Inside Out wm-1

by John Ramsey Miller

  Winter went back to the door leading into the darkened room next to the kitchen and slid it open silently. He had the SIG in his right hand already, so after he closed the door, he pulled Yul's Hi-Power from inside his belt. Illumination coming into the bunk room from a slightly open hallway door allowed Winter to make out the line of bunk beds and the shape of a man lying asleep in one of them.

  After crossing the room, Winter stood at the hallway door, listening. A split second before he moved out into the hall, he heard the hard-soled shoes of someone entering the hall from the kitchen.

  He moved quickly aside, flattening himself against the wall beside the door.

  The man pushed open the bedroom door a few inches and called in, “Angelo, get your ass up!” before he returned to the kitchen. Angelo got up and ambled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

  Winter slipped out from the bunk room, crossed the hall, and started carefully up the staircase that led up to a central hallway. At the top of the stairs he peered to his left around the corner. The opposing walls rose to the vaulted ceiling that peaked twenty feet above. There were two doors on each side of the hall. Beyond the hallway's throat, edged with vertical rough-hewn cypress beams to support an arch of the same material, was a great room. What Winter could see of the living room included the back of a couch and overstuffed leather armchairs arranged before a massive fieldstone fireplace centered in a wall of window glass. Winter decided to find a door that would allow him to get out onto the porch so he could see into the great room. The acoustics were such that Sam's loud voice filled the hallway as if he was using a public address system.

  “Where's Spiro? I thought you went to get him,” Sam growled.

  “He's with two of the new guys watching the back gate. He'll be back soon.”

  “I think the boy should have paid more attention to his school and less to that weight-lifting rigmarole.”

  Winter was almost at the closest door to the stairwell when Manelli crossed the room and stopped, framed in the archway. In person, Sam Manelli was a living illustration of dynamite coming in small packages.

  All the aging gangster had to do was turn and he would be staring at a stranger thirty feet away holding a pair of pistols. Winter didn't want to do anything until he had located Sean, but if Manelli turned, he would take the man hostage. If there were more people in the great room sitting silently, or if Sam was to yell out for the downstairs guards, it could get bad. If Sam yelled, Winter would run into the room and perhaps shoot everybody there. Sam walked away without turning. Relieved that he didn't have to shoot Manelli yet, Winter put the Hi-Power in the small of his back and slipped through the nearest door.

  He entered a dimly lit bedroom, stopping beside a partly opened closet door. Ahead, he saw a bed with the covers disturbed. What must have been a bathroom door was closed, but light leaked out from under it and he could hear water running in the sink.

  He heard footsteps moving down the hallway and someone tapping at the door before opening it. Winter slipped into the closet, eased the sliding door almost closed so he could peer out through the crack and ready himself. As the door closed, Winter saw Sam Manelli's profile, less than two feet away.

  101

  Shadows among shadows, the quartet of cutouts moved west through the narrow line of trees along the drainage canal. They cut a hole in the eastern ILS fence and slipped through. Their starlight goggles painted the world a Saint Elmo's fire green. They wore sensitive, sound-activated headsets and could talk to each other in an emergency.

  Nearing the gate separating the tank farm from the lodge property, they slowed and crept to the edge of the road, where it exited the tank farm and entered Manelli's property. A clot of four guards, who couldn't have been more visible to the cutouts if they had been on fire, stood just inside the gate. As one of the men waved his hand in the darkness, his lit cigarette looked like an acrobatic firefly.

  Lewis took up his position not fifteen feet away from the four guards.

  Tomeo, Mickey, and Apache kept going toward the lodge.

  Normally they would have taken out the four guards and moved on, but Lewis was not going to put a single team member at unnecessary risk. He wanted a lightning strike whereby all of the exterior guards were neutralized at once. He didn't want any of the guards to have an opportunity to resist-or for a shout or a gunshot to alert anyone inside the lodge. The body armoring all but removed that risk for Tomeo and Apache, but his and Mickey's lighter suits offered superior maneuverability with full protection of only their torsos. Even if the inserts were missed, the latest version of Kevlar would take multiple rounds in the same spot without failure.

  According to Russo, there could be as many as fourteen guards there, all of them aware that they were not to fire at anyone without Russo's orders. Russo thought the cutouts were going to erase only Sam and Sean.

  Despite what Lewis had told Russo, Fifteen's orders had been clear. “Erase everybody there and leave no witnesses.” As Lewis had put it to his people, “If they didn't come here with us, they're staying after us.”

  Figuring his team was in position up the road, Lewis raised his MP5 SD and fired at the men standing like cows in the curve of a nameless dirt road.

  102

  Sam Manelli stood at the foot of the bed staring at the bathroom door. If the aging gangster had ever smiled, there was no evidence in the famous mask, which seemed to have been carved from a lifetime of suspicion and displeasure. The water stopped running.

  The old man sat on the edge of the bed, his knees facing the closet. The bathroom door opened and Sean Devlin climbed up onto the bed and sat cross-legged, facing Manelli. Stunned, Winter watched Sam lean over and kiss her gently on the cheek.

  Winter stepped out of the closet, aiming the SIG at Sam Manelli, his finger on the trigger, already knowing that the first bullet would strike his square head in the center.

  Manelli reacted by standing up to face Winter.

  When Sean saw Winter, she slid quickly off the mattress and stood between Winter and Sam for a split second before Sam shoved her behind him.

  “Go ahead an' do me,” Sam growled. “Just leave her alone!”

  “Winter, no!” Sean cried out. “Don't.”

  “What the hell is this, Sean?” Winter demanded. He couldn't accept what he was seeing before him.

  “It's okay, Winter. Sam, he's the deputy that saved my life on that island.”

  “Okay? This old reptile's been trying to kill you,” Winter told Sean. “He sent the people who killed Martinez and Greg! His people just tried to kill Hank and me.” Winter's hand was trembling from anger, shock. “I'm not dead, you old bastard, your three in the boathouse are.”

  Manelli's blue eyes were suddenly curious. “When was you in my boathouse?”

  “Russo told your clowns to drown us.” Winter kept the SIG aimed at Sam's head, wanting to squeeze the trigger.

  “I don't believe that,” Sam growled. “Why would he do a thing like that and not tell me? When?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago. A creep named Spiro and two guys grabbed us. Russo came to the boathouse and said for them to drown us in your crab cage. One of them shot my partner.”

  “Is Hank all right?” Sean asked, genuinely concerned.

  “Will be soon as the assault team gets here.” Winter took the handcuffs from his jacket pocket and tossed them onto the bed. “Put those on him, Sean.”

  “That's not necessary,” Sean said.

  “You're a crazy man,” Sam barked. “How does Johnny know you? What reason would he have to kill you?”

  “Shut up, Manelli. Cuff him, Sean, or I swear to God, I'll drop this psychopath right here.”

  “Winter, he didn't know they tried to kill me on Rook or in Richmond. It was a mistake.”

  “Who the hell else would want you dead? He got Hoffman to send those men after Dylan, didn't he?”

  “You can't prove that,” Sam protested.

  “He didn't send
them after me.”

  “So it's all right because they only killed everybody else?”

  “I didn't mean it that way. Of course it isn't okay.”

  “For Christ's sake, Sean! Why the hell would you believe him?”

  “Winter, Sam's my father.” Winter saw a framed picture on the bedside table. In it a smiling child of ten or eleven held a shotgun in one hand and a dead duck in the other.

  Winter let that sink in as he studied her eyes. His confusion melted away, leaving him feeling every scrape and bruise on his body.. and completely out of patience.

  “Then cuff Daddy or I will kill him,” he said with a certainty that he knew left no room for doubt.

  103

  Winter found Johnny Russo standing in front of the wet bar with his back to the archway, holding his cell phone up to his ear. The L-shaped bar, on Winter's left was eight feet long, four deep, and its closed end faced the archway wall. The front was made of stacked cypress beams, identical to those used in the archway, and topped with a two-inch-thick slab of granite.

  To Winter's right was a wide gun cabinet filled with shotguns. In front of him, living room furniture faced the stone fireplace, which was centered in a wall of glass.

  “Spiro, you bonehead prick. Turn on your damned phone,” Russo muttered.

  “He can't get a signal in hell,” Winter said.

  Russo spun around to the sight of Winter, standing in the archway aiming two guns at him.

  Winter was primed with anger. Russo was responsible for what had happened to Hank and him in the boat shed. He wouldn't hesitate to make this strutting silver-haired prick doornail dead.

  “Just a minute!” Russo put his phone on the bar, keeping his hand there.

  “Step away from the bar,” Winter commanded. He already knew that Russo wasn't armed. Sam had told Winter that Johnny's. 357 was behind the bar, where he'd set it down when he came in earlier that afternoon.

  Slowly Russo smiled. “You're no deputy marshal. Why didn't you just say you was with Lewis? Sam and Sean are in that first bedroom, and you can clip 'em easy-Sam's not packing.”

  Who is Lewis? What others? Winter couldn't imagine who he was talking about. He didn't get a chance to ask.

  “You're dead!” Sam's voice boomed from the hallway behind Winter.

  Johnny Russo's face seemed to sag as Sam Manelli passed Winter and stepped into the room. The fact that his wrists were handcuffed in front of him didn't seem to make Russo feel any safer.

  Sean stood at Winter's right side.

  “Stop right there, Manelli!” Winter ordered.

  “You ain't getting away with this,” Manelli growled at Russo. “You been trying to get Sean clipped! You just told this bird to kill us. I don't know how you got Herman to double-cross me and try to kill my kid, but I am gonna find out. You better talk quick or I'm gonna kill you.”

  “It was Herman's idea. He set it all up for the three million.” Russo's face was pale and sweat glistened on his forehead.

  “And you knew about it? Why was he going to kill Sean?”

  “Sam… you… you were gonna leave her everything legit and I wouldn't have any way to hide my street money. It was just business.” Russo stepped back, hands outstretched in supplication. “We're talking millions of dollars. You'd have done the same thing.”

  “She's my kid! I decide what to do with what's mine. You supposed to make your own legitimate businesses-”

  “I don't need any more of your money,” Sean told Sam.

  “You gonna get it, though,” Sam snapped at Sean. “And that's that.”

  “Johnny, I gave you and Rose the cab company as a wedding present, for Christ's sakes, and it's a solid business. My legits was always supposed be Sean's. I never gave you reason to think my niece was gonna get any more of what's mine. I gave you the whole other side of the business.”

  “If Herman's men had done it right, there wouldn't be any question about that.” Russo was regaining his composure, knowing that Winter wouldn't let Sam touch him. “You're finished Sam. It's all mine now.”

  “I'm gon' kill you, Johnny. By God…”

  “Why don't you call your men, Sam? You'll see they won't come unless I call them.”

  Sam moved forward. “I'll show you who's done-”

  “Not one more step, Sam!” Winter warned. “Who is Lewis?” Winter demanded.

  Winter was alerted to activity downstairs by sounds rising up from the stairwell behind him-something shattered, and there were sounds like kitchen furniture being moved. Thinking the downstairs guards were on their way up, he aimed the Hi-Power back at the stairwell behind him while keeping the SIG on Russo and Manelli. “I don't give a damn who they answer to. If those men come up, I'll kill them,” Winter reminded Sam. He didn't trust Sam any more than he did Russo. He didn't believe, as Sean did, that Sam was interested only in protecting her. He had allowed Sean to overhear Sam confronting Russo, but that was the only concession he was willing to make-and that was because he wanted her to hear the truth.

  “Who is Lewis?” Winter repeated.

  “You can ask him yourself.”

  Winter turned just as a pair of armor-clad figures stepped out from the stairwell. He fired the Hi-Power at them before they could bring their machine guns to bear, and he shouldered Sean toward the wall where the gun cabinet stood. He took cover behind the left vertical beam.

  Even without their yelling out “police,” Winter knew their weapons and the full-body armor marked them as the enemy. Had he hesitated a fraction of a second before firing on the figures, the cutouts would certainly have killed him and Sean.

  While Winter fired down the hall, Sam scrambled after Sean.

  Russo took cover behind the bar. “Come get these sons of bitches!” he shouted gleefully. As he got his magnum from behind the bar. Winter knew the wet bar was as bulletproof as the beam he was depending on to keep him alive, which meant he was going to be fighting a war on two fronts. Unless Chet's men arrived soon, it would be a short skirmish.

  The cutouts recovered and fired up the hallway into the great room. The sounds of the bullets striking objects was louder than the MP5 muzzle blasts. The fusillade filled the air. The thick glass windows beside the fireplace exploded and sheets of heavy glass crashed to the floor.

  Sam kicked the glass out of the gun cabinet and pulled out a long-barreled, side-by-side ten-gauge L.C. Smith goose gun. Sean, understanding that her father couldn't use the shotgun with his hands cuffed, took it from him as he opened the drawer for shells.

  Winter set down Yul's handgun long enough to reach into his pocket and toss his handcuff keys to Sean. He knew that a shotgun in Sam's hands would at least keep Russo from shooting him in the back.

  Winter picked up Hi-Power again, leaning out just far enough to keep his exposed flesh to a minimum, and fired both weapons, the bullets hitting the figures like sledgehammer blows knocking them back against the wall, but the killers defiantly remained on their feet. The butts of Winter's bullets, embedded in their Kevlar armor, looked like copper buttons. Between the ceramic plates inside the thick seamless armor and helmets with Lexan face shields, the pair would be almost impossible to kill with just handguns. Before they again opened fire with the MP5s, Winter was safely back behind the beam. The Hi-Power was dry and Winter reloaded using the magazine with the eleven bullets left in it after he had tagged Spiro. That done, he ejected the SIG's empty magazine and slammed in a new one. A dragon is vulnerable to an arrow fired under her scales.

  Sean pressed the breech lever aside and broke open the shotgun.

  Russo came up from behind the bar and aimed the revolver at Sean, who was waiting for Sam to hand her shells.

  Seeing Russo with the magnum, Sam lunged in front of his daughter, took the bullet, and, as he fell to his knees, a half dozen shells poured from the box in his hand and scattered on the floor. He slumped heavily between Sean and Russo's gun.

  Winter turned at the sound of the magnum, but Russo was
already back down.

  Shell casings rained in the hall as the MP5s chewed up the front of the beam Winter was using for cover. When the pair stopped to reload, Winter placed both guns' barrels on the vertical flat of the beam so only his forehead was exposed to the cutouts' guns. Holding the SIG in his left hand, six inches higher up the beam than the Browning in his right, Winter fired rhythmically.

  The pair was advancing slowly. The smaller figure had a long dark tail of hair dangling below the back of the assault helmet. A woman? He hit her helmet with a Hi-Power round, knocking her off balance, then put a round from the SIG in her pelvis, seating her on the floor. His next two rounds pierced the upturned soles of the woman's boots. She screamed out as the bullets hit their marks. Winter was back behind the beam before rounds from the man's freshly reloaded machine gun chewed mercilessly at it.

  Russo fired again, that bullet slamming into the beam inches from Winter's face. Before Winter could turn and get a shot off, Russo had ducked again. He yelled, “I got Sam in the gut!”

  Blood seeped out from under Sam. His skin had turned cigarette-ash gray.

  Kneeling beside him, Sean took up two of the ten-gauge shells, pressed them into the chambers, snapped the breech closed, and aimed it at the bar.

  Seated on the floor, Sam picked up the handcuff key and opened the lock on his left wrist, letting the open cuff dangle from his right.

  “You can't shoot for shit, Johnny,” Sam called hoarsely.

  Woman or not, the seated figure in the hallway was just a target. Five seconds after he had shot through her boots while her partner was trying to help her up, Winter fell to the floor. When he leaned out, aiming down the hallway, he was four feet lower than the man had anticipated. Winter shot at the woman's helmet, just above the visor. The impact levered her head back so his second shot drilled in under her exposed chin. She flew straight back, dead. When Winter turned his attention to her partner, he took immediate cover in the stairwell. Less confident in that armor now?