by Eliot Peper
CHAPTER 14
Diana dangled her legs off the edge of Indian Rock and gazed out over the Bay Area. From this vantage high in the Berkeley Hills, she could see everything from the angled slopes of Mount Tam to the iconic cranes at the Port of Oakland. She smelled a faint hint of ash on the wind, doubtless carried up from the blackened remains of Southern California. The rock was warm underneath her, having soaked up the afternoon heat.
Now that the baseline adrenaline of her trip to Washington was receding, she couldn’t escape the mess that she’d made of her personal life. Indian Rock was where she and Dag had shared their first kiss. She remembered her surprise when he’d offered her a gift, how she’d almost refused to believe that the lovingly rendered portrait of herself was real. I can make pancakes. She smiled. Usually so suave and confident, he’d fumbled for words even as she’d struggled to come to terms with her own budding affection. His vulnerability and awkwardness had drawn her to him, sparked something inside her, inspired her to take the unprecedented step of bringing him home with her.
It was unprecedented for a reason. Taking Dag home had been a breach of protocol. You have more borders and treaties and NDAs in your head than the fucking United Nations. Diana didn’t live one life. She lived dozens of lives, each carefully calibrated for the people from whom she needed something and who needed something in return. Letting a client become a lover, inviting him to move into the cottage with her, these were painfully obvious missteps. Helen would have unleashed hellfire on any subordinate stupid enough to blur such important boundaries.
Diana wasn’t stupid. But in Dag she’d found something that made all her rules fade into the background. It was harder to feel that her strictures should always take precedence, easier to let things slide.
Sloppiness invited chaos. But maybe chaos was exactly what she needed.
A container ship crossed beneath the Golden Gate, dwarfing the sailboats tacking in and out of Sausalito. Diana imagined matte-black helicopters skimming over the open water, their rotors kicking up spray, ascending at the last possible moment to swoop into downtown San Francisco, hundreds of small drones flying cover, weaving through the vertiginous skyscrapers. The FBI team would leap out in formation before the chopper touched down, pedestrians fleeing or watching in slack-jawed amazement as black SUVs poured in from all sides and the heavily armed squad charged through the doors of Commonwealth headquarters, spreading out to cover the redwood grove within, hijacking elevators and pounding up emergency stairwells to detain the entire executive team, bursting in to ambush Rachel, the aging mogul looking up with undaunted poise, her purple eye assessing the hardened veterans not with surprise but resolve. Ranks upon ranks of attorneys would invade in the wake of the tactical strike, drowning dissent in dense legalese, self-referential rationalization, and bland nonanswers at endless press conferences. Diana smiled to herself. Surely nothing so cinematic would come to pass. Complex legislation and detailed regulations would precede indictments, no less effective for their lack of melodrama.
Lowell must indulge himself in similar daydreams. Commonwealth’s global carbon tax had undermined his oil empire, and nationalizing the tech conglomerate would be vengeance incarnate. They would need some kind of pithy justification for the public. It might even call for a false-flag operation, orchestrating some disaster for which Commonwealth was clearly at fault so that the takeover would appear legitimate.
Seizing the paragon of American technological innovation was absurd, an affront to the economic freedom the country had been founded to uphold. But the feed rendered so many of the founding principles obsolete, operating at such vast scale and individual intimacy that it defied any traditional definition of a private firm. Was the ubiquitous flow of data any less a natural resource than the Rockies or the Mississippi? Shouldn’t the digital world be subject to the same checks and balances as the physical one? What right did Commonwealth have to authoritarian rule over the feed, even if it was their creation?
Lowell was an opportunist, not a patriot, and his professions of public-mindedness were an odious mix of selfish grandstanding and ironic condescension. He was looking for revenge and the thrill of a dangerous bet that could win him more power than his climate-change flywheel ever had. He might be angling to take Rachel’s place at the helm of Commonwealth, salt in the wound of her fall from grace. Or maybe he would be content to pull strings from behind the scenes, play people against each other until everyone owed him their standing.
But his lack of ethics didn’t mean his argument was unfounded. Just as his fossil-fuel play had required insight as well as deviousness, nationalizing Commonwealth had a certain ruthless logic to it. The private health insurance industry had fought tooth and nail against government encroachment, but the ultimate reform to a single-payer system had improved quality of care, reduced costs, and benefited millions of Americans. Perhaps a parallel effort to reform governance of the feed would yield similar public dividends. Positive outcomes could outshine malign origins.
I guess it must be easier to cling to God and country or whatever it is that makes spies tick. Dag was more right than he knew. Diana had done unspeakable things in the name of patriotism. America was a force for good, a respite for the desperate, a land where even if you didn’t achieve your lofty goals, you might still dream. So despite the fact that Helen had dismissed her from federal service, Diana still served in the best way she knew how.
But what was the right course to chart now? Should she forge ahead or blow the whistle? What happened when you pitted America’s top entrepreneurs and innovators against America’s preeminent politicians and policy makers? She needed someone with more information, someone with deeper insight into Lowell’s thinking, someone with whom to brainstorm scenarios and contingencies, someone she could trust.
Fuck who you like as long as it doesn’t endanger the mission. Love if you can’t help it. But trust? Never. Diana would never forget Helen’s honeyed words or the steel behind her baby-blue eyes. Falling in love with Dag had illustrated the self-denial such a maxim required with brutal clarity. Diana’s stomach clenched. Despite her finely wrought facade, Dag saw right through her. She was a ghost, a shadow of a person, unworthy of the tenderness he showed her. Her entire life had been spent weaving a web of lies around a horde of secrets.
There was a green acorn lodged in a crack beside her. She plucked it out, rolled it around with her fingers. It was small and smooth and hard. The Ohlone Indians had called these hills home before Spanish conquistadors colonized the region. At that time, acorns were a staple food. They shook the oak trees, collected the acorns, and ground them into a fine flour with stone mortars and pestles. But acorns contain tannic acid, making them both bitter and poisonous. So the Ohlones rinsed the flour over and over and over again until they leached out the acid and were finally able to prepare the porridge that sustained them for generation after generation.
She dropped the acorn between her legs, watched it roll in little zigzags toward the edge, gaining momentum until it tumbled down the face of Indian Rock and out of view. Whenever there’s a chance to get real, you run for your life. Difficult truths were as bitter and poisonous as acorns, but maybe they were just as critical to survival.
The cottage was only a few blocks away.
Diana pushed herself up and walked home.
She wanted Dag. She needed Dag. She loved Dag.
No matter what, she didn’t want it to end this way.
It was time to face the fact that she hid things out of fear as often as professional discretion. The only way to win him back, to earn his trust, was for her to open up, to start sharing more with him. It would be a major risk, but so was inaction.
Few people knew Lowell better than Dag. If she was able to salvage things and tell him what was really going on, he might provide invaluable counsel. Maybe the solution to this whole mess was just around the corner.
As she walked up the path to the cottage, something caught her attention.
The front door was ajar.
CHAPTER 15
“Dag?”
Diana tamped down panic as she stepped through the front door. She had to remember that just because she rappelled into hotel rooms and had seventeen confirmed kills didn’t mean that the rest of life was spy versus spy. Most people worried about their mortgages, jockeyed for promotions, and tried not to fuck up their kids too much. Since leaving Apex, illustration, not intrigue, had filled Dag’s days. She would never leave the front door open, but he probably just wanted fresh air circulating through the house because it was a warm afternoon and they didn’t have air-conditioning.
The drafting table in the living-room-turned-art-studio was empty, but the charcoal set she had given him rested beside his extensive collection of pens, pencils, and other implements. When she had stormed out after brunch a few weeks ago, such evidence of Dag’s presence in her cottage had felt like symptoms of an infection. Now they inspired regret at how easily she had taken him for granted and a selfish hope that she might be able to glue the pieces back together.
“Dag?”
She still had no idea where she should start. She could explain how her grandmother had never spoken of what she’d had to do, what she’d had to endure, to get their family out of a war zone. She could remind Dag of what she’d taught him and his cohort in Namibia about the critical importance of infosec and the hard-earned habits that Helen had drilled into her with brutal efficiency. She could describe how Haruki had hired her and how Sean and Lowell had been behind it. She could start with the big picture and map out Lowell’s scheme. She could make a joke and try to defuse things with humor. She could pull him into bed and try to defuse things with sex. She could simply apologize and beg forgiveness. Every imagined monologue ran in parallel, filling her mind with a symphony of remorse.
Upstairs the bedroom was empty. It was hot and stuffy, the primroses in the small vase on the dresser slightly wilted next to that first portrait Dag had drawn of her. The glow-in-the-dark stars she had pasted all over the bedroom walls and ceiling looked a little sad in the bright afternoon light. At night they imbued the room with magic. By day they were just dull stickers.
Was it possible that Dag wasn’t actually here? She touched the comforter. Maybe after their fight a few days ago, lying naked on this very bed, he had decided enough was enough, taken a page from her book, and simply left. Maybe he was fucking a star courtesan right now or running off in search of his programmed obsession, Emily. But he wouldn’t have left the door open if he’d moved out, would he? Could it be a spiteful send-off, a small act of bitter vengeance demonstrating the persistence of her absence? Or perhaps he’d left and locked the door, but an opportunistic burglar had guessed the house was empty and made a move.
Diana tried to calm her racing heart. More likely he’d run out for a macchiato and was so caught up in imagining a new drawing that he’d neglected to double-check that the door closed behind him. Dag got lost in his own head all the time.
She descended, faster now, the balls of her feet skipping off each step. One, two, three knocks on the bathroom door. You never thought you’d arrive home while your lover was pooping, but sometimes life threw curveballs.
“Dag?”
No answer.
She opened the door. The sprig of lavender hung from its string by the small window. Her family of rubber duckies was arranged in ascending order on the edge of the bathtub, and a complete collection of Borges’s short stories rested atop the toilet tank.
Diana placed the book next to the sink, removed the top of the toilet tank, and pulled out one of her backup handguns from its waterproof case within. You kept paranoia on a tight leash, but once it started barking loud enough, you loosened your grip because it might be onto something. Even the reassuring weight of the pistol didn’t prevent hairs rising on the back of her neck.
Anger flared. This was why she was so careful. So stupid shit like this didn’t happen. Let down your guard for even a moment, and you’re prey. As quickly as it had come, the feeling passed. She didn’t know what was going on here. What she needed right now was to collect more data, not pass judgment. She had to keep her mind open, her senses alert.
Diana stepped out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, this time cognizant of maintaining her line of fire, keeping her center of gravity low, and letting her eyes flick around the room in practiced patterns. Faint aromas of cilantro and ancho chili greeted her. Pomegranates were piled in a basket on the counter. An empty coffee cup sat next to the sink. A single drop of water elongated and fell from the faucet. Cast-iron pans hung from hooks on the wall opposite a fading photograph of a coastal Greek village, one of the only remnants from Diana’s childhood, a gift from a fellow refugee, bestowed in the crowded darkness of a smuggler’s hold along with halting stories of Aegean life.
No Dag.
With predatory grace, she moved across the tile floor. There was one last place where Dag might be, must be. He probably hadn’t been able to hear her from back here, didn’t even realize she was home. Leading with the gun, she opened the back door to the attached greenhouse.
And froze.
No. It made no sense. Her heart thudded against her rib cage as if trying to escape. This was some sort of strange dream, the kind that left an uncanny emotional hangover that lasted for days.
The greenhouse was empty. Not just empty of Dag. Empty.
The dewy ferns, hanging vines, thrusting roots, rough bark, thick stems, veined leaves, sinewy stalks, vivid flowers, whispering fronds, the vibrant, encroaching, irrefutable life, even the silky lace of spiderwebs, all of it was gone.
She grasped the doorframe for support.
The botanical wonderland wasn’t destroyed. It hadn’t been savaged by pests or eaten by flame. Her plants were simply absent. The muted light falling through the greenhouse panels illuminated flat, even dirt. Nothing more.
Diana stumbled down the steps and knelt. She rested the gun beside her knee, dug her fingers into the earth, and raised a double handful of cool, moist soil that she let trickle through her fingers. Raw disbelief hit her like a double shot of grain alcohol. It was as if all her plants, the horticultural cornucopia that had been her respite, her labor, her shrine, had been nothing more than a figment of the imagination, a spectral hallucination instead of a sanctuary.
Looking down at her muddied hands, she saw dirt under her nails and raised a finger to touch the tip of her tongue. She tasted minerals and clay, had a momentary vision of a mole burrowing deep within the earth. She pressed her eyes shut. Opened them again.
This wasn’t a hallucination. This was real.
Retrieving her gun, she pushed herself to her feet and tried to think.
The greenhouse wasn’t entirely empty.
The mosaic path was still there. The bright tiles wound across the expanse of bare dirt to the small patio table at which she and Dag had eaten brunch. Without the attendant greenery, the arrangement was simultaneously forlorn and threatening.
Driven by a compulsion beyond her control, Diana walked up the path, stepping from tile to colorful tile, following every twist and turn until she reached the center of the barren greenhouse. She had come to seek forgiveness, to make amends, to turn a new page. She had dared to hope for counsel, companionship, someone she could rely on in a time of need. She had forgotten the inescapable core tenet of espionage.
All trust ended in betrayal.
A small envelope lay on the table, her name scrawled across it in ornate script. The world spun lazily in her periphery as she lifted the envelope, tore it open, and plucked out the card. The paper was thick, and the stylized head of a longhorn steer had been pressed into it.
She turned the card over in her hands.
Dearest Diana, it read. If you would care to join us for dinner at the Ranch, details below, at 7 p.m. on Friday evening, we would be ever so much obliged. No plus-ones, I’m afraid. I dare say that the chef is quite good and that we should be ab
le to clear up a few niggling questions for you. Sincerely, Surely-you’ve-guessed-by-now
Diana swayed on her feet as the translucent walls closed in around her, darkly indistinct memories swimming behind them like denizens of an inimical aquarium. She recognized the handwriting.
Helen.
CHAPTER 16
The deck thrummed beneath Diana as the boat piloted itself away from the dock. Wavelets slapped against the hull and air roared past her ears, whipping her curls into a frenzy until she lowered herself into a chair behind the windscreen. This was the last place on earth she wanted to be, but there weren’t any other options.
After securing a last-minute flight to Sun Valley, she’d scoured the feed for intel about the Ranch. Hidden in a remote valley in the Sawtooth Mountains, Lowell’s Idaho retreat was a notorious billionaire hideaway, and invitations were highly sought-after among nouveau riche aspirants. It covered three thousand acres of pristine forests and snowcapped peaks, a bastion of private wilderness that was a playground for the rich and famous. Lopez had stopped here while fundraising for his presidential campaign, just as Freeman and all other recent contenders had. It was a place where feed stars cavorted with political brass and business tycoons, where plans were hatched and deals were sealed, where there was no greater sin than innocence.
Diana had insights the gossip columnists could only guess at. Dag had been a regular at the Ranch during Lowell’s ascendancy, and his feed archive contained tidbits from dozens of extended visits over the years. She remembered Dag and Lowell standing next to a bloody stag, Lowell grinning like a madman and Dag looking like he was about to vomit. Besides bagging game, they had orchestrated their lobbying and commercial campaigns from here, inviting members of the Arctic Council and an alphabet soup of trade commissions to win favor for offshore bids and preferential tax treatment.
