Southern Republic (The Downriver Trilogy Book 1)

by Ramsay, Lex

  “Olivia, I’ve found out some things on my end that makes sense of that message.” Patrick called her name without thinking, and then remembered that he’d already told her he knew her name.

  “I ran some searches on a colleague in the R.A., and cross-checked some Atlanta phone records and link transmissions. Looks like the infiltration reached even further than I’d thought. I can’t trust my upstream contact anymore. The fact that you relayed this message means I can trust you … I think. But then again, you could just be passing information on that the Assembly wanted you to.” Patrick brainstormed aloud.

  “I absolutely trust my contact on the Domestic Products Committee, Watcher. She’s … I mean, they’re too skilled at the political game to be used as a patsy.” Olivia said, defending Em’s honor as much as her deviousness.

  “Wait a minute. Your contact wouldn’t happen to be Emmaline Moultry, the Assistant Director of that committee, would it?” Patrick asked quizzically.

  Stunned, Olivia didn’t know whether to answer or not. As it happened, she didn’t have to.

  “Because I intercepted a satellite news feed out of the S.R. that said Emmaline Moultry died in a car bomb planted by some group called L.O.D. I think the newscast said that stood for “Liberty Or Death” or something like that.” Patrick continued, oblivious to the choking sounds coming from the other end of the phone.

  “Oh my God!” Olivia screamed, as soon as she was finally able to draw a breath. “I just left her … how did it happen … the Assembly’s behind this, they’ve got to be!”

  Patrick paused, understanding for the first time that Olivia’s “contact” was far more than a source of highly placed information, but was obviously a dear friend. “I’m so sorry, Olivia, I didn’t know she was your friend.”

  “Watcher … I’m going to have to call you back. I need a few minutes to collect myself.” Olivia was trying desperately to regain her composure, at least enough to allow her to finish this call, so she could go to pieces in the privacy of her own room.

  “Oh, there’s something else,” Olivia remembered the email sent to her father just as she was about to end the call. “I pulled an encrypted email off my father’s system when I got back. They’re moving up Project Exodus to October 29 … we only have a little less than three weeks to stop them.” Olivia nearly moaned in her misery. “But what’s the point … this is all so damn hopeless.”

  “You can’t think that Olivia. I will never think that. It can’t be hopeless. Too many lives are hanging in the balance … too many sacrifices for too many years would go up in smoke if we give up now. Please don’t give up now … please don’t give up.” Patrick begged.

  “I’ll call you later tonight … I can’t handle this right now.” Olivia said and broke the connection.

  • • •

  Patrick thought it must have been a testament to his inherently twisted psyche that he was actually invigorated by the enormity of the task before him. So they thought they had the upper hand, did they? They thought their plan was so damn slick.

  It was. He had to give it to them, it was pretty smooth. He had wondered how the S.R. could possibly think they could massacre millions of people with impunity. Now he knew. They’d be blameless in the eyes of the world. The tragic fate of the slaves would be laid at the feet of the clandestine R.A.—no one to indict, no one to investigate, no one to convict, hell, no one even to ostracize, since the organization in a very real sense did not exist. And it was precisely because the organization was always in the shadows that another benefit came from pinning the crime on the R.A.—there would be no one who could set the record straight.

  A chilling thought crossed Patrick’s consciousness about the implications of that last observation, but like a computer trying to run too many programs at once, his mind started shutting down systems and refused to focus on the nascent idea, already receding into his subconscious.

  Like the chess master confronted with what looked to be a no-win situation, Patrick decided to take the battle to a different level. His mind raced even beyond his ability to articulate his chain of thoughts. Trains, automated systems, computer controlled, satellite transmitted, timing. Timing. It would all be in the timing.

  Relic was insistent on knowing when the trains would be filled with slaves, departing, not to freedom, but to eternity. Because if the Assembly knew when they would be on the trains; and they already knew which trains he planned to use, then they could target those trains … but for what?

  Any military attack on the trains would be too easily traced to the S.R. Patrick couldn’t think of any other way from outside the trains they could get to he slaves. But what about from inside the trains? He whirled around and pulled up the schematic he had downloaded of the container cars. There it was. Once they knew which trains would be used, all they had to do was arm the car’s sanitizer feature with S-18. The slaves would be exterminated on the trains and their lifeless corpses dumped into the waiting arms of the R.A.

  How very Nazi-esque, Patrick thought. How very stunningly evil. How very appropriate to the S.R., and the Assembly, and the F.F.C. and each and every one of its hypocritical members—may they rot in Hell.

  So, Patrick decided, he would give them what they wanted … sort of. He would tell Relic, with excruciating precision, exactly which trains would carry the slaves to their Promised Land. He would lead the slaves like the Pied Piper to the trains and deliver them into the hands of the Assembly. He only needed to wait until the Assembly acted on the information he would feed them. Then, they would equip those trains with S-18 and program the sat-command to release it on schedule. Later they would claim that the slaves were killed by an automated train sanitizing function … and that the S.R. had no idea that the trains were being used to smuggle the slaves out of the country by the reckless R.A.

  But first, Patrick thought, he would add a little clever devilry of his own making. And hopefully, Patrick thought, it would be the Assembly’s undoing.

  In working out the plan to use the trains to transport the fleeing slaves, he had already programmed the code for the command to intercept the controls of the trains once a trigger had been devised to prompt the automated sequence into action. He had, by force of habit, designed a failsafe, a default loop, into that program, which was actually useless in the original configuration of his plan. Now it wasn’t useless. Now he would use his failsafe to bring the Assembly to its knees.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‌A sharp rap on her bedroom door woke Olivia from her grief-stricken exhaustion.

  “Yes,” she said curtly, hoping by her tone to dissuade whomever it was from interrupting further.

  “Olivia, it’s your mother,” Eugenia replied as she swung open the door without waiting for an invitation. “We need to talk.” Eugenia closed the door behind her, then took a seat at the table tucked into the alcove looking out into the protectorate Compound.

  “What is it, mother?” Olivia asked without bothering to conceal her annoyance.

  “It’s about your father and something he insinuated about Winston. Well, in truth he didn’t so much as insinuate it, he came right out and called your son a bastard!” Eugenia said, uncharacteristically coming straight to the point.

  Olivia felt as if she’d been sucker punched. How on earth could her father know? She had been so careful, lying about how far along she’d been, conveniently having a “premature” birth, arranging to have the boy’s father sold to a South Carolina protectorate after claiming to her father that he’d been overly familiar with Sulla—nothing she could think of could have given her away. Even Bryce didn’t know. So how could her father?

  She tried to mask her growing terror, and knew she had failed. But rising to the occasion as best she could, Olivia pretended that her horror was caused by the unfairness of the accusation, not by the truth of the charge.

  “How could father say such a thing,” she asked in mock outrage. “How dare he … what could he possibly have meant,” she
said disingenuously. “What exactly did he say, mother?”

  “He said your son was a bastard! Isn’t that enough?” Eugenia exclaimed.

  “I mean, what happened to make him say that, mother.” Olivia said, her voice dripping with unconcealed condescension.

  “Winston woke him from a nap and your father went crazy, telling me to get that bastard away from him.” Eugenia answered, seemingly oblivious of her daughter’s dismissive tone.

  Olivia thought for a moment, then narrowed her eyes in newfound courage. “Mother, I suspect father had a little to drink, was startled awake and said the first thing that rolled off his tongue. Unfortunately, that was a vulgarity—distressing yes, but not really surprising. You know how he gets.”

  Olivia had just about convinced herself that, as usual, her mother had made too much of an offhand comment. “Yes, I’m sure that’s all …”

  “Olivia,” Eugenia interrupted. “I’ve known your father for more years than I care to admit, and while it’s true that he can cuss like a field hand, I’ve never heard him use that particular vulgarity unless he meant it.”

  Olivia’s eyes grew wide, as her mother continued. “So if there’s something you’ve not told me about Winston, you’d better tell me now, child.”

  “Of course not, mother, what could there be to tell?” Olivia said innocently. She ushered Eugenia out of her room, and collapsed onto the bed. This was the last thing she needed, Olivia thought. She just couldn’t deal with her father right now. And anyway, who was he to talk? So what if Winston’s father wasn’t Bryce? He was half hers, wasn’t he? Winston could establish his rightful place in the F.F.C., and if her father didn’t like it, too bad.

  Olivia tried to take comfort in her false bravado, even if it was only to herself. She didn’t want to admit just how scared she was, and she couldn’t afford to be distracted by that fear now anyway. She had less than three weeks to help Watcher divert disaster, and even as selfish as she was and had always been, she knew that her problems had to take a back seat.

  Olivia got up from the bed and locked her door. Pulling her cell phone from its hiding place, she dialed Watcher’s number.

  • • •

  Echoes of iron clanging against iron swirled around him, seeming to come from all directions at once, confusing its origin. Just beneath this rhythmic ringing was the sound of bare feet by the hundreds on bare earth, shuffling through the silt-covered soil.

  Drifting out of the surrounding gloom the coffle came into view—the source of the hideous clanging made clear. Manacled at the wrist and shackled at the ankle, one tethered to the next, a river of slaves appeared, winding across the hard-packed earth.

  Transfixed by the irons clasping each pair of wrists and ankles that passed before him, he had seen no faces. Raising his head slowly as if in knowing dread, he stared at the passing faces—at the same face on each slave stumbling past him—his own face.

  Patrick was jolted from his nightmare and sat up roughly from the computer table where his head had rested, barely suppressing the scream that almost escaped. His face was covered with sweat and in his terror he had scattered the printouts he had been laboriously reviewing for hours onto the floor.

  Wiping the sweat from his eyes, Patrick heard the fading remnants of that awful chorus of chains and feet as if still clutched in the talons of the dream.

  So disoriented was he, that when the cell phone at his side started ringing, he snatched it off his belt and answered it without bothering to check the identity of the caller, without bothering to pull the voice modifier onto his throat.

  “Yes, hello … who is it?” Patrick managed before realizing his error.

  The caller gasped, then paused. Patrick pulled the phone from his ear and read the display. It was Olivia.

  “Daniel … that’s you, isn’t it … Daniel, are you there?”

  Olivia thought she’d gone completely mad, but still she knew the voice of her love. She’d replayed every word he had spoken in their scant time together. She knew it was Daniel on the other end. And now she knew Daniel was Watcher.

  Her voice became low and tense at the discovery … at the betrayal.

  “So this is how it is, eh Watcher? What was it? A test of my loyalty? Did I pass, Watcher? Was I entertaining?” Her voice broke. “Did you enjoy toying with me?” She let a sob slip despite holding her emotions in the tightest grip of her life.

  Patrick listened, the twin beasts of misery and despair shouldering out the momentary panic that had engulfed him. He closed his eyes, feeling the tears sting a course from their corners down his cheeks. And made a decision.

  “My name is Patrick Edgerton.” He said slowly, as if confessing the gravest sin of all time.

  “I come from an old family in Ithaca, New York that’s had ties to the R.A. for over a hundred and thirty years. I’m a software troubleshooter working in D.C., and I just happened to see you there last week.

  “I admit, I was trying to test you at first. I wanted to make sure you were up to the mission. But Olivia … Olivia … my love, you’ve invaded my soul and … Darling, I need your help. This is more than a mission to me. This is the future of my people—my reason for existing since I was 9 years old. If I let them kill all those people, what good am I to anybody? What good am I to myself … or to you?”

  Patrick took a breath, afraid of what Olivia would say next. He moved the phone from one ear to the other.

  When he pressed it to his ear again, all he heard was the dial tone.

  • • •

  “What’s the matter with everybody? I could get livelier dinner companions at a funeral parlor.” Askew announced that evening.

  He looked around the room at the sullen faces surrounding him.

  Eugenia looked at him and wrinkled her nose as if he smelled bad. Olivia’s face was pale and her red-rimmed eyes puffy from crying; and Bryce was still sulking about being called a fool.

  Well, hell, Askew thought, he was a fool, and the only thing more shameful than being one was being one and not knowing it. Askew snickered. He’d just made sure Bryce knew it, that was all.

  “If that’s the way you feel, Father, why don’t you go have dinner at a funeral parlor?” Olivia snapped irritably.

  Bryce and Eugenia joined her in sly, nervous chuckles.

  “Olivia …” Eugenia sputtered, “You do go on.”

  Askew glanced at Bryce condescendingly, then fixed his gaze on Eugenia.

  “It speaks!” Askew exclaimed in mock amazement. “Here I thought she lost that faculty years ago, it’s been that long since she’s uttered an intelligent thought. And to think, I used to cherish her every word like a precious jewel.”

  Eugenia flinched as if Askew’s words had struck a blow, then seemed to recover and said in a steely voice, “Is that a fact. Well here’s another gem for your collection: Your family hates you, Askew. I hope you’re proud of yourself. You’re the only one who is.”

  She threw her napkin on the table, nearly toppled her chair in her haste to flee the dining room, and stormed up the stairs to her room.

  Olivia whirled on her father, “You bully, I bet you are proud of yourself. Picking on poor Mother … Why don’t you go find some dog to kick. On second thought, where’s Sulla?” Olivia looked about in feigned innocence.

  “Watch your step, girlie …” Askew began.

  “That’s right, Olivia, show some respect for your father.” Bryce interrupted, ever attuned to the subtle exercises of power in the family and always prepared to shift his alliances accordingly.

  “Shut up, Bryce.” Askew barked.

  “Yes, Bryce, please do shut up.” Olivia echoed.

  “See, that’s your problem, child,” Askew retorted. “You lack a fundamental respect for your betters.”

  Olivia sputtered and nearly blew a mouthful of ice water across the table.

  “I’ll assume your levity was directed at the idea that I was referring to your husband, which I assure you I was not.�
� Askew paused while Olivia covered her mouth to hide her grin.

  “But I most assuredly am referring to myself, Olivia, and as your father I’m obliged to warn you to watch your tongue when you speak to me. Don’t forget, you live here at my sufferance.”

  Olivia’s color crept up from her neck, slowly reaching her temples. Her sharp rebuke was immediately swallowed as she detected a menace in her father’s tone she rarely heard directed her way.

  She remembered Eugenia’s hysteria over Askew calling Winston a bastard—and now this. Her father had just threatened to turn her out of the house!

  Not trusting herself to refrain from cursing her father out, and Bryce, and that damned smirking Sulla for good measure, Olivia clenched her jaws together fiercely. Trembling with fury, Olivia planted both hands on the table at each side of her barely touched plate, slowly pushed herself away from the table, walked over to the drink cart and poured herself three fingers of her father’s 100 year old scotch. Studiously avoiding the eyes she felt on her back, she casually turned holding the drink in one hand with an air of sophistication she definitely did not feel, walked past the dinner table, out of the room and up the stairs.

  CHAPTER 29

  “Dammit Daniel … I mean Patrick … I ought to kick your ass from one side of the globe to the other.”

  Olivia had started to talk as soon as the phone was answered.

  “That was really a low blow,” she rushed on, “talkin’ all that stuff about your people and your family and your duty and all that …”

  Olivia rambled on with nervous energy, seemingly afraid to stop her chatter and allow Patrick the opportunity to reject her again.

  “You see, the thing is, Patrick, or whatever you’re calling yourself today, I need something to believe in right around now. My life here is about to come tumbling down, my marriage is a sham, my child is in danger, my best friend was murdered and my father is talking craziness about throwing me out of the house.