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“I’m familiar with the type of thing,” Crisp said.
“We’ve got one that’s unusual.”
“How so?” Crisp asked, munching.
“Well, it’s on a good fifteen hundred acres, but it’s only got a couple of hundred houses, and it appears to be already fairly fully developed.”
“Sounds expensive,” Crisp said.
“Extremely,” Holly replied. “It’s also got three eighteen-hole golf courses and its own six-thousand-foot airfield.”
“For two hundred households?” Crisp asked.
“That’s it. And the airfield gets a lot of international traffic. They have some sort of deal with customs and immigration to clear arrivals on the spot.”
“A private airport of entry? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“Neither have I,” Jackson said.
“Tell me more.”
“The place is surrounded by a ten-foot-high double fence with razor wire on top, and the inner fence is electrified.”
“Security conscious, huh?”
Ham spoke up. “We tried to get a look at their marina the other day, and they threatened us with automatic weapons and threw us out in a hurry.”
“Touchy.”
“You could say that.”
“There’s more,” Holly said. “The place is nearly completely cut off from any local services, except maybe the food supply. It has an electricity generating plant, its own water and sewage system, and the houses were built by labor imported from somewhere else. Only the basic infrastructure was built by locals.”
Crisp finished his dinner and pushed his plate away. “What else?”
Ham got up and started clearing the table.
“The employees seem all to live on the grounds,” Jackson said. “No locals were hired. We estimate there’s housing for four hundred employees.”
“They’ve got two thousand telephone lines and a communications center you won’t believe,” Holly said, bringing out the aerial photographs and spreading them out on the table.
“How the hell did you get this?” Crisp asked. “This looks like a satshot.”
“Old-fashioned aerial photography,” Jackson replied. “Friend of mine does it for a living.”
Holly pointed out the building with the antennae.
“Anybody got a magnifying glass?” Crisp asked.
Holly found one on Ham’s desk and handed it to him.
Crisp peered closely at the communications equipment. “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “This is more stuff than the bureau has on its roof in Miami.”
“Check this out,” Holly said, pointing at place after place. “We think this is all camouflage netting.”
“Covering what?”
“Use your imagination.”
