"Because it is, but we're doing it anyway, and that is what makes us either brave or stupid."
27
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."
