Highest Order

by David Archer

  “It’s not going to matter how he gets in,” Noah said. “The only thing that matters to me is how I’m going to get in. Is there any way to find out what room he’s going to be staying in?”

  “Not the specific room number, no,” Neil said. “I know that he’ll be on the fourth floor, but they are very careful not to let anyone find out what room. As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no way to get that information short of being on his security staff.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to matter,” Noah said. “Where did you get on the bees?”

  “There is a supplier in Arlington, one of the suburbs of Dallas. Wilkerson’s Honeybees in Arlington; they’re located out between Dallas and Fort Worth, and they sell what they call a hive starter set. That’s a queen and a couple of dozen of the female worker bees, which is what they say you need to start a hive. The worker bees are the ones that sting, especially if they think they are protecting the queen.”

  “That’ll work,” Noah said. “A couple of dozen bees ought to be plenty.”

  “Okay, then,” Neil said. “Then you’ve got the issue of how you’re going to get inside the Ritz, and I’ve actually found something that I think will solve that problem. You want to lean over here and take a look?”

  Noah came close and leaned down to look at the monitor on Neil’s computer, where the display showed a three-dimensional, wire frame layout of the entire building.

  “There are only four actual entrances to the building,” Neil said. “You got the front doors, the loading dock has three overhead doors and a walk-in door, and then there are two service entrances. Now, all of these are going to be under constant guard, naturally, but there’s one other way in that I don’t think anybody is going to pay any attention to.” The display rotated on the screen and zoomed in on one particular section. “Do you see this square? That is an access way that was put in when the building was originally built, and it goes to an underground tunnel that was the original way utilities came in. Back in the late nineties, they completely redid the utility grid in this part of the city, and that tunnel is no longer used. That access hatch is situated behind a new high-efficiency furnace that was installed right around the same time, and you have to literally climb over the furnace to get to it. Since the hatch was welded shut, I don’t think the Secret Service is going to consider it any kind of vulnerability.”

  “If it’s welded shut,” Jenny asked, “what good does it do Noah?”

  “Quite a lot, actually,” Neil said. “You see, the only thing they could have welded it to is the frame around it, which was put in from the tunnel side with bolts. Unbolt it, and the whole thing will lift right out. That leaves you with a thirty inch by thirty inch square hole that nobody can even see, but that isn’t necessarily the best part of this little plot of mine.”

  Noah nodded. “Go on, I’m listening.”

  “Remember the new furnace? Right there on the back is the most vulnerable point of the ductwork. There’s a panel that can come right off with nothing but a screwdriver, and the ductwork is big enough that they actually installed a ladder inside it. Go in through that hatch, and you’re in a perfect position to get right into the ductwork. You can climb the ladder to get to the fourth floor, and then crawl through the ducting until you find the president’s bedroom. He’ll be sleeping alone, with his security detail in the anteroom to his suite.”

  Noah followed along on the display, as Neil manipulated it to let him see all of the details as they were described.

  “What about the grill that lets air into the room? Would it be hard to remove?”

  “Probably, at least without breaking it and making noise. On the other hand, it would be plenty big enough to let the bees get through. The only question is how to make them sting.”

  “That isn’t all that hard,” Noah said. “Bees usually sting because they think they’re protecting the hive. If I can get a little bit of honey into the room, that will put them on alert. Any movement in the room will probably be enough to attract them and make them begin to sting.”

  Neil looked up at him. “I’m not sure I even want to know how you know that,” he said.

  “Something I learned when I was a kid,” Noah said. “I found out the hard way, when I tried to steal honey out of a beehive.”

  “Okay,” Jenny said, “but suppose you managed to get the bees in there. What happens if he gets stung, but lives through it? I mean, there’s no way to know for sure that this is going to work, right?”

  “No,” Noah said. “At this point, all we’ve got is speculation. An allergy to bee stings, on the other hand, generally causes anaphylactic shock. If a single bee sting almost killed him before, dumping a few dozen riled-up bees into his room ought to get the job done.”

  They continued going over the plan for a couple of hours, until Marco and Sarah returned. They had picked up a late model Chrysler Town and Country, a seven-passenger minivan with a lot of room for baggage and cargo. It took a few minutes to bring the two of them up-to-date on the plan, and showed Marco the layout of the building.

  “Okay, then,” Marco asked, “what do we do first? What’s the next step?”

  “The first thing I want to do is get into that utility tunnel,” Noah said. “Neil, have you found an entrance to it yet?”

  “Funny you should ask that,” Neil said. “I just happened to find one that is easy to get to, and far enough away that the Secret Service probably doesn’t even know it exists. It’s almost half a mile away from the hotel, and in the basement of an abandoned building. We shouldn’t have any problem at all getting into it. From what I can tell, the door into the tunnel isn’t even locked.”

  Noah nodded. “We’ll find out tonight,” he said. “Marco, you and me.”

  “You got it, boss,” Marco said. “I guess it’s likely to be dark down there. Maybe we should go buy some flashlights?”

  Chapter TWENTY

  The abandoned building Neil found had once been an auto parts store, and was currently sitting empty in a run-down neighborhood. Noah and Marco had no trouble finding it, and it was even easier to get inside. The building had been badly vandalized, with several windows broken and boarded over, but the boards had been ripped away. A side window offered easy entry, and they waited until they were well inside before turning on the flashlights they had brought with them.

  It took them a moment to find the stairs leading to the basement, and then they spent another couple of minutes looking for the door that led into the service tunnel. That tunnel ran underneath the streets, so following it was not much different than following a map. It took them about ten minutes to walk through it all the way to where the Ritz-Carlton would be sitting above them, and then they had to hunt around for the sealed access way.

  It was Marco who found it. “Over here, boss,” he said. “I’m pretty sure this is it.”

  Noah took a look and nodded. Sure enough, just as Neil had suggested, the frame of the hatch was secured into the concrete wall of the tunnel with bolts. He took a couple of crescent wrenches from his pocket and they set to work.

  The bolts had been there a long time, and were pretty rusty. It was a lot of work, but they finally got them out and then carefully pried the frame away from the concrete. They managed to do so without a lot of sound, and finally set it on the floor of the tunnel.

  The basement was dimly lit, but Noah could see the panel that covered the ductwork maintenance entrance. He climbed inside the basement and then counted a dozen screws holding the panel in place.

  He took a couple screwdrivers out of the same pocket and began removing the screws. He handed them carefully and quietly to Marco, and it was only a matter of five minutes before he was able to lift the panel away and lean it against the wall behind him. He stuck his head inside and looked upward, then climbed in and started up the ladder.

  Someone in the maintenance department had obviously taken pains to mark each floor. When Noah reached the fourth floor ductwork, he careful
ly crawled into it. The soft clothing he was wearing made it quiet, but the duct was big enough that he could actually crawl on knees and elbows.

  The ductwork went in two directions, and he followed it to the end both ways, just to be sure he was able to make it. It took him nearly 10 minutes to go each way, but a lot of that was because of being careful not to make noise. He didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence, and that would be even more critical when the president was actually in the building.

  Finally, confident that he could make his way through the ducting and find the right room, he went back to the vertical duct and climbed down the ladder. He and Marco put the panel back in place and secured it loosely with the screws, then climbed back into the tunnel and put the metal hatch back into the hole they had pulled out of. They put two of the bolts in to keep it secure, then made their way back to the old auto parts store.

  “Can you imagine,” Marco said, “having something like this underneath the city and nobody even knows it? I’m about half surprised that the local street gangs aren’t using it. Find enough ways in and out, and you can just about move around the city with no one knowing how you do it.”

  “I’m sure some people know about it,” Noah said. “Just about every building in this part of the city opens onto it in one way or another. What surprises me is that the Secret Service isn’t stationing people down here to watch it. This is a serious vulnerability for a building where the president is going to be sleeping.”

  “Hey, don’t jinx us. That would be the last thing we need.” Marco shook his head. “Look, I still haven’t gotten over the fact that we’re going to kill the president. Noah, if anybody ever finds out it was you, you’ll never be able to hide well enough.”

  “That’s why they call this a secret mission,” Noah said. “The only ones who are going to know are those who are with us on it. I’ll be honest, I wish there was any other way to stop this thing, but I haven’t figured out what it would be. Any conspiracy this big is one that won’t be stopped by threats or even exposure, and it sounds crazy enough that it would be written off as a conspiracy theory, anyway. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and I don’t see any other way to protect the country from the threat this thing represents.”

  Marco grimaced. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. It just really sucks.”

  They got back to the parts store and carefully make sure they hadn’t left any sign of their presence, then drove back to the hotel. There were still three days to go before the president would arrive, and Noah had planned each segment of the mission carefully. They would rest again that night, and then the following day, he would make a point of getting the honeybees.

  When they got back to the hotel, they gathered up Neil and the women and went out to eat. They went to a different restaurant, this time, one that was in Arlington and not far from where the bees would be found. Noah wanted to drive by the place and get a look at it, and he was glad to see that it was nothing but an old building and a field full of wooden beehives.

  They took their time over dinner, even allowing themselves to have a drink that evening. Since they would be going back to the hotel and sleeping, Noah said it was okay to relax a bit and let their hair down. The restaurant had a bar and even a small dance floor, so Noah actually dragged Sarah out of her chair for a couple of dances.

  When they finally got back to the hotel, they all headed for their own rooms. Sarah was in a particularly good mood, and waited only a moment after the door was closed behind them before throwing her arms around Noah and letting him know that she wanted him.

  * * * * *

  It was just after ten the next morning when Noah walked into the office of Wilkerson’s Honeybees. A short, balding man looked up from where he sat behind the counter and smiled.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Hi, there,” Noah said. “I’m here for my nephew. He’s got a beehive, but something’s happened and he said he needs a new queen. He told me to stop here while I was in the area because you sell queen bees?”

  “I sure do,” the man said. “I’m Don Wilkerson. Did you ever get to work with your nephew with the bees?”

  “No, not really,” Noah said. “I guess I just never found them all that interesting, but he does. He’s my sister’s kid, and his dad died in Afghanistan so I try to help out, now and then.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Wilkerson said. “Did he say what happened to his queen?”

  Noah shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know that much about it,” he said. “Something about some damage to the hive from a storm, but he said he doesn’t want to let the workers make an emergency queen, whatever that means.”

  Wilkerson nodded. “Well, an emergency queen is usually smaller and not as productive as one that was properly planned. That’s the usual reason for a beekeeper to introduce a new queen, and that’s why we sell them. Hang on, let me get you a queen set.”

  He disappeared into a back room and came back moments later with what looked like a large cigar box.

  “This is your starter set, here,” he said. “There’s a queen in the box and about a hundred workers, they act like nurse bees. What they do is take care of the queen until you get them put into the hive, and then they help protect her until the hive catches on. It shouldn’t take more than a day or so before the hide starts acting normal, again.”

  Noah looked at the box as if it made him nervous. “There’s a hundred worker bees in there? Aren’t they the ones that sting?”

  “Well, yes,” Wilkerson said, “but you don’t need to worry. They can’t get out of the box, and your nephew will know how to move them into the hive safely, I’m sure.”

  “Well, okay, then,” Noah said. He paid for the bees and picked the box up carefully as he left.

  “A hundred bees?” Sarah asked when he got back to the hotel. “I guess that ought to be plenty, but how are you going to get them into the room?”

  “I’m just going to dribble a little honey through the vent into the room with a syringe, then open the box. From everything I’ve read, they should be able to smell the honey and go after it. Once they’re in the room, all he’s got to do is roll over to get their attention and that ought to put them into attack mode.”

  “I’m just thinking,” she said, “but what happens if they come after you?”

  “They should go after the honey. I’m going to hold very still until most of them are out of the box and going to the vent, and then I’ll close the box and start moving back away as quickly as I can. They should be concentrating on the honey by then.”

  Sarah looked at him, and shook her head. “This scares me,” he said. “Noah, if you get caught…”

  “I’m not going to,” he said. “Don’t even let yourself think that way.”

  Wilkerson had explained to him that the bees had enough honey and moisture in the box to last a week, but that it should be kept in a cool, dry place until it was time to move them into the hive. He put the box into the closet in the room, and the waiting began.

  The local news channel announced the arrival of the President of the United States a couple of days later, and Noah watched carefully. The motorcade made its way in the late afternoon from the airport to the Ritz-Carlton, exactly as scheduled. Everything was coming together, and Noah decided it was time to move that night. The ideal situation would be for the president to be found dead of bee stings the following morning, with no logical explanation other than a simple twist of fate.

  Noah and Marco waited until after ten p.m., then went back to the old auto parts store. Someone had replaced the board over the broken window, but it was only a matter of a moment for Marco to pull it loose. They were back inside a moment later, and Marco pulled the board into place so that no one would notice.

  The flashlights came on and they made their way to the stairs and down, then followed the same path to get back to the hotel. Noah put his ear to the access hatch and listened closely, but heard no sounds inside the basement of t
he hotel. After five minutes, they took out the two bolts they had secured the hatch with and carefully set it on the floor once again.

  Just as he had done previously, Noah climbed through the hatch and removed the panel. Marco passed him the box of bees, and he started climbing the ladder.

  At the fourth floor ductwork, he began crawling slowly along and looking carefully through each of the vents as he passed each room. Most of them had several people inside, and not all of them were asleep. He was very careful to make no noise as he passed, and was glad he had taken the precaution of putting some soft felt on the bottom of the box that he was pushing ahead of himself.

  He found President Andrews inside the eighth vent he looked through. The president was in bed, but seemed to be tossing and turning. Noah waited several minutes, trying to decide whether the president was actually asleep or not, but there was no sign that he was awake.

  He reached into a pocket and withdrew a syringe that was filled with raw honey, pushed its tip through the vent and depressed the plunger slowly. Honey began to drip out at the tip and onto the vent, then down the wall. He hadn’t planned on using quite so much, but there was no help for it now.

  He pushed the box close to the vent, then quickly opened the top and flipped the box up so that the open side was against the vent. The bees began to buzz gently, but the sound quickly lessened as the bees made their way through the vent grill.

  Five minutes later, Noah set the box down and closed the lid. A few stray bees were still on the vent, but it seemed most of them hadn’t even bothered to leave the box. There were enough inside the room, though, and Noah could see them flying around. Several were buzzing around over the president, where he lay sleeping.

  “Well, guys,” Noah whispered to himself, “it’s all up to you, now.”