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

by T. J. Brearton

  “And what about them?” It sounded like he already knew.

  She took a breath, and looked in the side-view mirror. As they whipped past the other vehicles the low sun bounced bright off the chrome and steel, blinding her with shattering light. Time for another dose of the meds. She swallowed two pills.

  “The training centers simulate war-torn villages,” she said. “Some of the most extensive anti-terrorism exercises in the world happen there. Not just for the National Guard, but for special ops. Edwards’ resources are used to practice rescue drills in the areas. By the way, slow down.”

  Bostrom glanced at her and raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t just seem like a vacation spot anymore, does it?” He took his foot off the gas.

  “I spent summers on Cape Cod when I was young.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Argon told me.”

  “I never met Seamus Argon.”

  “Lawrence Taber gave Brendan your name. He and Argon knew who you were.”

  “Okay. What else do you know?”

  He gave her another quick, tight look. “I know that the rescue drill underway right now off the coast is not just a rescue drill.”

  “What is it?”

  “A sabo mission.”

  “Sabotage.”

  “That’s right. Of the MAC.”

  “The cable for the internet? And you know this because—?”

  “Because of everything I’m telling you. Because of everything Philomena learned over a decade of spying on The Foundation, learning from Gerard Healy. Because of every communication our hackers have seen. Because of eyewitnesses seeing Staryles enter the Meet-Me-Room in Manhattan. Because the rescue drill is going on right now in the exact spot where the MAC makes landfall. And it’s no coincidence.”

  She took a moment to absorb the information. She decided the more she understood the past, the more she’d know why Argon had bought a house near Camp Edwards, and why the hell Bostrom was insinuating Edwards had something to do with sabotaging one of the world’s most crucial internet arteries.

  She went through the steps: Alexander Heilshorn learns about Gerard Healy’s patient-relationship with Philomena Argon. He finds out who she is — the sister of the ‘Baby Sloane’ cop. But Heilshorn doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing on her own time at the IMF. He’s distracted by other troubles. Namely, he’s hired Reginald Forrester to murder his daughter.

  Then, there’s a wrinkle. Olivia Jane gets personal and throws things off course. She’s the one to kill Rebecca. So Heilshorn comes up to Oneida County to keep a closer eye on the investigation and play the concerned father. Really though, he’s dealing with Olivia Jane.

  Of all the ironies, Jennifer thought, it’s Brendan Healy who saves Heilshorn’s life in that showdown at the unfinished college campus building. The new data center. Healy doesn’t know what’s really going on with Heilshorn, doesn’t know he’s just saved the man who took his father’s life.

  So, where did Argon come in? How did it relate to the destruction of a massive internet junction?

  She spoke. “Okay. Bear with me a minute. Gerard Healy is assassinated for being too outspoken, threatening to divulge Titan secrets gleaned from The Foundation. But Philomena has already squirreled away a trove of devastating information. Only they don’t know this yet? Their concern is Gerard’s son, Brendan. So, they go after him.”

  “A clean sweep,” said Bostrom. “Brendan’s a heavy drinker and it will look like it’s his fault as much as the truck driver who you paid half a million to swerve, hit the wife and daughter, claim to the cops he’d been awake for three straight days, and get five years for involuntary manslaughter, out for parole in two and a half. But, of course, Brendan’s not in the car.”

  Jennifer shuddered. At the same time, she felt a light snap on in the back of her mind. A light that invited her to take another look at the time period Brendan Healy had disappeared. His father dies, and ten months later his wife and daughter are taken from him. But it is four years after that when Argon pulls him out of the garage, begins to nurse him back to health, and steers him into the police academy. All that time he still has his house and it’s paid for and the taxes are paid up for half a decade and where is he? What is he doing? “Maybe enough time had passed that they figured he was dead,” she considered aloud.

  Then one day Brendan returns. He moves back into the house. Not long after, he’s in the garage with the engine of his car running.

  Seamus Argon saves the day and pulls Brendan out and takes him under his wing: gets him sober, into the academy, and on the Mount Pleasant police force, where he stays before transferring to Oneida County, promoted to detective. He’s barely there two months when Rebecca Heilshorn is murdered.

  “I think Argon wanted Brendan working with Taber,” she said, feeling the exhilaration as it came to her. “Argon did make the connection to Alexander Heilshorn before Rebecca was murdered.” She looked at Bostrom, held up her pills and shook the bottle for effect. “Back when an XList escort was seen with Philip Largo, a state assemblyman who had hit the campaign trail for governor of New York State and who was in Alexander’s way.”

  She went on:

  “Let’s say Argon finds that Largo’s politics are, prima facie, about civil liberties and restrictions and regulations on big business. But, he figures, there’s got to be more. More than how he might just threaten Heilshorn’s revenue streams. I’ve got to tell you, Bostrom, I’ve spent my life learning to replace my vague feelings of dread with specific concerns. Do you know what I mean?”

  It was nice to see Bostrom grin. “I do.”

  “Because I met with Largo. And he said he moved to block the construction of a building at the UAlbany campus. It was for the college on the surface, but it was a data center.”

  Bostrom’s smile hardened into the set of his jaw, becoming a grimace.

  Jennifer stared at him. “Why is Alexander Heilshorn building a data center? Is he supporting Nonsystem? Or is there something else? I need to know, because I can’t sit here a moment longer relying only on conjecture. I’m on the run, for chrissakes, from my own people.”

  But it was there, just eluding her — right there. Heilshorn, Nonsystem, the MAC offshore of Cape Cod . . .

  Bostrom nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. His jaw muscle twitched.

  “Come on, Bostrom. What am I missing?”

  Bostrom became grave. Then he spoke.

  “There is a piece of software that can violate and evade all regulations. It can render government obsolete. And right now, as I’m sure you know, our banking institutions and our government institutions are inseparable.”

  “I won’t argue.”

  “Then you know about Project Bullrun?”

  “I’ve heard about it. It’s NSA. A program built by defense contractors to defeat all encryption programs. To eliminate the public’s ability to cloak their actions online.”

  “Yeah. Well, it failed.”

  She hadn’t known about Bullrun’s failure. That was a major program. If it had failed, then the people in the government who wanted to monitor all financial dealings — with bitcoin that path of transactions was called the blockchain — might have become desperate.

  Bostrom continued, “Software, like Dark Wallet, that scatters the data, chops it up and combines it with others, also provides a stealth address which can receive the coins. All untraceable. This can include things like mortgage-backed securities. No more financial crisis and mortgage fraud and credit debt because it all goes away when the banks lose power. When the government loses control.”

  She struggled to raise a reasonable objection. She was no longer thinking of Nonsystem as only out to protect nasty black market transactions.

  There were billion dollar bitcoin industries out there; it was becoming a huge chunk of the economy. Already unruly and causing a stir — a panic, really — in law enforcement. Now with Dark Wallet, or something like it, all those
trails followed by the FBI and the DOJ would just disappear. Billions of dollars unaccounted for. Untaxed. Not factored into the GDP. Some would say, not unlike the mega corporations already banking offshore to get the lowest tax rate, to hide their own billions.

  However, unlike the corporations and banks, who had their own lobbying industry, this was an underground world of money, with libertarian groups like Nonsystem acting as its guardians. They had no friends in Washington to keep the top tax rate low, or to write the tax law. This was huge sums of money, not hidden in offshore accounts, but underground. The government had been chasing it for years, learning on their feet. And the whole thing was about to go dark.

  It was the kind of sea change that could topple an already unsteady government. And the transition would unleash complete havoc. She knew many men and women who worked in government who would consider this the doomsday scenario — for the country to lose its centralized financial power. They would do anything to prevent this outcome.

  She felt something grip her, cold hands around her skin, everything tightening. Oh God. She felt choked. As though the poison was in her again, shutting her down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE / THURSDAY, 8:14 PM

  Brendan bought new clothes. A simple suit from Brooks Brothers; a Regent fit, black, with a white shirt. He lingered over the ties. He decided he hated ties, and didn’t get one. He also bought a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Crossing back through Midtown towards Grand Central Station, he stopped at a Duane Reade and bought hair dye and clippers. He boggled at the cosmetics section, confused by the sheer number of products, until he found some simple foundation make-up that he thought would work.

  He put all his purchases in a new duffle bag, got on a train, and schlepped himself north to the Bronx. He kept one eye over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.

  He wasn’t.

  It took twenty minutes walking around in the Bronx to find the address. He moved south along Courtlandt Ave in Morrisania, a section with low-rise brick buildings, sidewalk shops, fruit and vegetable stands. Everything was cast in the heavenly glow of a low sun. As he passed a tattoo parlor, Roma Pizza, and Mr. Income Tax the sun sank until it had slipped behind the buildings.

  The traffic was thinner at the end of the avenue and few people were out on the streets. A stooped woman pushed a shopping cart full of rattling cans over the uneven sidewalk. Signs declared King Steaks, E-Z Stop Deli, Bronx Laundromat, some of the windows were broken.

  At 146th Street a yellow sign read No Outlet. Brendan headed in and walked until he found the number 945 spray-painted on a single-story building, with a garage door open. Rap music thumped out into the evening.

  Brendan walked in. The stained concrete reeked of gas and oil. A dark Chrysler minivan was up on a set of blocks. Tools were on the pegboards. A man emerged from the back, wiping his hands on a dirty rag. He was olive-skinned, built like Tony Laruso, without an ounce of flab. He looked Brendan up and down, his eyes crawling over Brendan’s new suit, and he moved closer. The menace emanated from him as sharp as the smell of gas in the air.

  “The fuck’re you?”

  The man had cold eyes, and Brendan stared right back, never breaking eye contact. If Laruso had been true to his word, things might be alright. If he’d been lying, Brendan probably wouldn’t make it out of here alive. He took a step forward. “Tony sent me.”

  The man seemed to hesitate. According to Laruso, this guy was meant to be Bosco. Laruso was supposed to have gotten a message to Bosco by now. If he hadn’t, there was a safe word.

  A safe word, Brendan thought. Sure. With no gun on him, against a man who looked like he’d been born under the hood of a Mustang, there was nothing safe about this.

  Bosco’s menacing stare held for a moment, but then his lips split into a wide grin. “Fuckin’ Laruso,” he said. “How is that fat chooch? Come on in back; let’s get you what you need.”

  * * *

  An hour later Brendan returned to the Sheraton in Midtown. He stopped at the front desk and handed the clerk a small package. The clerk was someone new now; beneath her plastic smile, the young woman looked like she’d withstood hundreds of guest complaints already that day. The corners of her mouth turned up in practiced glee and she said she would be happy to mail the package out for him. She also informed him his room had indeed been switched to one with no mini-bar.

  He thanked her and she handed him his newly minted room-key card. He noticed her eyes lag over his face for a moment. She caught herself and then looked away.

  I’ll start telling people I’m a cage fighter, Brendan thought.

  He took the card from her outstretched hand and put it in his back pocket. He bid her good night and headed towards the elevators.

  He spent the next hour sitting on a different floor from his new room, watching from the nook where an ice machine softly rattled and hummed. He kept his eyes on the door to the room he’d first been given. He drank a Pepsi from the vending machine next to the ice dispenser. By the time he’d finished it, no one had come by.

  A couple in their fifties, looking like they’d had a good evening, walked to the room and keyed the lock, talking and laughing with one another. The door swung shut.

  He waited. He’d gotten good at waiting.

  At last the elevator doors opened and Sloane stepped off. He’d been alone for a decade, languishing in jail for seven months, standing in this same spot for a final few hours, and now there she was.

  The way she was standing there, he was reminded of the first time he’d met her — in Argon’s house in Hawthorne, when she’d had Brendan’s gun. The one the New York Police Department had now.

  “Hey,” he said from down the hallway.

  She turned around. She was even prettier than he remembered. She wore a Rugby shirt, jeans, and running shoes. Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail. He took her all in: the slight tilt to her smile, her small ears and nose, large bright eyes taking him in. Those eyes looked sad.

  “Jesus, Brendan,” she said. “What did they do to you?”

  He felt a childish blush of self-consciousness and almost put up a hand to obscure his face. He leaned against the wall, suddenly drained, as if all the strength he’d been building for the past months was just to get him here, and now that Sloane was standing there, he could collapse. Rest.

  She walked down the hallway to him. Standing in front of him, she brought her hands to his face, and touched his skin. He jerked his head back — a reflex action. He forced himself back towards her touch. Her hands feathered over his skin, her sterling-silver rings shining in the overhead light of the hallway.

  “Come on up to my room,” he said.

  She didn’t ask for an explanation as they stepped into the elevator and took it to the next floor. They watched their thin reflections dance on the brass surfaces.

  He opened the door of his room and stood aside so she could go in. He got the impression that something was different about her. She still looked like the Sloane he remembered, the one he’d imagined day in and day out for seven months, but something had changed. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was just the time that had passed — people couldn’t expect things to remain the same with half a year gone. They’d known one another so briefly, even though they had been through such harrowing events together, time was time. Or, maybe it wasn’t even her who was different. Maybe it was him.

  He closed the door. Sloane ventured over to the windows and took in the view of the city at night.

  “So what’s with the smooth moves?” she asked. He remembered her voice so distinctly, the subtle impairment in her speech. Sloane’s motor cortices sent slightly misguided signals to her pharynx, maybe her tongue. He had never asked her the extent of her injuries from being born the way she had. She was asking why he had given her the wrong room number — his old room — instead of this one.

  “Two people were following me earlier tonight. All around the city. I lost them. Or, they’r
e just hanging back at this point. They could be on you, too.”

  She turned around to face him, smiling. “Nobody’s following me.”

  “They let me rot in there for seven months. They let me fight my way out.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yeah. I did. But they’re allowing it to happen. Paying out the rope. Maybe seeing if I hang myself with it.” He looked down, studying his hands, the one with the absent finger, the wedding ring long gone. “I don’t know . . .”

  Sloane crossed the hotel room. “Brendan,” she said, stopping in front of him. She was six inches shorter than he was, so with his head lowered she looked right up into his eyes again. “You’re a skeptic who wants to believe.”

  “Oh, is that what I am?” He felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  “Mmhmm. You’re an idealist-pessimist.”

  “I see.”

  She moved toward him. They hugged, and he rested his chin on the top of her head. “Is this okay?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you, too.” She pressed her face to him, her words muffled. “They hurt you.”

  “They tried.”

  He could smell her — the shampoo in her hair, the detergent of her clothes, but something else, too, something anomalous. Like sea air.

  “I can’t believe what you did for me,” she said.

  “I did what I thought was right. I brought you into all of it.”

  She was silent. He tried some levity. “So, what have you been up to for the past seven months? Seeing anyone?”

  It was a joke, but Sloane pulled away, and she turned her face up to him. He was grinning, but she remained serious. “How about we don’t talk about it right now. Can we just not talk about any of it? For now?”