She went to the dresser, opened the bag, and brought Winter the envelope. Winter emptied it and flipped rapidly through the pages, finally stopping on one and pushing the others away.
“What is it?” Sean asked.
He took two of the sheets and used them to cover the lower faces of one of the young soldiers Reed had identified as a cutout possibility. He stared at the young soldier with the American flag in the background. He was eighteen, ears sticking straight out from the shaved scalp, the features soft. Suddenly, he knew what the dream he'd had about Greg meant-what his subconscious was trying to tell him. Everything made sense.
“What is it?” Sean asked again.
“Nothing.” Winter stacked the sheets and fed them back into the envelope, dropping it onto the floor beside the bed.
“You sure? It didn't seem like nothing.”
“Just a thought I had that didn't pan out.”
“I'm sorry.”
“It doesn't matter. Everything's fine. The criminals are all dead and everybody is satisfied.” Winter looked into Sean's eyes and smiled reassuringly. “Only one thing to do now,” he said, pulling her to him for a long kiss.
“Aren't you afraid you'll injure that hip?”
“No pain, no gain.”
Winter hated to lie to Sean, but telling her what he knew would serve no purpose. If he was right, he would tell her later, when all of this was far behind them.
113
Winter lay in bed with his eyes closed. As the hours had slowly passed, and sunrise approached, he'd allowed his mind to wander. There was such a subtle change in the room's atmosphere that he almost missed it. A slight breeze came in from the direction of the sliding glass doors onto the balcony.
He had left his SIG in the shoulder rig hanging on the chair near the bed. He didn't have to look to know his gun was no longer there. Now he was fully alert, aware even of the breathing pattern of the intruder. Winter felt his heartbeat quickening. The cutout stood silently at the foot of Winter's bed dressed in black, like a dark ghost-the grim reaper in a nylon mask.
Winter felt the muzzle of his own gun's barrel pressed against his big toe.
“I didn't know how long it would take you to show up.”
“You knew I was coming? You're full of shit, Massey.”
“I knew the helicopter didn't kill you. The last guy inside the lodge ran out just before the helicopter landed. If I couldn't hear a Blackhawk with the windows blown out, he sure couldn't have heard it from where he was in the hallway. I figure you radioed him that the helicopter was coming and he was the guy the helicopter took out.”
“His name was Tomeo.”
“And yours was David Lewis Harper, then Dylan Devlin. What's it now?”
“Now it's just Lewis,” the killer said, surprised. “Russo told you.”
“No, he didn't. In a way, Greg Nations did. I knew you'd have to come for me.”
“This isn't personal.”
“It's as personal as it gets. You killed my friends. You're what you've been your whole life; a soulless, pathetic, arrogant prick.”
The hammer made a dry click as Lewis cocked the SIG that he was aiming at Winter's head. “You just know too much.”
“I'm no threat to Fifteen, because everybody already knows about him and Herman Hoffman. They know about the CIA's GPS inside Sean's computer. They even know you're still alive. You're doing this because you know I'm your superior and you just can't allow me to live.”
“You're right about one thing. You are dead, Massey.”
“You're dead wrong. You've made a fatal mistake. Killing me with my own gun was a totally predictable move.”
Winter couldn't see the expression on the assailant's face, but he knew there would be no fear in his cold green eyes. If the man he'd known as Dylan Devlin had possessed normal human feelings and emotions, Herman Hoffman would never have selected him to seduce a woman and frame Sam Manelli so his, and Russo's, plan would work.
“Checkmate, loser,” Winter said.
The cutout reacted the way Winter had known he would. Unable to accept he'd been outmaneuvered by a deputy marshal, he failed to raise his own gun, which he held in his left hand pointing at the floor. Dylan Devlin squeezed the SIG's trigger.
There was an earsplitting report. The sheet at Winter's right side was burned black by the blast, shattered open where the bullet had passed from the World War II vintage Walther PP in Winter's right hand.
The SIG's hammer had snapped on an empty chamber. Dylan Devlin, a man who had been declared dead, was indeed dead when he hit the floor. Winter's SIG Sauer was still locked in the cutout's right hand; the silenced SOCOM. 45 rested on the floor beside him.
Two of the deputies that Shapiro had sent stormed into the bedroom, guns at the ready. The light came on, blinding Winter for a second. He set the Walther down on the bedside table.
“All clear!” one of them shouted.
The deputy in charge came in holding a shotgun, and Sean came around him a second later, jumping up onto the bed and putting her hands on Winter's chest. Her eyes were wide with fear and concern. She looked at the masked shape on the floor and back at Winter. “Are you all right?”
“I'm fine.”
“Who is that?” she asked.
“It was Russo's pal, Lewis.”
“I thought the helicopter got him on the levee? You said it was over,” she said. “It wasn't, was it?”
“It's over now. He was the last one.”
“You knew he was coming,” she said accusingly. She lowered her voice. “That's why you sent me to my own room last night.”
“I thought he might and I figured you'd been through enough already. Go back to your room while they deal with this. I'll be there in five.”
She nodded. “Okay, if you're sure.” She kissed his cheek and left the room.
The deputy in charge knelt beside the body, checking the neck for a pulse. “He's all done.” He lifted up the nylon mask and inspected the bullet hole that was centered in the cutout's throat. The round had punched through, exiting at the base of his skull, exploding the medulla and severing the spinal cord.
Winter hadn't really paid any attention to the deputies on the detail, because they didn't come into his room and he hadn't been outside it. When he looked at them he spotted an unpleasantly familiar face. Winter had last seen the man, now wearing a USMS khaki assault suit, when he had been standing in the hallway in Herman's building holding a silenced SIG Sauer-the same man who had beckoned Fifteen from the communications room-the same man who had first appeared as an FBI agent on Winter's porch. Winter glanced at the gun in the cutout's hand, which he was putting into his side holster.
“We'll clean this up,” the cutout said. His eyes remained locked on Winter's. There was no malice in them, but there was also no warmth there, either. “You need help, Deputy?”
“I can manage,” Winter said as he slid over to the side of the bed where the crutches waited.
“I believe you can,” the cutout said, smiling wryly. “Good luck.”
114
