DAYBREAK: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 3) (6 page)

Jennifer looked around at the gray walls of the small room. There was a dance of light along the edge of her vision she could only chase by turning her head. She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment. Then she opened them to stare at Brendan.

“Look; what we’re working with is that Nonsystem is ramping something up. Doherty claims there’s enough to get them on what happened to me last year. That’s why they’ve had me keep a distance. Get some of them to cooperate, turn in the others, in return for leniency. But they’re holding off, because they want to fry them for what they’re planning now. Catch them in the act.”

Brendan sat up a little straighter. He studied her. “Who’s lead prosecutor? Are you?”

The question struck a deep cord with her, made her feel hollow. Her muscles recalled the effects of the poison, twisting them into gristle, liquefying her organs. Over the ensuing months, she’d gotten the feeling her superiors and colleagues considered her a permanent wreck. They thought her integrity was compromised.

They thought:
Thank you for playing, but thallus sulfate poisoning deprives you of further privileges within the Department. We’ll be managing your career until further notice.

No, she was not lead prosecutor.

So what was the FBI really doing by coming to her like this? Were they freeing her, or was it just more of the same, more close-watch, more shackles? Sometimes it felt like she was still trapped in that room, high up in the city. Not much different from Brendan, sitting there, chained.

“John Rascher is prosecuting. What the prevailing thought is, you know, the FBI do what they do best. They draw Nonsystem out. They get them talking, supply them with what they need, learn their full intentions.”

Brendan was quiet, perhaps considering this.

“I’ve spoken with the US Attorney General,” she went on. “Everyone is in agreement. They’ve got me taking a point position on this.”

“But they’re limiting your information.” He raised an eyebrow.

“That’s how it has to work some times.”

“So how am I supposed to help you?”

“We believe there is crossover between what’s happening now, and the XList investigation. And since you were the one to really bring XList out in the open with your case, I thought we could pick each other’s brains.”

“Ok,” Brendan said, relenting. “Fair enough. Let’s do this: tell me how you got into XList in the first place.”

“Well, now we’re going way back.” She winked at him, and then felt foolish for it. She took a drink of water. “Okay, let’s start with Wyn Weston. Weston was one of the first Justice Department investigators to look into the Rebecca Heilshorn murder during the trial of Olivia Jane. Reason being, county prosecutors alluded to a criminal enterprise surrounding Rebecca’s death. It grabbed the attention of the HTPU. Weston obtained the data from the case, including the financials on Alexander Heilshorn.”

“Which were relevant because of Rudy Colinas,” Brendan added.

She looked closely at him. “Because of
you
and Colinas. You had good instincts on that case.”

She saw the blood rise in his cheeks. He seemed tempted to look away, self-consciously, but he maintained eye contact and said, “If you say so.”

“You’re welcome. Then Weston left the case.”

“Why?”

She leaned back and lifted her shoulders. Her neck and back felt stiff. “We don’t know. Weston has been MIA for almost a year. He’s officially a missing person. As is a medical examiner from Westchester County. One who initially did the postmortem on Seamus Argon’s body.”

Brendan seemed to drift off for a moment. No doubt he was thinking of Argon. Brendan had been locked-up the day of Argon’s funeral. His focus came back, sharp.

“Argon’s death was staged.”

She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat. “Well, the assessment is nowhere to be found.”

“I don’t think Argon died in that collision as intended. I think Staryles had to finish him off. Then adapt the body postmortem to appear more consistent with the plan.”

“But, why?” She was getting slightly frustrated. It seemed like he kept trying to lead her somewhere, but then would back away. Of course, to be fair, she’d been explicit with him about not dwelling on anything unsubstantiated. “Why take these other people and toss them into the abyss, never to be found, but kill Argon? Let the funeral happen, risk interfering with his body, involve a second medical examiner, all of this?”

“Maybe too many missing shows a pattern. Maybe you’ve got to mix it up,” Brendan said, looking closely at her. Then his gaze wandered over her shoulder. “But as far as those missing go, I don’t think they’re alive. I think they’re missing because they’re dead and buried somewhere.”

She thought maybe part of her agreed, which worried her. She steered the conversation back to Wyn Weston. “When I made the call to the Justice Office to get the files on the Heilshorn case and the financials on Alexander, it took about two weeks. They arrived where I was staying in White Plains. The next morning, I was kidnapped.”

It still felt strange to hear, strange to say.

“The files stayed behind.”

“I didn’t take them jogging.”

Brendan smiled. She thought it was the first time she’d seen him smile since she’d gotten to Rikers. The smile faded as he stared at the table between them, at the switched-off audio recorder. Then he lifted his head and looked into her eyes. “The copies I had were still in the apartment where I was staying, yes. The people who abducted me didn’t bother going after copies. They knew the originals were kept safe somewhere. And now the FBI has them.”

“Heilshorn’s personal bookkeeping only? Or was there Titan information in there, too?”

“Both. Yes.”

“Alright, then tell me what you remember.”

She clasped her hands together on the table. “Heilshorn was a founding partner of Titan. Titan is one of the world’s largest private equity firms. A huge investor in leveraged buyout transactions over the past five years.”

“I’m sorry . . . English, please.”

She smirked. “We’re talking about mergers and acquisitions. Titan often serves as a financial sponsor acquiring a company. In some cases, like when they acquired a large, but struggling construction company called G. Hanson Construction, they renamed it Titan Construction.”

“What about Titan Med Tech?”

“Same thing. I forget the original name, but it was acquired and rebuilt, with a huge R&D department added in. These transactions, partially funded by borrowing, usually occur with private companies. But, they can occur as a public to private transaction.”

“So, Titan can acquire a public company, buy it out, and take it private. Are there solid examples?”

“A few,” she said, running a hand over her hair. “Most of which we already know; there was a money trail leading to Titan from companies which did not generate sufficient cash flows to service their debt. Which means the equity owners swap control of the company to the debt providers.”

“The banks.”

She dropped her hand to the table. “Yes.”

“This happen a lot?”

“A lot. The companies are bought, over-leveraged to insolvency, then turned over to the banks. But the banks aren’t all Titan was feeding.”

“Money going to something else,” Brendan said. “And
from
something else. From the debt-to-equity swaps, and subsequent liquidations, but also from the black markets. From XList. And then following the same pattern. Funneling into . . . what?”

Jennifer took a beat. She was familiar with Brendan’s hypothesis that Titan was behind XList; she’d seen his case files on Rebecca. She had even used the theory when interviewing Olivia Jane, hoping to bait the murderer into revealing something she never had. Alexander Heilshorn had first mentioned Titan in a phone call with Brendan. Heilshorn of course denied any involvement with XList, displayed shock and fear over his daughter’s involvement, but stayed transparent about his relationship to the large firm. She decided to let it lie.

“The current belief is that the money was going into Nonsystem.”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?” she asked, feeling her skin prickle. “Well, again, all we have is conjecture; we don’t have proof. Titan’s money disappears into a black hole. That’s the thing with cleaning money — it’s moved around, disseminated — it gets sheltered in Switzerland or the Caymans. Places like the Ugland House. Where it winds up after that is just a guess.”

“So, what’s your guess?”

She glared at him, his unmasked stubbornness getting under her skin. “I don’t guess. What I see is what’s in front of me.
You
taking the fall for Alexander Heilshorn’s death. And Staryles’ visit when you were first arrested. We want to get the bottom of this? We’ve got to figure out what Staryles is doing right now. That’s my guess.”

The elevator doors opened on a cool, dark floor. Staryles could immediately sense a change in the environment: the lobby had smelled of new carpet; up here the air reeked of clustered electronics and hot plastic. Like a Best Buy in 100 degree heat, despite the whirring air conditioning circulating in drafty currents.

There was a high, wide desk dead ahead in front of a glass wall, flanked by two blackened, thermal-paned doors. This time it wasn’t a perky grad student at the desk, but two men, security guards. Both gave Staryles the eyeball, utility belts saddling their waists, semi-autos a thong-strap away from their clutches.
Then the door opened to the right of them and another man stepped through, dressed in a suit and tie. He put on a fake smile and approached Staryles. He was in his fifties, gray-haired, his face creased with dignified wrinkles. The suit was silver and shined beneath the overhead lights.

Time to smile again
. Staryles offered his hand and gave the silver-suit a firm, three-pump shake, finding the man’s grip dry and cool. He snuck another glance at the armed guards before giving the suited man his full attention. The greeter looked him up and down.

“Mr. Staryles?”

“Yes.”

“Cal Riggins. Nice to meet you.” Riggins let go of Staryles’ hand and reached up to the rimless glasses perched on his nose. He gave them a push with the tip of his finger while his eyes jerked toward the two security agents. Upon his wordless communication, the two men left the desk and came over. Big boys, one of them at least two hundred pounds of muscle, the other a little flabbier and heavier, built like a linebacker. He was holding a wand that connected to a battery pack clipped to his belt.

Riggins looked at Staryles with a curl of a smile. “You understand we have to follow procedure.”

“Absolutely,” Staryles said, raising his arms and biting back the bile that rose in his throat. He needed to play his part, and play it convincingly. And that meant, for the moment, letting himself be molested by security like any other helpless citizen.

The second security guard went about riffling up and down his pant legs while the linebacker feathered the wand along his arms, across his chest, around his waist. Then they switched positions. It was some kind of awkward, heavyweight ballet. Staryles could smell their sweat, and turned his head to the side to stifle a gag. He could feel Riggins watching the whole thing with a kind of churlish pride.

When it was finally over, and no knife, no SIG automatic with sound suppressor was discovered, nothing but a wallet with his credentials, the fake picture of his wife and daughter (it was an idea inspired by Brendan Healy), the two meatheads took a step or two back, and Riggins pulled his face into a disturbingly pleased smile.

“Right this way,” he said.

* * *

Inside, the temperature was another five degrees cooler, but even beneath the air conditioning the smell of baking electronic gear was pungent, the white noise louder as aisles upon of aisles of servers all busily whirred away in the darkness. The cavernous space was dimly lit.

“We keep the lights low; they add heat,” Riggins explained.

Just inside the room was a warren of offices. Their walls also tinted glass, less opaque so that Staryles was able to peer in. A see-through office on the right contained a woman in an attractive pantsuit pacing with a Bluetooth attached to her ear, her lips moving and her hands gesturing in the air. She didn’t notice Staryles. Next door to her, a younger woman seated in an ergonomic chair behind a handsome desk looked up and tracked Staryles as he passed. He smiled at her. He looked at the offices on the opposite side. One was empty, another featured a conference table with men and women gathered round, some catching his eye, some not. One man watched him while sipping a beverage, then averted his gaze. The last glass wall was occluded, completely screened in and private.

Staryles focused ahead. One very long aisle of servers bisected the massive room. Shorter, perpendicular aisles were off to either side, each humming with stacks of chrome-and-black servers, each of these behind a glass door, telltale lights — green, amber, traffic-signal red — blinking at different intervals.

“Kind of like a space ship, right?” Riggins blurted happily. “This facility is fifteen hundred square feet. That’s why we call it the Meet-Me-Room. When you’re a convergence point of multiple layers of local, national and global fiber-optic cables, you’ve got to keep it human. Because this is all about humans, after all. It happens right here, the place where everyone and everything meets.”

Riggins took the right side of the central aisle, and Staryles followed just behind and to the side of him. It was an old habit, not walking abreast. Riggins didn’t seem to notice as he chatted away, gesturing with flicks of his wrist as he spoke. He pointed at the ceiling, twenty feet above, where the fans spinning in the gloom would’ve looked completely anachronistic if it wasn’t for how big they were, like helicopter blades.

“There’s nothing like this in the country,” Riggins said. “I mean, One-Eleven is another super-data center, so there’s two right here in the city.” He tossed a glance back at Staryles. “By One-eleven, of course, I mean . . .”

“One-eleven Eighth Avenue. And there is One Wilshire, Los Angeles. And a data farm in Miami.”

“Correct.” Riggins resumed his attempts to dazzle Staryles with information as they walked. “But these two centers really support the whole northeast.” He pointed at the main trunk in the middle of the room. “This is where each carrier’s server resides.” Then he indicated the rows they were passing along the right. “And here we have networking equipment. On the other side of the center galley; storage. At the back; arrays of optical terminations, a few coaxial terminations, some vestigial copper terminations.”

Straight ahead, the world of glass and dark machines gave way to a bunker-style room, windowless and squat. Riggins stopped near the formidable, sealed room. “In there is where the connection panels are, allowing the carrier’s colocation units to connect with other networks.”

In the center of its concrete façade was a steel door, bolted, gilded by another beefy security guard. The guard offered a wan smile to Riggins and then glowered soberly at Staryles. Staryles noted the holstered firearm, same as the others.

Riggins turned and spread his arms like a showman at a carnival. “There you go. This is the physical hub of the Internet. Essentially a giant Ethernet switch. The whole thing is powered by a ten-thousand-amp DC power plant.”

“And where is that?”

Riggins swallowed and glanced at the guard before saying, “Right this way.”

They left the bunker and turned down a corridor. Another steel door, red with chipped paint along the edges, was locked ahead of Riggins. He pulled out a bunch of keys.
No guard personnel here
, Staryles observed, accumulating mental notes for his non-existent security report.
Just a guy with keys.
Riggins opened the door and stepped through into a pitch-black room. He fumbled for a moment before flipping on a switch. The place lit up.

“Wow,” Staryles said, adding a touch of childish wonder to his voice.

“Gets the job done,” Riggins said. He spun slowly around, marveling as if he was seeing it for the first time himself.

Staryles walked in and touched a hand lightly to one of the distribution shelves. “This a LORAIN?”

“That’s right.”

“Excellent heritage, LORAIN. A large vortex power platform. I see you’ve got the bulk output shelves, integrated distribution shelves, and that looks like it leads to an externally mounted distribution panel system.”

Riggins nodded, clearly impressed. “Backup. On the roof.”

Staryles regurgitated more of the information he’d read over that morning. “Right, right. And these here, you’ve got rectifiers; these provide, what? Sixteen-hundred watts at sixty-five degrees Celsius? This is top notch stuff.”

He’d read over the specs before sunrise, the Ecuadorian lying in bed beside him, still asleep. Staryles didn’t sleep. He was awake at four, sometimes three AM no matter what. One of those people who simply didn’t require lots of rest. Like his father. He had ample time to read. To him, the utility room with all of its metal boxes and shelves and cooling fans was as obscure as HAL, the computer in
2001: A Space Odyssey
. Except with more cables. Cables bound together and rambling up the wall and disappearing into the ceiling. Feeding into the concrete bunker on the other side of the wall; he understood at least that much on his own.

“Well,” said Riggins. “This is actually NetSure 700, here; we just upgraded, so we’re talking about two thousand five hundred watt constant power rectifier providing up to a hundred and four amps at plus twenty-four vdc.”

Riggins was looking affectionately at something, which to Staryles resembled a propane heater with little post-office mailboxes tucked beneath. He felt an uncomfortable tug of nerves, a creeping of heat along his neck. He’d reached the limit of his crammed knowledge. Some incompetent analyst had given him old information; they’d upgraded their power supply at the Meet-Me-Room. Not that it would change anything. Explosives were explosives, and would take care of whatever nerd-device, regardless of the chain of letters and numbers used to describe it.

“Very nice,” Staryles said, and then squared his shoulders with the door, indicating that they leave.

Riggins scowled. “Don’t you want to see the cameras?”

“I already saw them,” Staryles replied curtly. And he pointed, still looking at Riggins, at the four different spots in the room where partially concealed cameras monitored them. He might not have been an electrician, but he knew surveillance. Which suited his cover story well.

“Very good,” said Riggins. He slapped his palms together to dispel the little bit of humiliation Staryles had intended. Another courtesy smile and then he stepped in front of Staryles and opened the door. He paused there and cocked his head. “So then you’ve already seen all of the security in the rest of the place?”

It was meant to be rhetorical, a barb. Poor Riggins, he really just oozed pride. But he was only a glorified office administrator.

“I’ve seen ten cameras,” Staryles said, “three uniformed security, one plainclothes security sitting at a conference table, and another behind her desk.” He walked out of the giant, thrumming utility room past Riggins.

Riggins closed the door behind him and they were back in the main warehouse, alongside the half-story bunker. “That’s very good. I appreciate the time and expense to do this. You can never be too car—”

Staryles stopped abruptly and turned around. “Mr. Riggins. I know what you think you know. That we’ve been asked to take a look at security here; just routine. But you seem like a smart man. You know I’m not here for a cursory checkup. This is in the interest of national security. This facility is a global destination. What Times Square is to tourists; an internet Babylon. So, now that the tour is over — which was really unnecessary anyway — let’s stop wasting time, let’s go sit down and talk. And I can tell you what we need to be prepared for. What the Known Knowns are, and the Known Unknowns. Okay?”

Riggins was nodding. Twenty years older than Staryles, and reduced to a bumbling teenager. “Y-yes. Absolutely.”

* * *

An hour later, after more tedious playacting and listening to Riggins drone on, comforting him, asserting the national-security platitudes and shaking more hands, Staryles left the massive data center.

He glanced at his watch as he crossed the street back to the construction site, and then looked at the building above the
Cloudsplitter Scaffolding
which caged the sidewalk on that side. There were two stories visible above the top of the long scaffold chain, two banks of windows dark and apparently empty.

He rounded the corner back onto Thompson Street to retrieve the Cutlass, reflecting on his tour of the Meet-Me-Room. It had gone perfectly. He had to repeat the procedure for One-eleven Eighth Avenue and then the first phase would be complete.

He thought of Riggins and all his jangling keys. It made him think of guards like Randy, and corrections officers in a jail.