Orchid Beach hb-1

by Stuart Woods

  Twenty minutes of running brought him within half a mile of the entrance to the Palmetto Gardens marina. He cut the outboard, pulled it out of the water and switched on the nearly silent trolling motor. He sat on the bottom of the boat to keep a low profile, and moving silently along at around two knots, he soon reached several acres of marsh just north of the marina entrance. A little creek provided an opening in the marsh grass, and he turned into it, peering ahead into the darkness, heading toward the riverbank. After perhaps three minutes, the bow of the whaler touched the mud, and Ham switched off the trolling motor.

  He sat silently in the bottom of the boat and listened for five minutes by his illuminated wristwatch. His eyes were well accustomed to the darkness, now, and he could see that he was perhaps thirty feet from dry ground. He kicked off his Top-Siders and stepped into the water, feeling out the soft mud with his bare feet. He pushed the whaler into the marsh grass, which was a good two feet tall, shucked off his T-shirt, got his plastic bag and waded slowly toward the land. It was another twenty feet to the brush, and he covered it quickly. He sat down on the ground, his back to the dense thicket, and listened again for another five minutes. Once, he heard a vehicle in the distance, but it was driving at a steady speed and soon passed by.

  He grabbed some leaves and cleaned the sticky river mud off his feet; then he dressed in the black warmup suit and sneakers, fastened the rubber belt around him, slipped his knife into the scabbard, worked the action of the small pistol and stuck it into his belt, slipping the spare clip into a zippered pocket. Finally, he pulled the jacket’s hood around his head and tied it loosely, so as not to interfere with his hearing.

  He walked silently along the thick brush bordering the marsh, occasionally using his hooded light for a second or two, until he found a small break in the vegetation. He pushed his way through for a good fifteen feet and emerged in a stand of pine trees that was well clear of any brush. The schmucks hadn’t bothered with a fence along the river, he chuckled to himself. They had thought the dense brush would be enough. He walked along the edge of the clearing until his flashlight picked up a hint of a trail no more than a foot wide. Deer came this way, he reckoned, and if the ground was mined or, more likely, had security sensors, the deer were not setting them off. Neither would he, on this trail.

  He emerged from the trees at the rear of a large, well-lit house, where there was a party going on, to judge from the noise. He found a window and peeked in. Fifteen or twenty people were standing or lying around a large room, and loud music was pounding against the walls. At least half of the people were naked. Ham watched with interest as various couples did various things to each other while the others watched and cheered them on. Tearing himself away, he moved to the north, toward the chain-link fence Holly had told him about.

  Keeping to the edge of the pines, he walked north for ten minutes until the fence loomed high above him. Following the inside of the fence, he walked in a generally easterly direction until he came to a gate, which was secured with a chain and a padlock. Looking through the wire, he saw that this was one of not two, but three fences, and the middle one had the warning of high voltage.

  Ham found a wire leading from the middle fence through the inner one and then into the ground along the inner fence. He followed the fence along until he came to where the wire emerged from the ground. It ran to a small wooden shed that was not locked. He opened the door and switched on his flashlight. The wire ran to an ordinary car battery, a large one. This was clearly a backup for the security system.

  He left the shed and, working from his memory of Jackson’s aerial photographs, walked south for a few minutes. He knew he was in the right place when he saw the huge satellite dish peeking up over the shrubbery. The com center was dark, except for a single light burning in what seemed to be an entrance hall. He could see a man at a desk, reading a magazine by the light of a lamp.

  Ham circled the building until he came to a large live oak tree. He found footholds and climbed into its branches, one of which ran close to the top of the two-story building. He shinnied out the limb as far as he dared, then stopped. He could see three large lumps on the roof: two of them were air conditioning units and the other appeared to be a vented metal box of about the same size. He backed his way to the trunk of the tree and slowly climbed down.

  There was one more place he wanted to see, and it was no more than a hundred yards from the com center, if he recalled the aerial photographs correctly. Watching for any sign of security measures, he walked silently to the southwest, in and out of shrubbery and trees. He crossed the lawn of another large house, this one dark, and went on for another fifty yards before stopping.

  Ham looked around. It could be in either direction. Suddenly, he stood stock-still. Although he was in an area that appeared to be deserted, hairs were standing up on the back of his neck. He could almost smell somebody in the area. In fact, he realized, he did smell something. It was cigarette smoke, and he didn’t know from which direction it came. He stood frozen, his eyes open wide. Afraid to use the flashlight, he turned his head from right to left. Then he saw it. Not ten feet from where he stood, the end of a cigarette glowed in the dark. Then it grew brighter and revealed a head.

  Ham did not move, afraid of appearing in the man’s peripheral vision. They were too far apart for the knife, so Ham slowly eased the pistol from his belt and waited. A minute passed, then two. Finally, the man dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his foot. He appeared to be dressed in camouflage fatigues.

  The man moved forward a few steps and vanished. Ham blinked. Where had he gone? As quietly as he could, he walked to the tree the man had been leaning against, stood behind it and surveyed the ground on the other side of it. Perhaps twelve feet ahead, he saw a dim light on the ground. He walked very slowly toward it, keeping an eye out for the man, and stopped a pace away, looking down.

  What he was looking at, he realized, was a light shining through netting. Silently, Ham lay down on the ground and put his face against the netting. He could see the light now, and it illuminated the inside of a hole in the ground. He saw a man’s foot and then a steel ammunition box. Shifting slightly, he was able to see more. The man was wearing a headset attached to a small cassette player or radio. He was sitting on a camp stool next to a heavy automatic weapon, the barrel of which protruded through the camouflage netting. Ham reckoned the ammo was larger than fifty caliber. There was nothing else to see here. He backed away from the netting, got to his feet and disappeared into the nearby woods.

  Half an hour later, he was back in the water, pushing the whaler out into the creek. Half an hour after that, he was back home, with a story to tell.

  CHAPTER

  52

  R ita turned up on time for work at Palmetto Gardens, her second day on the job. She hooked up with Carla, and this time they were assigned to clean shops. She looked longingly at the security building—that was most where she wanted to plant one of her bugs, but instead, she was put to work in a jewelry store across the street.

  She was surprised by the elaborate nature of the merchandise in the shop’s cases. As she sprayed the glass top of a counter and wiped it clean, she gazed at a diamond necklace that would not have been embarrassed to be in a showcase at Tiffany’s in New York. Counting the stones quickly, she estimated that the necklace contained at least twenty carats of diamonds, none of them small.

  Carla sent her to clean the office, and she disturbed a man who was taking still more jewelry out of a large safe. As he closed the steel door she caught sight of two stacks of cash on the top shelf. Apparently, the shop’s customers didn’t bother with credit cards or checks.

  The two women cleaned two more shops, then broke for lunch. They sat on a bench outside and ate their sandwiches, chatting idly about Carla’s children and grandchildren.

  “What’s in there?” Rita asked, nodding at the security station.

  “Security guards,” Carla said.

  “You ever cle
an in there?”

  “Sure, a bunch of times.”

  “They got a toilet?”

  “Yeah, I’ve cleaned it.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Rita said. She got up, walked across the street, carrying her cleaning supplies, and walked through the front door.

  A young man sat on a stool at a high desk. “We already got cleaning people in here today,” he said.

  “I know,” Carla replied. “I just want to use your bathroom, is that okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” the man said. He pointed. “It’s right down the hall, there. It’s coed, so you better lock the door.”

  Rita walked down the hall and into a small bathroom. Quickly, she retrieved the canister that Bob had given her, removed the bugs, and put them under a rag in the plastic carrier that contained her cleaning supplies. She left the bathroom and looked around. Dead ahead of her was a communications station, and a large, red-haired, mean-looking man sat at it, reading a gun magazine. He looked up and stared at her, smiling, until she walked away. Apart from that, there was only the hallway; there was nowhere to place a bug. She went back to the front door. “Thanks,” she said to the man at the desk, then left the building.

  Well, shit, she thought to herself. That was a waste of effort. She had four bugs and nowhere to plant them. Then her luck changed. A truck came down the street and stopped in front of the security station. Two men got out, went to the rear and started to remove a steel desk from the back of the truck. Rita got up and walked across the street, carrying her plastic carryall.

  “You guys need a hand?” she asked.

  “Nah, we got it,” one of the men replied. They set the desk on the ground.

  “Wait a minute,” she said, “Let me give it a wipe.” She grabbed a spray container and a rag from her carryall and palmed a bug.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the man said, waving her off.

  “It’s filthy,” Rita said, spraying cleaning fluid all over the desktop. “Where’s it been, in the warehouse?”

  “C’mon, lady, you’re holding us up,” the man said.

  Rita began wiping the desktop clean, while with her other hand she gripped the edge of the desk. Just for a moment, she got the hand all the way under the desktop, and the magnetic bug took hold. “There you go,” she said. She went back to her bench and watched them move the desk into the building.

  Then her heart stopped. In order to get the desk through the front door of the building, the two men had turned the desk on its side. There, in plain view, was the bug she had planted. The security officer at the desk came to the door to help get the desk through, and as they wrestled it through the door, his face was within a foot of the bug. Finally they disappeared inside, and she could no longer see the desk.

  “Let’s get back to work,” Rita said to Carla. For the first time, Rita began to think about how she might get out of Palmetto Gardens, if she had to. She thought about it as they cleaned the next shop, and she came up with absolutely nothing. There was nothing to do but finish the day’s work and hope no one had seen the bug on the desk.

  At three o’clock, Rita and Carla got back on the bus. It was not until that moment that it occurred to Rita that, at the service gate, she would be searched again. And she still had three bugs. She couldn’t leave them in the carryall, because somebody else might get it the next day and discover the bugs.

  “You got any Kleenex?” Rita asked Carla as they reached the back gate and started to get off the bus.

  Carla rummaged in her carryall and found a box of tissues.

  Rita got the three bugs from under the rag and concealed them in her hand, grabbing a couple of tissues from the box. They lined up to be searched, and while one guard took the carryalls and set them aside, another body-searched each of the women. Rita hung back as the searches continued, and when her turn came, she managed a large sneeze. She blew her nose loudly into the tissues, then wadded them up around the three bugs. “Excuse me,” she said to the guard, wiping her nose again with the tissues. He showed no interest in inspecting the damp mess in her hand. Rita walked across the parking lot to where she had left her car. All the other women were driving away. She had her hand on the door handle when someone’s heavy hand landed on her shoulder and spun her around.

  The man who had been sitting at the radio in the security office now had her by the throat. He began dragging her toward the guard shack.

  Rita thought fast. Her FBI ID, her gun and her cell phone were hidden under the spare tire in the trunk of her car. As she struggled, she let the Kleenex in her hand fall to the ground, she hoped unnoticed.

  Mosely cuffed her across the face and, stunned, she was dragged into a waiting Range Rover.

  CHAPTER

  53

  H arry Crisp looked at his wristwatch, then at the group around him at the table. “Rita should be here by now,” he said. “She got off at three.”

  Holly spoke up. “Did we get anything from any of the bugs she took in there?” She turned and looked at the front door as it opened. Bill walked in. “Hey, everybody,” he said. “Where’s Rita?”

  “She’s not here yet,” Harry replied. “Did any of the bugs go live?”

  “They were all live when she took them in,” Bill said. “I got a few words on one of them, then it seemed to go dead. We’ve picked up some car noise on at least one of the others, but no voice.”

  “What words did you get on one of them?”

  “Two men talking, then they stopped, went quiet.”

  “They found the bug, then?”

  “Could be.”

  “Bill, get on the radio and get somebody to check the parking lot at the service gate at Palmetto Gardens,” Harry said. “I want to know if her car is still there.”

  “Right away.”

  Harry turned back to the group. “If the bugs don’t work, then we’re going to need another excuse for a search warrant.”

  Ham raised a finger. “Maybe I can help.”

  Everybody turned and looked at him.

  “How?” Holly said, looking at him narrowly.

  “Well, I was in there last night, and I saw a few things.”

  “What?” Holly said.

  Harry spoke up. “Tell me what you’re talking about, Ham.”

  “I just thought I’d take a look around,” Ham said.

  “Ham…” Holly began, but Harry held up a hand to quiet her.

  “How did you get in?” Harry asked.

  “I went in through the marsh next to the marina entrance, then I took a walk.”

  “Somebody get the aerial photographs,” Harry said. They were laid on Jackson’s dining table, and Harry spread them out. “Show me,” he said.

  Ham stood up and pointed. “I took my boat in here about three this morning, then waded ashore. They’re depending on about fifteen feet of thick brush for a fence back there, and it ain’t working.” He began to give them an account of his reconnaissance.

  “I don’t believe this,” Holly said. “You’re completely crazy.”

  “Well, everybody just seemed to be dying to know what was in there, so I thought I’d take a look,” her father replied.

  “Go on, Ham,” Harry said.

  Ham pointed to the photographs again. “I got a look inside a house right here. A regular orgy going on in there.”

  “Anybody see you?”

  “Nope. Then I worked my way over to the chain-link fence, right here,” Ham said. “Turns out there’s three fences. The middle one is hot.”

  “Three fences,” Holly repeated tonelessly.

  “Yep. I went over to the com center, right here, which seemed to be shut down for the night, except for one man inside the front door. Had a look on the roof, too. The air conditioners are up there and what looks like either a self-contained generator or maybe a battery backup.”

  “For the computers,” Jackson said. “I guess it would be bad if all of them went down at once, in a power failure.”

  “But
they’ve got a big generator that cuts in if the power fails for five seconds,” Holly said. “Barney Noble told me that.”

  “Five seconds without power is forever to a computer,” Jackson said. “They’d want a battery backup, even if it’s only good for long enough to let them save the data they’re working on and shut the things down.”

  “What else did you see, Ham?” Harry asked.

  “There’s a gun emplacement right here,” Ham said, pointing. “I saw a heavy automatic weapon—not something I recognized either. Might be Chinese or something. Bigger than fifty caliber. It would sure play hell with a helicopter. One guy manning it, and he didn’t look too vigilant. I could have killed him three or four times.”

  “If I can tell a federal judge that an informant has told me there are illegally imported weapons in there, that might get me a warrant,” Harry said.

  Bob came back. “Rita’s car isn’t in the parking lot,” he said.

  Harry went into his briefcase, came up with a sheet of paper and handed it to Holly. “This is a description of her car. Can you put out an APB on it? I’m worried.”

  “Sure, I can.” Holly made the call from Jackson’s office, then came back. “You think they caught her placing the bug?”

  “It’s a better possibility than I want to think about,” Harry said.

  “I think we ought to let Barney Noble know we know she’s missing,” Holly said.

  “What? You’re going to call him up and ask if he’s got our agent?”

  Holly got out her notebook, looked up the number for Palmetto Gardens and dialed it. “Security office,” she said to the operator.