Without shifting his stance or moving anything except his hand, Charles Hunt turned the page over.
“There will be a joint press conference tomorrow morning at noon to fully explain the connections between the arrest last night and the loss of life on Rook Island, North Carolina, and Ward Field, Virginia. Due to last-minute developments in the investigation, I will not be taking any questions at this time. At the news conference tomorrow the attorney general will give a full explanation and your questions will be answered.”
The reporters all raised their hands regardless, and when Hunt didn't respond immediately, started yelling out questions. The FBI director folded the piece of paper. He answered the shouted questions in the way Sam Manelli always had-with a single dismissive wave as he stepped down from the stage and strode away.
“I guess they need more time to work up an official story,” Winter said.
“They've got their work cut out for them,” Sean retorted. She took the remote and turned off the set.
112
After dinner, while Sean showered in her bathroom, Winter lay in bed, unable to stop thinking about Greg. It was over, but even so, something was gnawing at him. If not Greg, who could have planted the GPS? How could he be so wrong about a man he was so close to? He had to figure out an alternative, or admit to himself the unthinkable.
When Sean returned to his bedroom wearing a robe, she didn't knock; which seemed perfectly natural to Winter. Her hair was still wet, brushed back. She closed the door, pulled the drapes, and came to his bed without saying a word. As Winter watched, she dropped the robe to the floor and stood beside the bed, naked. He didn't think the angry bruise on her shoulder, a gift from the ten-gauge goose gun's recoil, detracted from her perfection in the least. She came to him and their first kiss went on and on and swept Winter away. That kiss made everything they had been through seem like some vague memory. After making love, they lay together, side by side for long minutes, caressing each other, kissing.
“Winter, what are you thinking about?” she asked.
“You.”
“Besides me,” she laughed.
“The thing I still don't understand,” Winter said, “is how that GPS device got into your computer.”
“I don't know.”
“Try to remember. When was the laptop out of your sight?”
“Well,” she said, thinking as she rubbed his stomach, “Dylan gave it to me a few days before I went to Argentina as a first anniversary gift. It was pretty much always with me in South America. The marshals in New York turned it on to check it out after we were in the first safe house. Greg brought it and my suitcases to me after he searched everything. Greg took it back to Dylan so he could type me a nasty message.”
“I read it.”
“From there, I had it with me until Hank took it.”
Winter's dream, where Greg turned into Fletcher Reed, suddenly played in his mind. A change from one into the other. Why? Metamorphosis is a change of identity.
“Sean,” he said, leaning up on an elbow. “Can you look in my bag and see if the material Reed sent me is in there?”
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.