Kendall smirked at Brendan’s facetious remark. Brendan felt an itch all over. His own voice reverberated in his head, causing waves of pain through his skull. He wanted to smoke, he wanted them to listen, he wanted to get out of there before the CSS showed up. But he didn’t think any of those things were going to happen. He felt the walls closing in around him.
“But you don’t think Titan really exists, or what?”
“I think Titan exists. It’s just a name, though. It implicates a company that Heilshorn has invested heavily in, Titan Med Tech, so I still don’t know why he advanced the opinion that Titan was behind things. I think it has something to do with the way Heilshorn thinks – he puts himself out there, he puts these ideas out there, but he knows they’re blind alleys. He sticks himself in the middle of his daughter’s case; he makes it look like he’s a victim, too, taken and beaten by Reginald Forrester.”
“Ok, slow down.” More scribbling.
As Kendall wrote in his pad, the FBI agent, Doherty, spoke up for the first time.
“Get back to Argon.”
Brendan shot the agent a glance. “Argon knew Heilshorn, too. Knew all about him.” He sat back for a moment. “Okay, look. You ready? Argon met Larry Taber when Argon was a cop in White Plains and Taber was just coming out of school for criminal justice, both of them with big plans to save the world. But then Taber comes to Argon for help because he screws up. He’s gotten someone pregnant, and she’s a pro. About the same time, my father is a cardiologist for Argon’s sister, a woman named . . .”
“Philomena. We know. So what. You’re making a long, winding, tenuous connection there. Heilshorn knew Argon. Argon knew about Taber’s child. That doesn’t mean Argon knew Heilshorn was into anything dirty, or whatever you’re implying.”
“I thought we didn’t believe in coincidences.”
“We? You’re a private investigator, right? From Wyoming?” The agent’s tone suggested unequivocally he considered Brendan nowhere near the status of law enforcement. That was fine. At this point, neither did Brendan. He was having a hard time believing that such a thing really even existed any more. Big business donated to politicians who formed the congress that passed legislation. Company lobbyists then wrote their own laws. And law enforcement? You could buy that, too. You could buy anything.
“The connection is me, Agent Doherty. An unmolested investigation during the Rebecca Heilshorn case might have exposed Heilshorn and his agenda. He could control Taber, because he knew about what happened in White Plains and blackmailed him. He could control Delaney – who knows what dirt he had on that guy? Delaney had a reputation for stepping out. And he could control Olivia Jane and Reginald Forrester. He had the good guys and the bad guys all tap-dancing for him. But he tried to have me killed. The first time, he ended up killing my wife and daughter instead. Know how I know? I can see by that smug look on your face you think I’m just rattling this off, right? He told me, that’s how I know. He told me in his office before he called you people.”
Agent Doherty seemed indifferent to these revelations. “Why would he have you killed?”
“The same reason we kill the sons of terrorist threats. We wipe out their seed. We take everything they have and everyone they know and love and wipe them off the face of the earth. Billions of dollars are made in the process, and America thumps its chest.”
“Okay . . .” Agent Doherty said. He waved a hand in the air.
“Only more of the same coming. Happening right now. United States citizens being killed on American soil.”
“Hey,” Kendall interjected. “Let’s calm down.”
Brendan glowered at Doherty. “You either play, or you pay. You get with the program, you salute your flag, or you’re a traitor. You didn’t hear what they called me?”
Agent Doherty made a move like he was going to leave.
“You want to know what this has to do with Argon? Argon was putting together everyone he knew, everyone who still believed in democracy, in their responsibility. Cops, detectives, people who still think there’s some kind of purpose to this country; that you don’t sacrifice for the greater good of the economy and the corporations, because look where that leads. Because this is where it leads. This is what happens. Dead girls, babies thrown away in storm drains, cops killed in the street, people’s wives and daughters driven off the road in the middle of the fucking night.”
Brendan had worked himself up into a frenzy. His eyes stung with tears, his mouth quivered. Doherty was watching him closely. Brendan turned to face Kendall and slammed both of his manacled hands down on the table in front of him.
“Let me have a fucking cigarette. Right now.”
* * *
He sat alone in the room. The cigarette burning between his two fingers. He was slumped in the chair, and stared into the mirror, past his harried reflection – his pale skin, bloody nose, unkempt black hair, hollow eyes – and through to the people he couldn’t see on the other side.
They were talking about him. The CSS agents were probably there, observing him like some carnival curiosity. Oh, the things he said. Another fruitcake spouting conspiracy theories about the fascist government, the end of freedom. Didn’t understand what it took to protect the people. Didn’t know the sacrifices that had to be made.
Take him, the NYPD was probably saying, take him, because we don’t know what the hell to do with him. He ought to be flown straight to Gitmo.
Then the door opened and Kendall came back in. His expression was flat, his eyes unreadable. He stood at the edge of the desk and looked down at Brendan. A tendril of cigarette smoke drifted up in between them, forming an S-curve in the air.
“Heilshorn is definitely dead. Massive heart attack.”
Brendan felt the world spin. He gripped the edge of the table as his mind rushed to consider the implications. Sloane was the one who had thrown the fire extinguisher. He had been there right beside her, a gun in his hand, an accessory to murder. She would be charged with a major felony. It would crush her. She had only been trying to help him.
Brendan looked up at Kendall.
“CSS is here,” Kendall said.
“I figured,” Brendan said. His voice was small, hoarse. He pictured Sloane getting this news in another room somewhere in this place with its water-stained yellow walls.
“We’re keeping you here while the First Deputy Commissioner talks with the Director of National Security.”
Jesus, Brendan thought. Oh Jesus.
“You’re part of a murder investigation now. They want you bad, but for the moment, they can’t have you. I don’t care who they are. Until we hear from the President, we’re keeping you.”
Brendan felt waves of nausea. It was impossible to separate fear from relief. There was nothing to be happy about here, but as he looked up at Kendall, he saw something good in the man – Kendall was on his side, and was working to keep Brendan here not because Heilshorn had died, but because some part of him had been affected by what Brendan had said.
My raving sermon, he thought. And, on the heels of this: I was born under the black smoke of September.
Maybe he was. Maybe he was, just like Forrester. A raving lunatic.
“Thank you,” is what he said to Kendall.
Kendall raised his eyebrows. Whatever humane thing Brendan had just glimpsed in the man, whatever connection, Kendall had gone back to being just a cop again, all business. “You’re now an accessory to Murder One. You go ahead and contact that lawyer.”
“What I want,” Brendan said, “is to speak to Jennifer Aiken.”
Kendall shook his head curtly. “Not gonna happen. Not here, anyway. You’re going to County. Finish your smoke. You want the CSS to keep off you? Jail will keep them at bay for a while.”
“I doubt it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN / Tuesday, 12:11 AM
County Jail in New York City was the dumping ground of the city, as if massive trucks had scraped the streets and siphoned the alleyways and then o
ffloaded their squalid catch here. Brendan’s holding cell was crowded with men, most of them black or Hispanic. They sat along the benches which lined the wall, or stood by the bars, or paced around in circles. It was just past midnight, and half of them were intoxicated by drink or drugs. On the bench next to Brendan sat a skinny pale man with a drain-clog hairdo and a star neck tattoo, his chin lolling on his chest. Occasionally he came to and mumbled to himself about Riker’s Island.
Riker’s, thought Brendan. The idea of going to prison filled him with the most depthless terror he had ever known. He usually thought of himself as stoical, but maximum-security prison was something few people were able to really comprehend. Even corrections officers didn’t grasp the scope of it; over the years they had built up reality-retardant suits, insulating themselves from what prison was. To them, it was a job – keep the animals in line. To a man like Brendan, prison would be nothing short of hell. The kind of hell like having your wife and child ripped away from you forever.
After two hours in the first cell, the men were paraded into a long corridor where they emptied their pockets and took off any accessories. The COs walked up and down the length of the hall, with the prison’s overworked plumbing sounding its dismal cacophony. Brendan noticed two twenty-something dudes with spikey hair and nice shirts on. They’d probably been out for a night on the town. Maybe one of them had sparked a roach near Columbus Circle, at the bottom edge of Central Park, and before they knew it, plainclothes Narcs were whishing them away by the elbows.
The city hadn’t always been like this. Everybody knew that. People started getting smart ideas like cleaning up the graffiti, getting rid of the Times Square peep shows, cracking down on alcohol and drugs. There was a time when Brendan would leave Langone in the evening, papers piled on his desk, and take to the streets with a tallboy in a brown paper bag and just walk, getting drunk as he went. It seemed to be the type of place where you could truly be anonymous, free, alone, and yet the world laughed and rushed and beat its plastic drums all around you. Now Manhattan was Beverly Hills, and the soul of New York had relocated to Brooklyn. Those who refused to accept the change, ended up here.
Brendan lined up with the other guys to make a phone call. He left a voice message with Jennifer Aiken, recorded of course by the authorities. After that, they were moved to another holding pen. In the night they moved him three more times, until he was at last in a cell with a back wall that featured a row of booths with bullet-proof glass and antiquated classroom-style chairs. Places to sit and talk with your lawyer.
* * *
It was three in the morning. He was informed that lawyers might be in as early as six. He sat on the dirty floor, leaning back against a concrete wall. A man relieved himself in a toilet that was a few feet away – a man with enormous callouses on his bare feet. Time passed very slowly.
At five, his name was called, and his eyes fluttered open – he’d been drifting off.
“Brendan Healy,” the voice called again. A CO was peering in through the bars, checking the faces.
Brendan raised his hand and got up. “Over here.” His heart started pounding. He looked at the CO.
The CO’s face loomed on the other side of the cell bars and he pointed to the back of the enclosure.
“Right there, Healy.”
Brendan turned and looked back at the chairs and booths along the rear wall. A man Brendan had never seen before was sitting on the other side of the smudged glass. Though he had an idea who it was.
Brendan glanced at the CO again, then turned and walked to the back of the cell, drawing glances from other men who were lying around, unable to sleep. He took his seat across from the man, younger than him by a decade or so. Despite the late hour, he looked fresh. His lips formed a straight line. His eyes were filled with intelligence without compassion. He was handsome, too. Like Brad Pitt, maybe.
There was an old-school phone hooked into the wall, and the man was already on the other end.
“Mr. Healy,” he said when Brendan put the phone to his ear. “How do you like jail?”
“So far, so good,” he said. Wit was not his strong suit, particularly at five AM in County Jail.
“Want to stay? We can keep this going as long as necessary.”
Brendan swallowed. His saliva tasted as if his throat was lined with tallow; greasy, like he had been gradually ingesting the funk of the jail cell, the men in it, the foul molecules in the air. He’d been contemplating that if they’d wanted to press, they could have taken him right at Roosevelt, that Agent Persephone could have slapped that NYPD sergeant right across his indignant face with total impunity. Instead, she’d decided to let this all happen.
But the decision to let the NYPD keep him, question him, and arraign him with charges had provided a chance for him to talk. And he had. He’d told Kendall everything he knew – the two men had talked for another hour before Brendan had been cuffed again and taken fourteen blocks away to the County Jail. Had Kendall believed any of it? Maybe. Brendan had felt strongly that Kendall was inclined to believe him, even if some of his story might have seemed sensational. So why let him be debriefed? Why let him speak?
“When this stops is up to you,” the man said. Brendan tried to find something human in his eyes.
“Did you start out in the army? Or were you a marine?”
“You will be arraigned in less than an hour. We can make sure any and all of the charges stick. With the witnesses, video, and forensic evidence, you will get fifteen years. Maybe more; we’ll have the judge hand out the maximum sentence. Can you do twenty years in Federal Prison?”
“Or maybe you started out as an analyst,” Brendan said. “Graduated from a top-tier school, went to work for the CIA, and wound your way into the Central Security Service. But no, I don’t think so. I think you came out of the military. Looking for a good escort service? Maybe it’s been a while since you got any.”
“You’ll come out – if you live – an old man. And guess what, we’ll still be there waiting for you anyway. The world . . . the world will look very different then, Healy.”
“No doubt. Imagine what sort of new toys Google will have come out with. People will be shooting laser beams from their eyes.” He shifted in his seat and cocked an eyebrow at the man on the other side of the glass. The smart-aleck routine was the only thing his mind could handle. Blackness, despair, and fatigue were ready to engulf him. “When did the CSS start poisoning people, anyway? Why not just kill me? Dose me with thallium like Reginald Forrester. When did the U.S. government start threatening, torturing, killing its citizens on their own soil, anyway?”
“Half a century ago,” the man said without a moment’s hesitation. “Only now it’s legal and out in the open.”
He was forthcoming, you had to give him that. “At what loss?” But his question was perfunctory. He knew the answer.
“That’s irrelevant. There is no cost. The machine has to move forward. That’s it. You know this, everybody knows this, but they still cozy themselves up in denial. It’s a global economy. Period. There are no nationalities. There are entities. Sort of like Gods – like Titans you could say. Probably the only way the species survives is to get off the planet. Might as well blow it up from Space, too, because all that will be left are the people sitting in the cell behind you.”
“That’s comforting.”
The man shrugged. “You know what it costs for a month’s supply of air on a ship to Mars? You want to talk about money, and who gets money? Money is debt. Money is something owed to someone else. That’s all it is. A Federal Reserve Note is handed over for Government bonds – fancy I.O.U.s. The Federal Reserve can print banknotes until the third world war and after it. It’s paper. What’s real, what’s enforceable, is the debt. Something owed to someone else. The more you’re owed the more you have.”
Brendan was suddenly flooded with the memory of Santos and Irish Hank arguing in the basement of the Holy Rosary Church.
“The Fed doesn�
��t print money,” he said. “They do something worse. This whole quantitative easing strategy, allocating four trillion borrowed from banks, is supporting the very government and housing spending that got us into trouble in the first place. The Fed is financing ongoing economic hardship through its expanded borrowing of bank reserves. I think Heilshorn knew this, and Heilshorn got scared.”
This guy showed the smallest flicker of doubt across his features. “You want to spend the rest of your good years sitting in this filth?”
“Or what?”
“Or you come with me. I have the power to let you out right now, no questions asked.”
“What happens to Sloane?”
“We scoop her up, too.”
“What will you do with us?”
“She’ll get her own bargain. You’ll come to work for us.”
“And if I don’t . . . what? The thallous sulfate routine? You know – they say poison is a woman’s weapon.”
For the first time, the man displayed a touch of emotion when he rolled his eyes. “Poison was my father, Joseph Staryles’ thing. You might say I picked up the habit from him, really. You can understand a little something about the legacy of a father, can’t you, Healy?”
Staryles, thought Brendan. Something seemed to loosen inside of him now that he was able to put a real name to the madness of the past three days. Was this the man who had been pursuing him all along? The point person for this little cadre within the CSS, tasked with orbiting Heilshorn and all of his backdoor dealings?
Driving his dark blue Cutlass around.
Cleaning up after Heilshorn. Taking the lives of people that got in the way.
Who else had he murdered?
Brendan stared through the thick glass. When had Staryles started working for the CSS? When had he begun turning tricks for Heilshorn? Because there was no way Alexander-the-fucking-great was going to get his hands dirty. Heilshorn had got someone else to kill Brendan’s wife and daughter.
Maybe, Brendan thought, smoldering, maybe Staryles was too young for that. He was about thirty, to look at him. Certainly he’d done a few tours before this, probably Iraq, Afghanistan. And black ops took place all over the world.
SURVIVORS (crime thriller books) Page 28
