vacated the Jeep, carrying their long guns like hunters.
They walked on the tire depressions to avoid the undergrowth, moving at a brisk clip. The intensity of light grew as they approached the edge of the woods where the marshland was open beyond the drainage canal. They paused where the woods stopped some fifty feet from the water. Out beyond the algae-covered canal lay the marsh-a tortured, nightmarish wasteland where solitary trees stood on islands, blackened and decaying.
“Bingo,” Hank whispered.
Fresh tire impressions led up to, and beyond, a double gate in the ten-foot-tall hurricane fence. There was a small sign wired to links that read, NO TRESPASSING.
The gate was closed, but the heavy chain and padlock meant that they would have to climb the fence or get into the canal to get to Manelli's place.
Winter saw no evidence of guards. “I'll lead over the gate while you cover me,” Winter whispered. “Hand signals only from now on.”
Hank nodded his agreement.
As Winter approached the gate, he heard a snap and turned to find himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun held by a young bald man wearing a camouflage suit that had allowed him to blend with the foliage. The fellow couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty years old. At the sound of a whistle behind him, Winter turned his head slowly to see another man aiming his shotgun at Hank's head. The men's pump guns were painted in olive-and-gray camouflage to match the hunting outfits.
The bald man jerked up his gun's barrel, obviously telling them to put their hands up.
“You boys out duck hunting?” Hank asked. “You know, son, you could be Rudolph Valentino's greatest grandson. Your buddy over there looks kind of like a young Yul Brynner. Actor from The King and I?” He mumbled, “Before your time, I suppose.”
Yul was oblivious to the raindrops splashing against his head. His eyes were like cherry pits. His mud- slathered loafers looked ridiculous with his hunting outfit.
The young man Hank had called Valentino looked older than his partner. His coat's hood was up but pushed back so his peripheral vision wasn't hampered. He barked a phrase in Italian and, using his gun, also motioned for them to raise their hands.
“Want my hands up?” Hank raised his hands slowly. “Up?”
“Si, make all hand op. You op hand, bastardo!”
Valentino pressed his shotgun's barrel under Hank's chin while he took the AR-15 carbine from Hank and slung it over his shoulder. As deftly as a pickpocket, he unzipped and reached into Hank's coat, and one by one, extracted the. 45 Colt auto, handcuffs, the cell phone, and Hank's badge case, putting each object into his own coat's pocket. After Valentino patted Hank down to his cowboy boots, Yul relieved Winter of his shotgun, his SIG, his cuffs and the Walther PP. While Yul was kneeling to check Winter's pant legs for weapons, Winter looked down through the open V of the bulky camouflage coat and spotted the grip of a semiautomatic handgun tucked inside Yul's belt.
As the guards marched them toward the gate, Valentino put two fingers against his teeth and emitted an earsplitting whistle. A third man, holding a high-powered semiautomatic deer rifle, strode through the tall grass from the direction of Sam's lodge. He was well over six feet tall and his black hair, glistening with raindrops, hung to his wide shoulders. Winter thought maybe it was his long narrow nose that made the big man's eyes seem too close together.
“Big boy,” Hank said.
“Silenzio!” Valentino snapped. He poked the barrel of his shotgun so hard into Winter's back that only the vest kept the jab from drawing blood.
“Spiro,” Valentino said, announcing the giant.
Spiro swung open the gate and stood glaring as the guards directed their captives through.
“This is all private property,” Spiro said. He pulled the heavy chain around to join the center poles, then closed the large padlock.
“Finally somebody speaks English,” Hank said. “Where I come from, it's rude to hold people at gunpoint.”
“Where these guys come from, it's just like a handshake.”
“Polizia,” Yul said.
“Of course they're cops,” Spiro said sarcastically. “Who the fuck else would be stupid enough to come back here?”
The guards handed Spiro the badge cases and he inspected them in turn. “Deputy United States Marshal Trammel… and Deputy Winter Jay Massey.” Spiro pocketed the badges, pulled a red cell phone from his pocket, and dialed. All he said was “Just two marshals.”
Winter figured Valentino had been posted back alongside the logging road and followed them on foot to where Yul was waiting. Winter didn't miss the irony that he and Hank, like Archer's FBI earlier, hadn't bothered to watch behind them.
Winter had decided to let Hank do the talking because it would serve to keep their attention focused more on his partner, leaving Winter to look for an opportunity to turn the tables. Worst case, Chet would have to come in blind and rescue them along with Sean Devlin. Winter was thinking that when Chet's men hit the ground, maybe he and Hank could still help them from inside. It was nice to know that if Manelli or his people tried to leave the lodge, the Highway Patrol would be there waiting.
“You let us walk back through that gate and we'll forget the scatterguns in our faces. You can still stop this short of kidnapping federal law enforcement officers.”
“Where's their bracelets?” Spiro asked. When the guards didn't respond, Spiro said, “Handcuffs.”
Valentino said, “Handcuffs! Si, handcuffs!” Valentino and then Yul handed the cuffs to the giant, reluctantly. Winter knew that with the three-foot width between Spiro's shoulders, it would have taken both pairs connected together to join Spiro's overlarge wrists behind his back.
“Hands behind your backs.” Spiro cuffed the deputies with their own equipment. He unslung his rifle and placed it in the crook of his left arm. “These boys'll shoot you in the heads if you try anything. I'm probably not as good a shot as them, but this thirty-ought-six will go straight through both sides of those puny vests you're wearing.”
Winter walked along the road toward the lodge, wondering how much worse things could get before Chet showed up-hoping he wouldn't find out.
99
The majority of Manelli's boathouse had been constructed on piles so it extended out over the canal. Although rain battered the boat shed's tin roof, once the door closed behind them, there was no sound from outside. A sudden chill filled Winter's hollow stomach.
“You sit down here, old man,” Spiro told Hank. Pointing his finger in Winter's face then at the floor, he told him, “You there.” Hank and Winter sat on the plywood floor six feet from each other. Winter kept his head down, but he had seen what he needed.
The boat shed's interior was one open space, thirty feet deep by twenty wide. A steel rack on the wall to Winter's right held four flat-bottom, one-man pirogues-stable marsh boats that, when loaded, needed only three or four inches of water to float. He and Hank faced an empty table and a workbench standing against the west wall. A propane torch, extra bottles of gas, a chain saw, a large wooden vise, pliers, an ice pick, a thin-bladed filet knife, a pair of limb-pruning loppers, a rubber mallet, and an old meat cleaver were neatly placed on its surface like surgical instruments in an operating room.
Behind them, a hinged four-by-eight-foot section of floor near the eastern wall had been opened. A steel cable from a motorized hoist attached to a ceiling beam disappeared into the rectangle of dark water. The guards took turns putting all of Hank and Winter's equipment on the sturdy table standing against the wall alongside the workbench. The young guards stared silently at their captives, guns ready, fingers on the triggers.
“Hey, Fabio!” Hank said.
