Stuart Woods Holly Barker Collection

by Stuart Woods

  “Seems that way, and it’s a little late in the game to start tracking these people. If they left no trace then, there would certainly be no trace now.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  They were both silent for a moment.

  “How are you doing?” he asked quietly, and in such a way that she knew it wasn’t simply a polite question.

  “I’m just sitting here letting my mind wander, and all I seem to be able to think about is Jackson. Have you ever lost anybody?”

  “My parents, but not in the same way. They had long and productive lives and, when they finally became ill, died quickly.”

  “Have you ever lost a friend by violence?”

  “I’ve known cops who were killed in the line of duty. I’ve never personally known an innocent bystander like Jackson who died in a crime.”

  “You know, it’s said that when people have limbs amputated, the nerve endings in the stump make them think they can still feel the leg or arm.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “That’s how it feels, as if some important part of me had suddenly been amputated, but I can still feel it. It’s still real.”

  “It won’t always be that way.”

  “I’m afraid to hope for that. I might feel better not losing that part of me completely.”

  “After my father died—he followed my mother by a couple of years—I would find myself dialing his number, expecting to talk to him. It took a couple of weeks to get past that. I’d want his advice, and I’d just pick up the phone, then feel like an idiot.”

  “I’m not the first to feel this way, I know,” she said, “but it’s the first time for me, and I don’t like it.”

  “I wish there were something I could say to make it better.”

  “Thanks. I guess I’ll just have to find a way to deal with it. It’s okay when I’m working—I told you how I can switch it off. But when I got home tonight . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Have you had dinner yet?” he asked.

  “Yes, I just ate something, but thanks for asking.” She was sorry she had eaten; she would have enjoyed his company. “Jackson would have liked you,” she said.

  “I liked him, for the brief time we knew each other.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got a nervous feeling about this little town you found. When you go out there tomorrow, let your office know about it and arrange a check-in schedule.”

  “I really don’t think it’s dangerous,” she said.

  “Don’t take a chance. If these are the people who robbed the bank, they don’t take chances, and they don’t mind killing. It would make me feel better if you kept in touch with your office.”

  “Oh, all right, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  He gave her his cell phone number. “And you can call me, if you need to.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be with Ham, my dad. Nothing bad could happen to me in his company.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Stone said. “Good night.”

  “Good night.” She hung up and tried to watch Sam Waterston win his difficult case.

  She woke up in the middle of the night, still in Jackson’s chair.

  Thirteen

  HAM TURNED UP AT EIGHT O’CLOCK—LATE, FOR him-and demanded coffee before they left for their trip.

  “I guess we’re fishing in more ways than one, huh?”

  “Yep,” Holly said.

  “What are we fishing for?”

  “Bank robbers, but I don’t suppose they’ll be wearing ID tags. Apart from that, I just want to get a close-up look at the place, get the feel of it.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss,” he replied, downing the last of his coffee.

  “Daisy, sit,” Holly said to the dog. “No dogs today, you’re staying home.”

  Daisy looked hurt.

  “Don’t try the guilt thing,” Holly said sternly. “Stay. Let’s go, Ham.”

  Ham had loaded a light aluminum skiff, a couple of rods and a tackle box into the bed of his pickup truck. “Camouflage,” he said, nodding at the dinghy. They got into the truck and started toward the mainland.

  “I hope you aren’t packing,” she said.

  “Funny you should mention it,” he replied.

  “Give it to me,” she said.

  He handed her his Beretta 9mm, and she stuffed it into the glove compartment.

  “Lock it when we get there,” she said.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “I’m light. I don’t want anybody thinking we’re the law.”

  “I’m a retired military guy,” he said. “You’re the law.”

  “I’m retired military, too, and don’t forget it today. Forget about the law part. Oh, I almost forgot.” She took out her cell phone, dialed the station and asked for Hurd Wallace.

  “Deputy Chief Wallace,” he drawled.

  “Hurd, it’s Holly. Ham and I are going out to Lake Winachobee to take a look at a little town on its northern bank.”

  “Okay,” Hurd replied.

  “I want to be cautious about this, so I’m going to call in every hour at fifteen minutes past, give or take. If you don’t hear from me for two hours in a row, call the sheriff and come find me, and bring some backup, too.”

  “What are you getting into, Holly?”

  “I don’t know, and that’s why I’m being cautious. Don’t do anything rash, but if I miss two calls, come get me.”

  “All right, but you watch yourself. Ham, too.”

  “Thanks, I’ll talk to you later.” She punched out.

  “You really think that’s necessary?” Ham asked.

  “I sure hope not.”

  As they approached the turnoff to Lake Winachobee, they ran into a line of stopped traffic, and two minutes passed before they were able to turn left. A sheriff’s deputy, probably an off-duty hiree, was directing traffic, and they followed a dozen other cars down the dirt road.

  “We must be in the next county,” Holly said, checking the map. “That’s not an Indian River County deputy. Yes, here it is—Deep Lake County. I’ve never even heard of it.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be much to it,” Ham said, glancing at the map.

  “Except all this traffic.”

  “Maybe they’re having a fishing tournament,” Ham said.

  “You see any fishing gear on these cars and trucks?” Holly asked.

  “Now that you mention it, no, but I see a lot of rifle racks.”

  “Who are these folks? What do you think?”

  “They look pretty ordinary,” Ham said. “There’s one truck just like mine, the rest are American cars or SUVs. I don’t see any Japanese or German stuff.”

  “So they’re patriots.”

  “Automotive patriots, anyway,” Ham said.

  “I guess we’re dressed the part,” Holly said. They were both wearing old camouflage fatigue tops over jeans, their usual fishing outfits. There was a faded spot on Ham’s sleeves where his stripes used to be.

  The traffic moved swiftly down the dirt road, kicking up dust. Ham rolled up the windows and turned on the air conditioning.

  Holly could see the row of Main Street buildings ahead, but before they reached them, another deputy directed them to turn right, along with all the other traffic.

  “I hope this isn’t some kind of Klan meeting,” Ham said. “I might have to shoot somebody.”

  They were directed into a large clearing in the pines, and ahead stood a tent that would house a small circus. They parked the truck, and Holly insisted that Ham lock the glove compartment. Everybody was filing toward the tent, and they fell in with the group.

  They were an ordinary, blue-collar-looking group, Holly thought, though some of them looked more prosperous than that. There were families with small children and teenagers, all neatly dressed—no long hair or tattered jeans.

  “Must be a revival meeting,” Ham said. “These look like church folk.
”

  Holly looked around for posters or flyers advertising the event, but saw nothing. Just outside the tent they joined a line that had formed, and a couple of minutes later they were approaching a ticket desk, except no tickets were being sold. Instead, people were laying twenty-dollar bills on the counter, and they were being put into a box.

  “Thank you,” a woman behind the table would say, as the people laid down their money.

  Ham came up with two twenties, put them on the table and got thanked, but no tickets were offered, no hands stamped. They pushed past a canvas flap and stepped inside the big tent.

  Holly stopped and blinked. At least three hundred people were milling about among exhibits, and there was a loud murmur of constant conversation. The tent, to her surprise, was air conditioned, and it seemed to be filled with displays of guns—everything from pistols to assault weapons. There were booths with World War II Nazi memorabilia and displays of Confederate swords and uniforms. Everybody was busily doing business, buying and selling.

  Holly and Ham exchanged a glance.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” Ham said.

  “Neither was I,” she replied, “but if we’re going to blend in, we’d better start shopping—window-shopping, at least.”

  They moved off to their right, toward a large display of black powder handguns.

  Ham picked up an old Colt Buntline revolver and handed it to Holly. “Can you imagine wearing that thing on your hip?”

  “Nope,” Holly said. “Not without developing a list.”

  They moved slowly on, taking it all in, then Holly stopped and stared. “What the hell is that?” Holly gasped.

  Before them lay a weapon a good five feet long, made of black steel, with a stock of some sort of plastic and a very large scope.

  “That, my dear, is a Barrett’s fifty-caliber rifle,” Ham said.

  “What is it for?”

  “Just about anything you want it to be, I guess. I saw one used during Desert Storm. A sergeant I knew put two phosphorus-tipped shells through an Iraqi armored personnel carrier and blew it to hell. The other carriers in the column stopped, and troops started pouring out of them; they couldn’t surrender fast enough.” Ham reached into the display, picked up a cartridge and handed it to her. “This is what it fires.”

  Holly was astonished. The cartridge was six inches long and seemed to weigh half a pound.

  “They developed that ammunition for the Browning machine gun in World War One, but it didn’t really get used much until World War Two. You can put one of those babies right through an inch and a half of rolled steel armorplate.”

  Holly set the cartridge back where it came from. “That’s downright spooky,” she said.

  Fourteen

  HOLLY TURNED TO FIND A FIT-LOOKING MAN IN his mid- to late forties standing behind her. His graying hair was cut short, and he was wearing a military-style jumpsuit.

  “That thing is hell on wheels,” he said. “I’ve never seen one fired in anger, but I once saw somebody put a round through a six-hundred-pound safe, and I mean all the way through.” He turned to Ham. “You say you saw it fired in Iraq?”

  “I sure did,” Ham said.

  “What was it like?”

  “Awful, for the men in the carrier. I was a mile away, with the shooter. He said he could hit a playing card with it from that distance.”

  “A good shooter can hit a playing card from twice that distance, in no wind, if he has time to bracket,” the man said.

  “From two miles? ” Holly asked.

  “I kid you not, little lady.”

  Holly thought he had a lot of balls calling her that, since he wasn’t quite as tall as she.

  The man turned to Ham and stuck out his hand. “I’m Peck Rawlings,” he said.

  Ham shook his hand. “Ham Barker. This is my daughter, Holly.”

  Rawlings nodded at where Ham’s stripes used to be. “You ex-military?”

  “We both are,” Ham said. “I put in thirty-eight years, and Holly did a double sawbuck.”

  “What kind of service?”

  “I was in Special Forces for a long time, then I trained a lot of folks, and then they started pushing a lot of paper at me.”

  “Yeah, they’ll do that,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  “Oh, nothing exotic. I was just a grunt noncom. What about you, little lady?”

  “I commanded an MP battalion,” she said, “and if you keep calling me that, you’re going to get even shorter.”

  The man gave her a shocked look, then burst out laughing.

  “Holly doesn’t take any shit from anybody,” Ham said.

  Rawlings bowed from the waist. “I apologize, ma’am,” he said. “Just a figure of speech.”

  Holly nodded, and as she did, they were joined by two other men.

  “Oh,” Rawlings said, “these are my neighbors, Jim Cross and James Farrow.”

  Hands were shaken all around.

  “What brings you folks to our little event?” Rawlings asked narrowly, and it was clear he wanted an answer.

  “We didn’t come to your event,” Ham said. “We were just looking for some bass fishing, and we saw the lake on the map and just wandered down this way. Haven’t seen the lake, yet. What’s the fishing like?”

  “Not bad, but nothing to write home about,” Rawlings said. “That’s a nice pickup you’re driving.”

  “Ford’ll sell you one,” Ham said, “but not cheap.”

  “Where do you folks hail from?”

  “Over at Orchid Beach, in Indian River County.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s pretty ritzy over there, isn’t it?”

  “Some parts are,” Ham said.

  “What do you do over there?”

  “Every day, I explore the meaning of the word ‘retired,’ ” Ham said.

  “So do I,” Holly chipped in.

  “What sort of little town you got here?” Ham asked.

  “A homogeneous one.” Rawlings chuckled.

  “I didn’t see it on the map.”

  “That’s the way we like it. You know, I can’t remember anybody ever turning up here who didn’t have an invitation.”

  Ham turned to Holly. “Well, I guess we’re intruding here, babe; let’s take a hike.”

  Rawlings threw up his hands in a placating manner. “Hold on, now, Sarge; I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that this is a private affair, here, and we’re unaccustomed to visitors.”

  “Sorry, I never heard of a private gun show,” Ham said.

  “Well, it is, but we’re glad to have you. Just go on and wander around and pick up some hardware for yourself, if you’re in the market. When you get ready to leave, though, I’d appreciate it if you’d check with me, so I can clear you out.”

  Ham looked at Holly. “You want to stay?”

  Holly shrugged.

  “All right, we’ll have a look around,” Ham said. “Thanks.”

  “And we’re going to have a little firepower demonstration a little later,” Rawlings said, “if you’re interested.”

  “I’ll let you know. C’mon, Holly.” They walked slowly on around the big tent. “Well,” Ham said, “I guess we’re getting the feel of the place.”

  “Not a very good feeling, is it?” Holly asked.

  “You notice anything unusual about this crowd?” Ham asked.

  “You mean the lack of anybody any color darker than pink?”

  “That, and the absence of any girls in cutoffs with bare bellies or guys with nose rings. I mean, this is still Florida, right?”

  “It reminds me of the crowd at a PX,” Holly said, “absent the people of color.”

  “I guess I’ve gotten so used to what you might call a more diverse population of former hippies and current rappers that I find it strange to be in this crowd. And it’s not exactly comforting, either.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  They looked at weapon after weapon, at ammunition-loadin
g kits, at holsters, at collections of knives and at more than one collection of Nazi memorabilia.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many Lugers in one place,” Holly said.

  “Me neither.” Ham looked to his right. “What’s going on?”

  The crowd had thinned, and now people were streaming out the back entrance of the tent. There had been no announcement, no signal.

  “Let’s find out,” Holly said. She and Ham went with the flow, and soon they were back in the humid Florida outdoors, walking down a broad path through pines. Shortly they emerged into a large clearing and stopped in their tracks.

  “Good God!” Holly said under her breath.

  Fifteen

  BEFORE THEM WAS A SLANTING PIT, BULLDOZED out of the sandy Florida earth. It was shallow at the end near them and deepened as it went back another two hundred or so feet. At the far end it was maybe ten feet deep, and earth was piled up behind it for another twenty feet. At the deep end of the pit was the ruin of a school bus, two dead pickup trucks and a collection of other junk vehicles. Immediately before them, as the crowd strung out across the width of the pit, was an assortment of weapons, most of them automatic, on tripods, in shooting stands of various kinds and some in the hands of shooters of both genders.

  Ham went to a picnic table, picked something out of a box and returned to Holly. “I reckon we’d better use these,” he said, offering her a set of foam earplugs.

  Holly rolled the plugs into narrow strips, then inserted them into her ears, where they expanded quickly to fill the ear canals.

  “There’s the Barrett’s rifle,” Ham said, nodding toward the firing line.

  “I can’t hear you,” Holly said. “I’ve got plugs in my ears.”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  Ham pointed, and Holly followed his finger toward the evil-looking weapon, mounted on the roof of a Humvee, which was parked on the firing line.

  “Oh,” Holly said.

  “What?”

  “Oh, shut up, Ham!” she half shouted.

  Ham started to reply, but, at some unnoticed signal, all hell broke loose.

  A cacophony of gunfire erupted, and Holly saw holes appearing in the rusted bodies of the vehicles, but not the school bus. Glass shattered and danced in the light.