Orchid Blues (19 page)

“What if he’s swept while it’s running?” Harry asked.

“Then they’ll pick it up and zero in on the button.” He turned to Ham. “Don’t let that happen,” he said.

“Gee, I’ll try not to,” Ham replied.

Thirty-nine

HOLLY, DAISY AND HAM WALKED BACK UP THE beach toward her house. “I’m worried about this,” she said.

“What, you don’t think your old man can handle it?”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. Harry is acting funny.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, based on the information you’ve given him, he ought to be ordering a full-scale investigation and on the horn to Washington, networking with the other agencies involved, which—so far—includes the Secret Service, the IRS, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and God knows what else.”

“You don’t trust Harry?”

“Of course, I trust him, on a personal level, but he’s playing some sort of political game, and I think that’s dangerous.”

“Well, I’m going to have to leave the politics to you and Harry,” Ham said. “What I’m going to do is go home and sew this button on my fatigue shirt, then, tomorrow, I’m going to go back out there and try to plant this smoke detector thing.”

“I know you are, Ham. You wouldn’t do it any other way.”

“Straight ahead is the only way I know.”

They stopped outside her house. “You want to come in for coffee?” she asked.

“Nah, I’d better get home, I guess.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “You watch your ass, you hear?”

“Don’t I always?” he replied. Then, with a wave, he walked toward his car.

When Holly entered the house, the phone was ringing and she picked it up. “Hello?”

“Holly? It’s Stone Barrington, how are you?”

“Oh, Stone, I don’t know.”

“You sound tired.”

“I’m depressed and exhausted.”

“Trouble with your case?”

“Oh, we’re making progress by leaps and bounds on that,” she said. “I’m just worried about it.”

“What’s the problem? I’ll help if I can.”

“When you were a cop, did you ever have any dealings with the FBI?”

“From time to time.”

“What did you think about them?”

“New York City cops don’t trust the FBI; maybe cops everywhere don’t. I was naive the first time I had to deal with them, but I learned.”

“Learned what?”

“That Mr. Hoover’s boys want all the meat for themselves and their agency, and if you deal with them, you end up with the bones and gristle.”

“I was afraid you were going to say something like that,” she replied.

“You think the Feds are trying to screw you?”

“I don’t think my friend Harry would do that, but I think he’s trying to screw every other government agency.”

“They’ll do that, too.”

“What should I do about it?”

“Do you have anything solid that would justify bringing other agencies into it?”

“Sort of, but nothing hard.”

“Then you’re going to have to ride the pony you rode in on,” Stone said. “If you try to bring other agencies into it, your sweet Harry is going to cut you off at the knees, believe me.”

“I don’t think he’d hurt me,” she said.

“Oh, he won’t hurt you, he’ll just box you in, well away from your case, until he’s milked all the credit he can out of it. It’s not just Harry, believe me; it’s the way the Bureau works. They’ll put themselves up front every time.”

“I worked with them once before, and it came out all right,” she said.

“Yeah, I read all about that. You brought them into it, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and we worked on it side by side.”

“But no other federal law enforcement?”

“No.”

“Then they didn’t have anything to worry about. If you’d gotten in their way, they’d have patted you on the head and sent you home, while the big boys in the Bureau did the heavy lifting.”

“You’re a cynic, you know that?”

“Me? I’m Sunny Jim; I’ve just had experience with them. I’ve had them walk into a case, steal my collar and confiscate the evidence my partner and I collected. I got to read about it in the papers later, and my name didn’t get mentioned.”

“Stone, don’t get me wrong, I’m not worried about getting credit. My father is up to his neck in this, and I’m afraid that they’re not putting enough resources into this case to protect him if he gets into trouble. I don’t want to go into detail, because it’s all confidential.”

“I understand. Well, it sounds like you’re going to have to give them some more rope, and hope they don’t hang themselves and your father. If it’s an important case to more than one agency, then a time will come when your Harry will have to call them in, whether he likes it or not. I think what he’s doing is maneuvering to be in a position to keep the case from being taken away from him by some other bunch of Feds.”

“I think you’re right,” she said.

“Is he a smart guy, this Harry?”

“Yes, very.”

“Then you’re going to have to trust him for a while longer. If he screws up, then you can always threaten to go elsewhere, or over his head.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said.

“Are you all right otherwise?”

“Oh, I haven’t had time to worry about myself; I’ve been too busy worrying about Ham.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

“Have you thought about taking some time off the job? Might do you good.”

“No, it wouldn’t. I’d just worry, and I’m better off occupying myself to the hilt right now.”

“You’re the best judge of that,” he said. “Take care of yourself, and call me if I can do anything to help, or if you just need to talk.”

“Thanks, Stone, you take care, too.” She hung up and went upstairs, pulling clothes off along the way. She missed Jackson terribly at this moment. She wanted to crawl into bed and rest her head on his shoulder, while he stroked her hair.

Instead, she crawled into bed and waited for Daisy to settle in next to her. Daisy wasn’t Jackson, but she was the best friend Holly had.

Forty

HAM ARRIVED AT LAKE WINACHOBEE THE FOLLOWING morning, and before he could join his shooting students, he was intercepted by Peck Rawlings.

“Good morning, Ham,” Peck said.

“Morning, Peck.”

“John wants you to attend some classes for the next few days,” Peck said.

“Classes?”

“It’s time you got to know more about the foundations of what we believe in. I know that most of this stuff is going to be old hat for you, but John thinks it’s important, just so you’ll know how he and the leadership think.”

“Well, sure, if that’s what John wants. But leadership? I thought John was the leadership.”

“He’s one of a group, and he communicates the leadership’s messages to all of us.”

“You mean all of us at Winachobee?”

“No, all over the country. John does a lot of traveling.”

“Oh. Just how big an organization are we?”

“You’ll be told all about that in due course,” Peck said. “You better hurry; the class is getting started. It’s in my study.”

“Sure, just let me get a notebook out of my truck.”

“Hurry.”

Ham trotted back to the truck, removed the smoke detector from its box and stuck it in the pocket of his fatigues. Then he retrieved the tiny screwdriver, inserted it into the heel of his boot and gave it a quarter turn. He started back toward the house. “Okay, I’m recording,” he said. “Peck has sent me to class.” He stated the date and time.

Ham entered the house and walked to the study. The other students, half a dozen of them, were scattered around the room, and John was standing before them. “Morning, Ham,” he said. “Take a pew.”

Ham found a chair and got set to listen.

“Now,” John said, “we’re going to talk about the group and the things we believe in. I know you’re all new to the group, but we’ve taken a close look at each of you, and you wouldn’t be in this room if we didn’t think you believe what we believe.”

Ham listened as John launched into a quiet diatribe that seemed to include every crazy thing he’d ever heard about fringe militia groups. John covered all the bases—hatred of blacks, Jews and homosexuals, hatred of the government, hatred of anybody who didn’t share the group’s views. Ham was bored stiff, and he took the opportunity to look around the room, especially the ceiling. He wanted to get the smoke detector up and running as soon as possible. Then he suddenly snapped back to attention. John was talking about surveillance.

“We’re very careful about being listened in on,” John was saying. “The government gets better and better at watching over people’s lives, especially people who despise them, as we do. You shouldn’t have realized it, but each of you has been swept for bugs every day you’ve been here, and every room in this compound is swept every day. That’s so that we and you can know that we can speak freely to each other without having to worry about some spook listening in on us. Believe me, our antisur veillance techniques are just as good as their ability to bug us. In fact, Peck is standing at the back of the room there. Sweeping each of us right this minute.”

Ham looked over his shoulder and saw Peck standing by the door, holding a small black box with an extended antenna. He felt sweat break out in his armpits. Surreptitiously, he took out the little screwdriver, crossed his ankle over the other knee and rested his hand on his boot, trying to look as relaxed as possible. Staring hard at John, he got the screwdriver into the heel of his boot and switched off his recorder, then he crossed his legs in the opposite direction and pocketed the screwdriver.

Peck was walking slowly around the room now, waving the antenna.

“You got something, Peck?” John asked.

“I did for a minute,” Peck said. “Then it went away. Just a small surge, but definite.”

“All right everybody,” John said, “we’re now going to show you just how careful we are. Stand up and line up against the wall over there.”

Everybody did as instructed.

Peck went down the line and, one by one, had each man extend his arms away from his body, then swept the antenna over his clothing. Ham was third in line, and he watched out of the corner of his eye while Peck did his work. Finally, Peck was in front of him, and he gave Ham a wink that said, “Don’t worry pal, this is just for show.”

Ham hoped to God that turning off the recorder in his heel also turned off the microphone in his button, because if it didn’t, he was about to be nailed. He began thinking about how fast he could get out of there and to his truck, and the answer he came up with was, Not fast enough.

Peck went up and down the top and bottom of each of Ham’s arms, then his legs and crotch. “I’m not feeling you up, Ham,” he said, “it’s just that undercover cops just love to hide bugs in their crotches.”

“Don’t worry, Peck. You’re not my type anyway.”

Everybody laughed.

Peck then moved the antenna to the top of his head and worked his way down both sides of his torso. Ham turned to allow him to sweep his back. Peck moved on to the waist, paying particular attention to Ham’s belt buckle, then, as he started up the torso, the black box beeped. “What you got in that pocket, Ham?” Peck asked, pointing.

Ham reached into his pocket and produced the smoke detector.

John walked over and took it from him. “What’s this?”

“A smoke detector,” Ham said. “I was putting some up last night, and I guess I forgot about that one.”

John unscrewed the two halves of the detector and looked inside. “Two batteries,” he said. “That’s unusual.”

“Is it?” Ham replied. “First ones I ever had anything to do with.”

John motioned with his head for Peck to sweep the smoke detector, and Peck complied. A tiny beep came from the black box.

“Interesting,” Peck said.

“Not really,” John replied. “You’ve got some electronics in there, and the batteries. You sometimes get a reaction from small devices, even when they’re not transmitting.” He handed the smoke detector back to Ham. “Let’s get this finished up, Peck, and get back to our class. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Ham stuck the smoke detector back into his pocket and tried not to look relieved.

Forty-one

HAM ENTERED THE BEACH HOUSE, AND FOR once, no one was eating.

“Ham, I don’t know if you should be here every night,” Harry said.

“I had a close call today, and I want to talk about it.”

“What happened, Ham?” Holly asked.

“I found out that they have been sweeping the place, and not just the place, but people, too. Can they do that without anyone knowing?”

Eddie shrugged. “It could be done, but they’d need some pretty sophisticated equipment. Somebody could carry around a small sweeper in his pocket that would signal if he got close to somebody wearing a transmission device.”

“I’m glad I haven’t been wearing anything up to now.”

“Ham, tell us what happened,” Holly insisted.

Ham told them about the lecture and Peck’s sweeping of the participants. “I managed to turn off the thing in my heel,” he said, getting his foot out of the boot and handing the shoe to Eddie. “When it’s off, does the button emit any signals?”

“No,” Eddie said, working to remove the heel from the boot. “When you turn it on, it activates the button microphone.”

“Their sweeper beeped when Peck got to me,” Ham said. “They found the smoke detector.”

Everybody stared at Ham aghast.

“Then how did you get out?” Harry asked.

“I walked out, like always. John examined the thing and said it was a smoke detector. He noticed the two batteries, though.”

“Did he question that?”

“No, but now you’re going to have to do two things,” Ham said.

“What?”

“Eddie, first you’re going to have to take one of the batteries out.”

“But that will half the transmission time,” Eddie protested.

“I don’t care. I’m not going to put this thing up while it’s got two batteries in it. John has seen the insides of it, and if, for any reason, they should pull it down and it has two batteries, then I’m gone.”

“Do it, Eddie,” Harry said. “And right now. What’s the second thing, Ham?”

Ham handed the smoke detector to Eddie, who went to work on it. “You’ve got to give me some smoke detectors with two batteries that I can install at my house.”