Orchid Blues (25 page)

“All right, done. Now answer my question.”

“I will. If you’d bothered to check the White House Web site or read the published schedule, or even watch the evening news, then you’d know that the president is receiving the prime minister of Israel and the head of the PLO at the White House on Monday morning, and talks are scheduled for all day.”

“You miserable son of a bitch!”

“I’ll let you know when I’m going to be in Miami, Harry, probably on short notice. Bye, now.” Chip hung up.

Ham arrived back at Peck’s house for lunch, just as the meeting in Peck’s study was breaking up. Ham went to the john and washed his hands, and when he came out, John was waiting for him.

“Come with me, Ham,” he said.

Ham followed him to the cellar, down a hall and into a room equipped as some sort of workshop, where a man wearing a loupe attached to his eyeglasses was working on something, bending close over a workbench.

The man looked up. “Hey, John,” he said, “this our guy?”

“It is. Ham, meet Dave, the best document forger in the business. Dave also designs our private currency, which you’ve seen.”

Ham shook the man’s hand, and Dave didn’t let go immediately. He peered closely at Ham’s face. “Good tan,” he said. “I’d have preferred to provide that, myself.”

Ham had no idea what the man was talking about.

“Come on, Dave, just get it done.”

“Well, as I understand it, we don’t have time for surgery, so I’ll just have to wing it.”

“I always enjoy watching this,” John said.

“Let’s see, graying hair, but darker eyebrows. I think I’ll go for a darker mustache, but with some gray in it, and heavier eyebrows.” He went to his workbench, opened a large briefcase and began rummaging in it. “Here we go,” Dave said. “Stand here, under the light, Ham.”

Ham moved as he was directed to.

Dave picked up an eyebrow with a pair of tweezers, painted something on the back and glued it over Ham’s own right eyebrow, then he repeated the process with the left one. “Yeah, this is going to work,” he said. He went back to the briefcase and came back with a mustache that matched the eyebrows. After a moment, Ham was a different man.

Ham looked at himself in a mirror. “Damn,” he said. “Good-looking guy.”

“Let’s try these, too,” Dave said, picking up a pair of heavy, black-rimmed glasses. “You wear glasses, Ham?”

“Just for reading.”

“What magnification?”

“Two.”

“I can handle that,” Dave said, going to a different briefcase and fishing out a pair of lenses. He removed the original lenses and snapped in the new ones. “Nice pair of bifocals,” he said, putting the glasses on Ham. “Plain glass at the top, reading glasses at the bottom. How do they feel?”

“Loose,” Ham said.

Dave made some adjustments, then returned the glasses to Ham.

Ham put them on and looked in the mirror. He would not have recognized himself, he thought.

“How’s that, John?”

“Perfect, Dave.”

“Okay, Ham, let’s take a couple of pictures of you.” He opened a folding screen and stood Ham in front of it. “We got a nice passport-model Polaroid camera here, makes four prints simultaneously.” He took the picture, then handed Ham a shirt. “Put this on, and we’ll take another.”

Ham did as he was told, and his picture was taken again.

“This is all for your protection, Ham,” John said. “We don’t want anyone who gets a look at you to give an accurate description. We’ll get you a hat, too.” He began to look through a stack of hats on a table nearby.

“And a cigar is a good idea,” Dave said. “Distorts the face.”

“Hate ’em,” Ham said.

“We won’t bother with that,” John said, picking out a businesslike straw hat and placing it on Ham’s head. “Look, his own mother wouldn’t recognize him. You own a suit, Ham?”

“Yes, back at my place.”

“I’ll send somebody over there to pick it up for you. Let me have a key.”

Ham unhooked his house key from a ring and handed it to John.

“We’ll burn it after you wear it,” John said. “I’ll spring for a new one, though.”

“I’ve only got one, and I was thinking of burning it, anyway,” Ham said.

Everybody laughed.

Fifty-four

HOLLY WAS VISITING HARRY’S PLACE AFTER DINNER on Friday evening, when Eddie, who was listening to his smoke detector bug with a headset, whistled and flipped a switch. John’s voice came into the room, but there was some sort of static, too, and there were gaps in the transmission.

“May I have reservations, please,” he said. “Hello? My name … Owen… . I’d like to confirm a reservation I made recently… . nights, arriving tomorrow, departing Tuesday morning. No-smoking, that’s correct, and I’m on the beach side of the hotel? … floor will be fine. Yes, I understand there won’t be an ocean view, but I’ll be working too hard to enjoy it, anyway… . see you tomorrow.” He hung up, then he could be heard moving around the room, but he didn’t speak and no one entered the room.

“Damn, Eddie, can’t you do anything about that reception?”

“No, Harry, it’s somewhere between here and a satellite a few hundred miles up.”

Harry wrote down the name Owen. “I wonder if that’s his real name,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Doug replied. “The guy’s probably got a dozen or more aliases. I think Alton Charlesworth is as close as we’re going to get without prints. Even if we ran them, we’d find a CIA hold on the record.”

“You’re probably right,” Harry said.

Then there were two voices in the room. “Hey,” Peck’s voice said. “We all set on paperwork?”

“Dave’s working on it now. We took the photographs, and they look great. He’ll have everything ready before he goes to bed tonight. Has Ham turned in?”

“Yeah, he left a few minutes ago.”

“Does he still have the jeep?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“Let me have the keys. I want to take a drive out to the strip and make sure the machine is ready.”

“I took care of the list you gave me,” Peck said.

John’s voice took on a new tone. “Peck, are you carrying your cell phone?”

“Yeah, sure. I always do.”

“Make any calls today?”

“No.”

“Let me have it, will you?”

“Sure, here. I’d like it back tomorrow.”

“I know you would, but I may need it more than you.”

“Whatever you say, John.” Peck sounded abashed.

“Good night.”

“Good night, John.”

The door could be heard to close, then a television came on.

“He’s listening to the Weather Channel,” Harry said. “The seven-day forecast. I wish we knew for sure which city, and especially, which hotel.”

“It’s near a beach,” Doug replied.

“Like half the hotels in Florida.”

Ham woke up the following morning to find himself alone. When he had returned to the bunkhouse the night before, his companions and their luggage had gone.

“Hello!” a voice called from outside.

“Yeah, hello!” Ham called back.

A young man Ham had never seen before came into the barracks carrying a cooler. “Breakfast,” he said.

“Breakfast in bed?”

“If that’s where you want it,” the young man replied. “It’s all there, what you usually have. John said to tell you you’re to stay here this morning, until he sends for you.”

“Something special about Saturday mornings?” Ham asked.

“Just the gun show. But you’re confined to barracks until further notice.” He smiled, waved and left.

Ham opened the cooler to find hot scrambled eggs and sausage, juice and a Thermos of coffee. He ate breakfast slowly, then showered and shaved and lay back down on his bunk in his shorts. He had nothing to read, no television to watch. He was bored. Then he noticed his blue suit hanging on a hook near the door. Someone must have put it there during the night, he thought. He decided to go back to sleep.

Harry was eating breakfast when Eddie waved at him and turned up the volume on the radio. Lake Winachobee was on the air again.

“Good morning,” John’s voice said. “This is November one, two, three, tango foxtrot. Would you please brief me for an IFR flight from Vero Beach to Miami, Opa-Locka, departing at seven p.m. local? I’ll go low, six thousand.” There was a wait as John listened to the forecast. “I’ll file,” he said, finally. “IFR, November one, two, three, tango foxtrot; I’m a PA forty-six stroke golf, departing Vero Beach at seven p.m. local, at six thousand. My route of flight will be Palm Beach, direct; destination is Opa-Locka; time en route, one hour. I have two and one-half hours of fuel. My name is John Wills, based Vero Beach, my phone number is (561) 555- 0022. The airplane is white over gray; there will be four souls aboard. Under comments, note that I’ll take off VFR and pick up my clearance in the air. Thanks, goodbye.” He hung up and apparently left the room.

“You get all that?” Harry asked Doug, who was taking notes.

“Yep.”

“Get somebody at the FAA out of his backyard pool and check out the ownership of that airplane, then check out the local phone number and the name John Wills. We’re on the move.”

“Hang on,” Doug said, “the event isn’t scheduled until Monday, and we don’t know if Ham is going to be on that airplane.”

“We’ll find that out from a stakeout at Opa-Locka,” Harry said. “We’ll be following them wherever they go.” He got on the phone to his office and his deputy. “Mark, I want you to get the loan of one of the DEA’s tracking helicopters. I want the pilot to follow, but not interfere with, a light aircraft, a PA forty-six, whatever that is. I believe it’s going to take off from a grass strip west of Vero Beach, heading for Opa-Locka, Miami, and the pilot will probably pick up an IFR clearance in the air. Tell him to listen in on Miami Center and get the squawk code that the Center assigns the airplane; that will make it easier to track. Set up a radio link with the chopper, so that we’re in constant touch, and warn the pilot to be ready for the aircraft to suddenly change airports and go somewhere else. Above all,
he is not to lose that airplane!
”

“Got it,” Mark replied.

“Next, I want you to set up a multiple-vehicle surveillance team to meet that aircraft at Opa-Locka and follow the occupants wherever they go. There should be four aboard. They’re departing around seven o’clock local and should be landing in Opa-Locka an hour later, but you be ready two hours before that, and be prepared for a later landing.”

“You got any idea of their destination?”

“A hotel near the beach. That’s all we know.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, access the military service record of one Hamilton Barker, retired army chief master sergeant, get his photograph and try to determine if he’s one of the four men aboard. I want you to photograph all four men when they land, and I’ll want to see those shots the minute you take them.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I want our airplane to meet me at the Vero Beach Airport at six o’clock. I want to land ahead of the PA forty-six, and I want you to have a car there so I can run the car surveillance.”

“I’ll have him there.”

Harry gave him the scrambled cell phone number. “Use that number when I’m on the ground. You can call me on the sat phone in the airplane. Now get going!”

“Oh, Harry, I almost forgot. You got a call from Chip Beckham from the Secret Service?”

“Yeah? Does he want me to call him back?”

“He said that wouldn’t be necessary, and anyway, he’ll be traveling. He said he was going to be in Miami tonight, and he’s calling in your debt. He said you’d know what he meant. He gave me a cell phone number for you to get him on in Miami.”

Harry jotted down the number. “Thanks, Mark.” A second after he hung up, he realized what Chip’s phone call meant. “Holy shit!” he yelled.

“What?” Eddie asked.

“Check the White House Web site and get the president’s published schedule for today and tomorrow.”

“Just take a sec,” Eddie said, tapping some computer keys. “Here we are. Nothing for today or tomorrow.”

Then what was Chip going to be doing in Miami?

The young man brought Ham lunch and dinner, too. “Be ready to leave here at six-thirty,” he said. “John says wear the blue suit, shirt and tie and carry your shaving stuff and a change of clothes. Oh, and wear the disguise,” he said, then left Ham alone.

Ham checked his watch. He had just enough time to eat and dress, but no opportunity to get at his cell phone, which was still taped under the dash of the jeep, unless someone had found it.

He was worried. He had expected to leave the compound on Monday morning and to have plenty of time to call Harry or Holly. He didn’t like this at all.

He finished his dinner, then dressed in the suit and stuck the mustache and eyebrows on, the way Dave had taught him. He put the glasses in his pocket and tried on the hat. He looked like any salesman in the state of Florida, he thought.

He heard a vehicle stop outside, and Peck came to the door. “You ready?” he asked.

“Yep.” He grabbed his bag and walked out the door. John was waiting in the jeep.

“You look great, Ham,” John said.

“Thanks. I’ll drive, if you like.” He had to get near that cell phone.

“Nah, I’ll drive,” Peck replied.

Ham wanted to hit him.

Fifty-five

HOLLY, WITH DAISY, ARRIVED BREATHLESSLY AT the airport and found Harry waiting for her in the Sun Jet Aviation lounge. “I couldn’t get anybody to stay with Daisy on such short notice. What’s up?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

Harry took her suitcase and gave Daisy a pat. “They’re on the move,” he said, “and I think Ham is with them.” He headed out of the building and across the ramp toward a King Air.

“But it wasn’t supposed to go down until Monday.”

“As far as we know, it still might. John has a hotel reservation until Tuesday morning, under the name Owen, but that’s the only name we’ve got.”

“What hotel?”

“We don’t know. We just picked this up on the smoke detector bug.” He stowed her luggage on the airplane, and they got in and buckled up. Doug was already aboard. Daisy settled into the seat next to Holly as if she flew every day.