DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3)

by T. J. Brearton

  “I’m pretty sure you were a bagman. In addition to picking up and dropping off the women, you picked up money. I need to know where that money was going, Mr. Stemp. I need to establish a chain of custody, follow the money up to the top, and I want you to testify before a grand jury.”

  He laughed.

  She ignored it. “Can you at least tell me how you went from working private security abroad to here in the states? Is it the same company? Is Titan putting ex-soldiers to work as escort bodyguards?”

  He looked out the window, his mug of coffee hovering above the table in his grip. His laughter faded into a smile. Then he blinked, his humor evaporating, his eyes losing their focused aspect as he looked inwards.

  At last he spoke. “One of the top managers of the firm I worked for threatened to kill a US Department of State investigator,” he said. “There was a probe coming. Evaluation of the firm’s performance.”

  His eyes found her again, and they were haunted. She could see her reflection in the dark irises. He reminded her of Ewon Parnell, and she felt her stomach knotting.

  Easy. Easy now.

  (Agent Apollo, Apollo Helios, God of Plagues)

  “Two weeks later, twenty-three civilians were shot and killed in Nisour Square, in Baghdad.”

  “I remember.”

  “Yeah? Do you remember that the embassy sided with the firm? The State Department investigators were ordered to leave. And it looked to Iraq and to the whole world that private security firms on the US payroll could do whatever they want, with impunity.”

  “If I recall, four members of the firm went to trial here in the States.”

  “And what happened?”

  Jennifer tried to remember exactly what the outcome had been, but she’d been under pressure at the time to finish her thesis in order get into the DOJ, which had offered her a position pending graduation. But she could assume where Stemp was going with this.

  “They’re above the law,” he said. “You don’t stir up that kind of liability and negligence protecting a few diplomats. That was dirty from the start, and continued to be dirty, and when it came time for me to stand in front of the jury, they buried me up here in farm country and gave me the job driving XList girls, in exchange for my silence.” He looked at her, and his eyes were burning coals. “I say anything, and what will happen to me will be worse than what happened to those state investigators. Much worse. That’s why you’re never going to get what you want. I can’t give it. Largo can’t give it. No one can. They’ve got us all, right where it hurts. They got to Argon, and they’re toying with Healy, too. You should know that.”

  She ignored the remark about Healy, though it pained her. “I know there are lives at stake. That’s exactly why I’m here. Your family’s lives, but also others. In order to keep everything flowing and everything hidden away, sacrifices are made. Women are exploited. Children are used like tools.”

  There was a loud crash, the table shook, and Jennifer was splattered with hot coffee before she even realized what had happened. Stemp had brought down the hovering coffee mug with tremendous force, shattering the mug against the kitchen table and spraying the coffee everywhere.

  “Don’t you think I know that? I tried to get Rebecca out. We were both trying to get out. She didn’t want to be the one to entrap Largo. She was against it, she was going to come out with it — her brother was trying to help her — and look what happened to them. They manipulated her like a slave. You know what they do? They give some of the girls fake birth control.”

  She could think of nothing to say. She was dimly aware her guards were running towards the house due to Stemp’s outburst.

  Stemp was shaking with rage. She thought she could smell his breath wafting over to her. “Because sometimes they want the girls to get pregnant,” he went on. “The babies provide all sorts of opportunities . . .”

  “Okay,” she said, holding her hand up for him to stop. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “It’s alright—”

  Jennifer’s security burst in the front door. She saw another blur of black from the same window, but headed in the other direction, as the second guard ran around back. The third she could hear running up the driveway.

  She started to stand up, when a rough hand pushed her back down. “Hey, wait . . .” she said. Stemp was upset, okay, yeah, but she could handle things; what were they doing?

  This was the only thought she had time for as Stemp launched himself out of the chair at the bulky guard who’d just busted in the front door.

  No, she thought. No no no no . . .

  Stemp was fast, amazingly fast, and she felt the rush of air as he blurred past her and burrowed into the big man standing to the side of Jennifer. The men slammed into a set of shelves, and then the dishes on the shelves fell and exploded against the floor.

  Not only was Stemp quick, he was nimble. In one swift move he disarmed Jennifer’s guard and had the semi-automatic pistol in his own hand, the big man in front of him like a shield. At that moment there was a clamor in the back of the house as a second guard came in. Stemp held out his arm and turned his head and pointed his gun through the rear door of the kitchen and into the gloom of the house.

  “No!” Jennifer cried out. “Kim, I’m on your side. We’re here to help—”

  Stemp fired. The gun was so loud in the room Jennifer’s ear drums felt like they had burst. She didn’t hear the sound of the second guard as he fell to the ground, but instead felt the floorboards shake as his body landed in a heap.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN / THURSDAY 2:48 PM

  They say life with an addict was like living with a ticking time bomb. Tick, another day goes by. Tick, another struggle to stay sober. Tick, the daily irritants accrete on the soul, like barnacles on the skin. Tick, the soul grows restless, resentful of the limitations of its cage. Tick, the minute hand on the timer jerks towards the zero hour, rigged to the packed C-4 explosive. Tick, it’s just a matter of time. A matter of time and triggers become more sensitive, the resolve deteriorates, rotting away, porous with insect-eaten holes. Tick, and we’re seconds away now, seconds away.

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Healy.”

  As much as he had been longing to hear the words, as much as he’d been dreaming of his release, they sounded foreign to him, uninterpretable. Brendan’s head felt wadded with cotton. His eyes were puffy, as if from a hangover. Across the desk from him, Menzaro, his lawyer, looked back. Also sat there were three members of the city’s prosecution team with the Department of Investigation, and several members of the NYPD, including Detective Kendall. They were together in a private room, procured by Deputy Warden Grimm, who had been absolutely writhing with anxiety and contempt when he’d shown them in. Grimm was outside the room now, unaware of what was taking place inside, but no doubt in a wretched state of purgatory.

  Brendan managed one word, “When?”

  Menzaro nodded, as if he’d expected this. He was about to speak when the New York City District Attorney, a thin, frizzy-haired, severe woman named Melissa Craddock, cut him off.

  “The city is willing to drop its charges against you, Brendan, provided you follow through with your end.”

  Menzaro leaned back.

  “The proffer is contingent on my client’s terms, District Attorney Craddock. No testifying in open court, just his deposition. And you have the recordings from yesterday and today. The Justice Department will come in if you don’t make use of this immediately — now.”

  Craddock pinned Menzaro with her hawk-like eyes. “Provided that everything in Mr. Healy’s statement proves accurate.” Those eyes shifted to Brendan. “Mr. Healy, when we depose you, you are willing to swear, under oath, that you have knowledge that will lead to hard evidence of how contraband — to wit: heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol — are being smuggled into this facility by corrections officers, and being distributed by corrections officers as well as inmates?”

  “Yes.”

  Menzaro piped up. “And the city
of New York is willing to drop all charges against my client, and you have an affidavit showing that no charges will be bought against Mr. Healy by the state?”

  “That is correct.” There was a shuffling of papers. “As long as Mr. Healy understands that this does not immunize him from a civil suit. Greta Heilshorn may pursue a wrongful death case. That’s out of my hands.”

  Brendan watched the proceedings with detachment. Didier Lazard’s ideas were still stuck in his mind, three months later. This was a false victory. The only way his release was going to be allowed was because Staryles, and the people he worked for, were allowing it. Or maybe, they just hadn’t caught up to it yet. Still, he was getting out, he had to be able to marshal some enthusiasm for that, for God’s sake. He was getting out of his own accord and he would be able to see Sloane.

  But: tick, tock. All of the things undone. Tick, all of the compromises. Outside the walls, his addictions awaited. Pacing the grounds, looking in with hungry eyes. His own reflection, haggard, rangy, walking back and forth in his own, personal inmate’s clothing. A quiver of the upper lip. Stalking back and forth, waiting to lead him.

  “Mr. Healy?”

  He brought his attention around to the District Attorney, who was looking at him with her humorless eyes. He watched those eyes crawl over him, taking in his scars, his missing finger, the fading bruises on his face from his beatings in segregation. Meted out by the guards, and by Tony Laruso, the fake-ID criminal sent in by Grimm to have his fun.

  “Mr. Healy,” she said again, and he thought he heard something softer in her voice, something almost human. “Mr. Healy, is there anything we can do for you before we proceed? Anything you need?”

  “I need you all to leave this room,” Brendan said, and poked his tongue into the cavity where his molar had once been. “And bring in Inmate 910721. Tony Laruso. I need ten minutes in here with him alone.”

  The DA held Brendan’s gaze for a moment, and then looked around at the others in the room, perhaps wondering if any of them had understood the absurd language Brendan was speaking. There was a silent communication going on, Brendan could see the transmission between sets of eyes, the unspoken words conveyed from pursed lips. It was the captain who spoke. “I’m sorry, Mr. Healy. That’s just not possible.”

  Tick, another denial. Another obstacle thrown in his path, another restriction, another concession to make. Another notch forward of the clock towards final destruction.

  Tock, another minute clicked past towards detonation, a minute propelled by self-loathing. On top of it all, he was selfish. Addicted, like the rest of his countrymen, to getting his way.

  Tick — but, that need for freedom. That need to live unadulterated. What was the social contract? What was it for, if not to keep people from violence and fear? Men from taking whatever they wanted, killing whatever or whomever got in their way. Total mayhem, nothing but a dog-eat-dog world, only the strongest surviving.

  But wasn’t that what was going on anyway?

  A distant part of Brendan observed that these thoughts were just chemicals in his brain, like sparks in a reactor. Electric impulses carried by neurotransmitters. Freedom had an opioid-like effect. He didn’t want it taken away. He wanted it back.

  This was supposed to be a triumphant moment. He’d turned the tables on his captors. He was going to take the information on the contraband enterprise in the Rikers system and bury Grimm with it.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head so hard he felt he saw those sparks thrown against the backs of his eyelids. “This is the only way we have a deal.”

  He opened his eyes and saw Craddock looking back at him, her face hard. But he thought he saw something glimmer in her gaze, motes of recognition dancing in her stare. Maybe she knew. Maybe, at some point, before her razor-sharp suit and the determined set of her jaw, the whittling away to 120 pounds of bones, gristle, and a flawless record, she’d been there. Where he was. Maybe she knew.

  “Mr. Healy—”

  “In here you live day to day,” he said suddenly. “As a detective you live case to case. If you’re a fighter, you live fight to fight. And what you do in the meantime is prepare. You prepare each day towards that day in court, that moment in the ring. All of this preparation for one moment, the moment of judgment and exposure. To witness a truth. Maybe we prepare all our lives, from the moment we’re born to that final moment, at the end.”

  Craddock exchanged looks with Menzaro, Kendall — everyone was looking at everyone else. They figured he was insane.

  His mind called up a line from the C.S. Lewis book he had committed to memory: The bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness.

  Craddock frowned at him, and closed her file. Whatever was kindred he had momentarily glimpsed in the DA was gone. She worked the file into her open satchel. “We’ll be back tomorrow for the formal deposition.”

  If she didn’t give him Laruso, then the whole second phase of his plan would fall apart.

  “You don’t really have a choice,” Brendan said.

  Her head jerked to look at him and her upper lip curled back. “Mr. Healy, you really think as the District Attorney for New York City I’m going to allow you some sort of revenge-time alone in a room with another inmate, full-well knowing your intent to harm? Or maybe, rather, your intent to commit suicide by his hands?”

  Never breaking eye contact with Craddock, Brendan pointed at the door. “It’s not your call, it’s the Deputy Warden’s call. I just thought I’d be nice and ask.”

  Menzaro reached over and touched Brendan on the arm, leaning in to speak quietly to him. Brendan shrugged off the arm and stayed eye-locked with Craddock.

  Brendan knew Grimm would go for it, because Grimm figured Laruso would kill Brendan in a fight, the same as Craddock did. And Grimm would want nothing more. There was no way he’d be able to ferret out the real reason why Brendan wanted this.

  Craddock sneered. “What are you playing at, Mr. Healy?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN / THURSDAY, 3:07 PM

  The kitchen was filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder. Sounds were muffled in her ears. Sounds of choking, grunting, violence.

  Morgan, the guard who had come in the front door moments before, was kicking and flailing. Stemp had a forearm hooked around his neck, his muscles bulging, his face an inhuman mask. Morgan’s own face was bright red. He jammed an elbow back, catching Stemp in the ribs. Stemp howled and let go. A moment later Stemp ran out of the kitchen, disappearing into the rest of the house. Morgan took fumbling steps backwards, grasping at his throat and gagging.

  His windpipe was crushed.

  Jennifer’s hearing was returning: Stemp pounded through the house for a few seconds, then a door creaked open and slammed closed. Morgan sputtered and clawed at his neck, his mouth working, as if trying to speak. He needed air. He took another backwards step, his knees buckled, and collapsed in a heap. She got up from the kitchen table and rushed to where he’d fallen. She pulled out her phone and dialed 911.

  She crouched beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay . . . going to be okay.”

  “911, how may I help?” came the voice from the other end of the phone.

  She put her fingers to his neck, feeling for an artery. His pulse was weak, but there. He pulled shallow, reedy breaths, barely getting oxygen. Unless he was intubated, he was going to die.

  She gave 911 her location and situation while she looked around the kitchen for something — a pen, maybe, just the plastic tube around the ink — that she could stick into Morgan to get airflow. She’d never done anything like that in her life, and she realized it could kill him faster than if she left him alone.

  She stepped away from Morgan and stopped in the middle of the kitchen, shaking. Suddenly, Prellwitz stumbled into the room and past her, through the short hallway, dripping blood as he went. Prellwitz was the guard Stemp had shot when Prellwitz had entered the house from the back. He stepped around
Morgan and crashed his way out of the front door. She watched, too stunned to speak, as Prellwitz staggered to one of the SUVs in the driveway and got behind the wheel. It looked like he was trying to start the engine. He was in shock.

  “Ma’am?” The 911 operator was in her ear. “Ma’am? Just stay on the line with me. Officers are responding. There’s one very close by — be there in under a minute.”

  She heard a shot ring out. Then two more, in rapid succession. She instinctively ducked down, and ran bent over to the wall. She crouched against it, and waited. “Shots fired,” she heard herself say into the phone. “Shots fired.”

  “Ma’am? Where is he? Where is the gunman? Is he still in the house?”

  No, Stemp was not in the house. Stemp had alighted out back. Everything was quiet now. She steeled herself for a look, and then stood up just enough to see out the window beside her.

  Davis was lying in the yard, not far from the SUVs, rolling on the ground, back and forth, gripping his arm. She saw a bright rose of blood blooming through the fabric of his white shirt.

  “Ma’am. Is he still in the house?”

  And then she saw him. A dozen yards from Davis, Eddie Stemp was sprawled in the corn. At least she thought it was him. She could see only his feet, those well-worn work boots, and part of one hand, palm up towards the sky. Davis had managed to shoot him back.

  “He’s not in the house,” she said, breathless. “He’s outside. He has one of my bodyguard’s guns.” And he could still be dangerous.

  As the 911 operator advised her to stay put, she looked over at Morgan. She couldn’t help him. But maybe she could help Davis and Prellwitz outside. If she just sat here and waited for the emergency response to arrive, they could die.

  She left her phone connected to the call but dropped it into her pocket as she headed to the front door. She stepped around Morgan. His eyelids fluttered as she passed, and she felt her stomach twist. She pushed open the door, stepped off the porch and ran to the driveway, grabbing cover behind the vehicle in case Stemp was an active threat. She didn’t think Stemp would hurt her, but he was obviously desperate. She thought he’d been more scared than anything. She approached the SUV. Prellwitz was slumped unconscious over the steering wheel, a pack of cigarettes on the seat by him. He’d been trying to light a smoke. She opened the door. Blood everywhere. She put her fingers to his neck to check his carotid artery for a pulse. There was nothing.