Stuart Woods Holly Barker Collection

by Stuart Woods

  “Pretty poor,” Peck said. “Sometimes you have to try half a dozen times to get a call through.”

  “Interesting,” John said. He held up his cell phone for Peck to see. Ham saw it, too—there were five bars of signal strength showing in the display. “You know anything about cell phone improvements out here?”

  “Haven’t heard a thing,” Peck said. “I tried to use mine a couple of days ago, and I couldn’t get a call out.”

  “There’s nothing much out here that would cause them to install a new cell, is there?”

  “Not that I can think of. We’re about it for twenty miles or so. Are you worried about this, John?”

  “I’m not sure whether to be worried,” he replied. “But I’ve never experienced a sudden improvement in cell phone service. I’ve experienced worse service many times, but never better service. If you were going to install a cell out here, where would you put it?”

  “On top of something, I guess. A water tower, a church steeple, a microwave tower. The terrain is flat as a pancake for miles.”

  “Is there any installation like that around here?”

  “No, that sort of thing is usually around I-95, to the east, or the Florida Turnpike, to the west.”

  “Let’s take a drive,” John said.

  “Okay.”

  “Ham, why don’t you join us? You’re an observant fellow.”

  “Sure.” Ham drank the last of his iced tea and followed them to a car outside. Peck drove, John took the shotgun seat and Ham sat in back.

  “Take a right and drive to I-95, then turn around and come back,” John said. He held his cell phone up, so that Ham could see it, too. They reached the highway and Peck turned right. “Strong signal all the way to the main road,” John said.

  Ham watched the cell phone display and wondered what the hell was going on.

  They drove east for a few miles, then John spoke again. “Signal’s dropping. We’re down to two bars.” A couple of minutes later: “Up to three bars, now four.” Ham could see I-95 ahead. “Five bars. Turn the car around.”

  Peck made a U-turn and the same phenomenon occurred. “Drive right past our turn,” John said, watching the phone. “Five bars at our turn,” he said. A few miles later: “Signal’s dropping—three, now two. The no-signal light is on. Turn around.”

  Peck made another U-turn.

  “Ham,” John said, “did you notice anything unusual along our route?”

  “There was a power company van pulled over a few miles back, and a man up a pole, but I don’t know if you’d call that unusual.”

  “Normally, not,” John said, “but I wonder why the hell we’re suddenly getting such good cell phone service out here. There’s the power company van, Peck. Slow down as we go by.”

  The car drove slowly past the van, and everybody had a good look.

  “One man up the pole,” Ham said. “The van doors were closed.”

  “You want me to turn onto our road?”

  “Yes,” John said. He watched his cell phone signal all the way to Peck’s house. “Peck,” he said as they pulled to a stop, “anybody you know of have a cell phone out here?”

  “I asked everybody,” Peck said, “and I collected a dozen, including Ham’s. Why?”

  “Because I wonder if somebody has a phone we don’t know about, and if somebody else has suddenly improved service in the area just so he can make a few calls.”

  “You want me to conduct a search of the whole compound?”

  “No. If there’s a phone here, I doubt if we’d find it. I want someone to monitor a scanner on the cell phone frequencies, though. We just might pick up something.” He turned to Ham. “I understand there was a boat near the bunkhouse last night.”

  “Yes, there was,” Ham said. “I went outside to sleep, because a snorer was keeping me awake; Jimmy woke me up in the middle of the night and pointed out the boat. It appeared to be an empty dinghy that someone hadn’t tied up right.”

  “You really think it was empty?”

  “I watched it for a good half an hour while I was trying to get back to sleep, and it never moved in the water. Later on, a breeze came up from the north, and it must have blown back where it came from.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t know how big a cell phone transmitter is, but I wouldn’t think you could get one into a small dinghy.”

  “You’re right,” John said. “The dinghy must have been a coincidence. I don’t think the signal strength is an accident, though. I want a twenty-four-hour watch on the scanner, Peck, and I want somebody to drive past that power company truck every hour. I want to see how long it stays there.”

  Ham wondered if this had something to do with the cell phone delivered to him, the one lying on the bottom of Lake Winachobee.

  Fifty

  HOLLY LEFT WORK, WENT HOME, WALKED DAISY, then went to Harry’s place. Everybody was looking glum.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Have you heard from Ham?”

  “No,” Harry said, “not by phone or bug. There’s been a lot of activity in Peck’s study, but nothing was said that would give us any more information about what’s going on out there.”

  “I wonder why Ham hasn’t retrieved the phone yet?”

  “There’s something else,” Harry said.

  “What?”

  “While my van was out there working to set up the portable cell, a car drove past twice, with three men in it. My people got a photograph through a window in the van.” He shoved a color print across the table.

  Holly picked it up. “That’s Ham in the back seat,” she said, “and John in the front passenger seat. I can’t see the driver’s face.”

  “You’re right,” Harry said. “But why are they cruising up and down the highway while my van is out there?”

  Holly looked at the photograph more closely. “John is holding something in his hand, and Ham seems to be looking at it.”

  Harry looked at the photograph again. “Could be a cell phone,” he said.

  “Oh, shit,” Eddie chipped in. “They were reading signal strength.”

  “Now, why the hell would they do that?” Harry asked.

  Everybody was quiet for a moment.

  “Maybe their weak signal strength out there suddenly got too good,” Holly said. “Maybe they were suspicious of that.”

  “It’s John,” Harry said. “That son of a bitch is smart.”

  “Is there equipment out there where you can see it?” Holly asked.

  “Just a whip antenna on a power pole. The van is parked a couple of miles away.”

  “But John saw the van there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Eddie,” Harry said, “if you were John and you thought it was strange that your cell phone signal strength had improved, what would you do about it?”

  Eddie frowned.

  “From a technical point of view, I mean.”

  “I guess I’d try to find out if somebody was using a cell phone in the compound. I’d run a scanner and see if it picked up anything.”

  “John could actually overhear calls, if a cell phone were being used out there?”

  “He could if he has a scanner. You can buy them at Radio Shack and modify them to pick up cell phone frequencies.”

  “But it wouldn’t pick up Ham’s scrambled phone.”

  “No, and if it did, it would only get static.”

  “So if Ham got the phone out of the lake, he could use it without being caught.”

  “Without being caught electronically,” Eddie corrected.

  “If you’re right about John catching on,” Holly said, “then Ham would know about it, because he was in the car. Maybe that’s why he’s not using the phone.”

  “But he was here when I explained how the scrambled phone worked,” Eddie said. “He heard me say that it would be undetectable.”

  “That’s right,” Harry said. “If Ham remembers.”

  “He’ll remember,” Holly said. “H
e’s got a memory like a bear trap, better than mine.”

  “I hope it’s better than mine,” Harry said.

  “Hey, listen up,” Eddie said, pointing at the radio. “Ham’s on the air.”

  Holly heard a jumble of voices, then a door close.

  “Ham, I hear you’re working wonders with the Barrett’s rifle,” a voice said.

  “Damn right he is,” another man chipped in.

  “It seems to be going well,” Ham said.

  “Could you be ready to shoot by, say, Monday?” the first voice asked.

  “John, I’m ready now,” Ham replied.

  Harry spoke up. “Eddie, is the tape recorder on?”

  “Yes,” Eddie replied.

  “Monday will be soon enough,” John said.

  “You ready to tell me what I’ll be shooting at?” Ham asked.

  “Two, maybe three men in the back seat of a limo,” John replied. “And that’s all you need to know for now.”

  “I think we ought to start watching the weather,” Ham said. “You get the Weather Channel out here?”

  “Yes, on satellite,” the third man said.

  “Peck, that’s not going to get you a local forecast.”

  “Why are you worried about the weather?” John asked.

  “I’m worried about the wind,” Ham said. “If there’s more than a slight breeze, windage could be a real problem, depending on the distance. Is this limo likely to be moving through a crowd?”

  “Maybe,” John said.

  “I don’t think we want to shoot near a crowd, if there’s any wind. You don’t want to kill a lot of citizens, do you?”

  “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary,” John replied.

  “Well, if you have an option—I mean, if there’s a route for this limo, and you could choose where to shoot, you might want to look for a spot with trees on either side of the road, and the taller, the better.”

  “That would help you with the wind?”

  “It would, if the wind wasn’t too strong.”

  “I can get an aviation forecast that would give me winds at the local airport twenty-four hours ahead of time.”

  “That would be a big help,” Ham said. “The winds ought to be the same on the street.”

  “Well, let’s go to dinner,” John said, and the three men left the room.

  “Well, whatever it is, it’s Monday,” Holly said.

  “Eddie,” Harry said, “I want you to get on the Internet and visit every Florida site you can find. Look for a list of events on Monday. Doug, I want you to call the FAA and tell them I want to know—in fact, I want tapes—of anybody who calls from Saturday onward asking for a forecast of local winds, not a whole briefing for a flight and not a winds-aloft forecast, just a forecast of local winds at any airport in the state.”

  “Will do,” Doug said.

  “Ham can’t tell us where this is happening,” Harry said, “because he doesn’t know, but we do know he’s supposed to shoot at two or three men in a limo, and on Monday. It’s a start.”

  Fifty-one

  HAM EXCUSED HIMSELF RIGHT AFTER DINNER, claiming to be tired, and walked back to the bunkhouse. The place was empty when he arrived, so he walked out to the lakeshore. It was a cloudy night, so there was no moon, and the water looked very dark. He needed to be able to see, if he was going to find that phone. He would have to wait until morning and take a chance on looking for it in broad daylight.

  The others arrived at the bunkhouse an hour later, and Ham was already in bed. He pretended that they woke him up, then he grabbed a blanket and a pillow. “I’m sleeping outside,” Ham said. “You guys are going to be snoring away in a few minutes.” He walked out of the house, this time dragging a bunk mattress, and stretched out beside the lake.

  Half an hour later, it was quiet in the bunkhouse, and Ham was tempted to go after the phone, but he only wanted to do this once. He knew his warning to Jimmy about cottonmouths and gators might be more real than imaginary. He settled in for the night.

  Holly went to bed early, with a movie on the TV at the end of the bed, but it bored her, and she was soon sleepy. She switched off the TV and lay in bed, thinking of Jackson and waiting for sleep to come.

  Ham woke in the green-gray light of the pre-dawn, and soon he could see that the sky had cleared during the night. The others would be waking soon, so if he was going to do it, now was the time.

  First, he walked quietly back to the bunkhouse and looked in through a window. The four men were all still fast asleep. Then he walked to the corner of the barracks, looked for the stone he had left at the lakeside as a marker, and walked toward it. When he got to the stone, he stripped off his shorts and waded gingerly into the lake. The bottom was soft, and he stirred up a lot of mud.

  “Shit,” he said softly to himself, “that’s going to make it harder.” Then the bottom fell away in front of him, and he was shoulder deep in the water. He looked back at his reference line, then took a deep breath and went under, hoping that the lake didn’t get much deeper.

  The water was reasonably clear, and he swam along the gently sloping bottom for a few yards, sweeping his hands along the bottom, feeling for Holly’s package. He began to run out of air, so he surfaced and looked back at the barracks. He was off his line a bit and farther from shore than he intended to be. He reckoned that the package was ten yards from shore, and he had swum fifteen or twenty.

  He got back on his reference line and swam a little closer to shore, then he dove again, feeling his way along the bottom. There was not as much light as he had hoped, since the sun wasn’t really up yet.

  The water became shallow again, and he popped up, looking back at the barracks to be sure no one was watching him. He was, maybe, five yards offshore.

  He checked his reference line again, adjusted his position, dove and started back toward deeper water. He had only swum three or four strokes when his hand brushed against something soft. He stopped and looked, but he had stirred up the bottom, and he could see nothing. He returned to the surface, got another breath and dove again, keeping as much as possible in the same spot.

  He still couldn’t see well, but this time he came into contact with a plastic bag. He came back to the surface again, and as he did, he saw Jimmy standing on shore, looking out at him.

  With his free hand, he waved. “Come on in,” he said. “It’s a little chilly, but not bad.”

  “What about all those snakes and alligators you told me about?” Jimmy called back.

  “I figure I can see them in daylight,” Ham replied. He was clutching the plastic bag, dying to look at it, but having to keep it underwater. He turned on his back and floated a little, hoping Jimmy would go away.

  “You okay out there?” Jimmy called.

  “Just fine,” Ham called back, not looking at him. A moment later, he heard the screen door slam.

  He swam around for a while longer, then started back toward shore. He couldn’t leave the water carrying the bag, so as he found the bottom, he began looking for a place to leave the plastic bag. He saw a clump of tall grass and headed for that, surreptitiously stuffing the bag into the grass as he passed it, then he got out and walked up to the barracks and stuck his head inside the door. “Somebody toss me a towel?” he called.

  Somebody did, and he dried himself, then went back for his bedding. By the time he was back inside the bunkhouse, the four were already dressing.

  “Better hurry, Ham,” somebody said. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

  “You guys go ahead,” Ham said. “I’m going to grab a quick shower and get some of this lake mud off me.” He went into the heads, shaved slowly, then took a shower. When he got out, they were gone. He dressed quickly, then went outside and made sure he wasn’t being observed. Then he trotted over to the clump of grass and retrieved the plastic bag. He walked back to the bunkhouse, skimming a couple of rocks over the lake to appear innocent, then he went back inside.

  He sat down on his bun
k and unzipped the bag. The contents—a tiny phone in a belt clip, an earphone on a thin cord, three batteries and a note—were dry. He stuffed the plastic bag into a pocket and read the note.

  Ham,

  The phone works like any other cell phone, except when you want to scramble, you press the function key, then one, two, three, send. When you want to unscramble, you do the same thing again. The phone is set on scramble now. It’s also set to vibrate, instead of ring, so if you want to leave it on, you can. Just keep it next to your body, so you can feel it vibrate. Call us whenever you can. Here are the numbers.

  Love,

  Holly

  P.S. Now eat this note.

  Ham laughed and quickly memorized the phone numbers Holly had jotted at the bottom, then stuffed the letter into a pocket. He heard a sound and looked up to find Jimmy standing in the door.

  “You coming?” Jimmy asked.

  “Just let me make my bunk,” Ham replied, pulling the blanket over the phone and batteries beside him. “Why don’t you go ahead and order me some ham and eggs?”

  Jimmy went out and closed the door, and Ham quickly put the phone and batteries into separate pockets. There was no time to hide them.

  He followed Jimmy out the door and back toward Peck’s house, looking for someplace to ditch the plastic bag and the note. He was going to have to hide the phone, too. He didn’t like having it on him.

  Fifty-two

  HAM HAD BREAKFAST WITH JOHN AND PECK, AND he hoped to hear more about what they wanted him to do, but nothing was said. He felt nervous about having the phone on him, and he was made more so when John brought up cell phones again.

  “I checked this morning,” he said, “and there’s an antenna on that power pole where the van was parked yesterday.”

  “The van was gone?” Peck asked.

  “Yes. There was just the antenna and a box that could contain a transformer and some electronics.”

  “I’ve got a man stationed at the scanner twenty-four hours a day,” Peck said. “We haven’t heard a peep from a cell phone.”