Chapter 92

I

The story that Matthew Wilkes told to Jeremiah was something that the journalist never anticipated and had trouble wrapping his head around it: that the American Republic Movement would force a caucasian woman with a mixed race child to work for them in order to keep that child from meeting a similar fate as their father (in this case). How often did A.R.M. do this sort of thing and how did they choose their “victims”? He worried about his brother Joe and sister in law Tracy. Were they on A.R.M.’s list of people to be harassed and separated? Jeremiah knew there were laws that were supposed to prevent what happened to Ben Sullivan and his family. But if the Occupational group were working underground, and their activities couldn’t be tracked, how were such laws supposed to protect mixed race and mixed faith couples?

“Matt, how long had this been going on before you were kidnapped?” Jeremiah asked.

“Since before Skylar and I married,” Matt said; “We didn’t know who was behind the threats at first, then they stopped as abruptly as they began. We got married and thought that the harassment was over. Then shortly after Justina was born, they started up again with a threat to kill her, so we went into hiding. Made supporting our family difficult, but we managed.”

“Do your families get along?”

“Our families are best friends,” said Matt; “My father worked with Skylar’s father when we were kids. We’d known each other since I was about ten. Skylar was four. I have one older sister, and Skylar is the youngest of six. The Scardinos gave my family a place to hide when the Occupational Army came looking for us. I watched Skylar grow up, and when she was eighteen, I realized I was in love with her. I broke off an engagement to another woman to be with Skylar. My former fiancee didn’t take it well. I think she may have put our names on a list for extermination when A.R.M. came into being; when it was still being run by Chastity Edwards.”

“When did you and Skylar marry?”

“Two years to the day before Justina was born, July 11, 2029,” Matt said; “The threats had stopped and we naively thought that they’d leave us alone. Then, as I said, after our daughter was born, the threats started up again. When Justina was not quite two, men I didn’t know cornered me outside where I worked, someone stuck a needle in my arm, and that’s all I remembered until I woke up in a strange room, with a female who told me that I had been marked for ‘extermination’. I tried to escape that day, but I was too weak from whatever it was they’d done to me. Then an article showed up in the paper back home that identified a body pulled from the river as me. By that time, Skylar and Justina were gone. I didn’t know where until my captors showed me an announcement that ‘Kyla Scardino’ was the new Public Information Officer for A.R.M. I knew that Skylar would not have done that willingly. She was against everything they stood for.”

Jeremiah scratched his head, then checked the recording he was making of the interview. The SD card still showed that there were several hours left of recording time. He then asked Wilkes, “When did you escape, and does anyone know about your former identity besides me?”

“I escaped about two months after my first attempt,” Matt said; “After I learned that Skylar was forced to work for A.R.M. I had to kill a man and disfigure him in order to make my escape. Once I was free, I first had to figure out where I was, then go to the authorities.

“I was in some little podunk town in Ohio, and the largest city close by was Cleveland. I knew there was an FBI office there, so I convinced a trucker going towards Cleveland to take me there. Once I was there, I went straight to the FBI office and told them the story I’m telling you now. They believed me, because, as the agent I spoke to put it, he’d seen far too many of these kinds of crimes. Most of the people who were victimized were put in Witness Protection. All they wanted from me was to suggest a name I wanted to be known by. So I chose Matthew Dyson Wilkes. They were agreeable and from that point on, Ben Sullivan ceased to exist. They tried to look for Skylar and Justina, but it was like they fell off the face of the earth.”

“Who was Matthew Dyson Wilkes, or did you just make that name up?” asked Jeremiah.

“He was my maternal grandfather. He was murdered during a Disturbed Ones rally around 2002 or so,” Matt said; “I never got to know him because I was only three when he died. My grandmother never remarried and died about three years later. They’d known each other since they were 14, and his loss was more than she could bear.”

“Matt,” Jeremiah said carefully, “Skylar is coming here tomorrow to talk to me. She has no idea of your name change or your relocation to Chicago, does she?”

“No, Jere, she doesn’t,” Matt said; “My grandfather was born here, that’s why I chose to come here. I already had experience with the digital newspaper format, so getting a job here wasn’t hard.”

“It’s that question on the application that asks if you or your family had been victimized by the Occupationists that got you in,” Jeremiah said; “Almost no one here that I know of is using the name they were given at birth. I’m one of the rare exceptions.”

“When you talk to Skylar tomorrow,” Matt said, knowing he couldn’t let Skylar leave with knowing he was still alive; “I want to see her. I want her to know I’m still alive. Can you do that for me, Jere?”

Jeremiah looked at the man who sat opposite him at the desk and said, “Be here tomorrow. I know you usually have Mondays off because you work most of your hours on the weekend. I have no idea when Skylar will be here. I’ll leave word with Carla downstairs to let you know when to come up here. You can sit in the observation room while I interview her if you want. She’ll more than likely have your daughter with her. All I ask is that you not reveal yourself until I signal you. I’ll just wave at the window.”

Wilkes felt like he was going to break down. “You have no idea how much this means to me, Jere,” he said emotionally.

“I think I have an idea,” Jeremiah said; “And I give you my word that before she leaves this office, you will get to see her and your daughter. I’ll even arrange safe transport to the Chicago FBI office so she can tell her story to them. We’ll get you reunited, Matt. Thank you for coming to me with this.”

Wilkes was almost beside himself with his emotional reaction to telling his story to someone who could bring his family back together. Jeremiah Donovan was known as a man of his word. He would not let Wilkes down.

After Wilkes left to return to the floor, Jeremiah got on the phone to Darren Dixon. He didn’t care if it was Sunday, Dixon needed to know that A.R.M. was still up to its old tricks, and to find ways to stop the organization before any more families are separated by them. If that required the services of a computer hacker, he knew several.

One of them was his sister.

===

II

When Monday morning dawned, Kyla hadn’t slept. She worried about all the things that could go wrong if her story became public knowledge. She and Justina could be in even more danger than they were already in.

Her daughter slept in the second bed in the room, unaware of her mother’s worries. Even at four years of age, she knew she and Mommy were in trouble. Mommy wouldn’t have taken her out of school so suddenly if they weren’t.

Kyla got up, got in the shower and tried to wake up enough so she could drive. Afterwards, she felt much better.

She got dressed and looked out the window. The car she had stolen from the babysitter back home was still in the parking lot.

Kyla had no qualms about what she did to the sitter. The woman was a drug addict and alcoholic, and probably had no clue what happened when she finally came out of her stupor. Kyla didn’t like her for two reasons: one was that she had a bad attitude, which Kyla attributed to her addictions, yet for some reason, Justina liked her; and two, Kyla had learned that she was the woman who gave Benji’s name to A.R.M. It was her fault that Benji was dead and Kyla and Justina were trapped with this group who was for everything she abhorred. Kyla only stayed because if she defected, they would have the sitter kill Justina.

And, she hated being called “Kyla”. That wasn’t her name. Everytime she tried to correct her “employers” about her true name, they insisted that Kyla was her name and that she better get used to being called that, or Justina would suffer the way Benji had.

She would get her revenge on A.R.M. and the bitch who put her family in this hell. If Sheilah Cassidy wasn’t already dead, Kyla would find her and finish her off for what she did to the man who dared rejected her.

For now, though, Kyla got Justina up and ready to tell a mixed race man their twisted tale. But not just any mixed race man, but Jeremiah Donovan.

A Hero of the Resistance who just happened to be a journalist.

===

“Jules, I need a huge favor,” Jeremiah said to Julia over the phone after Matt Wilkes left; “You’re the only one I can think of who can hack into databases without getting caught.”

“Jere, my kids are better at it, but I can do what I can,” Julia said; “Whose database do you need snooping on?”

“Believe it or not, A.R.M.,” Jeremiah said; “I just came into some information about the group that, frankly, blows my mind. I want to do some digging in their files, but I don’t have Ryan’s hacker skills. He only taught those to you and your kids.”

“What am I looking for?”

“A list of people the group has marked for ‘extermination’,” Jeremiah said; “and a few key names.”

“Extermination?” Julia gasped; “My God, someone with the group has decided on using genocide to get rid of Undesirables?”

“Just mixed race and mixed faith couples and families,” Jeremiah said; “Which I realize include all of us and our families. Specifically, I want to know if Joe and Tracy are on their list.”

“And these key names? I mean besides Joe and Tracy,” asked Julia.

“Look for Benjamin Sullivan, Skylar Scardino-Sullivan, Justina Sullivan, Sheilah Cassidy,” said Jeremiah as Julia was writing down the names he’d given her, “and just for shits and giggles, look up all of us.”

“No leaders of the group?” asked Julia. “No Chastity Edwards, no Lincoln Marsh?”

“Marsh fell off the face of the earth after your little adventures after Jack died,” Jeremiah said; “Chastity Edwards is probably dead. Not a peep from her since before Marsh took over. But, Jules,” he paused, then, “It’s imperative that you don’t get caught. Whatever it is that Ryan did to avoid that, do it.”

“Ryan wrote all the software, and experts have updated it according to Ryan’s instructions,” Julia said; “There is a reason that everyone who works for Summers Tech Systems signs a confidentiality agreement and are searched each night before they leave the plant. I can spot bogus software from a mile away.”

“Good,” Jeremiah said; “but be careful.”

“You know I am more than careful,” Julia said; “Ryan taught me how to cover my tracks even if I get caught. There is a program that erases my presence in any network. It was one of the last things that Ryan himself perfected before he died. It’s a beautiful thing. You want a demonstration?”

Jeremiah just stared at the phone, then said, “You can do that? Erase your presence?”

“Yes, Jere, I did say that,” Julia said; “If you want a quick demonstration, alert your IT department, and I’ll break into the Times-Tribune’s computer network.”

“Okay, Jules, I’ll bite. I’ll call IT and let them know that there will be a controlled break in,” Jeremiah said.

“Good. Call me back when you find my Identifier on your system,” Julia said. “If you find it.”

Jeremiah hung up. This will be good, he thought.

===

III

“What do you mean, a ‘controlled’ break in?” asked Jerry Winters, the head IT guy for the Times-Tribune. “Ain’t no such thing.”

“Jerry,” Jeremiah said, “Summers Tech has some of the best software in the world. They sell their shit to the fucking Government for God’s sakes! Julia Summers doesn’t make promises she can’t keep.”

“Oh I know that, Jeremiah,” Jerry said; “But if she can do it, what’s stopping the government from doing it?”

“Because she holds the patent, the copyright, and she uses it to protect our way of life,” Jeremiah said; “There’s a group out there who wants to stage a second Occupation. She wants to break into their computer system at my request. Go ahead, Jerry, look for an Identifier that doesn’t belong in our computer system.”

Winters ran a test on the entire system. Twenty minutes later, he told Jeremiah, “All Identifiers belong to those of us who have access to the system. Maybe Mrs. Summers hasn’t run the test.”

“Let’s find out,” Jeremiah said, and dialed Julia’s number.

“Julia Summers,” she said; “Talk to me Jere.”

“You do what you told me you were going to do?” he asked. He then put his phone on speaker so that Winters could hear the answer.

Julia laughed, saying, “Jere, I ran it as soon as we hung up before. I take it you can’t find an Identifer that doesn’t belong on the network.”

“Our IT guy wondered if you ran the controlled break in yet.”

“I did, and if you couldn’t find my Identifier, then I can break into any network without a trace that I’d even been there,” Julia said. “I’ll have your info in about three hours. I’ve already found my in into the network you asked me to check.”

“Look forward to seeing what you find out, Jules,” Jeremiah said, then hung up.

He then turned to look at Winters. The expression on the older man’s face was priceless.

“Well, fuck me...” he muttered under his breath.

===

“Mommy,” Justina said, “are we going to Chicago now to see the man who will help us?”

Kyla was strapping Justina in her car seat; “Yes, Tina, we are.”

“Is he a nice man, Mommy?”

“I”ve never met him, sweetie,” Kyla said; “He sounded like a nice man on the phone. He writes for the online paper I’ve been reading.”

Justina had nothing more to say about that. Instead she asked, “Are we going to have lunch before we see him?”

“I think that can be arranged, Tina,” said Kyla.

Kyla then drove to the office and paid their bill and were on their way.

It wasn’t a long drive into the city, but Kyla was tired when they got there. They found a cheap little place to stay and checked in. Justina was ready for a nap after their quick lunch at a fast food establishment on the highway.

Justina went and laid down on the second bed in the room and fell fast asleep.

Kyla laid down on the other bed, saying to herself that she needed to call Jere Donovan.

But she fell asleep instead.

===

“Damn, ain’t you people ever fucking heard of firewalls?” Julia asked the screen when she had gained access to A.R.M.’s computer network;  “Encryption? Damn, you people really are stupid!”

She started to run the Ghost software that Ryan had developed before his death. Her presence in A.R.M.’s system would be undetectable. She started to look for the items that Jeremiah asked her to.

They weren’t that hard to find. Without encryption, the file names came up as if they were on Julia’s own computer. They had very simple names. The name of the file for those marked for “extermination” was labelled “Exterminate”; Entering the names of the people Jeremiah asked to came up with personnel files, where she quickly found Kyla Scardino’s file. Julia quickly downloaded it onto a jumpdrive, along with a fifty page list of those marked for death. As she and Jeremiah suspected, they and their siblings and families were all listed, along with several other names that Julia was not really surprised to see. Sandrina’s fiance Alex, Danica’s boyfriend Bryan, and Lisa Cooper were all listed. So was Christine Travis. The one that did surprise Julia was the name of Miri’s roommate Kelly Hope, and members of her family.

“I wonder why, considering who Kelly’s great-grandmother was,” Julia mused aloud.

All told, it took Julia a grand total of 45 minutes from the time she broke into the system to the time she logged off, the whole time totally undetected. Her presence would never be suspected by the most savvy of internet hackers. Not that the American Republic Movement had any. If they had, Julia thought, they’d have encrypted their damn files!

Julia downloaded everything that she thought Jeremiah might be able to use. There were a few surprises in the package of documents that she would send by courier to the Times-Tribune.

And they would all work in the favor of the very nervous woman who would be seeing Jeremiah later that day.

===

IV

Kyla woke up with a start. She looked at the time on her phone and saw it was 2pm.

She dialed number she had listed as “ICE” in her phone’s directory.

The phone on the other end rang and rang. Finally, the other party picked up.

“Jere Donovan.”

“Mr. Donovan, this is Skylar Sullivan.”

“Ms. Sullivan, I thought you’d forgotten about me,” Jeremiah said; “You still willing to talk?”

“Hell yes,” Kyla said; “I’ve been losing sleep over this meeting. I need to get this off my chest so my daughter and I can have something resembling a normal life.”

“I’ll be here til 7pm, Ms. Sullivan,” Jeremiah said; “After that, I’ll be home. My wife’s a doctor and she’s on call tonight.”

“Is 4pm good for you?”

“See you at four then, Ms. Sullivan.”

Jeremiah ended the call, then got on his office phone and called Matt Wilkes.

“Digital, Wilkes speaking.”

“Matt, your wife and daughter will be here around 4pm,” Jeremiah said; “Can you be in the observation room by three forty-five?”

“Consider it done, Jere,” Matt said; “And thank you.”

Jere smiled as he said, “Thank me after you are reunited with your family, Matt.”

He ended the call and turned his attention to the documents that Julia had sent over via courier. Damn, he thought, this is a lot of shit to go through. One of the documents was something that he didn’t ask Julia for, but got anyway.

It was the identity of the person who turned in Benjamin Sullivan’s name to A.R.M. It was a name that Matt Wilked had told him when he told Jeremiah his story about his kidnapping.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath; “talk about a woman scorned!”

The document also had additional information that Jeremiah wasn’t expecting, but it brought back some pretty gruesome memories of a day in Arlington, Virginia that he wished he could forget.

The identity of the mutilated female corpse found in Lawrence Carr’s bathtub.

The name of the woman who betrayed Benjamin Sullivan and the identity of the corpse were one in the same.

And it wasn’t Kyla Scardino.

“Holy shit!” Jeremiah exclaimed; “Woman scorned, then murdered for letting Scardino get away.”

===