Sean grimaced and turned away.
Despite the coughing fit it brought on, Sam laughed.
104
Through the downpour, Lewis and Tomeo fled east in defeat, moving through the woods as fast as they could without sounding like hunting dogs charging through the undergrowth, hot-trailing a deer. They stopped long enough to allow a six-man assault team, which was running in from the gate, to pass within ten feet of their position. The helicopter that had dropped off the team was circling the lodge.
No more than three minutes had passed from the time Lewis' three cutouts had entered the lodge until Lewis had ordered the withdrawal of his sole remaining team member.
“That guy with the handguns,” Tomeo said. “I've never seen anything like that shitter. I've got bruises all over my body.” He held up his padded left hand. “He broke my fucking knuckles. He knocked Apache down and put one in under her chin. All the time I was firing-every time I drew a bead, he knocked the cold shit out of me. He was like a machine. I never had a clean shot at him.”
“Massey,” Lewis said. “Let's get out of here while they're still busy.”
“I think Mickey hit him. Sean yelled out he was hit, right after she took Mickey out.”
Lewis said. “Sam must have shot Mickey. She doesn't have the balls. If Massey was hit, they'll take him to a hospital,” Lewis said. “Or the morgue, if we're lucky. If he's dead, we can go home.”
105
The sound of boots thundering up the stairs brought Winter a surge of relief. “Police!” Chet Long yelled out from the stairwell. “Police officers-Massey?”
“It's all clear, Chet!” Winter called out.
“We need a doctor,” Sean said as the men in black stormed into the room, weapons raised. U.S. MARSHALS was stenciled on their chests and across their backs, and they carried riot guns and AR-15s.
Chet knelt beside Winter and asked, “How bad?”
“Through and through,” Winter replied, wincing as a sharp pain from the leg wound hit him. “One of them got away before the helicopter arrived. Five-foot-ten, fully armored like his partner there.”
“As soon as we can get a dog in here we'll search the woods and try and round him up. The Highway Patrol has River Road closed tight, so he ain't driving out.”
“Please,” Sean pleaded, indicating Sam Manelli, whom she was kneeling beside. “He's badly hurt.”
“Radio EMS we have four for immediate transport,” Chet ordered. “Tell the coroner he might want to bring a big truck because there's bodies scattered all over the place.”
Sean slipped a bullet-ruptured throw pillow under Sam's head.
Winter told Chet, “You get Hank from the boat shed?”
“He's probably on his way to the hospital by now,” Chet said as he pressed a towel against Winter's thigh to stop the bleeding. “Clue me in, Winter. At first blush it looks like the guy out on the deck and gal in the hall killed Sam's men with those H and Ks, then came up after… who-Sam and Russo?”
“Far as I know.”
“Who the hell do you think sent them?”
Sirens announced the arrival of patrol cars. Blue strobe lights reflected in the outside windows.
“I'm not sure,” Winter lied easily. There was no way he was going to repay Chet for saving his and Sean's lives by involving him in the other side of this mess. Winter figured that the woman cutout he'd killed might be the hitter from Richmond that missed Sean there. “Do me a favor and bag her SOCOM for ballistics.”
Chet glanced at Sean, who was holding Sam's hand. “Weren't we supposed to be rescuing her from him?”
An EMS crew arrived, and as Sam was being lifted onto the cot, he looked down at Winter and winked.
A pair of EMT techs rolled a gurney containing Russo from the room.
Winter nodded.
“Who shot the man out on the porch?” Chet asked.
“I did,” Sam said. “I went down kicking ass. If you don't remember anything else, you remember that.” He grimaced in pain. “Somebody, get this gal away from me.” He released Sean's hand and closed his eyes.
“Let's move him to the wagon,” the EMS tech said.
Sean's eyes filled with tears as she stood and watched her father being rushed down the hall. She knelt beside Winter and took his hand.
“Are you all right?” Winter asked her.
She shook her head slowly. “I'm not sure what all right is.”
“Let's get you out of here,” an EMS who had been wrapping Winter's leg said. Two men lifted him onto a stretcher and carried him out. Sean followed. As the crew took Winter from the house toward an ambulance, they passed by another. Inside, one technician was writing something down while another gave Sam Manelli CPR. Despite the chest-pumping charade, it was obvious there was no longer any reason to rush the gangster anywhere.
Chet stuck his head into the ambulance Winter and Sean had just entered. “Hey, Winter, the other guy's making a run for it. He fired on the helicopter. I doubt his armor is going to be very effective against the M-60.”
“He in a black Suburban?”
“How'd you know that?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Hold up,” Chet told the ambulance crew. He had his phone to his ear, listening. “He's on River Road heading west,” Chet told Winter. “The units east of here are joining the pursuit. Okay, he's heading for the roadblock. Wait… he left River Road and he's heading up the levee.”
“He gets in the river, you'll lose him, Chet,” Winter said. “Tell them to stop him.”
“Okay, Bird One,” Chet said into the microphone. “You are authorized to use lethal force to stop that Suburban.”
Seconds later, the cloudbase in the western sky suddenly took on a muted orange tint. “That's all, folks,” Chet said.
106
Looking out over the tank farm, Lewis watched the fireball climb. Lewis knew how cops thought, how they acted. Figuring that all of the highway patrol prowlers available had chased after Tomeo, he pulled out from among the piles of garbage. Lewis had figured the authorities would have no idea of the exact size of the force they were opposing. In the pandemonium, while the cops were focused on Tomeo in the fleeing Suburban and the bloody meat they had left in and around the lodge, Lewis could have led a herd of elephants out onto River Road. It was possible that Tomeo had bailed out of the vehicle before it exploded. It didn't matter to Lewis because it wouldn't change anything. Tomeo was on his own.
Lewis kept the windows rolled up even though his nose was assaulted by the lingering stench of cigarettes, dog, and the old man's fetid body odor. He drove to River Road and aimed the Ford truck toward New Orleans before turning on the headlights. He hoped that the mattress and other trash didn't tumble out of the truck's bed and draw unwanted attention.
107
Sean had held Winter's hand from the time they got into the ambulance until they had wheeled him into the emergency room at Charity Hospital.
At the hospital Winter heard from one of Chet's deputies that the cutout had been ambushed by the chopper at the top of the levee. His armor hadn't been any help, especially considering that the Suburban's overlarge gasoline tanks had gone up, incinerating him after he had been riddled by most of the 7.62-mm rounds the M60 fired directly into his windshield from rock-throwing range.
The nurse gave Winter a shot of something that felt icy cold. He was unable to concentrate on anything at all-the crisp pain in his leg evolved into a dull pressure as the overlapping voices faded to whispers and trailed away. Winter was aware of the gentle lapping of water against the raft he found himself floating on-lying out in the warm sunshine, someplace far, far away…
Winter was alone in a corridor that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction. The door he had come through had vanished, Winter watched as a small speck grew into a person. As the figure drew closer, he could see that that it was a young man, seventeen or eighteen, wearing fatigues and a green beret.