DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3) (16 page)

After the storm, the late afternoon was sun-splashed, cooler than before, the wind calm, as Staryles rode the Oak Bluffs Ferry over to Nantucket Island. Two Black Hawk helicopters appeared in the sky above a distant ridge of receding clouds. Staryles looked over the top of his newspaper and watched. Ferry passengers oohed and aahed as the choppers hammered the air. They were Air National Guard helicopters, equipped like ambulances. They could each carry as many as six patients and were able to fly speeds up to two hundred and fifteen miles per hour.

A young boy, held aloft by his father, pointed over the water. Cutting across the surface in the distance were two Coast Guard skiffs. Staryles knew they carried divers.

The whole rescue drill operation consisted of multiple parties: Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee; the towns of Sandwich, Mashpee and Dennis; Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, Coast Guard, National Guard and private organizations such as Cape Air and MedFlight emergency air services. It would last into dark, simulating conditions that provided for a challenging environment for the rescuers to work in.

“Federal, state, and local partnerships are the key to preparedness,” Geoff Tambour had told the press earlier that morning.
Indeed
, thought Staryles, watching the skiffs cruise smoothly over the Nantucket Sound.
The key to preparedness.

There were three soldiers on the skiffs, divers who had a different agenda from the rest. No doubt those three were donning their gear at that moment, readying their Halligans — a mean-looking tool that firefighters also used, with a sharp ax-end and a crowbar end — for the trip underwater. They would plan to be there all night, ostensibly part of the salvage crew.

But not really.

The drill was a simulation of an airplane crash with one person seriously injured and a dozen more wounded. Airlifting the wounded was part of it, as was underwater searching for the two people who were launched out of the plane during the faux crash, and extricating the materials put in place ahead of time which would serve as the wreckage of the non-existent crash. The drill had been designed months ago, and called Operation Hopeful Lift. The Black Hawks would act as MedFlight and airlift the injured safely to Joint Base Cape Cod. From there they’d be taken to Falmouth Hospital by ambulances. Nantucket had been the chosen site of the drill because of its remote location. It was difficult to get to the island quickly, and presented a formidable challenge.

As the ferry neared the central part of the island, on the north shore, the Coast Guard skiffs began slipping out of sight behind the land. The site of the faux crash was on the south side, chosen because it presented just that much more of a challenge.

It also happened to be where a critical branch of the Mid-Atlantic Cable came into the United States, carrying the information from countries all over the world into the US. The cable island-skipped from the south side of Nantucket over to Tuckmuck, across the sound to Chappaquiddick, then banked north and shot beneath the waters of Cotuit Bay before making landfall in Falmouth. But, after today, the information it carried would be lost, thanks to those three rogue divers.

He turned his attention to the Black Hawks as they circled Nantucket, watching them through his sunglasses, listening to the rapid chop of the tail rotors. The newspaper still in his hands, the article on the massive drill there on the front page: “This can be replicated anywhere,” Deputy Fire Chief Brett Mason was quoted. “Heaven forbid, this was to ever to happen on the Islands. And if Route 6 ever got flooded, turning Provincetown into an island, we would be ready.”

There was no mention of the cable. People rarely thought about such things. Most didn’t know how the internet worked, how they were able to email an expat relative, play an online game with someone on another continent, or send money across the ocean.

Publicly-held companies that powered huge sections of the US stock market and world economies depended on international trade. The modern economy was global, and the cables linking the World Wide Web were its arteries, its nerves. The internet, in its physical form, was akin to the squid wrapped around the ship in
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Cut off one of its tentacles and you could isolate America from the world and cripple the international economy.

The divers would work all night.

Staryles folded up the paper and wedged it under his arm. He and the other fifty or so passengers aboard the Oak Bluffs Ferry watched as the choppers descended. The divers would be throwing themselves over the bow and into the sea, holding onto their breathing regulators with one hand, clutching their Halligans in another, tools to extricate the imaginary people from imaginary wreckage.

The axe blades glinting in the bright sunlight as they splashed into the cool blue waters.

The first rosy fingers of dusk painted the Eastern sky as the sun set behind them. Billowing clouds sat on the horizon, flat-bottomed, tinged salmon by the light. They were less than an hour from Cape Cod.

Jennifer’s father had been a district court judge in Rockland County. He’d bought a small home in Cotuit years ago. She remembered her father telling her the story of how the town was settled. In fact, he’d told her more than once - he’d been getting to the age when men told the same story again and again and didn’t know it.
Cotuit was purchased by Miles Standish in the mid-1600s for a large brass kettle and a broad hoe.
It had a ring to it, like a nursery rhyme.

“Why Cape Cod?”

“That’s where Argon’s place is,” Bostrom said. “For one thing.”

The 600 square miles of island cape jutting out from Massachusetts didn’t seem the likeliest place a beat cop would vacation. But, maybe that was the point. “Who knows about it?”

“Nobody. His lawyer. Maybe Brendan Healy, who saw Argon’s will, I think.”

“No one looking to shut you down knows? Why risk it?”

“Argon’s dead,” Bostrom said. “He left the house to his sister in the will. Where is a seventy-something stroke victim going to go? As long as she’s alive, the place just sits there. We watched it for months, swept it; it’s clean.”

He made an abrupt lane change. She checked his speed and saw the needling climbing to ninety.

“We’re going to get pulled over . . .”

“How much do you know about the military installation there?”

“What my father told me, what I’ve learned on the job. Camp Cotuit trained units that eventually stormed the Pacific beaches in World War II, including New Guinea. But Cotuit was really a satellite camp for Edwards.”

“Tell me about Edwards.”

“Edwards is the largest part of Joint Base Cape Cod. Home to the National Guard and the Air National Guard; 3
rd
Battalion and 126
th
Aviation unit. It was deactivated after the Korean War. They faced a complete shut-down in the 90s but stayed open; there were strong objections from the military community to its closure. Now it’s home to two training centers.”

“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.