Peck was walking slowly around the room now, waving the antenna.
"You got something, Peck?" John asked.
"I did for a minute," Peck said. "Then it went away. Just a small surge, but definite."
"All right everybody," John said, "we're now going to show you just how careful we are. Stand up and line up against the wall over there."
Everybody did as instructed.
Peck went down the line and, one by one, had each man extend his arms away from his body, then swept the antenna over his clothing. Ham was third in line, and he watched out of the corner of his eye while Peck did his work. Finally, Peck was in front of him, and he gave Ham a wink that said, "Don't worry pal, this is just for show."
Ham hoped to God that turning off the recorder in his heel also turned off the microphone in his button, because if it didn't, he was about to be nailed. He began thinking about how fast he could get out of there and to his truck, and the answer he came up with was, Not fast enough.
Peck went up and down the top and bottom of each of Ham's arms, then his legs and crotch. "I'm not feeling you up, Ham," he said, "it's just that undercover cops just love to hide bugs in their crotches."
"Don't worry, Peck, you're not my type anyway."
Everybody laughed.
Peck then moved the antenna to the top of his head and worked his way down both sides of his torso. Ham turned to allow him to sweep his back. Peck moved on to the waist, paying particular attention to Ham's belt buckle, then, as he started up the torso, the black box beeped. "What you got in that pocket, Ham?" Peck asked, pointing.
Ham reached into his pocket and produced the smoke detector.
John walked over and took it from him. "What's this?"
"A smoke detector," Ham said. "I was putting some up last night, and I guess I forgot about that one."
John unscrewed the two halves of the detector and looked inside. "Two batteries," he said. "That's unusual."
"Is it?" Ham replied. "First ones I ever had anything to do with."
John motioned with his head for Peck to sweep the smoke detector, and Peck complied. A tiny beep came from the black box.
"Interesting," Peck said.
"Not really," John replied. "You've got some electronics in there, and the batteries. You sometimes get a reaction from small devices, even when they're not transmitting." He handed the smoke detector back to Ham. "Let's get this finished up, Peck, and get back to our class. I've got a lot of ground to cover."
Ham stuck the smoke detector back into his pocket and tried not to look relieved.
41
Ham entered the beach house, and for once, no one was eating.
"Ham, I don't know if you should be here every night," Harry said.
"I had a close call today, and I want to talk about it."
"What happened, Ham?" Holly asked.
"I found out that they have been sweeping the place, and not just the place, but people, too. Can they do that without anyone knowing?"
Eddie shrugged. "It could be done, but they'd need some pretty sophisticated equipment. Somebody could carry around a small sweeper in his pocket that would signal if he got close to somebody wearing a transmission device."
"I'm glad I haven't been wearing anything up to now."
"Ham, tell us what happened," Holly insisted.
Ham told them about the lecture and Peck's sweeping of the participants. "I managed to turn off the thing in my heel," he said, getting his foot out of the boot and handing the shoe to Eddie. "When it's off, does the button emit any signals?"
"No," Eddie said, working to remove the heel from the boot. "When you turn it on, it activates the button microphone."
"Their sweeper beeped when Peck got to me," Ham said. "They found the smoke detector."
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.
"Is it all as mind-numbing as this?" Harry asked after a few minutes had passed.
"I'm afraid so. It's straight indoctrination, although I think he's preaching to the converted."
The recording finished, and Eddie replaced the two memory sticks with fresh ones, then replaced the heel. "There you go."
"You got anything else for me?" Ham asked.
"Be careful using that recorder. Save it for when you're alone with John."
"Okay," Ham said. He took the altered smoke detector back from Eddie and left.
When Ham had left. Harry said, "Holly, your old man is one standup guy."
"Yeah, I know," Holly said. "That's what I'm most afraid of."
42
Today's lesson was about loyalty, and Ham struggled to look interested. He was astonished that John had the wind to keep at this stuff, and he prayed for it to be over soon. His prayers were not answered until lunchtime.
"That's it, gentlemen," John said. "I think you understand what you're a part of now. Any questions?"
A man raised his hand. "Just one thing I don't understand," he said.