"Ham, why don't you join us? You're an observant fellow."
"Sure." Ham drank the last of his iced tea and followed them to a car outside. Peck drove, John took the shotgun seat and Ham sat in back.
"Take a right and drive to I-95, then turn around and come back," John said. He held his cell phone up, so that Ham could see it, too. They reached the highway and Peck turned right. "Strong signal all the way to the main road," John said.
Ham watched the cell phone display and wondered what the hell was going on.
They drove east for a few miles, then John spoke again. "Signal's dropping. We're down to two bars." A couple of minutes later: "Up to three bars, now four." Ham could see I-95 ahead. "Five bars. Turn the car around."
Peck made a U-turn and the same phenomenon occurred. "Drive right past our turn," John said, watching the phone. "Five bars at our turn," he said. A few miles later: "Signal's dropping-three, now two. The no-signal light is on. Turn around."
Peck made another U-turn.
"Ham," John said, "did you notice anything unusual along our route?"
"There was a power company van pulled over a few miles back, and a man up a pole, but I don't know if you'd call that unusual."
"Normally, not," John said, "but I wonder why the hell we're suddenly getting such good cell phone service out here. There's the power company van, Peck. Slow down as we go by."
The car drove slowly past the van, and everybody had a good look.
"One man up the pole," Ham said. "The van doors were closed."
"You want me to turn in to our road?"
"Yes," John said. He watched his cell phone signal all the way to Peck's house. "Peck," he said as they pulled to a stop, "anybody you know of have a cell phone out here?"
"I asked everybody," Peck said, "and I collected a dozen, including Ham's. Why?"
"Because I wonder if somebody has a phone we don't know about, and if somebody else has suddenly improved service in the area just so he can make a few calls."
"You want me to conduct a search of the whole compound?"
"No. If there's a phone here, I doubt if we'd find it. I want someone to monitor a scanner on the cell phone frequencies, though. We just might pick up something." He turned to Ham. "I understand there was a boat near the bunkhouse last night."
"Yes, there was," Ham said. "I went outside to sleep, because a snorer was keeping me awake; Jimmy woke me up in the middle of the night and pointed out the boat. It appeared to be an empty dinghy that someone hadn't tied up right."
"You really think it was empty?"
"I watched it for a good half an hour while I was trying to get back to sleep, and it never moved in the water. Later on, a breeze came up from the north, and it must have blown back where it came from."
"I see."
"I don't know how big a cell phone transmitter is, but I wouldn't think you could get one into a small dinghy."
"You're right," John said. "The dinghy must have been a coincidence. I don't think the signal strength is an accident, though. I want a twenty-four-hour watch on the scanner, Peck, and I want somebody to drive past that power company truck every hour. I want to see how long it stays there."
Ham wondered if this had something to do with the cell phone delivered to him, the one lying on the bottom of Lake Winachobee.
50
Holly left work, went home, walked Daisy, then went to Harry's place. Everybody was looking glum.
"What's going on?" she asked. "Have you heard from Ham?"
"No," Harry said, "not by phone or bug. There's been a lot of activity in Peck's study, but nothing was said that would give us any more information about what's going on out there."