Orchid Blues (Holly Barker 2)

Harry opened his cell phone again, called his office in Miami and ordered that a portable cell be set up as near as possible to the north shore of Lake Winachobee.

Holly felt awful about throwing the phone short, but she wasn't about to let Harry know it. She hoped to hell Ham could recover it.

49

Ham stood at one end of the airstrip and watched through the sights of the Barrett's rifle as a jeep towed a nearly wrecked car across the opposite end, four thousand feet away. The car was moving at about twenty miles an hour, he reckoned.

He led the car a yard and squeezed off the round. A large hole appeared in a rear door of the car. "Do it again," he said to Peck, who was standing beside him. "And I want to know how fast he's moving."

Peck spoke his instructions into a handheld radio, then he turned to Ham. "He says he was doing about fifteen miles an hour."

"Tell him to speed it up to twenty-five this time," Ham replied. "Nobody drives that slow on purpose."

Peck relayed the instructions, and the jeep turned around and started another pass, this time faster.

Ham fired again, and the glass in the front passenger door shattered.

"Right on!" Peck yelled.

"Yeah, but do you want me to hit the driver?"

"No, we want the rear-seat passengers."

"Of course, the explosive round will take out pretty much everybody in the car."

"Still, I'd like you to be able to hit the rear-door window every time," Peck said.

"Turn him around, and maintain that speed."

Ham fired the big rifle until they had to stop and let the barrel cool off.

At lunchtime. Ham was sitting with Peck when John came into the dining room.

"Productive morning?" Peck asked.

"Pretty good," John replied. He produced a cell phone and switched it on. "Tell me something," he said, "what kind of cell phone signal strength do you get out here?"

"Pretty poor," Peck said. "Sometimes you have to try half a dozen times to get a call through."

"Interesting," John said. He held up his cell phone for Peck to see. Ham saw it, too-there were five bars of signal strength showing in the display. "You know anything about cell phone improvements out here?"

"Haven't heard a thing," Peck said. "I tried to use mine a couple of days ago, and I couldn't get a call out."

"There's nothing much out here that would cause them to install a new cell, is there?"

"Not that I can think of. We're about it for twenty miles or so. Are you worried about this, John?"

"I'm not sure whether to be worried," he replied. "But I've never experienced a sudden improvement in cell phone service. I've experienced worse service many times, but never better service. If you were going to install a cell out here, where would you put it?"

"On top of something, I guess. A water tower, a church steeple, a microwave tower. The terrain is flat as a pancake for miles."

"Is there any installation like that around here?"

"No, that sort of thing is usually around I-95, to the east, or the Florida Turnpike, to the west."

"Let's take a drive," John said.

"Okay."