Page 5 of The Damage Man

What lessons Evan has to draw upon come from the former CIA station agent who pulled him out of the Pride House Group Home at the age of twelve to oversee his development in the Orphan Program. Jack Johns wasn’t merely Evan’s handler. He was a father figure, the first person to orient Evan toward meaning.

As he drives toward Beverly Hills, checking the rearview to make sure he doesn’t lose Rusty’s truck behind him, he’s struck by a vivid recollection of Jack doing his best, as always, to calibrate Evan and aim him upward.

It is August and so Evan and Jack are up early to check the hives for yellowjacket scouts. The proper attacks won’t come until midmorning, so the scouts will return after—joy of joys—Evan’s two-hour session of psyops resilience training at the hands of a stern active-duty NCO with a steel-gray bob and a wrinkle-etched lipless mouth. Jack doesn’t use psychologists because the training veers strongly against acceptable ethical practices. Last week the NCO duct-taped headphones around his blindfolded skull and blared German thrash metal into his brain while keeping his bound bare feet sunk into ice water, all the while demanding that he dampen his nonverbal tells.

It is a lot for a twelve-year-old.

In this moment of sunup, Evan enjoys his freedom, breathing lavender and rosemary as he and Jack move between the raised garden beds they tend these months with exactitude bordering on compulsiveness.

A buzzing bullet zips across Evan’s shoulder, lasering in on the first in the row of hives. “Jack! There!”

It’s the first one they have sighted this season, a sign that it’s time to hang yellowjacket traps at distance and add robber screens to the hive entrances.

The yellowjacket alights on the landing board. An ominous visitor to the sleeping hive.

“Should I kill it?”

Jack is suddenly at Evan’s side. “No, son. Let’s see how they do.”

“Who?”

“The guard bees.”

“What makes a guard bee?”

“Stronger sting muscles. Mandibular muscles, too. Better sense of smell, vision, quicker reaction times.” An almost-smile. “More aggressive, too.”

The yellowjacket stands for a moment on the makeshift porch, wings and antennae quivering as if it is dancing in place. Then it crawls halfway into the entrance slot.

The hive awakens.

A row of guard bees emerge, shoving the yellowjacket back out onto the slender run of landing board, where they regroup, the wasp holding ground, the bees gathering around it.

“Watch now,” Jack says gently. “See how they raise their abdomens when they block? They’re releasing alarm pheromones, too.”

The yellowjacket pounces, grabbing the nearest guard bee at the narrow point between head and thorax. Its mandibles clamp and the bee’s head rolls free of the body. That is the cue.

The guard bees swarm.

The yellowjacket squirms and stings but in seconds it is lost from view, buried inside a living ball. The bees hum, pulsing like a heart.

Evan watches, breathless. “What are they doing?”

“Vibrating to generate heat.”

“Why?”

“To cook the yellowjacket.”

“No way.”

“It’ll get up to 117 degrees inside that ball,” Jack breathes, leaning so close to observe that stray bees brush his cheeks. “Look at those beauties. They’re built for this, guard bees. To sustain rapid wing-muscle contractions for this long? And vibrate their thoraxes? It’s incredible.”

The ball thrums and buzzes. The yellowjacket surges briefly to the surface, one large compound eye strobing into view before vanishing once more beneath the bristling coat. Evan could swear he noted abject terror in that eye but knows it was likely a trick of sentiment.

“They’re the first line of defense, guard bees. Right at the entrance. Behind them? Forager bees. Then the honey processors. Then comb builders. Then nurse bees. And way inside and safe? The queen and her eggs.”

Jack straightens up to leave. But it is impossible for Evan to look away from what is happening on the landing board. And he realizes how deeply he is dreading the instructor with her stern manner, tight mouth, and cold efficiencies.