DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3) (20 page)

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.

It was a German word which meant to live a lie.

She went downstairs. Nonsystem’s members sat quietly, pretending not to wait, not to look at her, as she stumbled past them into the night air.

The air was muggy but cooler, fragrant with the trailing arbutus flowers. She wondered if Argon had planted the pink flowering plant himself. She tried to clear her mind.

She took a deep breath, drawing in the fragrance of the flowers and the salt air. In the faint dawn light, the white Hyacinth-like blooms of the Canadian Mayflower stood out.

Lebensluge: Titan using black markets to fund an ultra-secret project for the US Military.

The ultra-secret project a new fully-regulated internet; a complete corporatization of the global money supply, now including the digital currencies.

She suddenly looked around her. The house was still lit, late — or early — as the hour was. She turned and ventured further away, meandering in between the cars in the driveway. Bostrom’s pickup was there, towards the back.

What was she going to do? She felt the urge to run; she wasn’t cut out for this. She couldn’t go any further. She’d wanted to shut down a human-trafficking organization, and somehow she’d wound up here, on the precipice of a civil war. But where would she go? Her own people — Rascher, Doherty — had they known about Sloane? Was what why they had let her bring in Healy? They must have known. Doherty and the FBI, at least. They’d been on damage control, smearing Brendan Healy’s reputation at the same time they’d been using him to rein in one of Nonsystem’s members.

A light went out inside the house, enveloping the yard in greater darkness. She froze.

After a moment, she walked back towards the house. Shimmying back through the cars, the sound of crickets loud.
Reet reet reet reet.
She stopped at the head of the overgrown brick walkway, holding a quick breath. She made out a figure on the stairs.

Gentian came down the front steps and onto the walk.

“Hey,” he said.

He stopped and lit a cigarette. “Internet’s down and power just went out,” he said. “And it’s going to get a lot worse.” He moved past her, and Jennifer reached out and lightly gripped his shoulder.

“Why do you want me here? You know who I am.” She suddenly couldn’t stop herself. It felt like a confession. Maybe she shouldn’t have come back. Maybe what happened with Staryles had done permanent damage after all, not so much to her organs or her blood but to her soul. “What you’re doing is illegal. You’ve hacked the military and are spying on Edwards. Don’t give me this ‘pulled it out of the ether’ bullshit. You’re tapped into their secure system. Meanwhile, your groupies in there are working on new encryption software — I know code when I see it; you’re the reason why Project Bullrun failed. And you’re in possession of highly classified documents . . . these things are a threat to national security.”

Gentian’s eyebrows knitted together in a deep scowl. “A threat? No. This is a fight. This is a fight to remain human against massive, anonymous forces of discipline and control. We’re under siege. Liberty itself is under siege. That’s the reality which—”

“You have some compelling, damning evidence. But, Gentian, you have to understand, I can’t act in the same manner. There’s a way to do this. We can’t just take this and say, ‘alright, let’s hit back.’ I’m an agent of the US Government, for God’s sake.”

Gentian’s scowl faded and he blinked, “You think I’m naïve.” It had the slight intonation of a question.

“No. I think you’re idealistic. But a resistance to the status quo . . . if it devolves into either totalitarianism or chaos, then you’ve lost something. You’ve lost that humanity you say is under siege.”

Gentian took a half-step closer. “I think there are differing visions of what chaos is. Seems to me the conservatives and progressives are both lined up against a strong state authoritarianism. There’s consensus here. Will it be messy to resist? Sure. Always is. Look, Ms. Aiken, Jennifer, you’ve gone over the data. You’re just now trying to convince yourself. You want to arrest me, go ahead. You can take me.” He flicked his ash and pointed the cigarette at the house. “You can take everyone in there. But you can’t stop this.”

“Sure I can. You lead this group.”

He was shaking his head, and in the soft light she could detect he looked compassionate.

“That’s what you don’t understand. You’re used to this vertical authority.” He sliced his hand through the air like an axe. “But ours is horizontal,” and he spread his hands out, as if smoothing a picnic blanket. Then he brought the cigarette to his lips, dragged, and exhaled. “This is what the revolution is — it's a paradigm shift. Lateral means transparency, vertical means classification and secrecy. Lateral means equitable, vertical means concentrated power. We’re not concentrated; there are those of us here, in this house, but we’re everywhere else, too.”

“You have to warn Sloane,” she said suddenly.

“I will,” he said. “But, she can take care of herself; we all signed on knowing what we were up against.” He turned away and looked towards the dark house. “We’re ready.”

Brendan hated lying to Sloane. He stuck as close to the truth as possible. He explained to her how he’d turned state’s evidence in order to get out of Rikers. And about Tony Laruso, the fight, the deal with Grimm, Louis Tremont helping him to figure out the drug operation.

“My lawyer negotiated my release in return for my sworn statement.”

“Oh my God,” said Sloane, sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed with a towel wrapped around her. “I had no idea. I thought the Justice Department got you out.”

“Why would you think that?”

She turned her head away for a moment. “Because of how you helped that one agent, Jennifer Aiken.”

That’s not what you were going to say,
Brendan thought.
You thought I hatched a deal for the feds to penetrate Nonsystem. Because of you.

What he said was, “So the DA is extremely ornery and set my first appointment for early this morning.”

The lie created an almost physical pain in his joints, in his wounds. There was no appointment with the DA; he’d already given his testimony.

He used to lie to Angie like this. Little white lies, untruths he told himself were for her own protection, for the good of the marriage, their daughter, the future. He wasn’t supposed to lie anymore — he didn’t want to; it felt like a foreign invader in his body, like a sickness.

Sloane was sharp, though; when she turned back he could read in her expression that she didn’t quite take the whole fib hook, line, and sinker. Not that Angie had been gullible. But when you were married to someone, something you took for granted after you said the vows was that any pretense was over, that lying was not permitted. You were a couple, a unit, and honesty was implied, expected, if perhaps taken for granted. When things were new, both parties tended to maintain a healthy skepticism.

She turned her head away for a moment. “Look, it’s your personal business. You don’t owe me any explanation. I just . . .”

“I know,” he said, sitting down beside her. He put a hand on her neck. “There’s a lot going on.”

She turned her face to him without any hesitation and they kissed. Only when he opened his eyes, he saw hers were open too, and she was watching him.

They drew apart. “I’ve got to shower now, too,” he said.

She scowled. “No. Come back to bed.” She lay down across the mess of hotel sheets and blankets. She untucked the towel and let it slide off her body.

“Alright,” he said. “Give me just a second.”

He went into the bathroom and closed the door, sat down on the closed toilet and took the paper out of his back pocket. He turned on the sink faucet. He ripped the message into strips and flushed them down the toilet, watching them swirl down the drain.
Sloane works with Nonsystem. Now you understand the connection.

Yeah, he understood. He understood why Staryles had stayed away from Rikers. He knew the reason why they had let him out, why they were here now, in the city, waiting.

CSS wanted Nonsystem as badly as the FBI. In fact, CSS had likely been the one to enlist the feds in the whole affair. Why else let him walk out of jail and not intervene? Why let him go into jail in the first place, when they could have played any superior-authority card they’d wanted to and yank him right out of the whole thing after Roosevelt Hospital? They could’ve stepped in at any time. Sure, NYPD had played hardball and the captain had puffed out his chest and dug his heels in, saying, “Unless the President himself sends orders to let you go, you’re staying right here,” but surely CSS could have circumnavigated a police captain if they’d wanted, even the police commissioner himself. It was all about rank in the police and in the military, and CSS had their card to play any time they chose. But they’d left him untouched. Staryles had presented him with a deal that was laughable — come work for us —knowing full well Brendan would never go for it. They wanted him right where he was. Wanted to follow him to some prize — he’d already spotted the two people trailing him around the city. That he’d made two of them probably meant there were more.

The toilet gurgled, the paper gone. Brendan cupped his hands splashed some water on his face. He looked at himself in the mirror. Prison had made him heartier. At first he’d lost weight, but after regular workouts and the carb-heavy meals, he’d put on some pounds, gained some muscle. Despite the scars, he looked healthy. They said that by forty, a man had the face he deserved.

The conflict within was going to break her. This was her job, this was her country, this couldn’t be happening. There was right, and there was wrong. Before he became a judge, her father had served in the military himself. She couldn’t live with this. She strode into Argon’s house to collect her things. She was going to use the landline to call a cab. She needed to get to the airport and back to Washington. Enough of this shit.

“Listen,” Gentian said.

She stopped in her tracks and spun around on him. She was dimly aware that the room was dark, illuminated only by candles. She could feel the eyes on her as she stuck a finger in Gentian’s chest.

“Not another word,” she said. “I’m done. This is not due process. This is not how things are done. Now give me a phone, or someone drive me to the airport.”

“We’ve needed a backup plan for a long time,” Gentian said hurriedly.

“I don’t care.” She closed her eyes. She could see floaters along the edges of her vision. Like flames.

“In the event of an internet meltdown, there aren’t a lot of widely available alternate delivery routes. Okay, there are some, resulting in excruciating delays and a slew of other problems, but the worlds of business and communications have moved away from closed physical networks a long time ago . . .”

She opened her eyes. Where was Bostrom? He needed to get her out of here. Maybe she would skip Washington. Maybe she would go to her family home and lock the doors. It had been a long time in coming. Brendan Healy escaped when he wanted to. Look what Bostrom did — just up and left his Department. Why was she so loyal? Why was she the one always trying to fix the messes these men made?

“. . . Business has opted for the open Internet, which breaks up data into small, unattached packets of bits, sends them around the globe by the most efficient route available, and reassembles them when they reach their destination . . .”

“I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Her thoughts were mashing together. She needed her bag. She had brought a bag, hadn’t she? There was no more room in her mind. It was crammed.

“What I’m saying is, Ms. Aiken, no one has cared about a plan B because plan A has been doing everything they wanted it to. Except for the government. Plan A was not doing what they wanted it to. So, regardless of the dangers of a system scaled up beyond its ability to be maintained, with few significant alternate delivery methods, plan B was created: Altnet. For control. But it never needed to be this way. A backup could’ve been made by everyday people, by the people in this room — it didn’t have to be a multi-billion dollar government project. Don’t you see? There is no more real democracy. These decisions are made by an elite few.”

She fixed Gentian with a look. Her peripheral vision was on fire. Her head buzzed like a broken machine.

“If you mess with JANUS, with Edwards, you are a domestic terrorist, no matter what your philosophy. Do you get that?” She turned and looked at the faces in the room, glowing in the candle light, watching. “Do you all get that?”

Gentian would not be deterred. “Let’s look at the options for shutting down the net. First, political mandate. In 2010, a committee in the US Senate approving the PCNAA bill — Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act — to grant the President the power to wield an internet kill switch. That—”

She snapped at him. “The kill switch provision was removed from the version of the bill that went on the floor—”

“But the act remained intact and
passed
. I’m sure you know this.” Gentian arched an eyebrow. “The President has the authority to shut down private sector or government networks in the event of a cyber-attack.”

She was barely hanging on. She needed to sit down, but she held her ground. “The shutdown idea is known to have major flaws,” she said, her voice hoarse. “First of all, you could have all sorts of unforeseen ancillary effects from shutting down such a complex machine.”

“Yes.”

“And there are countless ways for an enemy to get around some kind of electronic fortification. There’s no nation or legal decree which could possibly plug all of the holes.”

“Correct.”

Why was he just agreeing with her? “And if you create such a kill switch, all you’ve done is create a huge target. An enemy cyber-attacker would concentrate all efforts on that kill switch exclusively. That’s why we backed off it.”

“We did?”

“I can’t sit here and entertain anymore unsupported claims! You’ve said political mandate — I don’t see that as being factually possible, and I didn’t see it in Philomena Argon’s files. What else have you got? Can you show me something to support this?”

“Agent Aiken, let me be perfectly clear: This began long ago. The Roosevelt administration enabled the President powers of control over the media — given certain circumstances — back in 1934.”

Some of the storm in her head abated. Okay, maybe there was something substantive here, something she could grasp. She’d read about this in school. “The 1934 Communications Act.”

“Have you ever read Section 606 of the Communications Act?”

“Not lately.”

“It’s what gave The Foundation all the credibility it needed.”

A young woman sitting on the couch who didn’t look a day over twenty pulled a sheaf of paper from her bag. She crossed the room and handed it to Jennifer. The paper was creased and dog-eared and looked stained by coffee. Gentian reached out and pointed out the top page.

Jennifer felt like the worst of the fugue she’d just experienced was passed. She bent forward to read.

During the continuance of a war in which the United States is engaged, the President is authorized, if he finds it necessary for the national defense and security, to direct that such communications as in his judgment may be essential to the national defense and security shall have preference or priority with any carrier subject to this Act. Any carrier complying with any such order or direction for preference or priority herein authorized shall be exempt from any and all provisions in existing law imposing civil or criminal penalties, obligations, or liabilities upon carriers by reason of giving preference or priority in compliance with such order or direction.

Gentian seemed to be waiting when Jennifer looked up. He raised both eyebrows, looking suddenly fifteen. “Sound familiar?”

“I’ll bite. Titan is ‘the carrier exempt from any criminal penalties.’”

He nodded, then dipped his head toward the papers, encouraging Jennifer to continue.

Upon proclamation by the President that there exists war or a threat of war or a state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency, or in order to preserve the neutrality of the United States, the President may suspend or amend, for such time as he may see fit, the rules and regulations applicable to any or all stations within the jurisdiction of the United States as prescribed by the Commission, and may cause the closing of any station for radio communication and the removal therefrom of its apparatus and equipment, or he may authorize the use or control of any such station and/or its apparatus and equipment by any department of the Government under such regulations as he may prescribe upon just compensation to the owners.

The language reflected older technology — radio communications — but Jennifer knew it could stand in court that
digital
communication could supplant
radio.

Gentian pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “‘Upon
just compensation
to the owners,’” he repeated with emphasis. He’d apparently memorized the passage.

Jennifer waited for Gentian to finish his point, though she felt she knew right where this was going.

“Not only is the government going to create an event where the internet is shutdown, but it’s going to be a watershed payday for major communications firms and all of their shareholders,” he said.

“Fine. I’ll accept that. You’ve done all of your homework. But you still haven’t convincingly established what the event is going to be. Meaning, what the false flag claim is. So far the power is off and the internet is down. You’ve made accusations about rescue drills and a data center being sabotaged, but so far, nothing.”

“You’re looking at it.”

“I’m not following.”

“The reality is, we’ve spent years eliminating any and everyone in the Middle East who won’t play ball with us so we can get what we want there. Take a close look, Agent Aiken, at the physical conflicts between India and Pakistan, the Israelis and Palestinians or the collapse of Yugoslavia, and you see a mirror of the cyberspace warfare reflecting back from the real-world violence. Up until now, the main cyberwar targets have been military. But attacks on multinational corporations are rising. You take one of these multinationals down, if only for a short time, and you’ve done more damage to your enemy’s economy than a dozen bombings. What’s more, you take out their utilities, you wreck their water, their power, their heat, and you bring a nation to its knees. But this is not done internally. This is done by hiring out rogue groups — just like weapons manufacturers — or in this case, hackers-for-hire.”

Jennifer was silent. The dancing flames along the perimeter of her vision had retreated, but she could still feel their heat in her head. “They’re going to say that you were hired by an enemy of the US to attack us.”

“That’s why you’re here, Agent Aiken. Your superiors have placed you in the center of this. To go after a terrorist group. But you haven’t done what they expected, have you?”

Jennifer felt a twinge of embarrassment, as if Gentian had seen right into her recent past. Throwing away her phone, running from her superiors, essentially disobeying orders to see what would come of all of this if she were, for a merciful few moments, unencumbered by procedure.

She took another deep breath, gathering her wits. She looked around the room at the youthful faces, and she felt the stillness surrounding her. In the distance she thought she heard a ship’s bell sounding over the dark waters of the ocean.

She pushed the papers at Gentian. “Whatever this is, whatever is coming, it’s going to cost lives. I want to minimize that. I want to warn people, I want to get people out of harm’s way.”

She walked to the front door, and everyone’s eyes followed her. Gentian spoke. “When they were with you, when they had you in that building, they told you, didn’t they? They said it.”

“Excuse me? Said what?”

“What you saw in the data tonight, Ms. Aiken. Lebensluge. It’s basically been happening for seventy years, since Alexander Heilshorn was born, you might say, and it’s now coming together.”

Suddenly the lights flickered, turning briefly on, then dousing again.

“The grid is taking hits right now,” Gentian said. “They’re going to be shutting down sections because the backup system is only capable of supporting a fraction of the power needs of the northeast. So they’ll start isolating, keeping power going to where they choose. What house, what restaurant, or what military base. Like Camp Edwards. Backup power will stay on there.”

Jennifer heard vehicles pull up out outside in the driveway, doors open and close.

The young woman who’d given Jennifer the papers now stood by the window, looking out.

“They’re here,” she said.

Gentian looked at Jennifer, and for the first time she thought she saw fear in his eyes. “You know now,” he said. “Just remember. You know.”