I
At 3:55pm, Kyla and Justina walked through the main entrance to the Times-Tribune building and up to the reception desk.
The receptionist looked up and asked, “Welcome to the Times-Tribune. How may I help you today?”
In a clear voice that showed little hint of the inner turmoil that Kyla was experiencing, she replied, “I have a 4pm appointment with Jeremiah Donovan.”
“Your name, miss?”
“Skylar Sullivan,” Kyla said.
“Ms. Sullivan, Jere is expecting you,” Carla, the receptionist, said. “I spoke to you yesterday when you asked to speak with him. I recognized your voice. You’re from New York State, aren’t you?”
Kyla didn’t know how to take that. She wondered how the receptionist knew where she was from.
“What makes you say that?” asked Kyla.
“Your voice, dear,” Carla said; “You’re from the New York City area. I can tell from your accent. I grew up there.”
“Oh, of course,” Kyla said; “I didn’t even consider that anyone would think that about my voice. To me, I don’t have any kind of regional accent.”
“Jere is waiting for you up on the fourth floor,” Carla said; “His office is down the corridor and to the right after you get off the elevator.”
“Thank you,” Kyla said. She and Justina made their way to the elevators. When they were out of earshot, Carla called Jeremiah’s office.
“Jere Donovan.”
“Jere, it’s Carla. Your 4 o’clock is on her way up. She has an adorable little girl about four or five with her.”
“Okay,” Jeremiah said; “Thanks, Carla. I don’t want any other calls or visitors for at least a couple of hours. Only emergencies on the floor about the run, okay?”
“Gotcha, Jere.”
“Thanks,” Jeremiah said, then hung up.
Carla was replacing the receiver back into the cradle of the phone when she realized the little girl looked familiar.
She looks like a young, female Matt Wilkes, Carla thought. That boy must be in some trouble.
Carla couldn’t have been more wrong, and secretly, she hoped she was.
===
Matt was in the observation room behind and above Jeremiah’s office when he saw Skylar and a little girl about four come in. Only a one way mirror separated him from the scene below.
He felt his heart melt as Skylar shook Jeremiah’s hand. My God, he thought, she’s so beautiful! He was finding it hard to not reveal himself before Jeremiah signaled him.
Matt looked at the little girl, and knew that was his Justina. She was older, but he knew that was his baby. He watched as Justina asked Jeremiah about the mirror on the wall above his desk.
Matt could hear everything going on in the room below, and heard Jeremiah answer the little girl’s question; “Sometimes, my bosses or the police are up there listening in to some of my interviews. There are some scary people who have been in this office, and that mirror has a room behind it so that if anything goes wrong, then someone will be down here in no time. It’s to keep me safe.”
Skylar looked up at it and asked, “Is there anyone up there now?”
Seeing Jeremiah hesitate for the briefest of moments, Matt Wilkes hoped he said no.
“Because of the information you say you have about A.R.M., there is someone up there monitoring recording equipment. If you don’t want the interview recorded, say the word and I’ll signal them to turn off the machine,” Jeremiah said.
“I was hoping that you would be recording this, because I can’t stand knowing what I know about these monsters,” Skylar said; “I’m certain they did something to Ben. I was told that the body that was recovered from the river near our home was his. I don’t believe it though. I think they killed him and dumped his body where it would never be found.”
“What if he’s not dead, Ms. Sullivan?” Jeremiah asked; “What if he was in fear for his life and in hiding?”
“I honestly never considered that,” Skylar said; “I can’t keep my hopes up, though. I can’t do that to my daughter.”
“Understandable,” Jeremiah said; “I don’t think I’d do that to my kids either.”
“You have kids?” Justina asked.
Jeremiah smiled, saying, “Yes, I have three daughters and a son. One daughter is in college. My son is still deciding on college; my second daughter’s 13, and my youngest daughter is nine, so they still has a ways to go before their mother and I have to worry about that.”
“You don’t seem old enough to have a daughter in college,” Skylar said.
“Thanks,” said Jeremiah; “I was pretty young when she was born.” He paused then said, “Let’s get to the interview, shall we, Ms Sullivan? I’m quite interested in what you have to say.”
Justina looked up at the mirror, wondering who was behind it recording stuff. Matt saw her full in the face, and thought, I have to get my family together again, or I may lose touch with my little girl forever.
For the time being, he sat and listened to Skylar’s version of what happened after he was kidnapped.
It wasn’t a pretty picture.
===
II
The men came to her door in the early morning hours, banging on it loud enough to wake up people in New Jersey. Skylar went to answer it, and a man forced his way inside.
“Skylar Scardino Sullivan, you and your daughter have been marked for extermination by the American Republic Movement,” he said gruffly, grabbing Skylar by the arm and forcing down the hall to Justina’s room. “Get your daughter and come with me!”
Skylar looked the man in the eye and said, “And if I refuse?”
“I’ll kill you both right here and walk away with a clear conscience.”
Justina saw the man being mean to Mama and started to cry. “Shut that mixed brat up will you?” the man asked impatiently.
“How dare you!” said Skylar; “How dare you force yourself into my home and threaten my family!”
The man slapped her in the face as hard as he could. Skylar didn’t collapse to the floor as he expected her to, so he slapped her again and again until she did. Meanwhile, Justina still screamed and cried for her mother.
“Shut up!” the man said to the little girl, grabbing her out of her bed and carried her out to a woman before he went back in and retrieved Skylar.
“So, you’re the little brat created by this illegal union between the races,” the woman said evilly; “Too bad you look just like your whore of a mother. I would have made a better mother than that bitch who bore you. But no, Benjamin had to be with her, and not me!”
“Remember, my dear,” the man said as he dragged Skylar out of her apartment by her hair, “this could’ve been you.”
“Fuck you!” she spat at the man.
Skylar looked at the older woman and said, “You’re Sheilah Cassidy?! What makes you so different from me? You’re just as white as I am!”
“I saw the light, Skylar,” Sheilah said; “And I turned that mixed race traitor over to A.R.M.”
“Ben chose me over you and you’re pissed!” Skylar exclaimed; “This is revenge, pure and simple.”
“So? It’s revenge. Big deal. I saw the error of my ways and joined this organization dedicated to the One Race One Faith cause. It will be a pleasure to get rid of you, Benjamin and your little brat once and for all!” Sheilah cackled, which sent a shiver up Skylar’s spine.
Skylar and Justina were thrown into a windowless van and were being taken to God knew where.
“Mama, I scareded,” Justina said.
“I am, too, Tina,” Skylar said.
Soon, they arrived someplace that Skylar wasn’t familiar with. She and Justina were marched into an office, where an imposing man sat, looking at the two of them with disdain.
“I’m Lincoln Marsh,” he said; “You’re marked for extermination, Mrs. Sullivan. Both you and your daughter.”
“Where’s my husband?” Skylar demanded. “Tell me where he is or I’ll kill you with my bare hands!”
“Where he is is no concern of yours,” Marsh said; “And I seriously doubt that you could kill me.”
“Try me!” Skylar dared him.
Marsh took notice of the woman’s bravado. I wonder, he thought, if I could make her my bitch. Nah, better yet, I’ll make her my press liaison to take that bitch Krysta Banks’ place.
“I have a proposition for you, Mrs. Sullivan,” he said; “What if you worked for me?”
“Never!” Skylar said defiantly; “I don’t work for murderers and thieves.”
Marsh looked at her, “Even if it meant you and your daughter would be safe? That you wouldn’t be exterminated?”
“That’s fucking blackmail, and you know it!”
“That’s right, Skylar,” Marsh said; “You work for me, and you and your daughter live. Refuse me, and I’ll kill you both myself. I’ll kill your daughter first and make you watch while I choke the life out of her.”
Skylar couldn’t bear to see that happen: her little girl looking to her for help and she not being able to do anything about it. She was trapped and she knew it. It was either work for this evil man, or watch him snuff out her Justina’s life before her eyes.
“I’ll do it, but only because I love my daughter more than I’ll ever love working for you,” Skylar said.
Marsh looked at her saying, “I thought you’d see it my way.”
*
Jeremiah thought he was going to throw up. Lincoln Marsh threatened Skylar’s daughter to make her work for A.R.M. He hoped the bastard was dead, because he had no conscience.
After swallowing the bile that creeped up his throat, he asked, “Then what happened?”
“I worked for the motherfucking bastard,” Skylar said; “I had no choice. This went on for a year or so. Back in March, Marsh returned to the office and told me he was leaving, and to not ask questions. He’d had a change of heart, and he would allow me and Justina to escape.”
“What was his ‘change of heart’?” asked Jeremiah.
“Apparently, he’d fallen in love,” Skylar said; “Her approval meant everything to him, and he couldn’t have her if he continued to be evil. So one day, he just left and never returned.”
“Is this about the time you stole the babysitter’s car?”
“Yes,” Skylar said; “She was a drunk and a druggie, and most of the time, she was passed out when I returned from work. Justina was essentially unsupervised for most of the day. When Marsh left, his goons came after me and beat the crap out of me, raped me, broke my arm, cracked a couple of ribs. I couldn’t tell them where Marsh had gone so they planned to kill me. I escaped, somehow made it home and got Justina. The sitter’s purse was open, so I stole her wallet, her car keys and we got out of there. What happened to her, I didn’t care. She was the one who turned Ben into A.R.M., and she was forced to watch Justina as I worked for Marsh as punishment for God knew what.”
“Sheilah Cassidy, right?” Jeremiah said, writing down the name on a pad.
“Yes,” Skylar said; “She didn’t hurt Justina, because Justina liked her. But, as I said, she was passed out on the sofa most nights when I returned home. Stealing from her was too easy.”
Jeremiah cut to the chase, “You said you know what happened to Kyla Scardino. You’re Kyla, that much I guessed. But someone was found in a bathtub in a house in Virginia that was identified as you. But since you’re sitting here, who was the mutilated female corpse that was found? A.R.M. took pains to make sure it was you.”
“Until they ran out of money, A.R.M. paid people good money to make anything appear to be something else,” Skylar said; “So it’s not surprising that they tried to make it look like it was my body that was found. I had heard later, long after I escaped, that Sheilah had been punished for letting me get away. It would not surprise me in the least that if the autopsy were repeated, they would find that it was Sheilah Cassidy.”
Matt, sitting up in the observation room, let out a low audible gasp. So that’s what happened to that bitch, he thought. She made Skylar’s life a living hell, and eventually, paid for it by the very people she worked for. Well, good.
“Mr. Donovan,” Skylar said now, “I don’t want people to know that I’m the one who spilled the beans about the inner workings of this evil and corrupt group. I’m sure there are people out there who would still like to kill me and my daughter.”
“You’re requesting anonymity, then?” asked Jeremiah.
“Yes.”
“I can do that for you, but you realize because your life is still at risk, that you may need to be in Witness Protection. There’s an FBI office here that can help you with that,” Jeremiah said.
“Only one thing that concerns me,” Skylar said, “and that’s what really happened to Ben. If he’s dead, I’ll have to accept it.”
“What if I told you that he’s not only not dead,” Jeremiah said; “but works for this newspaper?”
Skylar’s expression didn’t change, which worried both Jeremiah across the desk from her, but Matt up in the observation room.
“I don’t think I’d believe you until I saw him with my own eyes,” she said. Then, for the first time since she’d been in Jeremiah’s office, she broke down.
===
III
Matt’s arms ached for wanting to hold Skylar and comfort her. She had put up that wall that wouldn’t let her accept that he was somehow still alive. He had been gone more than half of Justina’s life. Would she even remember him?
He would take his family far away and start a new life somewhere. He was good with computers and newspaper editing software, and was certain he could get a job at any newspaper. Since changing his identity nearly two years before, no one had come looking for him. He was certain that Skylar and Justina could do the same.
In Jeremiah’s office half a floor below, Skylar was dabbing her eyes with a tissue and apologizing for losing control of her emotions, to which Jeremiah had said that it was quite all right, that he understood where she was coming from.
“So, you mean he’s here at the Times-Tribune?” asked Skylar.
“Yes,” Jeremiah said; “He came here not quite two years ago and works as a digital editor. He came to me when he overheard a conversation between me and my brother that mentioned your name, and told me his story, his real name, and that he wants to see you and your little girl before you left.”
“Wh-where is he?”
Jeremiah waved at the window, and within seconds, Matt Wilkes was standing in the doorway. All he had to say was, “Skylar?”
She looked at him with disbelief, then as she recognized him, with surprise.
“Benji!”
Matt took her into his arms as she broke down; “It’s okay, Skylar, I’m here. I’ve wanted to find you, if only to tell you I was still alive. I escaped, baby, and if you still want me in your life, just say the word.”
Skylar looked at him, tears still streaming down her face; “Of course I still want you in my life, in Justina’s life. Why wouldn’t I?”
Matt had to admit to himself that he didn’t have an answer to that.
Neither he nor Skylar saw Jeremiah slip out of his office to give the family some privacy.
He saw Justina sleeping in one of the overstuffed chairs against the wall of the office. He walked to it and bent down and said to her, “Hey, boo, wake up!”
Half asleep, Justina said, “My daddy says that to me.”
She then opened her eyes, and asked, “Daddy?”
“Yes, Tina-bo-Beena, it’s Daddy.”
“Daddy!” Justina said as she flung her arms around him. “We found you!”
“You’ve gotten to be such a big girl, Tina,” Matt said; “I’ve missed you so much!”
Jeremiah soon returned to his office and told Skylar and Matt, “There’s a car here to take you to the FBI office. They’ll take good care of you.”
“Jere, I don’t know what to say except thank you,” Matt said; “I never in a million years thought that I’d ever see my family again.”
“If it’s okay with the FeeBees, Matt, you’ll still have a job here,” Jeremiah said; “If you can’t stay, then I’ll be more than honored to write a letter of introduction to your next employer. Now go on and see what they can do for your family.”
After the family left, Jeremiah closed his office door, turned off the lights, and sat down at his desk.
Then, the tough as nails former assassin laid his head on his desk and wept.
===
“You so much as deviate from the road and take us anywhere than the FBI office, I will have no trouble blowing your brains out,” Wilkes said as the FBI agent driving made him and Skylar uncomfortable. He held a gun on the driver.
“Whoa, Wilkes, we’re on your side, remember,” the agent said; “What’s up with the guns, dude?”
“You’re making my wife uncomfortable.”
“My apologies, Mrs. Wilkes,” Agent Parkerson said.
“I should apologize, too, then, Agent Parkerson,” Skylar said; “I’ve been through hell and back, and I don’t want to find that I’m on the edge of being free that you’re not who you say you are.”
“I showed you my ID.”
“IDs can be faked,” Skylar said.
“Government IDs are such that counterfeiting is all but impossible,” Parkerson said; “I came all the way out from Washington just for this assignment. I’m supposed to be investigating what happened to my daughter in law’s twin sister.”
“I just want to get away from the people trying to kill me, Agent,” Skylar said.
“And so you shall, Mrs. Wilkes,” Parkerson said as they drove in front of the FBI building downtown. “See that female agent? She’ll take you in to see the Agent in Charge. I highly suggest that you put your weapon away, Wilkes.”
Parkerson exited the car first. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that didn’t look right.
Someone walking down the street with a duffle bag suddenly stopped, opened the bag and removed a weapon. It was aimed at the gas tank of the car that the family was in.
Parkerson and the female agent, Davalos, both fired. Agent Davalos’ bullet found its way into the man’s chest, piercing his aorta. He was dead before he hit the ground.
“What the fuck, Davalos?!” Parkerson said.
“He knew that they were coming, Agent,” Davalos said; “He’d been staking out his position all afternoon.”
“No, I mean, the man’s deader than a doornail,” Parkerson said; “How the fuck did you know to shoot him there?”
“Just a little trick I picked up from Morbus years and years ago,” Davalos said. “In another life, I was known as Susie West, one of the BlackOps Girls.”
“Holy shit, Davalos, I had no idea you even knew him, much less were one of the five female assassins he employed!”
“Learn something new every day, don’t you?” Davalos said; “Now let’s get these nice folks inside and make ‘em disappear.”
Parkerson just shook his head. Wilkes' paranoia was justified, he thought.
===
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.”
===
