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.
70
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.
71
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.
Sam embraced Johnny. “Man, let's get back down to New Orleans,” Sam told him. “I need to get some real food in me.” In a move that was totally out of character, he waved at the assembled reporters like a victorious politician.
“We got a jet waiting, boss. Compliments of some friends of ours,” Johnny Russo informed him. “You'll be back home in a couple hours.”
“Man,” Sam said loudly, “I wish to God Bertran Stern was alive to see justice served.” He took a cigar from his pocket and bit the tip off before putting it into his mouth. Once inside the limo, however, Sam instantly lost the festive facade.
As they pulled off, several cars filled with photographers and reporters fell into traffic behind the limo.
“Where'd you get this car from?” he asked Russo.
“From the Rizzo brothers. We checked it over good anyway.”
Sam didn't want to talk any business in any car, but he needed to make an exception. “Let me hear some music.”
Johnny called out to Spiro. “Let's have some music!” Spiro turned the music up loud and fiddled with the controls until the rear speakers were fully engaged.
“What you found out about Sean?” Sam asked, speaking into Johnny's ear.
“Nothing,” Russo admitted. “Like she vanished off the face of the planet.”
“You tellin' me you still don't know where she's at? What did Herman say?”
“I haven't been able to contact him. Maybe he's lying low.”
Sam shook his head. “No reason to. Nobody can touch him.”
“All I know is he ain't answering his phone.”
Manelli chewed down hard on his cigar. “Do this,” he hissed softly, his lips almost touching Johnny's ear. “I gotta get her. You find her and bring her to me. You put the word out to everybody with eyes in the country. Every airport, bus, train, car rentals, cabbies, Teamsters, whatever. A hundred grand, a quarter million, whatever it takes and no questions. You need special people, hire them. You just make it happen.”
He sat back. “Tell me, how was Bertran's funeral?”
“I didn't go,” Johnny said, swallowing hard. “I couldn't make it with everything that's going on. It was on Sunday.”
“They put their folks in the ground fast,” Sam agreed. “He was a good lawyer.”
Finished talking, Sam removed the cigar and yelled at the driver, “Spiro, cut that noise! You killing my
