam to secure an indictment, and the locals feared losing his largess. The authorities had snagged members of his upper-level management over the years, but between lawyers, friendly judges, missing evidence, witnesses with failing memories, and bribed or frightened jurors, most walked away relatively unscathed. Those who went to jail did easy time, and Sam saw to it that their families never went hungry.

  Two years back, Sam had completely turned over the day-to-day operations to Russo, advising him when things started to slip. He knew that, regardless of who was in charge, the business would never be what it had been in his day. But there would be plenty to go around if Johnny could hold off the ethnic gangs and freelance criminals. As long as Sam was the gold backing Johnny's promises, Russo was relatively safe. But alliances like the one with Herman Hoffman that Sam, and his father before him, had forged would end with Sam's passing, and it would be up to Johnny to cut new deals and make his own allies in order to hold on to the rackets.

  What nobody except Sam and Johnny knew was that two years before, a doctor had discovered that Sam had cancer in a place nobody should get cancer. It had been growing for a while, and
taking it out was impossible. The doctor, a man Sam owned, had explained it in simple terms. The cancer was growing slowly, but with insidious intent. He told Sam that he might live longer with radiation, but he would be bald and feel awful. That was impossible because as soon as Sam's enemies saw him deteriorating, they'd run in and gobble up his empire faster than Johnny could deal with them. Such was the way of nature. Survival would be Johnny's problem alone and he would have to sink or swim. Sam wasn't afraid to die, but the old gangster drew a line at dying in a cage like a rat somebody forgot to feed.

  Sam hoped there was a heaven. If there was a heaven, there was a hell. If hell existed, a lot of people he knew would be there. The first thing Sam was going to do when he got down there was hunt down that bastard Dylan Devlin and show those demons running the joint what real torture looked like.

  22

  Saint Jean, Louisiana

  Johnny Russo had one more thing to do before he could call it a night and be in bed to get his normal five hours of sleep. His driver, Spiro, steered the speeding Lincoln Towncar out of River Road while Johnny stared at the passing white tanks, fifty feet tall and twice as wide. The International Liquid Storage tank terminal operation was completely legitimate and belonged not to Sam but to a consortium of foreign investors. At any given time, there was everything from food-grade vegetable oil to gasoline stored in the tanks. The product was pumped directly from, and into, vessels moored at ILS's dock on the Mississippi River, just over the levee. Their clients paid for storage and, if they somehow failed to pay, the company held the product as collateral against storage costs, and then sold the liquid for a nice profit. Sam Manelli was a consultant. If there was a problem requiring a political or unorthodox solution, Sam saw that it was handled. As compensation for his help, the corporation gave Sam the duck-hunting lease on sixteen hundred acres of swampland behind the tank farm. Sam had built a lodge and boat shed on the property, where Spiro and Johnny were now headed.

  Spiro pulled up in front of the shed, where two of his enforcers waited inside beside a naked man whose hands and ankles were lashed together. The man sat in a chair on a sheet of plastic, beside a table whose wood surface had also been covered with the same material. When Russo jerked the duct tape from the bound man's mouth, it took a good deal of his goatee with it. The man took several gasping breaths and his eyes blinked anxiously.

  Russo stood over the shivering man and studied him silently. Spiro covered a yawn with his open palm.

  “How much did you skim, Albert?” Russo said, finally.

  “I di-di-di-didn't . . . short Sam!”

  “Didn't short me, you mean? Do you see Sam in here?”

  “I wouldn't du-du-do that, Johnny!” The panicked words tumbled from Albert's mouth, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Sheri said different, not four hours ago in this very room. She said you took at least ten large from the girls this year that you didn't pass along. She said she begged you not to do it.”

  “No, I never!”

  “She's your main girl, Albert—mother to your children. Why would she make something like that up?”

  “She's l-l-l-lying!” Albert's eyes were fevered circles, futilely blinking back tears.

  “That's a problem, because I believe her.”

  “Let me talk to her! She's l-lying. Lying. Lying. She'll cu-cu-cu-come clean!”

  “Okay, I'll let you talk to her.”

  Johnny Russo walked over to the fridge directly opposite the man and lifted out, by its thick black hair, a woman's head. The dry brown eyes were unblinking, the mouth frozen wide open as if in midscream.

  Albert's expression changed until it mirrored that of his late girlfriend's.

  “How much of my money did Albert skim, Sheri?” Russo asked the severed head. He took Sheri's jaw in his free hand and worked it up and down. “Lots and lots,” Johnny said in a high voice. “If I'm l-l-lying, may I g-g-give head.”

  The men in the shed burst into laughter.

  Russo returned the head to the fridge. “What you are going to do, Albert, is go back to work and pay me back everything you stole.”

  “But, I never—”

  Russo slapped him so hard the chair Albert sat in fell over on its side. “Stop lying, or you can join Sheri and fatten the crabs. You will make me an additional fifty grand over last year's numbers or you'll wish you were dead a long time before you will be. Do you understand me? You'll pay me back the ten large at reasonable interest of two points a week.”

  Russo took a wad of money out of his pocket and peeled off a fifty. He bent over, pressed the bill into Albert's mouth, pushing it between the man's teeth with his fingertip.

  “Albert, you take that and buy your kids a little something and tell them it's from their uncle Johnny. What do you say?”

  “Thank you,” Albert said weakly.

  “You're welcome. Boys, get Albert dressed and take him home.”

  23

  Rook Island, North Carolina

  Wednesday

  The sun's rays tinted the clouds a luscious orange. As bacon sizzled, Jet stood at the stove muttering to herself. Cross sat beside Winter, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Greg wandered in, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat across from Winter. The deputies ate in silence.

  After breakfast, Winter and Jet were left alone.

  “Miss Sean has bruises on her arm where that man squeezed on her,” she said in a low voice.

  “That so?” Winter said, trying to keep his voice even.

  “She's been under his spell, but it sure is broken now. A woman can be blinded by a buttery-talking man. Now she's gotten her first good look at him.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so. She has seen his true side, and that man is gonna kill her if he gets half a chance.”

  “I'll keep my eyes open,” Winter said, almost paralyzed by the inexplicable rage rising in him.

  Jet looked at him skeptically.

  “I promise, Jet,” he said sincerely.

  After breakfast, dressed for his morning run, Winter passed through the living room.

  “I have a bone to pick with you, Massey.”

  Winter drew up short. He turned to face Dylan, who sat on the couch, twenty feet away.

  “That so?”

  “This is all your fault. Soon as Whitehead gets to the attorney general, you're history here.”

  “I'll start packing,” he replied, desperately wanting to pound this cretin into oblivion.

  “You shouldn't have been talking to my wife. Just what the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Devlin,” Winter said, “I didn't realize the fact that your entering the witness protection program was going to be a surprise to her. The truth will always come out.”

  “I could kill you, right here, right now.”

  “You want me to give you my gun and kneel so you can shoot me in the back of the head?”

  “You get between my wife and me again and you're going to wish you had never set foot on this island.”

  “I've wished that since I got here, Devlin,” Winter said. “What got between you and your wife wasn't me. It was her good sense.” He walked out the door.

  24

  Ward Field, Virginia

  The afternoon sun lengthened the shadows of the two boys who were pedaling their bikes down an isolated asphalt road as fast as their young legs could pump. The road had been constructed before World War II by the Army Air Corps, cut through rolling wilderness of an inhospitable nature. In order to avoid any misunderstanding about who owned the road and access thereto, warning signs were posted for a mile before the riders reached the first barricade. That initial barricade was comprised of foot-tall concrete stumps that looked like worn-down teeth. The ground on either side of the road allowed vehicles with a reason to proceed, to skirt the structures. The boys quickly guided their BMX bicycles between the bumps.

  Over the next hill, a large faded sign read:

  U.S. Gov
ernment

  Restricted Area

  No Trespassing

  For all of the attention the two young bikers paid it, the warning might as well have been written on the surface of the moon.

  George Williams and Matthew Barnwell were both twelve years old, although George was six days older. They were, by mutual pact, best friends forever. George was skinny and his hair spiked out from his head like porcupine quills. A cup of rust-colored freckles seemed to have been poured over his face, scattered ear to ear and from his chin to his forehead, with more spilling down his neck. His small canvas backpack had his initials hand-lettered on the flap.

  Matthew was shorter than George by a head, thirty pounds heavier, and had skin the color of a buckeye.

  George pumped along, but Matthew had to get off his bike and walk it to top the final rise in the road. He stared down at Ward Field. The main gate was located a hundred feet below them. Several miles of chain-link fence topped with barbed wire enclosed the entire air-training facility. The gate was closed, wrapped with heavy chains and padlocks. The signs on either side of the gate were ill-tempered: ARMED RESPONSE! The gatehouse door and window were nailed shut. The boys coasted down the hill outside the fence, their tires cutting narrow tracks in the tangled weeds.

  George and Matthew didn't know anyone who had been inside the fence, but for years kids had passed down tales of people who had gone missing after last being seen heading toward the old base. The red and white water tower, an attractive object to young men with climbing ambitions, had been partially disassembled, and the door to the wire safety cage surrounding the first twenty feet of ladder was padlocked.

  Plywood covered every window of the barracks, and the roof of one had collapsed. Quonset huts were scattered around the facility: all of the structures were joined by a system of footpaths and narrow paved roads. Weeds proliferated through the concrete runway and parallel taxiway. There were three hangars; the most recent, far larger than the other two, had been built in the Vietnam era so C-130 cargo planes with tall, wide wings and tails that rose up behind them like scorpion stings could taxi straight inside.