Highest Order

by David Archer

  Noah watched through the slots of the AC vent as the bees seemed to zero in on the president. He was still tossing around, and every time he moved the bees flying around him seemed to get more agitated. Several of them seemed to be hovering just over him, and when he turned over again he waved a hand right through the midst of them.

  Noah couldn’t tell if he actually hit one of them or not, but the rest of them suddenly became even more agitated. As he watched, several zoomed down to the president’s face, and it was only seconds later that he let out a groan and tried to sit up. He raised his head and tried to get an arm under himself, but then fell back, his eyes and his mouth both open wide.

  It was only a matter of a few seconds before he closed his eyes again, and the hand that was waiting in the air fell back down onto the bed. Several of the bees continued to attack, but Noah could see no sign that the president was even breathing or aware that he was being stung.

  Noah began moving quietly backward, pulling the box after him as he made his way back to the ladder. When he got there, he started downward quickly. It took him only a couple of minutes to reach the basement again, and he passed the box out to Marco as he climbed out of the ductwork.

  He put the cover panel back on and quickly secured the screws, then hurried through the access and helped Marco replace the hatch. This time, they put all four bolts back in, then turned and quietly hurried back to the parts store.

  Apparently, the Secret Service had at some point begun checking on the president during the night. By the time they got back to the hotel, every TV station in the country was running the special announcement that President Jonathan Andrews was dead, after being stung by dozens of honeybees that had somehow gotten into his hotel room.

  There was no indication that anyone suspected foul play, but it was too early to expect any such announcement. Noah sat with Sarah and the rest as they watched CNN covering the story, none of them saying a word until the commercial break.

  “Do you think they’ll figure it out?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t think they’ll ever know for sure,” Noah said, “but there’s bound to be suspicions. If they look into the ductwork, they’re certainly going to find where I crawled through the dust. They will find traces of my DNA, but it isn’t on file anywhere so they won’t be sure it isn’t from somebody doing maintenance years ago. I don’t think there’s any way they’ll be able to say with certainty that the bees came through the AC duct, but even if they do, that only sends a message to the rest of the conspirators.”

  “Speaking of whom,” Neil said, “I’ve been watching the names we have, and there’s another one that’s offering himself up as a target. Congressman Anthony Borden is going to be in Fort Worth day after tomorrow, because his brother is having surgery.”

  “Do you know where?” Noah asked.

  Neil nodded. “I know where the surgery is happening, and I know where he’s going to be staying. He’s got a room reserved at the Holiday Inn that’s just down the street from the hospital.”

  “Then he’s next,” Noah said. “A congressman is going to be easier to reach than the president. Find me a rifle…”

  “Hey,” Jenny said, “are you gonna hog all the fun for yourself? Congressman Borden is a well-known womanizer, let me have a crack at him. After all the stress the last week, I could really stand to let off a little pressure, know what I mean?”

  Noah looked at her. “All right,” he said. “This time, though, I want it to be very obvious that he’s been targeted.”

  Jenny gave him her best evil smile. “Trust me, Noah,” she said. “The whole world is going to know.”

  “Good enough for me,” Noah said. He looked at Neil again. “The death of the president is going to probably create something of an uproar among the rest of them, and especially after Borden suddenly turns up dead. You may have to work to find me another target, but I want more of them as quickly as possible.”

  “I’ll get them,” Neil said.

  It was past midnight, so they all decided to get some sleep. They were far enough away from the Ritz-Carlton to be outside the circle of investigation, even if foul play were to be suspected, so they headed for their individual rooms and went to bed.

  * * * * *

  Perkowski was wakened by the insistent ringing of his cell phone, laying on the nightstand beside his bed. His wife shook his shoulder as he reached for it.

  “Perkowski,” he said sleepily.

  “Solomon? Oh, dear God, have you heard?”

  “Huh? Heard what? Who’s this?”

  “Solomon, it’s Tom Lewiston. Solomon, the president is dead. It’s all over the news right now, his Secret Service detail found him dead in his hotel room, they said it was from bee stings. Apparently there’s thousands of bees inside his hotel room, and nobody knows where they came from.”

  Perkowski was suddenly wide awake. “Geez, are you serious? How the hell did bees get into a hotel room? Has anyone notified the vice president yet?”

  “Yes, he knows. Solomon, this is going to cause us a lot of trouble, you know that, right? Vice President Cole isn’t part of our little thing. Who’s going to take Andrews’ place?”

  Perkowski shook his head, as if to clear it. According to the way the group had been set up, he was actually next in line. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to call a meeting as soon as possible. This is something we’ll have to talk out.” He glanced over his shoulder at his wife, who had sat up and was staring at him, wondering what was going on. “Listen, Tom, give me a call tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to get up now and see if I can find out what’s happening.”

  “Okay,” Lewiston said. “Keep me posted, will you?”

  “Just call me in the afternoon.” He ended the call and set the phone down, then turned to look at his wife. “The president is dead,” he said. “Something about bees.”

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  The news spread like wildfire, and the entire world was shocked. As Noah had suspected, there were rumors of foul play but the official position was that there was no evidence to support those theories. The cause of death was quickly certified as anaphylactic shock caused by an allergic reaction to multiple bee stings, and the official position of the government was that the death was a tragic accident.

  Every nation’s leadership expressed condolences to America, and the people of the United States went into mourning. The flags were lowered to half-staff all over the country, and everywhere else in the world where the American flag could legally fly.

  Jonathan Andrews had been a popular president. Despite the fact that the opposition party was convinced he had stolen the election through a number of unproven underhanded tricks, he had accomplished a lot of good in the fifteen months that he had been in office. Unemployment was down, jobs were up, and there was serious progress toward solving a lot of other national problems.

  Vice President William Cole had been sworn in at nine o’clock that morning, with his predecessor dead less than twelve hours. Cole was not as universally liked as Andrews had been, but he was suddenly the man in the seat of power, and just as it had happened with Lyndon Johnson fifty-five years earlier, it became obvious in a hurry that he had every intention of making that power his own.

  CNN devoted an entire news team to following the new President Cole through the rest of the day, and it was expected that they would stay on him for at least a couple of weeks. Every word out of his mouth would be history, every action he took would be momentous. They weren’t about to let any of it slip by unnoticed.

  * * * * *

  In Kirtland, Colorado, Allison Peterson stared at her TV screen as she drank her fourth cup of coffee of the morning. She had been awakened by her own phone only minutes after the news had broken, and had been awake ever since. The sheer audacity of using honeybees had at first shocked her, and then made her laugh. If anyone could have pulled this off, she knew that it was Noah Wolf.

  Her cell phone rang for the eighth ti
me, and she glanced at it to see that it was Donald Jefferson calling. She had already spoken to him twice that morning, but she put the phone to her ear again.

  “Yes, Donald?”

  “Allison, word has just come down that the Secret Service is claiming they discovered evidence that the bees might have been planted into the hotel air conditioning ductwork. There is already rumbles of suspicion that this was an assassination, rather than a tragic accident.”

  “Yeah? Have they arrested any of the bees, yet?” Allison knew she was being snarky, but she didn’t care.

  “Very funny,” Jefferson said. “What they want to know from us is whether we have any idea about any foreign assassin who might be able to do such a thing. Any thoughts on what I should tell them?”

  “Tell them that there isn’t a single foreign assassin anywhere who could even conceive of such a plan,” Allison said. “Hell, I can barely imagine it myself. Honeybees? That’s got to be one for the record books. Do they honestly believe they’re ever going to convince anyone that this was a deliberate assassination?”

  “I doubt it,” Jefferson replied. “I think they’re just looking for a scapegoat. Andrews was one of the most popular presidents out of the last seven, I think they just want to blame somebody.”

  “Oh, it’s more than that,” Allison said. “I’m sure the opposition is thrilled that he’s gone, but they’ll probably find themselves being blamed by all of the conspiracy nuts. They want someone else to point the finger at, but we can’t help them. No, there aren’t any Russian or Korean assassins lurking out there with beehives, I’m afraid. This is just Andrews’ own bad luck.” She cut off the call and dropped the phone on the couch beside her once again.

  “Noah,” she said softly to herself, “I hope and pray you never decide to get rid of me.”

  Her phone rang again, and she picked it up and looked at the display once more. It was Parker.

  “Well?” Allison said as he entered. “What do you think?”

  “It’s like the old joke about a bus full of lawyers going over a cliff,” Parker said. “What else can you say other than, ‘it’s a good start,’ right?”

  “I guess so. I’m not sure what the repercussions are going to be for us, but I’m sure they are going to be solved. Bill Cole isn’t half the man Andrews was, but at least we can hope he’s not out to destroy the whole country.”

  “Cole won’t be a problem,” Parker said. “He’ll have too much on his plate to even bother with us, at least until the next election. It’s going to be pretty hard for him to hold it all together at the moment, and he’ll never make it if these people have their way. I’m pretty sure they’ll get rid of him in a hurry.”

  “Well, maybe it’s what he gets for going into politics. I’ve always wondered what could drive a seemingly rational human being to want to be involved in public office. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense, not me. Why on earth would you want to have the whole world telling you what to do, just so you could pretend you had some kind of power?”

  “Beats me. Closest I ever got to politics was running for class president in the seventh grade. I lost, by the way. To a girl, just so you know.”

  “That just proves that your class wasn’t stupid,” Allison said with a chuckle. “Considering how devious you are now, I can just imagine what you would have been like as a teenager.”

  “Well, anyway,” Parker said. “I just wanted to touch base and see how you’re doing.”

  “Me? I’m fine, but I’m not the one who has to do all this crap. We dumped that on the one person capable of handling it, and now we just have to hope and pray he can hold up to get it accomplished.”

  “He can. He’s probably the only one in the world who can, which is why we dumped it all on him. Speaking of which, have you heard anything from him lately?”

  “Nothing,” Allison said. “He’s in the wind, doing what he does.”

  * * * * *

  People were already beginning to make comparisons between Andrews and Kennedy, based mostly on the fact that both of them died in Dallas. Noah didn’t understand why Neil and Marco seemed to think it was funny, but he didn’t bother to ask, either.

  Since no one was paying much attention to them, Noah decided they should stay where they were for the time being. Congressman Borden was due in later that day, the day after Andrews’ death. Neil had been keeping a close eye on the situation and reported that Borden didn’t seem inclined to miss his brother’s surgery just because the president happened to drop dead.

  Jenny had been getting herself ready, fixing up her hair and putting on her makeup and preparing to lure the congressman with her charms. She had gotten Marco to go out earlier that morning and pick her up a couple of knives, simple stilettos that she could easily conceal on herself. Marco would be her backup man on this operation, while Sarah would be her driver. Neil would be staying at the hotel, but Noah decided to put himself on as secondary backup.

  “Okay, Borden landed at DFW half an hour ago, at just before three o’clock,” Neil said. “Surgery is tomorrow, so he’s probably going to go straight to the hotel.”

  “Right,” Noah said. “Everybody ready?”

  “I’m ready,” Jenny said with a smile. “Hell, I’m impatient.”

  “Ready,” Sarah said. Marco echoed her a second later.

  “Then let’s go. Jenny, you take shotgun in the front with Sarah. Marco and I will ride in the back seat, because we’ll be getting out first. Sarah, I want you to drop us off in two different locations. I’ll get out first a block from the hotel, then let Marco out before you turn into the parking lot.”

  “Got it,” Sarah said. Despite the fact that she often wished for a normal life, there was something about being the driver for an assassination team that was exciting. She always felt a rush of adrenaline as a mission was about to begin, and this time was no different.

  The ride from DFW to the Holiday Inn would take a little over an hour, while it would take slightly more than that for Noah and the team to get there. The idea was to let Borden get into his room and drop off his bags. He would undoubtedly come back down to the restaurant or lounge shortly thereafter, and Jenny intended to be close by when he did.

  Sarah followed Noah’s plan and dropped him off at the intersection a block before the entrance to the hotel, then stopped shortly before the entrance to let Marco out. Both of them would walk into the hotel separately, and keep an eye on Jenny while she took care of business.

  Sarah dropped Jenny at the front door and drove away, circling around the block and coming back into the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel restaurant across the street. She’d be able to see the front entrance from where she parked, but she’d be waiting for one of the three to call her when it was time for pickup.

  Inside, Jenny walked directly into the lounge and sat down at the bar, making sure she could be seen from the entrance. Borden was known for two particular things: he liked women, and he liked to drink. Between the two, she figured he’d find her pretty soon.

  She was almost ready to go looking for him forty minutes later when the congressman came out of the elevator and walked directly into the lounge. She looked him in the eye and smiled, then turned away as if she didn’t want to be noticed. The trick had worked for her many times, and this time was no exception.

  Borden slid onto the bar stool beside her and pretended not to notice her for a moment. He ordered a Manhattan, then “just happened” to glance her way.

  “Hi,” he said. “Are you here all alone?”

  Jenny gave him a sad little smile. “It seems to have turned out that way,” she said. “I was supposed to be meeting somebody here, but I think I got stood up.”

  Borden tried to look sympathetic. “Oh, that’s terrible,” he said. “Who would do such a thing to a sweet little beauty like you? Listen, can I buy you a drink? No strings, I’m not trying to hit on you, I just feel bad that someone would stand you up.”

  Jenny let the smile bri
ghten slightly. “Oh, thanks, but that’s not necessary.”

  “Oh, come on,” Borden said. “Look, to tell you the truth, I’m kind of just looking for someone to sit with for a little while. You know how it is, far from home on government business, don’t really know anybody. It would just be nice to be able to look into your beautiful eyes for a few minutes. Would that really be so bad?”

  Jenny looked down shyly, then shrugged as she turned her eyes back up to his. “I guess not,” she said. “Okay, one drink. Vodka Collins.”

  Borden motioned for the bartender and ordered her a drink, then turned to face her a little more fully. He let his eyes roam over her completely, and made it obvious that he liked what he saw.

  “Okay, something I like to do is guess what people’s lines of work are. Looking at you, I’m going to guess that you are a fashion model. Am I right?”

  Jenny giggled. “No,” she said. “You’re not even close. Try again.”

  Morton screwed up his face as if deep in concentration. “You’re not a model? Boy, I would have sworn… Okay, if you’re not a model, then I bet you are—I bet you’re a doctor.”

  “Nope,” Jenny said, giggling again. “Let me know when you give up, you will never believe it.”

  “I’m not ready to give up yet,” he said. “One more guess. I think you might be a—are you a stewardess?”

  “Beep,” Jenny said. “Sorry, nope. I’ll tell you, but I really don’t think you’re going to believe me.”

  “Okay, go ahead. What is it you do?”

  Jenny giggled again, and this time she gave him her most coquettish look. “I,” she said, “am a professional girlfriend.”

  Borden looked at her blankly for a moment, then shook his head. “You don’t mean…”

  “No! No, I’m not a hooker. A professional girlfriend is an actress, somebody who is occasionally hired to pretend to be the girlfriend of a celebrity or something. I put on a good act, like I’m really just crazy about whoever the guy is that I’m with, and it keeps them from having to deal with other women trying to get him into, shall we say, compromising positions?”