SURVIVORS: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 2) (29 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX / Monday 7:03 PM

He realized he hadn’t had a cigarette in a few hours. Phantom fingernails were starting to rake across the top of his brain. Brendan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a squashed pack of smokes. There were three left. He shook one out. The detective sitting across from him looked at the bent cigarette as it fell to the table.

“Can’t smoke in here,” he said. “Whole building is non-smoking.”

Brendan looked longingly at the cigarette. Then he met the detective’s gaze. “Fine. I’m going to be less than pleasant.”

“I’m Detective Kendall.” The detective took a wad of tissues from his pocket and handed them to Brendan, ostensibly to clean up his nose. “You’re being charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass, burglary, and quite possibly second degree murder if your victim bottoms out. He’s hanging on by a thread right now.”

“Who’s charging?”

“The city. You’ve asked for an attorney. Why don’t you tell me what you were doing in Alexander Heilshorn’s office, first?”

Brendan looked beyond the detective at the one-way mirror set in the wall. He knew he was being watched. By the captain, maybe the lieutenant, and possibly other detectives. This was standard procedure. Get the perp talking before he cried into his lawyer’s sleeve. But it wasn’t a lawyer he was anticipating. He cut his eyes back to Kendall.

“They’re going to be here any minute.”

“Who, our friends at the CSS? Boy, they’re pleasant, huh? What’re they doing here? I thought the NSA and CSS were cryptologists. Decoding enemy secrets. What the hell do they want with you?”

“You can’t let them take her.”

“The girl? If they take her, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Brendan shook his head. “She won’t. Neither will I.”

Detective Kendall opened a small notebook and clicked a pen. There was a recording device on the table, and probably the video camera mounted in the corner was archiving this interview as well. Seeing Kendall use a notebook, something a little old-fashioned, made Brendan slightly more hopeful that he could reach the man.

Brendan started to tell his story. He began with his work for Oneida County on the Heilshorn case, but then he hesitated. He really needed to go back even further, but he was afraid there wouldn’t be time. He needed to hit on the salient points, and to convince Kendall and the rest of them that something was going on that was bigger and more complex than anything they had experienced, including any police corruption or political malfeasance they would have ever dealt with.

“My father, Gerard Healy, was a thoracic surgeon at Roosevelt Hospital until his death twelve years ago. I believe it was Alexander Heilshorn who killed him, and made it look like natural causes.”

The detective looked up from his notepad.

“That’s why you were there?”

“I was there for a number of reasons, not the least of which to ascertain the whereabouts of Jennifer Aiken, who works for the Department of Justice.”

Brendan saw something flicker in the detective’s eyes. He stood up, leaving his notebook and pen on the small table. “Be right back,” he said.

He returned a few moments later with an older man in a black suit.

“This is Harland Doherty, of the FBI. He’s going to listen to what you have to say. Is that alright?”

Brendan looked at Doherty, whose thin lips were framed in a handlebar moustache, making him look like some kind of biker. His greying black hair was swept back with pomade. He stood against the wall as Kendall sat back down.

“So, you were saying about Jennifer Aiken . . .”

“I was told Agent Aiken wanted to speak to me. The DOJ has put together an HTPU task force concerning human trafficking. She left her number with Sheriff Lawrence Taber, who passed it to me.”

“The Sheriff you worked under in Oneida County, on the Rebecca Heilshorn murder.”

“That’s correct. Like I was saying, Sheriff Taber called me up the morning after Seamus Argon was killed.”

“He died in a traffic collision while on duty this past Friday night.”

“Right,” Brendan said, “But it wasn’t an accident.”

“No?”

“No. It was a hit. He was murdered.”

“And why was he murdered?” Kendall was scribbling away.

“Because of things he knew.”

“Such as?”

Brendan sighed. He glanced at the cigarette. He would have taken a bat to the head if it meant he could light up and take a drag. One drag. He inhaled deeply, imagining the smoke filling his lungs.

“It’s complicated.”

“Usually is.”

He gave Kendall a look. “Years ago, Taber had an affair that produced a child – that girl that you’re holding. Only person who knew about her real father was Seamus Argon.”

“So, Taber had him killed for this?” Kendall’s eyebrows knitted together. He gave Brendan an expression that said,
I’m trying to be patient. Give me something I can work with
.

“No. Taber was trying to do the right thing. He left the area and went up to Oneida and was a cop there until he got elected Sheriff. He’s a good man. But I think his illegitimate daughter was used to leverage him. To get him to do some things he wouldn’t otherwise do.”

“Like what?”

“Like let Ambrose Delaney take a case that wasn’t really Sheriff’s Department territory.”

“The Rebecca Heilshorn murder.”

Brendan felt that glimmer of hope again. Kendall might be skeptical, but he was following along and making the right connections.

“Exactly.”

“And why would Delaney want the case?”

Brendan shrugged. “He was influenced. The same people who influenced Taber. Maybe not in the same manner; maybe they had something on Delaney, too, or maybe they just bought him.”

“Who do you think bought him?”

Brendan glanced at the FBI agent who was watching with half-lidded eyes, as if he and his handlebar mustache had been out at a biker bar late the night before. Brendan looked squarely across the table at Kendall.

“I think Heilshorn is the one writing the checks.”

“Why?” Then Kendall answered his own question. “Because Rebecca Heilshorn is his daughter. Okay, but what of that? Was he just trying to protect himself and his reputation? From what you said a few moments ago describing the case, Heilshorn was implicated.”

“Yes, and continued to manipulate things. He put all responsibility on a group he called Titan. Said that Titan were the enforcers behind XList.”

“XList . . .” Kendall glanced at his notepad. “You said that was the escort service Rebecca worked for.”

“More than that. They’re black market; escorts, pornography, human sex slaves, that sort of thing. Great place to do your Christmas shopping.”

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.”