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

by T. J. Brearton

  Brendan put his hand on the knob, but didn’t turn. “Hello?”

  From the other side of the door, slightly muffled, the employee said, “Sir, I’m very, very sorry to be disturbing you at this hour. There is an urgent message for you, and I explained that it is NOT our policy to disturb guests at such an hour for any reason . . .”

  Brendan thought that the employee’s apologetic sermon was going to wake the whole floor. He reached for the bolt handle which he slid back with a click, realizing that despite the lack of sleep, he was still on a high; a high from being free, from being out, from being with Sloane.

  It felt like being home.

  He opened the door, the hotel employee’s lips flapping, head tilted, hands folded together in front of his business-causal ensemble. “. . . There was some confusion with your room, and so there was a slight delay . . . Oh, hello, sir, I’m so sorry to wake you.”

  “It’s okay,” Brendan said. “What’s the message?”

  “Sir, I went and got my manager, as I was saying. The woman said it was a very important matter. You understand, our policy isn’t to just disturb a guest.”

  “I understand.”

  “The manager said to take down the message and to bring it to you. The woman said she was an agent with the US Department of Justice.” The messenger glowed with something like reverence, or maybe pride that he was involved in such an important communication.

  The water was still running in the bathroom, steam drifting out from the crack beneath the door. He saw this as he looked down, for some reason dreading what was going to come next. He’d no reason to suspect the worst, but, then, he had every reason to expect the worst. Because the worst was what kept happening.

  “What is the message?”

  “I wrote it down,” the employee repeated, and handed Brendan an envelope. His name was written on it in careful cursive, though misspelled. Mr. Brandon Heely.

  “Thank you,” he said, his head coming up. The employee stood there, and for some reason couldn’t meet Brendan’s eyes. Do I tip or something? But the kid seemed anxious to leave now that the task was done. He apologized again and wished Brendan goodnight and hurried off down the hallway.

  Brendan eased the door closed and took a step back into the room, looking at the envelope. He turned it over in his hands a couple of times. Surely it was Agent Aiken returning his own call, giving him information where they could meet and debrief. Urgent matter? That might have been her way to make sure that the hotel delivered the message tonight, and not wait until morning. But, why? Couldn’t it have waited a couple of hours?

  He realized he was dancing around the obvious. She had made it urgent because it was urgent. He slipped a thumb along the edge of the envelope flap and started opening it. At the same time, the shower shut off.

  He peeled back the envelope flap, reached in and pulled out the paper inside. He unfolded it and read the careful handwriting, same penmanship as the name on the front.

  Sloane works with Nonsystem.

  Now you understand the connection the feds made.

  —J.A.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO / THURSDAY, 10:33 PM

  Formed by glaciers, the Cape Cod peninsula resembled a flexing arm. From Cotuit to Chatham was a forty minute drive. Jennifer had time to further absorb Bostrom’s disclosure in the restaurant about Sloane Dewan’s involvement. She struggled to put the last pieces together now.

  Chatham was where Seamus Argon had bequeathed a small house on a half an acre of land to his sister Philomena. The dwelling was tucked into the trees at the end of a road called Black Duck Landing, a quarter mile from the beach. It was where Argon had been coming with Sloane Dewan for years. Not as lovers, or proxy father and daughter, or as commiserative recovering drunks, but as co-conspirators in Nonsystem.

  He had saved her as a child. The man who had a sister working for the IMF, feeding him information about corrupt government officials and unscrupulous businessmen and their twisted alliances. Sloane was the product of a heinous enterprise — XList. It was no wonder she had become who she had, hoping to use Nonsystem to have her revenge on the rich and powerful.

  They passed the Chatham Lighthouse and several low, red brick buildings; they drove by an endless dark blur of lush greenery. The night air was blanketed with fog as Jennifer and Bostrom at last pulled into the driveway. There were several other cars parked, and the lights were on inside. Jennifer could see people silhouetted in the windows.

  She found herself in introspective turmoil. How much further would she venture on alone? She might not be able to trust John Rascher — not that she ever fully had — or Harlan Doherty — but how long before she went straight to the US Attorney General? Or the President?

  Bostrom shut off the engine to his SUV and turned to her in the gloom. This feeling of absurdity, this surreal sense that she was caught in some dream, or movie, clung tenaciously. Hadn’t she been working on a task force designed to unearth some substantial component of the human-trafficking issue? Hadn’t Sloane been an unfortunate victim, an innocent bystander born into a sordid world? Now everything had changed. Sloane being with Brendan — Healy just “finding” her at the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Russell Gide just happening to decide to bring him there. Sloane had been using Brendan to get close to Heilshorn all along. To kill him. And then she’d let Brendan take the blame. Maybe she hadn’t planned it, but she hadn’t stopped it either. And what about the other side? Sloane’s involvement reinforced Brendan’s belief that Staryles was following him, that the CSS was waiting for something. Perhaps waiting until Sloane emerged once Brendan was out. Because, when Brendan decided to take the blame for Heilshorn’s death, Sloane had slipped through Staryles’ fingers.

  The other thing was, if Sloane had truly intended to kill Heilshorn, it finally and ultimately quashed the idea that Heilshorn was working with Nonsystem. It was what Bostrom had been waiting to tell her, preparing her for with all the other information.

  This turn of events, everything lining up, had the feeling of fate again, of something much larger than she’d even suspected with XList, or with Nonsystem. It all smacked of inevitability. As if her life, a series of conscious decisions, was really not so independent. That everything was related, that she had been meant to arrive here, now, this night.

  “You ready?”

  She nodded at Bostrom. “Ready.” She felt anything but.

  He got out of the truck. There had been something melancholy about Bostrom since their late dinner. Did he know she’d secretly sent word to Brendan while at the restaurant? She got out of the pickup gingerly. She looked at Bostrom across the hood of the SUV. She tilted her head towards the house. “Who’s in there?”

  “I know you’re out of your comfort zone here, okay? When I first got involved . . . you know, I had procedure drilled into my head. I love my country and it was hard to take all of that and listen to Argon, and to hear what he was saying. It was hard to see rebellion as patriotic.”

  Bostrom looked at the house, the figures in the windows. He appeared reflective for a moment, and then said, “Argon used to say, ‘Don’t waste your time looking at me. Look where I’m looking.’ Argon’s not some hero. He just grew up in unusual circumstances. Him and Philomena. It’s not like they even had a choice, when you think about it.”

  She thought of her father again, a judge, and how she had gone to law school without a second guess. Once more, it seemed as though her life had been prescribed.

  Bostrom’s expression worried her, as he looked thoughtfully off into the dark.

  “Mark?”

  “It was tragic when Argon was killed. And now his sister . . . you know, now they’re both gone.”

  “What?”

  “You weren’t the only one on the phone back there,” he said, his face still turned away. “I got a call while you were in the bathroom. Philomena is dead. Found in her room at her assisted-care living facility in Westchester.”

  “Oh my God.” Jennifer
was still digesting the idea of Sloane as a central part of Nonsystem. Now Mena, Sloane’s friend, former communication specialist for the IMF. Sloane wouldn’t be happy — Jennifer was quite sure her affection for the older woman was genuine, even if the rest of the story painted them as co-conspirators. Bostrom apparently cared, too, which explained his recent mood shifts.

  He snorted and spat into the dark. “Fuck.”

  “How did this happen? Does Sloane know?”

  Staryles, she thought, without hesitation — poisoned her.

  Bostrom looked at her. “Listen. Just accept it. Titan and CSS? Might as well be one in the same. Titan is not just entwined with the government, Ms. Aiken. Titan is the government.”

  He paused, and swiped a hand across his face. Had he gotten emotional just now, turned away in the dark? “Now they’re cleaning house,” he said. “Using their agents who can go anywhere, anytime, get away with anything.”

  And on the heels of that, an even more chilling thought. An immediate threat. She leaned close to him. “Mark, if Philomena is dead, and there is an investigation, this place is blown.” She pointed at the small beach house. “You hear what I’m saying? I can’t hold my people back. They’ll be here.”

  “I know.” He strode towards the house. “That’s why we have to work fast,” he said over his shoulder.

  * * *

  They looked like kids to her. As Bostrom took Jennifer through the house, she shook hands with a dozen people, tried to take in their names, but couldn’t help but guess their ages. The average age was probably twenty-three. Tech start-up age. They were dressed casually, hooded sweatshirts, button-down short-sleeve shirts; she saw sandals and Crocs and sneakers — top brands. Hipster hair and beards for the guys, cropped-short Asian bangs for the girls, Paige jeans that looked painted on. It was what she’d expected, but not what she’d believed.

  She counted seven females, five males. Every single one of them was attached to some sort of device — phone, tablet, laptop. There was a caffeine-fueled tension in the air, fear perhaps, and excited chatter.

  Bostrom showed her around the place. The house was small and the nickel tour took one minute. The front room was the living room with two opposite facing floral-patterned loveseats, a leather recliner and end tables. Behind the living room a small kitchen with a back door led to a porch which then opened on a postage-stamp sized lawn, encroached with thick sumac. A bathroom off the kitchen, a shower stall, toilet, tiny sink. A wicker basket was stuffed with back-issues of National Geographic. On the other side of the kitchen a bedroom had been converted into an office, the bed upended and shoved aside, shelves lined with binders and manuals. A rickety spiral staircase led to a loft and more workspace, overflowing with atlases, encyclopedias; products of a bygone era.

  In the living room, a young man approached Bostrom and Jennifer. He was slim, wearing charcoal gray slacks and a matching vest, a knit watch hat on his head. “It’s happening,” he said.

  His eyes darted back and forth between them. He offered Jennifer his hand. “I’m Gentian.”

  Jennifer accepted the handshake. Firm, but brief. Gentian was one of the names on the FBI’s list of aliases of suspected Nonsystem members. Here he was, standing right in front of her.

  There was a tablet in his free hand. He moved beside her and presented the device so she could see the screen. On it was a map of Cape Cod, centered on Camp Edwards. Jennifer drew a breath and held it. Her dinner sat uncomfortably in her acid stomach. She realized it didn’t matter what anyone said, or what she might now know. Her training and conditioning were kicking in; this was a suspected domestic terrorist showing her maps of a military installation. Schematics of Camp Edwards. She was scared, and poised.

  “This is also a training center for Homeland Security,” Gentian said, as if picking up on her thoughts. He made some quick movements with his fingers and new images came up. Jennifer was looking at what she could only describe as some sort of supercomputer.

  “And this is JANUS.”

  “JANUS?” Jennifer probed her memory. She’d heard of JANUS; seen something in one of countless memos that crossed her desk back in Washington.

  Gentian elaborated, “State-of-the-art hardware, and software suite. You’re looking at flexible-room configuration for a complete Battle Simulation Center.”

  More flicks of his finger, more images. Jennifer saw a soldier in virtual headgear and gloves standing in front of a war-torn urban scene on a giant, curved screen.

  “Just the tip of the iceberg,” Gentian said. “There’s a whole outdoor arena constructed with entry control points and guard towers, two-storied structures built from connex containers, a layout that includes a full 360 degree world of residential, school, marketplace, and place-of-worship scenarios.”

  Jennifer nodded, her heart rate increasing, yet willing herself to remain detached. “I’m aware, yes. It’s called Theater Immersion Training, and it’s to simulate scenarios in military environments found during missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, you name it. Where did you get these pictures?”

  “Grabbed them out of the ether, ma’am.”

  Jennifer thought he was dissembling. Gentian pointed at the screen. “Know who the contractor was for this whole Battle Simulation Center here, this whole cutting-edge set up?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Titan Construction,” he said. He fiddled with the images, bringing back the supercomputer room. “Okay, see this here, this is another total immersion bay. Soldiers can learn how to clear rooms and buildings in built-up areas. They can, either in real-space or in virtual, conduct house-to-house searches in spurious, hostile urban areas. It’s to teach them to distinguish between the characteristics of an innocent civilian and an embedded insurgent aiming to do harm.”

  Then he looked at her with large, dark eyes. An attractive young man, some remote part of her noticed. Effeminate, perhaps. It was so hard to tell these days. Was she standing in a room full of innocent civilians flexing their constitutional rights, or dangerous insurgents about to perpetrate an act of terrorism?

  His eyes conveyed an understanding, as if he knew the conflict roiling within her. She returned her attention to the screen. “Why are we looking at this?”

  “Because JANUS wasn’t just built to train soldiers how to suppress and control any civilian environment in the world. This is a state-of-the-art system where a new internet will run.”

  “Altnet,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” he said. “Two days ago one of the largest data centers on the East Coast was assessed by CSS, under the guise of ‘Five Star Securities.’ It was probed for weak points. Tonight, a rescue drill is underway. There are CSS operatives on board, with the objective to sever the MAC cable.” He looked at her again. “The internet cable that feeds the entire Northeast,” he reminded her.

  She fixed him with a hard stare and pointed at the screen, at Camp Edwards.

  “Okay, so, what do you do? You and your friends are going to go into the belly of the beast there and try to stop the birth of Altnet? This is one of the biggest military bases in the northeast. They might not let you in.”

  Gentian lowered the tablet. Jennifer realized that the busybody activity in the room had stopped. The rest of the group were listening in.

  The two of them played a game of eye-contact chicken for a moment, neither willing to back down. Finally, hoping for compromise, Jennifer said, “Let me go back to my people. Let me talk to my superiors. I mean, what am I supposed to think? These are hefty allegations. What’s your proof?”

  Someone spoke, from behind Jennifer. It gave her a jolt. She turned to see one of the youngest in the group, a kid with a straggly goatee and black, square-framed glasses.

  “We have the information that Philomena Argon pulled from The Foundation. Everything she has on Heilshorn and the Titan private equity firm.” He was holding up his own tablet, an iPad, slim as a comic book. “It’s right here,” he said. “It’s what they�
�ve been looking for. And it shows how the very people you want to come help you are on the same side of the deal.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE / FRIDAY 4:13 AM

  She studied the data late into the night, in the small sweaty loft workspace. It was a cram session like school finals, only with ten times the information, a thousand times the consequences. There was everything from Titan banks moving money from embargoed governments, phony charities, specious fundraisers, to the drafting of ex-military personnel.

  While working for the IMF — “the Fund” — Philomena Argon had tracked Titan’s money all around the world. Ultimately the data showed a stream of revenue coming from the most unsavory of places, where it looped through several rat-holes, was washed clean by shell companies, avoided the prying eyes of the IRS in offshore tax shelters, and then found its way home. What Jennifer had supposed about Titan was now concrete. And terrifying.

  This was it. This was the Holy Grail for every conspiracy theorist in the country. But it wasn’t conjecture. This was data, the financial trails exposed by Philomena, with research her brother Seamus had done on his own. Pages of names, from deadbeat cops to crooked US Attorneys, from corrupt mayors to leveraged governors. Every man or woman on the take. Every back-door deal. Every piece of midnight legislation. Every scandal. Every covert operation behind assassinations, regime changes and banana republics.

  There was no actual conspiracy, because there was no need to conspire. These were actions with two basic common denominators — an unquenchable greed, and a lust for power. Maybe, really, what even boiled down to one common denominator: addiction. People making their choices, ruled by bad habits.

  But the further she read on into the night, going back over the Titan data, the more one pattern, at least, emerged from the chaos. Philomena Argon had uncovered the blueprints for a strategy that indicated some measure of premeditation. A document that outlined several strategies to keep money in the hands of powerful central governments. And contingencies against potential libertarian uprisings. When she got to the end of it, Jennifer realized that she had just read the mission statement for Lebensluge.