“I'm already wet,” she said.
He handed her a ballistic vest. “Put this vest on first-under the coat.”
Winter cut the flashlight off before they left the room. In the rec room, his ears picked up the chirp of a wet rubber sole against floor tile-someone was coming up the hallway.
He nudged Sean to a steel-frame window on the bay side and swung it open. He whispered, “When I fire, you go out this window. Don't wait. If I'm not right behind you, find a place to hide. Help should be here soon.” Since he had no idea if the sailors had sent out an alarm, he had no reason to believe help would come soon enough to make any difference to them.
He moved to a table and set the lamp on its surface, holding it at arm's length with his left hand while he aimed his gun at the door. When the rec room door swung in, Winter braced, but sensing a feint, remained still. After the door swung back into place, it opened again and a figure entered. If their luck held, this man, too, would be wearing night-vision lenses: a double-edged sword. While it allowed him to see in darkness like an owl, it also made him sensitive to bright light.
When Winter triggered the flashlight, the figure against the door was illuminated like a performer on a stage. The man raised his left arm to shield his blinded eyes and fired a burst at the light. Winter fired as he ran for the window, where Sean was scrambling through ahead of him. The. 40-caliber bullets knocked the killer backward through the door. Due to the armor, Winter doubted he had done more than slow the man down.
They ran up the side of the barracks toward the radio shack and the switchback beyond it. Winter had only four shots left and at least two other assailants to split them between. As they rounded the radio shack, a lightning bolt streaked overhead and Winter saw a silhouette among the weeds to the left of the path. A man was waiting there on the switchback in case they managed to get past the one who'd come inside-a man who'd soon be on their heels. Winter thrust Sean through the radio shack's doorway, just as the crouching man opened up with his MP5. The bullets struck the bunker like hammer blows.
Sean fell over something and yelped.
Winter couldn't close the door without exposing himself to the man's corrected fire. When lightning flared across the sky again, Winter saw that Sean had tripped over a uniformed corpse. They had seconds before someone came in after them. There was no way out-only the way they'd come in.
Winter knew that if he allowed himself to think this over, he was dead. He grabbed Sean by her arm, almost tripping over an overturned chair.
“What are we going to do?” she demanded.
“Hide,” Winter said.
“Great plan,” she muttered. “They'll never find us in here.”
“Was that sarcasm?” he quipped as he looked around.
“Absolutely,” she replied, squeezing his hand.
He put Sean inside a narrow steel cabinet and closed its door. He doubted both killers would enter: One would come in, or both would take this opportunity to make an escape. The assailants had to know their time was running out. Why risk their lives for second-tier targets when the Navy might be coming to the island anytime?
Rain rattled on the awning as he prepared to greet the killer. Something thrown in from outside rolled across the floor. He didn't have to see it to know it was a grenade. Winter closed his eyes, pressed his hands over his ears, and opened his mouth. If it was a CS grenade they could survive the gas. If it was a fragmentary grenade, he would likely die with his mouth open and his hands over his ears. His preference was for it to be a third type-a flash-bang.
He only had time for one last thought: I did the best I could.
34
The assailant guarding the switchback fired too late to hit the running couple. The man readied his weapon and watched his partner slip inside the radio shack. Smoke from the flash-bang grenade poured over him through the rain and was sucked off by the wind. If his partner didn't come out pretty quick, he'd kill whoever did. The WITSEC deputy they had been pursuing was a lot better than they'd imagined. This cakewalk had cost them their team leader, a man they had all considered the best in their cell.
Within two minutes, his partner backed out of the building, dragging the woman out into the downpour by her ankle. He closed the distance between them just as his partner aimed his weapon down at the woman's head and fired a three-shot burst. The impact of the bullets splattered dark muck against the side of the building.
Curious, the killer joined his partner and kneeled beside her, gripped her drenched hair, and turned her face toward him to confirm the kill. “What about the deputy?” he asked his partner, who stood over him. The woman blinked.
“Live, or die,” an unfamiliar voice said. The killer didn't have to look up to know that he was on his knees below the deputy marshal who was wearing his partner's outfit.
The killer pivoted the MP5 in his hand intending to take out the woman, before he was shot himself, but…
Winter helped Sean to her feet. Using the rain and his palm, he wiped away the chunks of mud his bullets had splashed. Winter scanned the landscape through the night-vision goggles he had taken from the dead assailant inside the shack and saw nothing that was a danger to them. He didn't look down at the killer's ruined skull. He removed the goggles and tore off the rubber hood.
“I felt the heat from your gun when you shot. Did you have to shoot it so close to my head?” Unbelievably, Sean was angry.
“He wouldn't have fallen for it otherwise. Let's find a radio.”
“Where?”
“Should be one on the boat.” He reached into Sean's coat pocket, took out his SIG, and put it in her hand. He checked the magazine of the MP5 in his hand and, finding it too light, discarded it for a full one he robbed from the dead man at his feet.
He had expected to find the assassins' boat waiting at the dock for them, but there were only the two he had seen there earlier that day. Running down the switchback, he and Sean approached the dock through the freezing rain. Winter scanned the surrounding area all the way down to the sport-fishing boat. When he looked back up at the tree line he saw, off to the right, the shape of a Little Bird, a four-place military helicopter. He hoped there had been only the three assassins he had killed-one being the pilot.
Winter stepped over the transom after Sean.
“Watch the path,” he told her. He climbed into the cockpit of the boat. The windshield was smeared with water, obscuring his view of the dock, the switchback, and the radio tower. Sean stood in the rain with her hood up, aiming Winter's gun at the switchback,
Just as he discovered that the key was missing, Winter heard something hit the deck behind him and turned to see the styrene key fob on the floor at Sean's feet. She stood, staring up at the flying bridge above Winter, her face a frozen mask. A red dot danced in the center of her Navy-issue raincoat.
“Lady, throw that pistol over the side.” The Southern accent was thick.
Winter nodded at her to do so. She hesitated, then tossed the handgun out, the rain swallowing the splash. “Now, Deputy Massey, five seconds to toss out that chatterbox or I'll light the bitch up. You can't hit me without me doing her.”
He studied the crimson spot that moved from Sean's jacket to her face and back to her heart. He studied Sean's gaze to see exactly where her eyes were aimed. The only question was how close this fourth killer was standing to the edge. Winter switched the rate-of-fire selector to full automatic and raised the barrel.