Highest Order_An Action Thriller Novel

by David Archer

  He sent a quick message back to Tony, telling him not to panic and that he would check things out, and then he called Duckworth on the special number.

  “Solomon?” Duckworth asked, his deep voice resonating through the phone. “How have you been?”

  “I’m all right, Marvin,” Perkowski said. “Are you clear, can we talk for a moment?”

  “Yes, certainly. I’m all alone at the moment, and this line is completely secure. What can I do for you?”

  “Marv, Tony Borden says he’s trying to set up a meeting with Peterson, but that Barbara Holloway is keeping him from it. Would you have any idea why she might do that?”

  “Well, of course,” Duckworth said. “The committee sent us out to break her, remember? One of the ways we’re working on her is isolation. Right now, she doesn’t talk to anybody but Barb, and all Barb is telling her is that her world has come to an end. We don’t dare let her talk to anyone else, or she might figure out that we aren’t nearly as powerful as we’re letting on. Want me to call Tony and explain it to him?”

  Perkowski grinned. “I hate to ask,” he said, “but would you mind? You know Borden, he’s a drama queen of the highest order. He’s part of one of the biggest conspiracies the world has ever known, but he sees a traitor in every corner. It might actually help if he hears the explanation directly from you.”

  “Sure, I’ll be glad to,” Duckworth said. “In fact, maybe Barbara and I should simply take him out to dinner tonight. She and I are meeting to go over her latest talk with the Dragon Lady, anyway, it might not hurt to let Tony listen in.”

  “No, that is an excellent idea. Why don’t you do that, and I’ll check in with you tomorrow. That okay?”

  “That’ll be fine. Talk to you tomorrow, Sol.”

  Duckworth cut off the call and leaned back in his chair. He’d have to give Barbara a call shortly, so that she had time to prepare what she’d want to say to Borden. At the moment, though, he just needed to take a moment to gather his own thoughts.

  * * * * *

  Noah woke with the sun the next morning as usual, and knocked on the other doors to make sure everyone else got up. He gave them all time for morning necessities and showers, then hurried them all down for breakfast. Beatrice already had bacon and sausage sizzling away, and it wasn’t long before they were happily involved with putting away the best breakfast they’d had in some time.

  Afterward, they announced that they were going for another stroll and wandered off once again into the fields. They chose another spot this time, just to avoid developing a habit, and sat down at another picnic table to talk.

  “We had something of a brainstorm,” Allison said. “It was actually Molly’s idea, but it’s a good one. I don’t care for the idea of you robbing banks, so we decided to turn the problem of supplying you with money and resources over to the one person we know of who could possibly get it done. ”

  “Wally?” Noah asked. “I was thinking about him this morning, while we were getting ready to come downstairs. You’re right, if anyone can figure out a way, it would be him.”

  “Which is why I’m going to cut my visit short,” Allison said. “Molly and I are flying back today, commercially if necessary. I don’t want to take a chance on causing any delays, but first we need to work out a method of communication. I need to be able to contact you, but without running the risk of any of the feds crawling all over Neverland figuring out what we’re doing.”

  “We already have a way,” Neil said. “Computer games. We can use the one we set up for the Arkansas mission. Molly still has an account, so she can message me that way, and I can relay to Noah.”

  Allison turned to Molly. “Would it work? And would it be secure enough?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Molly said. “The Arkansas mission is the one the Senate committee is screaming about, remember? That game was part of the mission, and was mentioned in the report. I would just about bet they have someone monitoring it. I don’t think that would be worth the risk.”

  “What if I had an idea?” Marco asked suddenly. “I mean, I know I’m not the brains of this operation, but it occurred to me that we might have a resource that we’ve been overlooking.”

  “Well?” Allison asked him. “Don’t just sit there, spit it out.”

  “Catherine,” Marco said. “She’s our liaison with British intelligence, right? And she gets coded messages directly from you all the time, right? Are you going to tell me that you couldn’t hide a message inside a message?”

  Molly and Neil looked at each other, then Neil turned to Marco. “Hey, you know what? You’re not quite as dumb as you look. That can work, if Catherine will agree. Molly, I’m thinking of the Brubaker code.”

  “Gosh, yes,” Molly said. “Brubaker is perfect for this.”

  Neil turned back to Allison. “The Brubaker code was developed more than two hundred years ago, and it involves using multiple books as references. For instance, you count the number of words until you find one that starts with the letter you want to use. Say it’s the fifty-fifth word on a page, and the letter is an E. E, then would be translated as the number fifty-five, but then you also use the page number. If it was on page twenty-seven, then it becomes twenty-seven fifty-five. Now, for the next letter, you go to a different book, turn to a page and count words until you find the one that starts with the next letter. What you’ll end up with is a series of number groups. The trick is to never go beyond page 99, so that you always know that the first two digits are the page number. Therefore, the first letter can be deciphered by going to the right page and counting the words in the first book, the second letter solved the same way in the second book, the third letter in the third book, etc. After the fourth book, you go back to the first one again and choose a different page. The only thing both the sender and the recipient need to know is the titles of the four books.”

  “I can write a program that will encode a message,” Molly said. “Neil, if we use digital books, then the computer can encode and decode even a long message in a matter of seconds. The only risk would be if someone got hold of one of our computers, but I’m sure we could hide the program.”

  “Yeah, that wouldn’t be hard. We can get started on that right away, download some old public domain books off the Internet.”

  “Then all I need to do,” Catherine said, “is forward the message on, right? I can do that. I’m authorized to have secure communications with E & E, under the terms of our mutual cooperation agreement.”

  Allison nodded. “Okay, that solves that problem. Now, we’ll let Wally figure out how to get you the things you need, and you can use the Neil-Molly code program to let us know what that might be, while we use it to tell you where to pick up whatever we send.” She looked around the small group and smiled. “We make a hell of a team, don’t we?”

  “We do,” Noah said. “Molly, get that program done as quickly as you can. We need to make this happen, and we need to make it happen soon.”

  Neil, Jenny, and Molly got up and headed back toward the house. That left Noah, Sarah, Allison, Marco, and Catherine sitting at the picnic table. Noah looked at Sarah, then turned back to Allison.

  “I want to continue our conversation from last night,” he said. “I want to keep this place as our private retreat. Not just me and Sarah, but for our entire team.”

  Allison nodded. “I’ll need to take a look at some of the logistics,” she said, “but I’d have to say you’ve earned it.”

  “What kind of logistics?” Catherine asked. “Kendall used one of the dummy corporations to buy it, and to set them up with long-term income. As far as he knew, this was going to be their permanent home.”

  “Yes, but I need to be sure that the corporation used isn’t on any of the lists the CIA has access to. The last thing we ever need is for them to figure out what this place really is. Hell, I wouldn’t mind vacationing here myself, now and then.”

  “You’d be welcome,” Noah said. “But only under cover. I don�
��t want to risk this place ever being connected to Neverland.”

  “I can definitely understand that. I’ll keep this Judy Walker identity under wraps, just for trips out here to visit.”

  “Then you might as well let Molly keep hers, too,” Sarah said. “She’ll want to come sometimes, I’m sure.”

  Allison looked at Noah. “Have you decided how you want to tackle this situation yet?”

  “Yes,” Noah replied. “I thought about it during the night, and I think the best move is to get them shook up as fast as I can. It won’t be long before they figure out I’m going after their group, but I don’t want to give them a pattern they can analyze. For that reason, I’ve decided that the best move is to go straight to the top, first. My first target will be the President of the United States, and I’m hoping to make it happen within the next seven days.”

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  “Seven days? We haven’t even figured out how to supply you just yet,” Allison said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little optimistic?”

  “We don’t have the time to waste,” Noah said. “You said the first event is supposed to happen within the next seven weeks. That gives me less than two months to take out as many of their people as I can, and the best way to shake things up is gonna be by hitting them at the top. After that, I’ll go after some of the lower ranks in order to gather intel on who else might be involved.”

  Allison looked at him for a moment. “I can’t argue with you,” she said. “This time, we’ve got to count on you knowing what to do in making the right decisions. I think that if you’re looking for someone you might consider a lower ranking member of this conspiracy, I’d look at somebody like Simon Scheiber at DHS or Herschel Robinette at NSA. My gut says the actual politicians are more likely to be up in the higher levels.”

  “You’re probably right,” Noah said. “I don’t know any of these people, so I’m open to any suggestions like that. Now, you mentioned having Wally work out how to send supplies and money. Have you got any ideas in mind?”

  “There are a couple things,” Allison said. “Wally has a massive budget, so funneling a few million out shouldn’t be hard. What about setting up a dummy corp that supplies something he uses? Neil should be able to do that, and it would leave a viable paper trail if anyone looks at his expenditures.”

  “That might work. We’ll talk to him about it when he and Molly get done with their coding project. Are you still wanting to leave today?”

  She nodded. “I think I should. Our allies say I’m covered for four days, but the sooner I get back and agree to cooperate with them, the sooner I’m back in my office and getting all this put together.”

  “I know it probably bothers you to think of playing along with them,” Noah said, “but there isn’t really any other option. I don’t think they’d leave Jefferson or Parker in place if they take you out; both of them seem very loyal to you, so they wouldn’t trust them to follow orders. If you capitulate, on the other hand, they’re probably going to be gloating so hard that they won’t consider the possibility you’re working against them.”

  “They won’t even know that I know about this mess,” Allison said bitterly. “That’s how it has to be, for now, but I hope I get to look at least one of the bastards in the eye when it all crashes down around them. I’d love for some of them to know I was part of their downfall, when this is over.”

  “They will,” Sarah said. “I know my husband, and he’ll make sure of it.”

  “I will,” Noah said. He turned to Catherine. “You’re sitting there bouncing back and forth like you’re watching a tennis match. You can ask Allison questions, but I can’t guarantee you’ll get or like the answers.”

  Catherine nodded and turned to Allison. “I’ve heard enough to know that there’s a massive conspiracy of some sort,” she said, “and of course, I heard Noah say who his target is, and it just about made me bolt. The problem is that I have come to know and trust him, and if he says your president needs to be eliminated, I’m going to assume he knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, this leaves me with something of a dilemma; under anything resembling normal circumstances, I would feel it necessary to report what I’ve heard to my superiors, but I have the strongest feeling that doing so could jeopardize the entire situation. What I need to know, and I’m sure you’ll understand, is how the situation is going to affect my country. Can you answer that?”

  Allison looked into her eyes for a moment, then sighed deeply. “There is a conspiracy that involves people at the highest levels of our government,” she said. “This conspiracy has as its goal the complete subjugation of the American people, by eliminating the basic constitutional guarantees of liberty that our country was built on. In order to accomplish this goal, we know that they are planning three major terrorist-style events, but the only one we have any details of is the first.”

  “And what might that be?” Catherine asked.

  “We don’t know how it’s going to happen,” Allison replied, “but they claim it will result in the deaths of, quote, tens of thousands of children, unquote. They plan to use that event to restrict some freedoms, including particularly the freedom to travel from one place to another without permission. The idea is to turn our republic into an oligarchy, with them sitting at the top and calling the shots. President Andrews has been credited with creating this entire plan, but it involves senators, congressmen, intelligence officials and operatives, and God alone knows who else.”

  “Children? Good heavens, children?”

  Allison nodded gravely. “I was just as shocked as you are,” she said. “Unfortunately, something like that would undoubtedly be successful in getting people to relinquish certain freedoms. Noah has speculated that it will involve truck bombs hitting schools, and that might be exactly what they have in mind. If mobile bombs are used to attack and kill our children, an awful lot of the people would be supportive of any plan to curtail the freedom of travel. I’m sure it would be presented as a way to make sure such a thing could never happen again, but the end result would be the same. You have to have some sort of passport or other permit to go from one town or county to another.”

  “But wait a minute,” Catherine said. “The U.S. has a lot of allies, including us. At some point, it should become obvious that this is nothing more than some sort of coup, and surely your allies wouldn’t stand still and let it happen.”

  “If it were only the United States, you might have a point,” Allison said. “Unfortunately, I’ve seen intelligence that says there is a Russian faction working to achieve the same thing over there. It’s already planned for the Russian ruling council to form an alliance with the one in the States, and then to use their combined military might to force other countries to capitulate and accept their rule.” She grimaced. “They spoke of installing governors in every other country. I did not hear Great Britain mentioned specifically, but I have to assume you would be included.”

  “Oh, we’d never stand for it,” Catherine said. “The PM would go bloody ballistic.”

  “Are you sure?” Noah asked. “If the American and Russian ruling councils were to succeed, are you certain your prime minister wouldn’t accept an appointment as governor? If you look back into history, conquering nations have a tendency to absorb the political leaders of the conquered. They sell them on the idea that it’s best for them to cooperate, so they can try to protect their people to at least some degree.”

  “Why, he’d never…” She closed her mouth and looked at him. “Of course, if it were presented in the proper terms, he might well consider it his obligation to accept such a posting. Merciful heavens, this cannot be allowed to succeed.”

  “And that’s why a few patriotic Americans, who happened to be invited to join this thing, are playing double agent and asking me to put Noah on this. Catherine, there is very little chance that we can actually expose this conspiracy; the people involved are too powerful, too entrenched. My supporters believe, and I agree, that
the only hope is to terminate them, but that means ignoring the rule of law and due process. I have the responsibility of deciding when such actions are justified, and I’m afraid I have to say that this is one of those times.”

  “But, if you’re talking about high-ranking officials of your government, do you honestly believe that a single operative can eliminate all of them?”

  “A couple of years ago, I would’ve said no,” Allison replied. “But that was before I met Noah. I don’t know how much you actually know about him, but he has certain advantages over other assassins, even other soldiers of any kind. Noah thinks purely in terms of logic, and he seems to be able to anticipate almost every eventuality he might encounter on a mission. He has no conscience, so he never hesitates when it’s time to take a shot, and he is capable of the kind of super-heroic actions that your James Bond would have trouble emulating. If it were anybody other than him that I was sending on this mission, I would probably be trying to get out of the U.S. to someplace primitive, someplace these people won’t even pay attention to for years and years.”

  “Allison, I don’t know that I can sit on this. Simply as a loyal subject of the crown, I have an obligation to report this information to my superiors.”

  “And I have to ask you not to do that,” Allison said. “Catherine, if these people are powerful enough to have already made agreements with their counterparts in Russia, do you honestly think they don’t have connections in every other country? I told you that there are intelligence officials involved. We’re talking about CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, probably all of them. Your people at MI6 all have their friends and contacts in our organizations. All it would take is for one of them to ask a few questions about this, and the conspirators will know that they’ve been found out. At that point, it may actually become impossible for Noah to do what has to be done.”

  Catherine stared at her. “Bloody hell,” she said. “You’re asking me to betray my country.”