Hothouse Orchid

by Stuart Woods

  “We’ve got the vaccination gun,” Lauren said.

  “You can buy those things at a medical supply store,” Holly said, “or shoplift one.”

  “I think Jimmy would want me conscious,” Lauren said. “I think he would want a real sexual experience, at least at first.”

  “The problem is, Lauren, if you give him a real sexual experience, a consensual one, you’ve got no case against him; it’s just two people fucking.”

  “No, no. I make him think it’s real, then I say no.”

  “In that case, you’d have to fight him off,” Holly pointed out.

  “Not for long; I’d yell the code word, and help would be there.”

  “He could kill you in seconds.”

  “I’d be armed.”

  “If you’re unconscious, that won’t help. And you can’t just shoot him without provocation, Lauren; you’ll be on camera the whole time.”

  “How I handle it will have to be left to me,” Lauren said.

  “There’s something else,” Holly said. “How are you going to get hold of Jimmy’s car long enough to do all this installation work on it?”

  “That’s why I came to you,” Lauren said. “You know Jane Grey, the station secretary, well, don’t you?”

  “Sure, Jane was my secretary when I was chief.”

  “Will you call her? Hurd doesn’t want to do it for some reason.”

  “And tell her what?”

  “Tell her to tell Jimmy that his car is scheduled for service, and she’ll give him another. Then we can take the car into a shop and get the work done. If she gets his keys the night before and returns it two mornings later, we’ll have plenty of time.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that. Do you know when you want the car?”

  “I’ll let you know when everything’s set.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait for your call. One other thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think you should carry a weapon; he’s liable to notice. I think it should be concealed in the car. In fact, I think there should be two weapons concealed, say, one under the dash and one under the seat, and you ought to be there when they’re planted, so you’ll know exactly where they are.”

  “Good idea,” Lauren said. “Anything else?”

  Holly thought about it. “No, but I’ll probably think of something. I’ll call you when I do. And Lauren?”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to be in a chase car,” Holly said. “Clear it with Hurd.”

  “I will.”

  “And, Lauren, does your boyfriend know about this?”

  “No, Holly, and I’m not going to tell him until it’s over.”

  52

  Teddy Fay picked up the new, stick-on aircraft registration numbers at the design shop and drove home. He was working through a checklist of things he had to do before he and Lauren departed Vero Beach for good.

  This was a different kind of escape for Teddy. Ordinarily when abandoning a location, he also abandoned his identity, his appearance and everything else about himself-he burned all his bridges-but he had made a decision not to tell Lauren who he really was, and that entailed becoming Jack Smithson permanently.

  Teddy had been working for much of the day on fleshing out the identity: creating a better credit report, adding information to his pre-Vero Beach existence in north Georgia, creating the kind of past a real person would own. He had even fabricated the record of a past speeding ticket from Dalton, Georgia, with the fine paid on time.

  Back at the beach house he had one last task: change the aircraft registration number on his airplane. It wasn’t hugely important, but it would make him a little more difficult to trace if anybody tried. He finished the job on the computer and logged out of first the FAA computer, then the Agency mainframe. The phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” Lauren said.

  “Hey, kiddo.”

  “Have you started cooking dinner yet?”

  “Not yet, but soon.”

  “Why don’t we go out tonight? You like barbecue?”

  “Yeah, sure; every Georgia boy does.”

  “There’s a great little joint on 1A that does wonderful things to a pig. Want to meet me there after work? Say, six?”

  “Sure,” he said, noting the address.

  “See you then.” She made a kissing noise and hung up.

  Holly was sitting out behind the house in the late afternoon sun, with her bikini top off and the bottom pulled down, filling in her tan and watching Daisy play in the dunes when her cell phone buzzed. “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Lance said. “Are you near your secure room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me when you’re locked in and logged on.” He hung up.

  Holly got to her feet, pulled up her bikini bottom, grabbed the bra top and called Daisy, who loped toward her. Inside the house, she put on a robe, just in case Lance wanted to talk face-to-face, and let herself into her little office. She logged on, then called Lance. “It’s Holly.”

  “The geek has visited me again. Our intruder logged on twice today, most recently less than ten minutes ago. Because of a glitch, the geek could only track his last log-on, which was the FAA computer, and wasn’t able to figure out where in the FAA databases, so he doesn’t know what the intruder was doing there.”

  “If he’s who you think he might be, he could be making a new pilot’s license for himself or creating an aircraft registration.”

  “That’s right; our man flies himself.”

  “Any news on his location?”

  “He’s narrowed the possibilities to about a three-mile stretch of Vero Beach, less than a mile wide. I’m sending a map.”

  Holly watched the screen as the image popped onto her computer screen. “It’s the southern half of Vero’s island,” she said.

  “Yes, and somewhere between the western shore of the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly a street address, is it?” Holly asked.

  “No, but we’re getting closer.”

  “Are we really?” Holly asked. “We’re talking about three square miles of densely populated Florida, with God knows how many houses and apartment buildings.”

  “I just thought you’d like to know,” Lance said. “Goodbye.” He hung up.

  You just thought you’d like me to know, Holly thought. She had pretty much shaken off the desire to nail Teddy Fay, but Lance apparently hadn’t. She had her suspicions about Jack Smithson, but she had already decided not to pursue them.

  She logged off the computer and locked the door behind her. Maybe it was time, she thought, to have another look at Jack’s house. She put on some jogging clothes and went outside. “Come on, Daisy,” she called, “we’re going for a run.”

  Teddy sat with Lauren at the barbecue shack, eating Brunswick stew, a conglomeration of chicken, corn, tomato and, if you were in the right part of Georgia, maybe some squirrel or possum. Delicious. “How’s work,” he asked. “Are you making ready to pull out?”

  “I’ve got one more job to do,” Lauren said. “Just a detail to wrap up.”

  “How long?”

  “A week; two, tops.”

  “Have you told the boss?”

  “No, I think I’m going to leave without giving notice.”

  Teddy thought about that. Such an action might excite too much interest in Lauren’s departure. “Give him notice,” he said. “Hurd’s been good to you, and you owe him that.”

  Lauren sighed. “You’re right. I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

  Holly ran down the wet sand at a clip, a good three miles to where Jack’s guesthouse sat, just above the beach, with Daisy happily running alongside her. She reached the house a little after six, and, after ascertaining that neither Jack’s nor Lauren’s car was parked outside, she picked the front door lock and stepped out of her running shoes. “Daisy, stay here,” she said to the dog. Daisy sat down on the porch an
d watched as she went inside in her stocking feet.

  Holly stood in the living room for a moment. Then she saw a flashing light on a black box on the desk in Jack’s study. There was an alarm system, and now it began making a chiming noise. She walked to the desk, picked up the phone and listened. All she got was a dial tone, so she knew the alarm system wasn’t calling a security service or Jack’s cell phone.

  She didn’t know how much time she had, so she worked quickly. She went into Jack’s bedroom and rifled all the drawers and the closet, careful to leave no trace of her unauthorized presence. Then she went back into the study and switched on Jack’s computer. All she got was a window requiring a password, and she didn’t have time to work on that, so she shut it down again. She found no papers of any interest in the desk, only a few utility bills, already paid. She got up and opened what appeared to be a closet door, and it was, but it contained something very interesting: a Fort Knox safe with a digital lock. The thing was five feet high, and she reckoned it weighed six or seven hundred pounds.

  Now why would Jack Smithson need such a large safe? Did he have a camera collection or, more likely, a gun collection? Or maybe a lot of cash? She would like to know, but she would need specialized equipment to get the safe opened, and she would have to get that from her house in McLean, Virginia.

  She let herself out of the house and locked the door behind her. The alarm would reset itself after a few minutes, and she doubted if it recorded to a computer log, so Jack wouldn’t know she had been there.

  She got her shoes on again, then took a couple of palm fronds from under a nearby tree and swept her path clean of hers and Daisy’s footprints all the way to the high-water mark. Then she jogged back to her house, arriving sweaty and tired.

  She still had her suspicions, but she couldn’t back them up.

  53

  The following morning, Lauren knocked on Hurd’s office door with some trepidation.

  “Come in,” he called out.

  Lauren walked in and sat down. “Okay,” she said, “I have a better plan.”

  Hurd sat back in his chair. “I’m all ears,” he said.

  Lauren explained her plan to conceal video and audio bugs in Jimmy Weathers’s car, along with a GPS locator.

  “I’ll need a surveillance van, two chase cars and a helicopter,” she said.

  “Wait a minute,” Hurd said. “We can’t requisition all that equipment on the off chance that some night he might go after another woman. He might take weeks to do that.”

  “I still plan to be the woman,” she said.

  “Lauren, I’ve already ordered you not to do that.”

  “Listen to me, Hurd. We’ll have the two chase cars just far enough away to be out of sight, and the helicopter maybe a mile away. All I’ll have to do is speak a code word, and they’ll be all over Jimmy.”

  “All right, suppose it takes them a minute or two to arrive. How are you going to handle Jimmy?”

  “I’ll have two weapons concealed in the car.” Hurd started to speak again, but she interrupted. “And I have some fighting skills.”

  Hurd leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “Lauren, I apologize for having to say this, but you weren’t able to fight off Jim Bruno when he…”

  “That’s true,” Lauren admitted, “but if I had had help to call for, the rape would never have happened. All I have to do is hold Jimmy off for a minute or two, and it will be that part of the video that will be valuable in court.”

  Hurd just looked at her and said nothing.

  “Hurd, if this were a drug bust, you’d let me do it.”

  “If it were a drug bust, you wouldn’t have to provoke a violent response to make an arrest.”

  “That’s true, but you’re underestimating me. I’m tougher and better trained than I was with Bruno; I could hurt Jimmy, if I had to, and I’ll still have two weapons to fall back on: one under the dash and one under the seat.”

  “Something else,” Hurd said. “Even if this worked, we’d only have Jimmy on one count of attempted rape.”

  “I think I can get him to confess beforehand,” Lauren said. “I think when he gets excited, he’ll talk about it.”

  “But he’ll know that if he did that, you could testify against him.”

  “Of course, that’s the idea. Hurd, if Jimmy is the killer we think he is, he would plan not to leave me alive to testify.”

  “And you think that notion is the way to talk me into this?”

  “You know it’s true,” she said.

  “Everything will depend on the chase cars getting to you before he kills you.”

  “I know that,” Lauren said. “Sometimes you have to take a chance to get a serial killer off the street.”

  “This is a big chance; it’s your life.”

  “I know that, and I’m telling you I can handle him. The alternative is to let him go on killing until we can catch him at it. How many lives of innocent women might we have to sacrifice?”

  Hurd slumped. “When do you want to do this?”

  “As soon as we can get the equipment in place,” Lauren said. “Holly is going to call Jane Grey and have her tell Jimmy his car has to be serviced or inspected, so we can get hold of it for a day. All we need is to set the day.”

  “Let me make a couple of calls,” Hurd said.

  Holly sat in her office and called Lance. His face came on the screen.

  “Yes?”

  “Lance, I’ve got one suspect for our man, but I have no evidence to back up my suspicions.”

  “I’m not intending to try him,” Lance said.

  “I went into his house this evening. I found nothing except a large safe with an electronic lock. If there’s anything that will prove or even indicate who he is, it will be in that safe.”

  “You’ve been trained to open it,” Lance said.

  “If I do that, I’m going to need an electronic device that Tech Services can supply. They call it an electronic combination resolver.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, time to get into the house and do the work. I got lucky tonight; he wasn’t there.”

  “You’ll have the device tomorrow morning,” Lance said.

  “All right, but understand this, Lance: I’ll do the black-bag job, but I’m not going to go further than that. If you want something more done, you’re going to have to send someone else.”

  “You’re such a sissy,” Lance said, chuckling. “Just get into the safe. All I need is confirmation of his identity, and then you’re out of it.”

  Holly sighed. “All right,” she said. She ended the call.

  54

  Holly woke up to the sound of the doorbell, alone, since Josh had worked a night shift at the hospital. She got up, struggled into a robe and walked downstairs. Daisy was already sitting in front of the door, on guard.

  “Stay, Daisy,” she said. Through a glass pane beside the door, she could see a black car. She looked through the peephole and saw a man, his back turned to her, wearing a black windbreaker and a black baseball cap. Guard, Daisy,” she said. Daisy stood up and gave a low growl.

  Holly put the chain on the door and opened it a crack. “Yes?”

  The man turned around. He was young-midtwenties-and wearing dark glasses. “Ms. Barker?”

  “Yes.” Holly put her foot tight against the door, ready for his shoulder against it.

  He held up a small package. “I have a delivery for you.”

  “From whom?”

  “From your friend in Virginia.”

  Holly slumped. “God, I didn’t know who you were.”

  “That’s kind of the idea,” he said. “Nobody is supposed to.” He held out the package, and Holly took it.

  “I’m supposed to tell you, you should take very good care of that and return it when you’re finished; it’s not supposed to get lost.”

  “I understand,” Holly said. “Thank you.”

  He turned and walked back toward his car.
>
  “It’s okay, Daisy,” Holly said, locking the door behind her. “He was a friend.”

  Daisy relaxed.

  Holly got a kitchen knife, cut the packing tape and removed the item. It was smaller than the one she’d trained with at the Farm, about the same size as a personal digital assistant, with a small LCD screen on top and a keyboard at the bottom. It could have been mistaken for a calculator. A wire ran from its base, ending in two very small alligator clips.

  The box also held a sheet of folded paper. She opened it to find six photographs. A title read: “Six most widely used electronic locks,” and there were arrows drawn, showing where the wires should be connected. Also in the box was a small pair of wire stripper/cutters.

  She put everything back in the box, closed it and locked it in her small office, then went back to the kitchen, put the coffeepot on and began making breakfast.

  She had gotten lucky the day before; was she going to be lucky enough again to find Jack Smithson out of his house? She had a feeling this was going to take a stakeout, and she hated stakeouts.

  She ate her breakfast while glancing through the paper, then showered and dressed, slipping on a pair of rubber-soled loafers. Then she took the box from her office, called Daisy, got into her car and drove to Vero Beach.

  Teddy Fay packed and sealed the two cardboard boxes, put them into the trunk of his car and locked the front door to his house. He got into the car and drove out from the driveway, turning north on A-1A, headed for the airport.

  Holly had been sitting in her car, a block to the south, for less than an hour when she saw Smithson’s silver Toyota pull out of the driveway. She waited for a while, until he had driven away from her, then started her car and turned into his driveway. She had been here before, for dinner, and she remembered seeing the driveway sensor planted just inside the entrance. She checked again to be sure that it was still there. It would give her a warning if he returned.