face will be standing outside.” She took off her gun belt and dropped it, then, with the Beretta in her hand, she went up the front walk, gesturing to the others to take positions out of sight. She looked through a glass side panel into the house, but the interior was dark. She rang the doorbell and stood, the pistol behind her, and waited for Barney Noble to walk into her hands.
Ham walked around the com center, looking into offices. “We got it clean,” he said to his men. “Let’s check out downstairs.” He ran down the steps, went to the end of the corridor and turned the corner. Before him sat the large steel door with its security features. “I wonder what’s behind that,” he said.
“Whatever it is,” an agent replied, “it’s what we came for. I hope to Christ it’s illegal.”
Harry Crisp’s car arrived at the airfield. Four FBI vehicles were parked on the runway, and agents surrounded the tower. Harry got out of his car and approached them. “How did it go?” he asked.
“Only one man in the tower,” the agent said. “We took it clean.”
“Are there any aircraft here that could take off?”
“A dozen or so, but there are no pilots here.”
“Put their man back in the tower, under guard, and get those vans off the runway. If any aircraft wants to land, let it, and detain everybody aboard. Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
Harry got back into his car. “Let’s go see the com center,” he said. “Have we heard anything from the gun emplacements?”
“We got a report while you were out of the car,” an agent said. “Everything is secure.”
Harry turned to Jackson. “I guess you can get out of that armor,” he said. “You look pretty silly in it.”
Holly rang the doorbell again. No one came. She turned to the nearest agent, flattened against the side of the house. “I guess we’re going to have to go in,” she said.
“Not until you get back into that gear,” the man said, pointing at the jumpsuit and heap of armor. Holly got back into it and stood away from the door. Two men with a ram tore the jamb off with a single thrust, and the group flooded into the house, flashlights and guns out in front of them.
“Daisy, stay with me,” Holly said, then headed upstairs, followed by two men. She stopped at every corner, gun at the ready, safety off. A moment later she was in the master bedroom. Suddenly the bedside lamp came on.
“Power’s back,” somebody called from downstairs.
The bed had been slept in, but the room was empty. “Search the house,” Holly said.
Two minutes later, an agent entered the bedroom, pushing a beautiful young woman ahead of him. She was wearing a lacy negligee.
“Where’s Barney Noble?” Holly demanded.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He left when the lights went out the second time. He told me to stay here. When I heard you break down the door, I hid in the guest room.”
“He may have gotten out of the house, but he won’t get out of Palmetto Gardens,” an agent pointed out.
Holly picked up her radio. “Marina,” she said. “This is Holly.”
“Marina,” a voice replied.
“Is your location secured?”
“Roger. We were a couple of minutes late, but it’s secured.”
Holly picked up her map and looked. “Jesus, we’re less than a hundred yards from the marina. Barney’s gone.”
“What now?” an agent asked.
“You guys can join the house searches,” she said, “but first, drop me off at the com center. I want to see that.”
On the way, Holly took out her cell phone and called her station.
“Orchid Beach Police Department,” a woman’s voice said.
“It’s Chief Barker. I want a statewide APB on one Barney Noble, white male, late fifties, six-one, two hundred pounds, short, gray hair, armed and dangerous. The charge is murder of a police officer.”
“Got it, Chief.”
“And call the coast guard and ask them to stop anything moving on the river. Check every boat for Noble.”
“I’m on it.”
Holly broke the connection. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Barney Noble was gone, and the chances of catching him were growing slimmer by the minute.
Harry Crisp toured the entire com center building, once the lights had come back on, and he finished up at the huge steel door. “Anybody got an opinion on how to deal with that?”
Bill stood next to him and examined the door. “We could blow it, but God knows what it would do to the computer equipment in the building. I think what we need here is a first-rate criminal.”
“Everything here is electronic,” Harry said. “The keypad and the palm reader. Get a couple of our electronics people in here and see if they can jump-start that thing.”
Holly got out of the van at the com center, and it drove away. Teams of agents were conducting a house-to- house search, armed with warrants, and the agents in her group went off to join them. She met Harry Crisp on his way out the door.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Perfectly. But there’s a steel door in there that we’ve got to deal with before we can find out what’s downstairs. I’ve got two men on it, and I’ll have a report soon.”
“Where’s Ham?”
“He’s around here somewhere. He and his group did brilliantly. I don’t know what we’d have done without him.”
Jackson stepped up. “Did you arrest Barney Noble?”
Holly shook her head. “He got out, probably by way of the marina.”
“Shit,” Jackson said.
A man came out of the com center. “Harry,” he said, “the steel door is open. It was a piece of cake.”
Harry rushed back inside, followed closely by Holly and Jackson. The door was, indeed, open. A stairway led down from it.
“Let me clear the area, first, Harry,” a man called out. Two men with automatic weapons went down the well-lighted stairs. “Okay,” one of them called out, “all clear.”
Harry and his entourage walked down the stairs and emerged into a large room containing only a desk and a huge steel door.
Holly’s mouth dropped open. “Holy shit,” she said under her breath.
“What the hell is that?” Harry asked.
Jackson spoke up. “Looks like a bank vault, Harry.”
“I know that, but what the hell is it doing down here?”
“Looks like these people don’t want you to know what’s behind it,” Jackson said. “Looks like there’s a time lock, too,” he said, pointing, “set for nine A.M. Even with the combination, you wouldn’t get it open until then.”
“It’s a Friedrich,” an agent said. “German. I think they’ve got an office in New York. Maybe Miami, too.”
“Call them first thing in the morning and get an expert down here to open it,” Harry said. “Jesus, I hate waiting.”
Ham joined them and slipped an arm around Holly. “Wasn’t this fun?” he said.
CHAPTER
