Orchid Blues (Holly Barker 2)

Everybody stared at Ham aghast.

"Then how did you get out?" Harry asked.

"I walked out, like always. John examined the thing and said it was a smoke detector. He noticed the two batteries, though."

"Did he question that?"

"No, but now you're going to have to do two things," Ham said.

"What?"

"Eddie, first you're going to have to take one of the batteries out."

"But that will halve the transmission time," Eddie protested.

"I don't care. I'm not going to put this thing up while it's got two batteries in it. John has seen the insides of it, and if, for any reason, they should pull it down and it has two batteries, then I'm gone."

"Do it, Eddie," Harry said. "And right now. What's the second thing, Ham?"

Ham handed the smoke detector to Eddie, who went to work on it. "You've got to give me some smoke detectors with two batteries that I can install at my house."

"Oh, no," Eddie groaned.

"I told him I had been installing them, so whatever's there has to have two batteries."

"I'll ask for them tomorrow," Harry said.

"Okay," Ham replied.

"Also, Eddie," Harry said, "we've got to set up another way to communicate with Ham. He can't keep coming here nearly every night."

"You can ask Washington for a couple of scrambled cell phones," Eddie said.

"Yes, I can," Harry agreed, "and I'll do it first thing in the morning."

Ham spoke up. "If I use a scrambled cell phone and somebody is listening on a scanner, what will they hear?"

"Nothing," Eddie said. "It will operate on a government frequency that commercial scanners can't detect. And even if they could, all they'd hear would be static."

"Okay, that sounds great."

"Ham," Harry said, "do you think that once Eddie gets the smoke detector operating on one battery, you'll be able to place it?"

"I don't know," Ham said. "That room is used a lot, so it could be tough. The good news is, there's a smoke detector there already, so if I can replace it with ours, that should lessen the chances of someone messing with it."

Eddie spoke up. "Before you remove the old one, be sure it's a stand-alone, battery-operated unit, and that it isn't hardwired into a fire and burglar alarm. If it has a wire attached that goes into the ceiling, leave it alone."

"What about this sweeping equipment of theirs? Will it detect our unit?"

"Very unlikely," Eddie said. "It will still be a short-range thing, and you said the room has a fairly high ceiling. And its signal is highly directional, straight up."

"Good."

"Harry, you want to listen to Ham's boot?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Eddie connected a box to the electronics in the heel and pushed a button. John's voice, tinny but clear, came out of it. Everyone listened raptly.