Inside Out wm-1

by John Ramsey Miller

“Deputy Massey, I need to talk to both of you.”

  Light from outside filled the room. Sean Devlin was curled up, her head still on his leg, sound asleep.

  Opening her eyes, she sat up and stretched, running her fingers through her hair, sweeping it back.

  “I'm just going to say this outright,” Archer said. “The plane carrying Inspector Nations and his team vanished below radar four minutes after takeoff. The assumption was that the jet had gone down in the Atlantic. After the search started, we got word of what happened here.”

  “You knew that when you got here,” Winter said. Anger flooded his mind.

  “The Coast Guard and Navy started a search, and I came to see what had happened here. We assumed both events were connected. When we found the plane, we were certain of it. It was discovered at an abandoned military base in Virginia, a hundred miles inland from where it dropped off the radar screen.”

  “Emergency landing?” Winter wondered aloud. Despite Archer's unemotional delivery of the information, Winter knew this was going to be very bad news.

  “The plane was hijacked, flown to the old base, then blown up.”

  “Hijacked?” Winter repeated incredulously. “How do you know that?”

  “The two Justice Department pilots who flew Avery Whitehead to Cherry Point to meet your detail were found there murdered and stripped of their uniforms. Someone took their places. There is sufficient physical evidence at the Virginia base to conclude there were multiple fatalities. Based on the way these people operated here and at Cherry Point, I think we can assume that the seven people on that jet were murdered and the hijackers escaped.”

  The idea that Greg was dead would not fit into Winter's brain. Archer was saying something about transportation, but Winter was incapable of listening. He turned his attention to Sean, who sat expressionless. He expected her to ask questions, to at least be curious about her husband, but she merely sat there, numbly silent, as though she was listening to a mechanic explain what was wrong with her car.

  “Killing Mr. Devlin,” Archer continued, “was the whole purpose of both operations. Looks like there were two independent teams to ensure success even if there were last-minute changes.”

  “Maybe they aren't all dead.” Winter felt as though he had been drugged.

  “I am going to the scene, Deputy Massey,” Archer told him. “Your director is there. I am taking you with me.”

  “What about me?” Sean asked.

  “You will be going on to D.C., Mrs. Devlin.”

  “I'd prefer to stay with Deputy Massey.”

  “We'll make whatever arrangements we feel are appropriate. You'll be informed as those decisions are formalized.”

  “You just said that you're in charge,” Sean said coldly. “As next of kin, I should be able to visit the place where my husband died. If you can't okay that, please ask for permission. I'd like a chance to speak to the head of the marshals. Perhaps I have no choice but to be passed around between marshals and the FBI, but I will not be led about by a ring in my nose without protest.”

  “We wouldn't dream of having you think of us as bullies, Mrs. Devlin,” Archer responded, perhaps not wanting to look like a tyrant in front of such a beautiful woman. “I'd be happy to allow you to accompany the deputy here to Virginia and hand you over to the marshals. You have thirty minutes, if you'd like to freshen up. We've moved your things to the cook's quarters.”

  As he packed, Winter could hear Sean running water in Jet's bathroom. As he exited his bedroom he saw that Jet's door was standing open. Sean didn't see him when she placed Martinez's suitcase outside and closed the door. Bureau technicians had used yellow evidence tape to seal the battered Samsonite case, making it look like a gift.

  40

  Due to their tight cylindrical cabins, Lear jets were often referred to as executive mailing tubes. Winter and Sean belted themselves into the bench seat in the rear. Archer and Finch were in the foremost seats, across the narrow aisle from each other. Sean's briefcase fit edgewise in the space between her and Winter on the sofalike, forward-facing bench. Winter had stowed their bags in the cargo section behind them.

  Winter didn't want to think about Greg. He wanted his mind to stop replaying the images of the night before-Martinez, the flight across the island, the UNSUBs-but he had no choice. He listed in his head what he knew about the UNSUBs. They were as cold-blooded as men get. They'd been trained by the military, probably Special Forces. People didn't learn high-altitude, low-opening jumps from watching television. They had access to the latest weaponry. Two operations, like the simultaneous assaults at Cherry Point and Rook Island, didn't just happen. The killers didn't fly by the seats of their pants, improvising, and they didn't luck into anything. They had known Devlin was being kept on Rook Island. The killers had to have had an inside source for the intelligence their mission required. Winter thought Archer's assessment, that the assassins who landed on Rook were there as insurance in case Dylan's travel plans were changed at the last minute, was probably correct.

  Winter stared out the window at the ground passing below, unseeing. His inner theater replayed the last few seconds he and Greg had been together like it was on a video loop.

  41

  Ward Field, Virginia

  As the Lear embarked on its descent, Winter peered out and saw the derelict red-and-white-checkerboard-painted water tank that signified a military airfield. He stared down expecting to see the skeletal remains of a jet, but what he saw was the twisted steel of what had been a massive hangar and an enormous amount of activity on the ground below.

  The grassy tarmac on the side of the runway was choked with small jets, a cargo plane, and two helicopters. Police cruisers, trucks, emergency vehicles, and cars were scattered around the blackened hangar ruins. Long black water hoses snaked from a trio of fire trucks.

  Their pilot parked near a Gulfstream and cut the engines, and the copilot opened the clamshell door so Archer and Finch could exit. Winter spotted a group of men striding toward the Lear wearing jackets that identified them as either US marshals or FBI agents. One of them was United States Chief Marshal Richard Shapiro.

  Archer spoke to Shapiro for a few seconds, then led Finch and the other FBI agents toward two canopy tents. Folding tables, with laptop computers and radios, had been arranged in a horseshoe to define the command post. In the adjacent tent, evidence bags covered several tables. Technicians were photographing the contents of each bag before handing it over to other techs for labeling and cataloging. A mobile chiller unit to handle human remains was located behind the evidence tent.

  Winter stepped down and stood in the grass outside the door. Shapiro looked fatigued and concerned. He shook Winter's hand briskly. “Outstanding job on the island, Winter. This is all so…”

  Shapiro's silence was as heavy with grief as a wail. He cleared his throat and looked past Winter. “Please, Mrs. Devlin. If you'll stay inside the plane for a few minutes. We have a lot to discuss and we will talk soon, you and I. First I need to have a few words in private with Deputy Marshal Massey.”

  “Sure,” Sean said noncommitally. She disappeared back into the cabin.

  Two deputies took up positions on either side of the door as though she might try to escape.

  “Terrible about Deputy Martinez,” Shapiro said. “And this.”

  “What happened?”

  Shapiro took a deep breath. “The jet was inside the hangar when it blew up. There's very little left in the way of evidence.”

  “Do you know how they were killed?”

  “They found a skull fragment with an entry wound, probably. 45 caliber. The hijackers murdered the pilots at Cherry Point using manual strangulation. Wearing the pilots' uniforms, they overcame our team after they were inside the plane. Ground personnel saw the men get into the craft but they didn't notice anything unusual. The jet taxied and took off normally. As it climbed out, it rose to ten thousand feet, then plunged below radar and obviously turned west.”

>   Winter was staring at the evidence tent while Shapiro spoke. He saw Archer and Finch inside the tent where technicians were pointing out evidence bags. Archer had clearly taken charge.

  “I can only imagine how difficult this has to be for you.” Shapiro paused. “I know how close you were to Inspector Nations.”

  Winter nodded, too full of emotion to speak.

  “The FBI suspects someone in WITSEC provided inside intelligence. This is an FBI investigation, and we're here at their pleasure and are being excluded from participation. Tell me what happened last night,” Shapiro said. “The broad strokes.”

  Winter told Shapiro the story, ending with the UNSUB who knew his name. Shapiro listened without interrupting, then shifted so his back was to the FBI's tents.

  “I've ordered the WITSEC director to open an internal investigation to examine everything, including the various methods of communication we utilized and whether any of the transmissions could have been intercepted. I don't believe there is a leak from within WITSEC. We assumed that there are so many flags, triggers, and hidden traps that it's impossible. For decades we've tried to imagine every way a thing like this could be accomplished and we constantly design, refine, and implement counter measures. Only a handful of men had access to enough of the information to furnish the necessary intelligence, and, believe me, we monitor all of them closely. The fact that one of the assailants knew your name means, either he somehow recognized you, or somebody within the service sold us out.”

  Winter nodded slowly. He hoped it was the latter, because the former was too terrible to contemplate.

  42

  Later, while Shapiro was in the Lear with Sean, Winter wandered over to the evidence tent. He listened to the sound of the refrigeration compressor atop the chiller unit as he stood outside the tent and studied the bags littering one of the tables.

  He found himself staring at an open case, which held a badge and a scorched ID picture of Dixon beside it. Archer's voice interrupted his thoughts. “Deputy Massey, can you match some of this with individuals for us?”

  “Sorry… sure.”

  Inside the tent, he let his eyes wander over the articles, and he pointed to an Astros baseball cap that had been burned away to the brim. “That was Beck's.” He lifted a bag containing a watch. “This was Greg Nation's.” The watch's crystal was shattered, the stainless-steel band broken at the clasp.

  “What about this?” Archer pointed to another bag, containing a foil wrapper and a Spectra film box. “They found this outside the hangar.”

  “There are no cameras allowed in a WITSEC operation.”

  “Thoughts?” Archer probed.

  Winter inspected the box and foil through the plastic. “Opened recently, because it doesn't look weathered. Was it discarded by one of the firemen or sheriff deputies?”

  “Already checked that. No fingerprints on the package or the foil.”

  “Then I imagine the killers dropped it. Maybe they took pictures of Devlin for proof to the client that they'd succeeded. Easier than lugging a corpse around.”

  “Good guess.”

  A technician set an old Boy Scout backpack on the “incoming” evidence table. The initials G.W. were on the flap.

  “Just a minute,” Archer asked. “What's that?”

  “It was out in the debris field,” the tech answered. “There are some unusual objects inside.”

  “Did that belong to any of your team?” Archer asked Winter.

  “No,” Winter said.

  “Put it down,” Archer told the tech, pointing to a clean space on the table. The supervising agent in charge tugged his right glove on tighter, then opened the backpack. Winter watched as Archer took the contents out one at a time, placing each on the table.

  “A pair of eight-by-forty binoculars with a broken lens, a slightly used votive candle, a partially filled box of cigarettes, Penthouse magazine dated August of this year, a book of matches, and a pocket knife.”

  “Probably belonged to a kid,” Winter commented. “When was this place closed?”

  Archer called out to a rotund sheriff's deputy rinsing his hands under a flowing faucet. “Hey, Deputy, when was this place closed down?”

  “It was in full swing until after Vietnam.” He took Archer's question as a summons and approached, shaking his hands to dry them. “It was used some, here and there, until the mid-'80s. It's been locked up tight ever since.”

  “Maybe a kid of a caretaker, worker's kid?”

  “No caretaker that I know of,” the deputy replied. His chrome nameplate said SLOOP.

  “Well, some kid was in here at some point since the August Penthouse hit the racks,” Winter said laconically.

  The deputy nodded slowly and studied the backpack. “G.W. We got a pair of boys-George Williams and Matthew Barnwell-both twelve-year-olds, reported missing by their parents last night.”

  Archer turned to Finch, who stood in the nearby command tent ten feet away, watching Archer like a student. “I want a copy of that missing-persons report.”

  “Where exactly was this pack found?” Archer asked.

  “It was outside the debris field,” the evidence tech replied. He pointed to several acres defined by a fluttering line of yellow crime-scene tape that ran between metal stakes pushed into the ground. The field was being searched by at least fifty FBI and ATF technicians dressed in white jumpsuits and wearing surgical gloves. Hundreds of small plastic flags on wire rods marked the debris. Winter knew that red ones indicated where body parts had been located. Other colors stood for personal belongings, parts of the aircraft, or suspected bomb parts.

  “I can show you exactly where it was.”

  Archer called out. “I want a K-nine unit over there.”

  Several of the men inside the tent filed out into the field like swarming bees, flowing toward the place the tech had pointed out. Winter didn't accompany them. Instead, he looked again at the shattered wristwatch.

  The Omega's rear plate, he knew, commemorated the first manned landing on the moon. He remembered Greg saying once that as an orphaned child, he had stood barefoot in his grandmother's hard-dirt yard and stared up at the moon, desperately trying to see the astronauts she had told him were up there. His grandmother had told him it was a mighty long way to go to put up a little flag nobody could see. He knew then that he was standing between two worlds. One world was the only one he had ever known-poverty and hopelessness. The other was a magical place where a man could stand on the moon's surface. Greg told Winter that, at that moment, he didn't know how it would be possible, but he was certain which world he was going to live in. From that night on, he did everything he could to jump into that other world, like it was some passing train, and get a seat inside it. He had purchased the “Astronaut” watch when he was in the military so he would never forget that night-or the vow he'd made-a world away.

  Sean and Shapiro stood outside the Lear's door, still talking. As Shapiro began walking toward the tent, Sean used her hand as a visor and scanned the landscape before climbing back up into the airplane.

  When Shapiro saw Archer and the others, now a hundred yards distant, he asked, “What's happening?”

  Winter set the bag containing the watch back on the table. “Found evidence a couple of missing boys might have been here. They're going to have a dog try and find them.”

  “God, if the boys ran across those people…” Shapiro said, then broke off.

  A sheriff's-department Explorer pulled off the road. The driver stopped, climbed out, and opened the back door. A German shepherd bounded out, straining the lead the driver was holding. After the animal sniffed the backpack, he tugged his handler toward the fence on the far side of the field. The officers and emergency personnel followed along like a lynch mob.

  “Fred Archer is the case officer,” Shapiro said abruptly.

  “That so?”

  “He broke the Morrow spy ring three years back, foiled a terrorist plot to smuggle six tons of Semtex into Sa
n Francisco last year, and recovered sixty of the sixty-two million that was taken from the New York State retirement fund six months ago. That's why he's here, why he has command of the investigation. He's the director's golden boy.”

  Winter didn't reply, just stared out at the activity.

  “Mrs. Devlin's been through an ordeal.”

  “She sure has,” Winter agreed.

  “She seems sort of numbed out. I told her I wanted her to take a few days to unwind. Talk to a therapist-weigh her options. I want to make sure she isn't in shock. Beneath that facade, she's got to be a basket case.”

  Winter found a pair of binoculars in the command tent and raised them to his eyes. The dog had led the crowd across the field. A uniformed deputy slipped under the fence, disappeared into a gully, and came out with a bicycle, which he propped against the fence. He went down again to bring up a second.

  “Pair of bicycles,” Winter said.

  Winter's body tensed with anticipation as he watched for any sign that the two boys had been located. Archer pointed back toward the spot where the dog had started tracking. Winter knew that the dog had retraced its steps from where the backpack had been located to the place where the boys entered the base. The handler would go back now and see if his dog could find and follow the scent in the direction the boys had traveled. Sure enough, the dog took off, leading his handler across the debris field and toward the derelict control tower. The dog stopped below it, sniffed around the riser, and started to bark frantically.

  An FBI agent scrambled up on the rotted steps, balancing like a tightrope walker. Once on the deck, he pulled his gun out and moved around the building, out of Winter's view.

  “What is it?” Shapiro asked.

  Winter focused on the deck. There was movement as the agent came around the corner. And then, like apparitions materializing, two small figures walked unsteadily into view. “They're alive!” Winter murmured. “Thank God,” he said. “Finally, something.”