Winter studied the man he had shot point-blank with the MP5 as Sean had lain on the ground beneath him. The muzzle blast had scored and burned the skin around the entrance wounds in the upper rear quadrant of his skull. The hydrostatic pressure had caused the eye to bulge from its socket. Where the three-shot burst of 9-mm bullets had exited, the now one-eyed head looked like a poorly scraped out jack-o'-lantern. The missing brain matter and bone fragments had been placed inside a plastic bag, which rested beside the corpse's neck.
“Him?” Reed asked, staring at Winter.
“No.”
Winter felt for Sean. For most, violence was something that happened to unlucky people in some place made fictional by being on their television screens. Winter had never envied that virginal ignorance more than now.
“According to where your empty brass was, you shot the one at the house from a good thirty feet away,” Reed told Winter.
“About that,” Winter agreed.
“All three in the head. Quite a shot, considering you just saw your partner go down.”
“Your point being?” Winter asked.
“Under those conditions, most people would have been lucky to have hit the guy with a shotgun, that's all. You went for the head, not the torso.”
“He was wearing armor.” Winter could not explain how he was able to put his bullets exactly where he wanted them to go. It was an ability that he had discovered while training at Glynco. He didn't know how he did it, he was just glad he could.
“The men have no identification on them. Their weapons aren't available outside our Special Forces.”
“Maybe they got them from wherever they got that Navy chopper they flew here in. They look like soldiers to me.”
“This stinks,” Reed said. “You outwit and kill four men with superior weapons, obviously professionals, without breaking a sweat-”
“Hey!” Sean yelled, startling the men, who turned to her. Color rose in her cheeks. “I have nothing to add to what Deputy Massey has already said, and I am getting sick of watching you men bump chests.” She pointed a finger at Reed. “Unless you have some new torture to subject me to, I am going to walk back to the house, take a hot shower, and change into some dry clothes.”
And with that she whirled and strode off toward the trees.
“She's not accustomed to this,” Winter said, watching her go.
“Neither am I,” Reed said sourly.
Winter followed Sean.
“Marshal!” Reed called out. “I need that suit you're wearing. It's evidence.”
Winter caught up with Sean. “God in heaven,” she muttered.
Winter couldn't think of anything to say, so they walked to the safe house together in silence.
37
Winter stood for ten minutes in the shower and let the hot water pound him. Then he cut the heat and stood in a chilled stream. Reed and his partner had already opened Winter's drawers and searched everything before he and Sean had reentered the house. The only thing he had come to the assignment with that he cared about taking out again was his life.
He dressed and went to the kitchen, where Reed was seated at the table reading what appeared to be the preliminary report of the SEAL commander. The younger shore patrolman was standing at the counter reading through his notebook.
“Feel better?” Reed asked, without looking up.
“Much,” Winter said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“The men didn't come in on that helicopter. Appears it was for their escape.”
“Sorry?”
“We found three chutes near the radio shack, so three of them parachuted in. According to a trace I ran, that chopper was turned into a spare-parts donor due to questionable airworthiness.”
“Obviously the record is wrong.”
“A King Air passed by at twenty-five thousand feet,” Reed told him. “The trio jumped from it and sailed four miles using membranes, wings stretched between their ankles and wrists.”
“HALO jumpers.”
“The helicopter probably came in below radar after the radio shack was knocked out. The drop plane is in the Caribbean at the moment, on auto pilot. F14s are flying alongside waiting for it to run dry.
“Massey, we both know those assailants were here because of whatever you people were doing here. You and Martinez, Ms. Devlin, or maybe one of the people who left earlier was their main target.”
Winter sipped the coffee and grimaced remembering it was stale. “In your place, I would contact Attorney General Katlin to get the information I can't give you without his authorization. You have the guys' fingerprints. The NCIS can find out who they were in a few hours. I can't tell you anything that would be of any help.”
“Won't tell me.”
“Won't because I can't. I can't tell the NCIS, either, without the AG's permission.”
“This was a WITSEC operation.”
“If you say so.”
“There's six dead kids whose families are going to ask who killed them, why, and what we're doing about it.”
“I understand.”
“Why did Jet Washington leave this morning?”
“Her cat died,” Sean said from the doorway.
Sean's eyes met Winter's, and he tried to communicate that she had said the wrong thing. It was a small thing, a throwaway piece of information, but it was from before Martinez was shot and opened a line of questioning.
“Her cat died? From what?”
Sean sat down, crossed her legs at the ankles, and shrugged. “I'm not a veterinarian.”
Winter watched Sean tell that fib. She had a face so beautiful and innocent that it would be impossible to imagine her being untruthful. She lied so effectively that Reed didn't even pursue it.
As a civilian, Sean could say whatever she liked, but Winter needed her to keep quiet, to speak only to the right people when the time came.
“This is my job,” Reed reminded them silkily.
“Never said otherwise,” Winter replied. They both knew that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service would look into the incident, as they did all military homicides. Reed, despite his understandable desire to collect the information, was just a traffic cop, a military flatfoot who busted drunk sailors, escorted prisoners from one brig to another, and filed reports on petty crime.
A strange buzz filled the air in the kitchen. Reed pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket.
“Reed.”
He listened with a bored expression that was quickly displaced by one of intense interest and concentration.
“Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. At once, sir.”
Reed dropped the phone back into his pocket. He went to the counter, opened a briefcase, and removed Winter's gun and magazine-both in clear plastic bags. He placed them on the table before Winter. His face had turned red, his lips pressed tightly together.
“You can hand your weapon over to the FBI for comparison purposes, Deputy.” Reed turned to his partner. “We are to turn over all evidence gathered so far to the FBI.”
“What's going on?” Winter asked.
“Classified,” Reed snapped triumphantly. He left the kitchen through the screen door, letting it slam shut
