Chapter 27 Losham
LOSHAM
Losham was drafting a memo to the engineering team when his phone vibrated with an incoming message. A new email, routed through the Brotherhood's internal communication system, the encrypted network that connected the senior commanders not only through the island but all around the globe.
The sender was Navuh.
Losham's blood went cold.
He opened the email. The timestamp was current.
It had been delivered seconds ago, but the composition date was weeks earlier, before Navuh's capture.
Another pre-programmed message, triggered by a timer or perhaps by a specific event.
The previous email had arrived after the booby trap explosion, addressing the fallout.
This one had probably been triggered by the collapse, which meant that it hadn't been accidental and that the structure had been rigged.
The message was brief and characteristically imperious:
To my sons,
If this message has reached you, it means the traitor has not been identified yet, I am still presumed dead, and an imposter is sitting in my chair.
That is unacceptable. I am ordering the immediate evacuation of my mansion.
All personnel, all operations, and all offices are to be relocated to secondary facilities. No one is to enter the mansion for any reason until the traitor is identified and dealt with, or I personally authorize re-entry.
Lord Navuh
Losham read the short message twice.
The genius of it was almost admirable. Navuh, imprisoned thousands of miles away, was still pulling strings, still manipulating events, still exerting control through messages he had composed weeks or months ago.
He had planned it all as if he had seen the future, and maybe he had. After all, he'd owned a seer.
The insistence on identifying the supposed traitor was masterful. It would turn the brothers against each other, each one suspecting the others. Navuh didn't seem to care about the continual survival of the Brotherhood or his sons continuing his so-called mission.
It had always been about him. About making him the absolute ruler of the world.
Had Navuh foreseen the clan's involvement? Had he somehow anticipated that his enemies would find a way to compel his son?
Or was this simply Navuh being Navuh, making sure that no one inherited his seat of power, and that if he died, the Brotherhood died with him?
Losham's phone began to ring. Kolhood. Then Hocken. Then Hazok. The brothers were reading the email simultaneously, and they would demand immediate compliance.
He let the calls go to voicemail. He needed a moment to think.
The compulsion said dig. Navuh said stop everything and evacuate the mansion.
The brothers would demand obedience to their father's order.
The engineers would insist on a safety review before anyone set foot in the basement again.
And the clan's compeller would call again, demanding an update, expecting progress, tightening the screws of a compulsion that was already grinding against Losham's skull like a millstone.
He was trapped. Squeezed from three directions by forces that were individually manageable but collectively suffocating.
Unless he found a way to satisfy all three at once.
Losham picked up his phone and answered Kolhood's fourth call.
"Losham." Kolhood's voice was rigid with authority. "Did you read the message?"
"I did."
"Are you evacuating the mansion?"
"Yes, but not because of the email. Father's message was pre-programmed, Kolhood. It was written before his departure. He's responding to some fictional scenario he dreamt up, not to current events. The timing was coincidental."
"I don't believe in coincidence."
"Well, maybe he's rigging it from the harem. That's a possibility. Do you want to march in there and demand answers from him?"
That was a bold move, and Losham's heart pounded as he waited for Kolhood's answer.
A long moment passed, or maybe it just seemed long, and then finally there was a sigh on the other side of the line. "I hate to say this, but Father has an odd sense of humor."
Losham felt faint with relief. "Yes. It has a sadistic twist to it. But that's not news to any of us."
"No. It's not. Where are you going to move your office to?"
"Probably the hotel."
"Not your house?"
"No. I don't like to work from home. Home is for resting and relaxation."
"I hear you. I stay at the barracks to be close to my troops, but when I want to relax, I go home."
It was a subtle reminder that the army answered to Kolhood, which made him the most powerful of the brothers.
"Yes, I guess it's prudent. Although I wouldn't want to live in the underground barracks."
"You've always liked your creature comforts. What are you going to do about the basement and the supposed treasures buried down there?"
"I have no idea what Father kept there, and what we are going to find, but right now, the basement is ruined. I'm having the engineers examine the structure to see if we can resume digging."
"How long before you have a report?" Kolhood asked.
"A week. Possibly two. The engineers need access to the area, which requires preliminary stabilization work."
"That's a long time."
"It takes what it takes. We've lost workers in this collapse. I don't want to lose any more."
"They were humans. Inconsequential."
"They were part of our workforce, and therefore their loss was definitely consequential. Every human we lose means that a new human needs to be brought in to replace him. That costs time and money."
"We should let them breed more."
Losham rolled his eyes. "You know as well as I do how important it is to maintain population balance on the island. The system our father designed has been working for thousands of years. I see no reason to change it."
The silence that followed was satisfying, but Losham took no pleasure in winning the verbal chess game with Kolhood. He was buying time, not solving the problem, but then the problem wasn't solvable.
What other disasters had their father planned to bring ruin to the Brotherhood?
By capturing him, the clan might have achieved what they had never dreamt they could.
The end of the Brotherhood. The end of Mortdh's legacy.
Without the Brotherhood, Annani and her clan could implement all the progress they wanted, but they would never bring everlasting peace to humanity, for the simple reason that humans were not peaceful creatures.
Except, Losham wasn't going to let the Brotherhood die. Now that he knew what Navuh's game plan was, he would counteract it. He needed to gather his brothers together and explain his suspicions about their father's betrayal.
They would not let him destroy what they had all worked so hard to build. They would not let him pit them against each other until rivers of blood soaked the island's streets.
They would come together, and they would continue what Navuh had started, despite him, not because of him.