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“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.
“Security,” a man’s voice said.
“Barney Noble,” Holly said.
A moment later, Barney came on the line.
“Barney, it’s Holly Barker. How are you?”
