Orchid Beach

CHAPTER

58

At two A.M., after nearly eight hours of briefings and planning, Holly, with Daisy by her side, sat sweating in the front seat of an FBI van, half a mile north of the main gate of Palmetto Gardens. She was armed with a silenced pistol, four stun grenades, a truncheon and pepper spray, and she was wearing a black jumpsuit with FBI stamped on the back, full body armor and a black Kevlar helmet. Behind her were a dozen more vehicles filled with men and equipment, and half a mile south of the main gate sat another dozen vehicles, their engines idling. Another group waited on Jungle Trail, near the back gate. Holly had pulled all her OBPD patrol cars off the north end of the island, to avoid any confusion. She knew that two men had worked their way on foot to within yards of the front-gate guard shack, and similar preparations had been made at the rear service gate.

At the same hour, Harry Crisp sat at a table in the gymnasium, a radio operator and Jackson Oxenhandler seated on either side of him. Jackson held a telephone in his hand, with an open line to the power company, which was standing by to cut the electricity supply to the whole of Palmetto Gardens.

“Don’t tell them until I tell you,” Harry said to Jackson.

Jackson nodded.

In the Indian River, half a mile north of the entrance to the Palmetto Gardens marina, Ham sat in the bottom of a Boston Whaler, paddling steadily. He led his little flotilla into the creek that meandered through the salt marsh, and they proceeded steadily toward the riverbank until the shallow-draft boats began to touch bottom. Ham held up a hand, a signal to sit still and be quiet. He waited several minutes, listening, and then, with his silenced pistol in hand, he stepped out of the whaler and waded slowly toward dry ground. It took him only a minute or so to find the break in the thick underbrush that he had used before, and a minute after that he was through to Palmetto Gardens. He stopped and listened for a time while he slipped on a pair of night goggles and looked around. Seeing nothing, he spoke into a handheld radio.

“One,” he said, then held the radio to his ear.

“One,” he heard Harry Crisp repeat.

“Ham’s ashore,” Harry said to the people in the gym.

The men waiting in the whalers heard the same transmission and began leaving the boats and wading toward shore.

Ham stood and counted the men as they emerged from the brush. When he was sure they were all with him, he spoke into the radio again.

“Two,” he said, then listened for Harry’s repetition of the number. He held up one finger, and two men stepped forward. He pointed in the direction of the Jungle Trail gate, and they trotted silently off in that direction. He held up two fingers, and two more men stepped forward. He started them toward the standby generator.

Holly, in her van, heard the number two spoken. “They’re in,” she said. “We’ve got four to six minutes to wait.”

The man at the wheel nodded and heaved a deep sigh.

His men dispersed on their various errands, Ham beckoned for the two remaining to follow him. They set off toward the com center, following the deer trail Ham had used last time. When they reached the building’s parking lot, Ham pointed at the front door. His two men skirted the parking lot and approached the building from both sides, taking up positions on either side of the front door. Only the one desk light inside seemed to be burning, as had been the case the last time Ham had visited. When his two men were in position, Ham circled the building, found the big live oak and climbed onto the roof of the building. He located the metal box and inspected it carefully with his hooded flashlight. When he had found the wires he wanted, he took a set of short bolt cutters from his backpack and cut both wires, then he went back down the tree. By the time he had skirted the parking lot again, there were two men on either side of the building’s entrance.

Ham looked at his watch, counting the minutes, as more of his men joined him. Two remained at the back gate, ready to cut the padlocks, and two were at the generator. He was waiting for only one more radio signal, from those two. He pressed the handheld to his ear. The silence continued.

“Three,” a voice said, finally.

“Three,” Harry repeated.

“We’re ready,” Harry said to the command group. “Anybody got a reason not to proceed?” He looked around the group, but nobody said anything. Harry nodded at Jackson.

“Cut the power,” Jackson said into the phone.

After a moment, the answer came back. “All power cut.”

“Here we go,” Harry said. No further commands were necessary.

Holly watched the main-gate guardhouse through binoculars. Suddenly, the light inside the little structure went off. “Go!” she said to her driver. The man slammed the vehicle into gear and accelerated down A1A. Holly kept the binoculars to her eyes, counting, “…three, four, five.” The light in the guard shack flickered, then came on again. She could see a figure, dressed in black, waving both hands over his head. The guard was down, and the gates were opening. “We’re in,” Holly said.

Ham watched as the desk lamp inside the main entrance of the com center went off, then, five seconds later, came back on. “Thirty seconds,” he whispered. He watched the seconds tick away on his wrist, and when the lights went out a second time, he stood up and sprinted for the front door. Just as he had predicted, the guard inside unlocked the door and stepped outside, looking around him. Immediately, two men were on his back, cuffing and gagging him.

Ham raced through the front door and stopped for a moment, listening to the handheld radio on the desk. A shrill whistle came from it. “Their radio frequencies are jammed,” he said. He waved his men ahead of him; they were the experts in breaking into buildings, after all. He followed four of them upstairs, while others searched the ground-floor offices. They burst into the second-floor computer room, illuminating it with powerful flashlights while each office along the wall was searched.

“Nobody here!” an agent crowed.

Ham picked up his radio. “Four,” he said.

“The com center is ours!” Harry Crisp yelled, and everybody yelled with him.

Holly’s van roared through the open front gate of Palmetto Gardens and hung a right. “It’s less than a mile,” she said to the driver. Then she saw something ahead and to her left that nearly made her heart stop. The country club building was ablaze with light. She rolled down her window, and as they passed, she could hear the bass thump of incredibly loud music coming from the building. “Stop right here,” she said to the driver.

“We’re supposed to go straight to the security station,” the driver said.

“Godammnit, stop right here!” she yelled.

The man stopped, and Holly got out of the van with Daisy. “Wait here,” she said.

“You’re going to get us in a lot of trouble,” the driver said.

“I’ll take the responsibility,” Holly replied. “You just wait here.” She ran up the driveway toward the clubhouse, keeping to the grass verge of the roadway, ready to jump into the bushes, if necessary. Ahead, she could see the parking lot, and it was full. A man with an automatic weapon stood guard at a corner of the building; she couldn’t go farther without engaging him, and she couldn’t see into the clubhouse from where she stood. She ran to an oak tree, holstered her weapon and began climbing. “Daisy, stay and guard,” she said to the dog.

Daisy sat down at the base of the tree and stared into the darkness.

Holly stopped when she was twenty feet up. She had a clear view of the dining room, and what she saw appalled her. The huge room was jammed with people in evening dress, dancing to a rock band. This was no staff party, she thought. She climbed back down the tree, dropping the last six feet, then ran back to the van with Daisy and got in. She picked up the radio. “Harry,” she said.

“No transmissions, except as planned,” Harry’s voice said irritably.

“Listen to me,” she said. “Emergency.”

“Go,” Harry replied.

“There’s a huge party going on at building CC. You read me? There must be three hundred people in there, you understand?”

Harry slammed his fist on the table. “Holy shit, we’re in trouble!”

“What is she talking about?” Jackson asked.

“The country club! They’re all at the fucking country club, and our people are going to be hitting empty houses!”

“Can’t you change the orders?”

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” Harry said, looking at the team lists on the table before him. He pressed the transmit button. “Attention all parties,” he said, his voice cracking with tension. “Emergency change of plans. Teams one, two, three, continue as planned and hold your objectives. All other teams—everybody else—mass two hundred yards from the clubhouse building. I say again: all other teams except one, two, and three, mass two hundred yards from the clubhouse building and wait for further instructions. Employ maximum concealment possible, maximum concealment. Team four, immediately on securing your objective, penetrate and neutralize security at clubhouse. Use extreme caution and any necessary prejudice. Team four, report when original objective secured.”

“Team four, wilco,” Holly said into the radio. “New assignment, guys,” she said to the other men in the van. “We take out clubhouse security, then go in on Harry’s command. And remember, a lot of the staff at the clubhouse is going to be packing.”

Harry pressed the transmit button again. “Attention all personnel: clubhouse staff is likely to be armed.”

Holly’s van had reached the darkened village. “About the fourth or fifth building on your right,” she said. “Slow down…stop!” She leapt out of the van and ran through the unlocked front door of the security office. “Daisy! Stay with me!” She followed a hallway and came into a large room with a bank of radios along one wall. A shrill shriek seemed to come from all of them, and a uniformed man was trying to use the telephone.

“Freeze! Police and FBI!” she shouted, and the man stood up, his hands in the air. An agent took the pistol from his belt and started to handcuff him. “Not yet!” Holly commanded. She grabbed the security man by his necktie and dragged him to a large wall map of Palmetto Gardens. “Where does Barney Noble live?” she said.

The man looked at her as if she were insane. “What?” he said.

Someone cuffed him across the back of his head. “Talk to the lady!” the agent said.

“Where does Barney Noble live?” she repeated.

The agent pointed to a house not far from the rear service gate. “Right there,” he said.

“Handcuff him to something, and follow me,” Holly said. She grabbed her radio. “Five,” she said. “Team four to clubhouse.” Then she ran for the van.