DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

Brendan looked out the window. The city streets were gone, the suburban residences were behind him. The Hudson River flashed in the distance through the trees. The passengers onboard the train were restless and chatting in quiet, pained voices. The explosions in Manhattan had left everyone in shock. One passenger, a middle-aged man, face flushed red, offered a brief and passionate call to action. We shouldn’t take it anymore, he said; these terrorists — Al Qaeda, ISIL — whoever was responsible for the attack — needed to be wiped off the face of the Earth. Mostly the other passengers looked at their phones, out the window, or off into space — anywhere but at the man, who eventually sat down. Conversations went on more quietly along the same lines. Savages had done this. Another attack on American soil from Islamic terror groups.

Yet, somehow, life went on. People got off in Albany and new passengers boarded. Among them was a young couple in their twenties, attractive and fashionable. The tension in the air seemed to dissipate. But only for a short time.

“Honey. Look. Here it is.”

The young couple took their seats, the man staring down at his iPad. The woman slipped in beside him. Brendan could hear some tinny audio, but couldn’t make out what it was.

“Posted ten minutes ago,” the young man said.

They both fell silent, staring raptly at the screen. Brendan fidgeted in his seat. After about a minute, the woman said, “My God.”

“Yeah,” said the young man. “Holy shit.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. Brendan got out of his seat and walked down the aisle toward the couple. He passed a trio of college-aged girls silently watching their own devices. One of the girls was crying. A man in a gray maintenance-worker suit was staring into his phone, ashen-faced.

The young couple looked up as Brendan approached. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m a journalist, and like an idiot I left my phone in New York. Can I see?”

The young woman looked at Brendan sorrowfully but the young man was eager to help. “Yeah,” he said. “Just popped up on my CNN Alerts.”

Brendan stood in the aisle beside them, as the man held up his iPad and dragged back the play button to the start and then tapped it. He pressed a button to increase the volume as Brendan leaned in to watch, keeping his disfigured hand behind his back.

An attractive newscaster stared out at them. “Just this morning in New York City, the destruction of two locations in downtown Manhattan.”

The shot changed from the newscaster to amateur video showing smoky ruins. The newscaster’s voice continued. “We now know that 66 Hudson Street and 111 8
th
Avenue were the sites of what the FBI are calling terrorist attacks from a group known as Nonsystem.”

The video changed to a still image, a blurry picture of a man in black fatigues, holding what looked like a submachine gun.

“66 Hudson is known as the Meet-Me-Room, a massive hub for the World Wide Web. A similar data center further uptown on Eighth Avenue was devastated by C-4 explosives. More than a hundred people are injured or dead. Several police officers have been shot.”

Now a different video replaced the still image. Brendan recognized the man who was speaking. Just a couple days ago, Brendan had head-butted him. There was a small bandage across the bridge of Harlan Doherty’s nose. His name and FBI affiliation came up in a graphic along the bottom of the screen. Doherty stood in front of a background of smoldering rubble and flashing police lights.

The newscaster said, “Agent Doherty, what’s the story here? Have any arrests been made?”

“This is going to be a case of swift justice, Alice. The FBI has been working with the Department of Justice already to draw out Nonsystem.”

As he spoke, the screen displayed footage of a group of young people, like the ones on the train, pulled from the backs of black, tinted-window SUVS. “It’s sad to encounter homegrown terrorists like this,” Doherty said. “But it’s no surprise that they’re not completely independent; we believe the terrorist hacker group to be for hire, and under contract from several different foreign anti-American groups.”

It was hard to tell where they were — until the camera caught a glimpse of a nearby city police car, with the logo for
Boston Police
emblazoned across the door.

“To answer your question, yes, we now have several members in custody.”

Brendan watched the law enforcement personnel, several of them in plain clothes, but with a copious supply of SWAT members surrounding and assisting, heavily armed, parade the individuals up a wide set of concrete stairs into a government building with pillars in the front. Brendan didn’t recognize anyone, until he saw Deputy Bostrom.

The last shot of the newscast was of the pretty anchor, who said, “Our hearts go out to all of the families of the victims in this terrorism crisis. We now turn to the scene of the first attack, where rescuers are—”

The video froze.

The young man held the tablet up and gave it a look. His girlfriend pointed to an icon on the screen. “Lost service,” she said.

The young couple fell silent. The young man put the iPad away and the woman chewed her nail and looked out the window. The way she bit her nails reminded Brendan of Sloane.

“Thank you,” Brendan said to them. He returned to his seat feeling hollowed out.

Behind him, it sounded like the young couple were arguing. Brendan heard the man saying softly, “Honey, come on,” as she squeezed out of the seat. She hurried up the aisle. Brendan could smell the perfume and shampoo on her as she passed, reminding him of Sloane again, and their one night together.

He gazed out the window and saw buildings now, old barns and charming houses with big porches. Tractors in fields. Fledgling summer corn. Apple trees in blossom. He was in the countryside, a couple of hours from his destination.

He closed his eyes for a moment and Sloane’s image formed in his mind. He could feel her fingers on his skin. He could smell her, taste her.

But then she began to fade.

The train depot sat on a rise. To the west, two-lane blacktop bisected a huge swath of forest, photograph-still in the dry, late-summer heat. It had gotten warm again while he’d been on the train. Now four in the afternoon, the shadows were lengthening but the temperature remained high. Down the road a mile before it curved out of sight, a lone car approached, skating over the quicksilver that shimmered above the sunburned asphalt. As it neared, Brendan realized that today would have been his trial if he were still in jail.

The taxi pulled into the small parking lot. He’d called it from the depot payphone. He’d been the only passenger to get off the train. The young couple with the iPad were staying on until Montreal, another hour or more away. The taxi, white letters reading
ADK Mountain Taxi
on its side, found a narrow slot lot beside the train tracks.

The driver was a heavy-set woman in a t-shirt, with greasy brown curls. Her sweaty upper lip curled back as she stared up at Brendan. “You called for the taxi?”

Brendan realized there was no air conditioning in the car, a few moments later as they sliced through the heat. It was the least of his concerns, in fact, he was glad for it. His pores opened and the sweat beaded off his skin. Better than the canned, stale, dry-storage cool air of the train. Better than the stink of prison. He inhaled the scents of pine, raveling asphalt, and raspberry bushes as they drove. The driver sparked a cigarette and that alluring smell of tobacco drifted over to him. “You mind?”

“Not if I can have one.”

Fuck it.

She shook a cigarette out of her pack. They were a cheap brand, 100s. Brendan took one and lit it with the push-in lighter in the center console. It was an old car, a Plymouth, probably early-nineties model. He’d noticed the rust slowly digesting the undercarriage and wheel wells.

“Careful with that.” The driver nodded at the cigarette as the lighter popped from the console. Brendan fed the tip to the glowing coils. “It’ll kill ya,” she said.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later the cab dropped Brendan off in Lake Placid. The small town was choked with summer traffic along its main street, like a city. Thunderhead clouds shouldered together over a range of jagged mountain peaks. The air was heavy with an impending summer storm, a need to release the heat.

It was Friday evening, and the small town hall, with its chamber of commerce within, had just closed. It didn’t matter. He walked along the sidewalk through the quaint retail district, trail baskets and antique snowshoes on display, just another window shopper.

He’d last walked these streets years ago. A village gateway to high peaks, a good place for skiing, hunting, and fishing. Lake Placid had twice hosted the winter Olympics.

He supposed there was some significance in all this, something to the fact that he was going to find closure with Titan in a place calling itself an “Olympic Village.” But, he had other things to think about.

The Heilshorns would’ve kept a low profile over the years. That was fairly easy to do; like most every other place in the world, the rich and the poor didn’t mix in Lake Placid. Unless, that was, the poor were changing the linens in their hotel room, bringing cocktails to their dinner table overlooking the mountain lakes, or tending to their wooded grounds while they were away. Or, as was the case with his wife and daughter’s truck-driving killer, trying to get the money they’d been promised.

There were a handful of groundskeepers and caretakers in the area. Most of them weren’t in the Yellow Pages, and only a few of them had websites. They worked mostly by referral. The people who kept the mansions and Great Camps hidden away in the forests were big on personal recommendations.

A decade earlier he had tracked Damon Cosgrove to Lake Placid after Cosgrove, a long-haul truck driver, had made parole. He’d never given any thought to why Cosgrove had chosen this location. He’d picked up his trail in Westchester and followed him here. He’d managed to keep tabs on Cosgrove for two days, but eventually he’d lost him completely. The man who had killed his family, and Brendan had let him slip through his fingers. Couldn’t even find him in a town as small as this. He’d rented a small cabin as far away from the village as possible and set about drinking himself into a stupor. Eighteen months had blurred past in a prolonged binge. He’d had his father’s life insurance to live on.

Now, however, he had no money in the bank. He didn’t need to check an ATM to know that he wouldn’t have any access to funds. His accounts would be frozen. A branch manager would tell him that the Department of Justice, or maybe the FBI had ordered it. Maybe Harlan Doherty had signed the mandate himself. Or John Rascher. That didn’t matter either.

He had some cash left. It would be enough. He didn’t know if he was going to last through the night, anyway. Surely Staryles was on his way. He was going to the one place Staryles would know to look for him. Because Staryles knew about Damon Cosgrove. If Brendan hadn’t realized it then because he’d been too drunk to see straight, he understood now. Damon Cosgrove had come here because the Heilshorns had a home here. Chances were they’d never paid him and he’d come to collect. They’d killed him instead.

Maybe Staryles had eyes on him right now, but he didn’t think so. Not at the moment. For just a precious short time, he was free.

* * *

Within two hours of trolling the local bars, he had the names of three caretakers. It was full dark now as he found the one payphone in town by the public beach and placed his calls. He could smell the alcohol clinging to him from the Happy Hours he’d invaded. But he’d stayed dry.

The first call got him a machine. He didn’t bother with a message, and plunked in more change. For a moment, he felt like an investigator again, like the PI he’d been briefly in Laramie, checking for cheating husbands and busboy thieves. The second number he tried got a result. A man with a voice as dry as tinder answered and then immediately broke into a coughing fit. Brendan said hello and quickly went through his spiel, careful not to sound like a telemarketer or someone asking for a charitable donation.

He was new in town, and had recently bought property and was looking for a caretaker. He’d been referred by the Heilshorns.

After a few more minutes of getting to know each other, Brendan got to the point and asked the caretaker if he knew the Heilshorns personally. He didn’t, but he marveled at their house on Whitney Road. A classic Great Camp, restored not remodeled, just the way it should be. Mr. Heilshorn had an impressive collection of Adirondack guide boats.

Brendan said he would be in touch.

He hung up and walked to a nearby hotel. He needed to rest for what was about to come, and he had to time things just right.

He thought he remembered Whitney Road, just around Mirror Lake in the center of town. Over on the other side, far back behind the million-dollar homes hemming the still, glassy water.

It had only taken two calls. He was in much better shape to get shit done sober.

Overhead, thunder rumbled again, sounding close.

Jennifer was unbelievably tired. She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the night before — she’d been awake since the morning she’d met with Philip Largo. After the harrowing chase through Cape Cod, once she’d gotten home she’d been too wired up to even think about resting. But after a hasty shower and a bad meal from canned goods in the pantry, exhaustion slipped over her like a shroud, and she’d slept for seven straight hours on the couch without moving a muscle. When she awoke, stiff and groggy, it was just starting to get dark outside.

The first thing she did when she woke up was check her phone. The internet wasn’t working, and she had no service, no new voicemails. The flat-screen digital TV in the corner claimed No Signal. She opened up her laptop and attempted to get online, but there was no connection there either.

Her family had a landline. She found the cordless phone sitting in its charger, next to her father’s recliner in the den. She picked it up and clicked the talk button. She exhaled relief when she heard the dial tone.

She called FBI headquarters in Washington and asked for Gary Petrino. He answered on the second ring. She could hear phones ringing and burbling voices in the background.

“Agent Petrino.”

“Petrino,” she said. “I need you to switch to a secure line.”

“Agent Aiken. Good to hear from you, too. Give me a second.”

She heard a click and a series of beeps. Petrino started to talk but she cut him off.

“What do we know about ICANN?”

“Uhm, okay. I’m fine, you? And so on, is how it goes.”

She waited for him.

“That’s the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.”

“I know what it is. I need a list of names of the people headhunted to be ICANN members.”

“Where are you?”

“Safe.”

He was silent for a moment. “Aiken, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Petrino,” she urged. “Tell me what you know.”

“Okay, Jesus. ICANN. Each of the fourteen civilian members holds a metal key to a safety-deposit box. Each of these boxes contains a smartcard. When these are all activated in unison, it creates a master key which reboots the internet.”

“Based on what IP?”

“Well, come on, Aiken. That would be ICANN protocol.”

“How do they do it? Can it all be done remotely?”

“No. They have to fly to a single location.”

“In the US, right? Petrino, I’ve gotten all the same briefs you have. I’ve read all the memos. Those are the lines they’ve been feeding us for three years.”

“Listen, You need to come in. You’re in danger.”

“That’s just the limited hangout — members flown to a top-secret US location, blah blah blah. Come on. You know how this works. The master key won’t be created by civilians. It’s Wick, right?”

Petrino was unresponsive. “Petrino!” she shouted.

“Aiken. Don’t do this.”

They need me now more than ever
.
That’s why I’m still alive. All they have to go on is my testimony, my case files, my story. They made the arrests based on me. Not on wiretaps, not on forensic evidence. Nonsystem will have encrypted everything. Maybe they’ll get nothing from their hardware after all — or, it will take months. They’ll lean on those kids for confessions, but maybe the kids won’t budge. They’ll have to let them go.

Or, they’ll keep them right where they are under the NDAA. Maybe they’ll send them to Gitmo. They can do anything they want — this is a matter of national security.

“Aiken, Nonsystem attacked a New York City data center this morning, while you were in with Wick.”

She felt her throat close up. “What?” She thought of the streetlights dark on route 6. The ghost town Cotuit had become. She pictured Wick, sitting across from her, perfectly poised and equable as the city burned. “What’s going on, Gary?”

Petrino was old school, gray and indifferent as a tomcat, not much riled him. But suddenly he sounded like a spooked rookie agent. “It’s the end of the fucking world, Jennifer, that’s what’s going on. It’s been fucking chaos. Are you somewhere secure? You say you’re safe?”

“I am. I’m good.”

“Has anyone tried to contact you?”

“I have no cell service. Internet is out. Calling you from an old landline.”

“You’re in Massachusetts?”

She felt a pang of fear. “I might be.”

“Makes sense. Yeah, Massachusetts is down.” He seemed to be calming down some, but there was still an edge to his voice.

“What does that mean?”

“Internet is down in seven states. There are some areas where it’s still sluggish, some dial-up, but it’s pretty much dead. Cell-phone towers have wigged out, too. It’s a major crash; the whole northeast has basically imploded. Bridges, roads, schools, subways, all affected. The President declared a national emergency at three this afternoon.” Petrino paused, breathing loudly into the phone. “So, they did it. Your little gang of hackers are pretty beefed up after all.”

“Petrino, I spent the night before last cramming internet shutdown information. There’s no way Nonsystem is doing this. For one thing, you can’t destroy a signal while using it. You’ve got to cut cables, pillage data centers, demolish root servers — you need analog violence, not just some amped up DDoS strike.”

“Are you speaking English?”

“What I’m saying is, this type of destruction is not about hackers. The internet is full of backups, redundancies. Nonsystem knows you can’t kill the internet from within; repairs would override damage. This is not coming from them. They warned me about this.”

Petrino was silent. She could sense him evaluating her. Wondering if she’d gone native, if she might be a traitor. She knew it was a risk calling the FBI if they were in fact under the thumb of Central Security Service, but Petrino worked mostly on his own as a profiler.

“There have been targeted attacks on data centers all over the country,” Petrino said. “So, I hear you. I understand the physical components here. Turn the TV on, regular TV, they’re still a couple of stations broadcasting. SWAT teams pushing back demonstrators already surging all over the country; half of them want to fry Nonsystem, the other half of them are calling for freedom of the internet. Liberation of digital currency, net neutrality, all that sort of thing. God, protests used to be simple. You wanted to end a war, you showed some tit. Sorry. Anyway, if it isn’t Nonsystem, or the fucking Islamic State behind them, beg pardon, who is doing this?”

“I don’t know.” It was a lie. Baldest she’d ever told. She could see Wick’s empty eyes, the false charm carefully etched into his features. She could hear Gentian say
we’re ready
. He’d wanted this? Were they martyrs?

“Okay . . .” Petrino drawled. “If you don’t know, or can’t guess, you got any idea for motivation? I can get you those ICANN names, but it’s going to take a while. Things are totally jacked here. Got a number I can call you back at?”

Jennifer closed her eyes. She’d grown to like Petrino. He was about her only friend in this thing for the past couple years. But she was about to lose him, too.

“No,” she said.

He exhaled with frustration. “Alright. Listen. You need to be careful. Stay somewhere safe. There’s been looting and rioting in Boston, and it’s a total nightmare in New York City. Too many traffic collisions to count, people jumping from buildings, shootings right out in the open.”

She felt cold.

“Okay.” She looked out the window at the azure blue of Cotuit Bay in the distance. She realized there was no one left she could trust. “Thanks, Gary. I gotta go.”

“Okay. Stay safe.”

She hung up and stood motionless in her family kitchen for a moment, her mind just spinning wheels. She then dialed a number from memory. She heard a series of chimes and a prerecorded voice saying that “all circuits are busy now.” Her parents weren’t reachable. Her mother had upgraded everything in their Ramapo home to digital a couple years before. A bundle of internet and phone. This house was the only place her family had with old technologies.

She remembered the TV they used to have. A picture-tube with rabbit ears on top. Jennifer went into the hallway. She pulled the string and the compartment swung down in the ceiling. She reached up and unfolded the stairs down, waving away the dust. She climbed up and looked around in the attic. It had to be a hundred degrees. There it was, the old Zenith television. Grunting and gritting her teeth against the pain flaring in her back and her neck, she wrestled the TV out of the small space and down the rickety stairs, nearly slipping and dropping the whole thing.

She found an outlet in the fake wood paneling in the living room and plugged it in. She fumbled with the rabbit ears for a moment, making sure they were still connected. She pressed the power button and stood back as the screen slowly came to life.