by Matt Richtel
The TV hangs askew. Someone looked behind it. The stuffing in his one couch unstuffed, jigsaw lines cut through the leather. And the knife, his own knife, lies on the throw rug. The implement of destruction, one of a set of three matching Wüsthofs, black riveted handle, razor edge. “To cut to the truth, and also for food prep,” Evan had joked about his housewarming gift, back when Evan didn’t fully grasp that Jeremy had no problem cutting to his version of the truth.
Jeremy picks it up, sees the leather-bound notebook, open to a middle page, lying beside the fireplace. Eyes ahead to the hallway and bedrooms, he kneels, glances at the notebook, flips. It’s a backup system, phone numbers, scribbling of ideas. A page is torn near the front, torn but not torn out. He glances at the phone numbers.
Evan; Andrea; the guys at Intrinsic Investors; a few old friends from grad school; a hacker Jeremy likes who started a travel price-comparison web site acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars; Nik; two women Jeremy met at cafés, identified only by their initials so Emily wouldn’t see them; Emily’s brother, in case something ever happened to Emily—written in her loopy cursive—and, of course, Harry.
He pats his iPhone, pulls it out of his pocket. He’s still holding the knife. He looks at the phone numbers. Already knows where he’s starting, knew it hours ago, actually.
He’s got to call Harry.
He’s got to swallow his pride, or appear to, and hear what’s in Harry’s voice. Were Jeremy even half honest with himself, he’d admit he doesn’t really suspect Harry; Harry might be tough and ticked off, but he’s likely not malicious. And were Jeremy fully honest with himself, he’d admit he’d like Harry’s help. But he’s not—honest. He won’t ask for help. He’s going to ask Harry what the hell is going on, and then go from there.
He fingers the number into his iPhone, hits send, stands, begins walking to the back of the condo. The phone rings. He peeks into the bathroom. It’s largely intact, but the medicine cabinet is opened and the handful of prescription medicines are uncapped.
The phone rings again.
Obviously, Jeremy thinks, an intruder left no bottle unturned. But also made, apparently, no effort to hide the intrusion. Unless the woman was somehow interrupted. Why, he wonders, does he think it was a woman?
He’ll have to ask the building manager. That guy notices anything with a vagina. Rumor has it that the cops once got called and hassled him about whether he had a weird habit of lurking around the underground parking garage when a particularly attractive young woman would come home at night, and offer to help her carry her things upstairs.
The phone rings. C’mon, you duplicitous motherfucker, Jeremy thinks, making his way to the bedroom.
Ring.
More of the same. The mattress sliced open, presumably with the same knife Jeremy’s holding. The closet tossed, and the bathroom.
The phone picks up. “You’ve reached Professor Harry Ives . . .” Jeremy clenches his teeth; he’ll have to try another number.
Before he can hang up, it picks up; a voice comes onto the line.
“If it isn’t James the Seventh.” Harry’s powerful lecturer voice booms over the phone. It causes Jeremy to withdraw the phone from his ear, and raises an image of the wizened professor, the sagacious codger, the scraggly gray beard and unkempt curls pasted onto his forehead with a light perspiration. He’s doubtless clad in a checkered red flannel vest over a long-sleeve blue T-shirt, baggy khakis. He always looks like he spent the night somewhere other than a bed.
Jeremy feels an instant of pity and a filial affection for this combination of father figure and an outdated, slightly crazed Santa Claus, a mythical figure that isn’t nearly as mythical as his legend would tell it. At least not to Jeremy.
“I know,” Jeremy spills.
“I doubt it. Or you wouldn’t make the same mistake over and over.”
“I know, Harry. Cut the shit.”
“So let’s hear it. Who is James the Seventh?”
Jeremy looks around the splattered room, feels the knife clenched in his hand. He’s hit by a realization: the fact that Jeremy’s house was attacked suggests that he and his computer are being punked. This is about him, somehow. Not about a computer, or the apocalypse. Someone is definitely coming after Jeremy.
“Battle of Auldearn,” Jeremy says. “Why, Harry? Why in the hell . . .”
Harry interrupts. “That was 1645. Not bad. Almost the right decade. But I’m referring to the Battle of the Boyne, which took place fifty years later. James the Seventh, flush with cash and arms supplied by Louis the Fourteenth, aimed to regain his crown.”
Jeremy laughs bitterly. Typical haughty Harry, condescendingly making his point through a conflict metaphor. Fine, old man, you want to play it that way. “He landed in Ireland where he had Catholic supporters.”
“But not the element of surprise. King William of Orange sussed out his plan and met him with thirty thousand men. And sent James and his invaders packing.”
Just like that, Jeremy’s found his opening, the admission. “You knew I was going to call you. I’m under surveillance. I know. I know, Harry. Do you really want to spend your last days teaching peace studies in prison?”
“What? No, Jeremy. I’m just saying: in the end, preparation and superior know-how will win out against your ill-conceived venture-backed capital dreams and your supercomputer. So I accept.”
Jeremy, fuming, still knows goddamn well better than to ask what Harry accepts, mostly because, despite how furious Jeremy is, he’s not so out of control as to miss Harry’s request for an apology. They’ve not talked since the picnic at the log cabin when Jeremy went nuclear after Harry had the audacity to say that the algorithm could “use a little tinkering.” Jeremy threatened to publicly expose Harry’s “academic fraud,” whatever that meant.
In the silence in which Jeremy calculates a response, Harry says: “What the fuck do you want?”
Both the tone and substance catch Jeremy off guard. He knows that Harry, as disheveled as his appearance tends to be, has a reputation for civility. A graceful lion. Jeremy can’t ever remember hearing him use a curse word. He feels himself being manhandled when he’s the one with the axe. And he’s in an odd spot to begin with; he’s called to confront Harry with circumstances he’s not fully prepared to explain, not yet, and he’s called a man Jeremy recently threatened to ruin with public disgrace.
Is Harry taunting Jeremy? Did he hack into Jeremy’s computer and plant the idea that an attack is imminent, and is he now making vague references to it, baiting Jeremy, by mentioning his failed venture-capital backing?
Is the old codger toying with Jeremy? Is he capable? Maybe not on his own? How?
“I’m not closing up shop, Harry. You won’t shut me down.”
“Oh, I thought this was the Missouri. I shouldn’t have bothered to iron my vest.” Sarcastic; of course Jeremy’s not shutting down; the USS Missouri, where the Japanese signed an unconditional surrender on September 2, 1945. “Jeremy, the market has spoken. First the marketplace of ideas, and then the actual marketplace. Besides, the government experiment didn’t work. Look at the bright side: without funding from France, James the Seventh wouldn’t have even been able to be in a position to get his ass kicked.”
A clean shot, bare-knuckle, jaw, smack.
“Yeah, that worked out beautifully for Ireland in the end.”
Harry chuckles. Then a pause, and “Listen, I’ve got to go.”
“You set me up with the government, Harry, right? You hooked me up with them, then watched them humiliate me. This is all about making sure no one challenges your wisdom.”
Silence from Harry.
“You’re up to your ears in this. What’s the game?”
“Goodbye,” Harry says.
“Wait!” Then Jeremy lets himself say: “I need to talk to you.”
“Need,” a big word for Jeremy. Even if Jeremy means it in a threatening way. Harry knows it.
“Are we through, Jerem
y?”
“Harry, something’s gone wrong.”
There’s no response.
“Tell me, Harry. You owe me that.”
Silence.
“Harry, goddamn it. Someone broke into my house. They broke into my . . .” He doesn’t want to say about the computer, his digital brain. It’s too incendiary, vulnerable. “Someone is following me.”
Harry says: “Statis pugna.”
“What?”
Silence.
“C’mon, Harry.”
“Not over the phone.” Practically whispered.
“What can’t you tell me over the phone? Harry?”
Click.
“What? Harry? Fuck.”
CHAPTER 12
A WOMAN KNOWN BY many names, but whose given one is Janine, runs her fingers up the back of the high-tech executive’s leg. He emits a low sound, deep from his throat, a guttural murmur that predates mankind, the reptilian linking of the primitive brain and the reproductive organs. She trails a fingernail over the crest of his buttocks.
He swallows hard and pulls his head from her shoulder to look at her eyes. She smiles, telling herself she shouldn’t. Not this smile. In her eyes, the look: you soon will burn. He sees the blue eyes twinkle, a startling contrast to the brown skin the color of wet beach sand, an irresistible modern beauty. But rather than exciting him further, the smile for some reason makes him shiver.
She watches his eyes leave hers, then trail down to the deep scratch along her neckline. She’s told him that her cat went bananas on her, something he clearly didn’t believe but chose not to think too much about. In fact, she wasn’t totally lying. Her scratch did come from a cat, a feline. A lion. The extraordinary beast she loosed from the zoo.
The man buries his head and sinks into her. She generates a moan. She clenches her fist behind his back, feeling her nails dig into her palm.
Her phone rings. From her purse on his dresser. Not any ring.
“Redemption Song.” Bob Marley.
Have no fear of atomic energy. None of them can-a stop-a the time.
She’s programmed that ringtone to indicate an emergency call. That she’s been away too long. The Guardians need her.
She shouldn’t have spent the night. But why can’t she get her kicks? Besides, she can’t take any chances. No complaints, no inquiries. Not when they’re this close. Even if he yields no further intelligence. Maybe this guy doesn’t know where the scions of Silicon Valley will hold their gathering. Maybe word hasn’t trickled down to this relative minion. Maybe he’s too smart to tell her.
Now she needs something else: she needs him to be done with her, even if it leaves her unsatisfied. Easy enough.
Redemption Song. Redemption Song.
“Do you need to get that?” he whispers.
“Mais, no.” She forces a giggle. “I need this.” She tugs his shoulder and urges him on his back, a move about which he will only later remark to himself: she’s quite strong. Straddling him, she puts her head back, squeezes her muscles, looks at the ceiling, reaches between his legs and runs fingernails lightly over him. That’s all it takes. He’s done with her.
And, predictably, up and off to shower and work minutes later. She doesn’t care for the money on the dresser. What she wants is information. Dates and times. A location. Names of others in the network. Where will they hold the big meeting? The one that will become ground zero for the return of the Messiah.
But she got none of it. Nothing of value in his glove compartment. Nor in his closet. Nor from his phone.
She listens to the water in the shower. These technology moguls must know what they’re doing or they wouldn’t take such precautions. They would join forces to bring their soulless tools to modernize the Holy Land. Modernize? Do they have a clue at what cost? Can they possibly know how backward their notions are?
Regardless, they will soon know what they’ve wrought.
They will know the error of their ways, along with the adherents of modern, liberalized religion—the practitioners of contemporary versions of Islam and Christianity, Catholicism and Judaism. These groups think they can pick and choose from God’s teachings. They have made their devotion selective, based on their Earthly yearnings, based on their understanding of how the world works, not the Word. And they, like those who make an idol of capitalism, have jeopardized eternity for everyone. Not without a fight they won’t.
She opens her eyes and spies her bulky black purse sitting on a low bookshelf filled with business tomes. She can imagine the powerful knife nestled inside her purse. Should she unsheathe it and use it to pull any information from the heretic in the shower?
She shakes her head.
The man appears at the edge of the bathroom, wearing a towel.
“I . . .” he stammers. “I’ve got a conference call. I should go.”
So should I, thinks Janine. Though the idea of whatever spontaneous thing she might do to this googler fills her with shivers of excitement.
Twenty minutes later, back at her room, she turns on the fax machine. A few minutes later, it rings. She sits on the bed, stares at the slowly emerging pixelated image, sips lukewarm jasmine tea, calming her stomach.
The first quarter of the page is indiscernible, a dark, jumbled mass, the product of an antiquated machine using outdated technology. But fax machines are an occupational hazard; for the most important commands and messages, there can be no use of computers, no sent or saved files, no digital traces, no signatures or key words that are searchable by the vast government surveillance machine. Sure, the Internet chat rooms and virtual worlds allow for basic communications, the first level of recruiting. Not for heavy lifting. The weapons of mass destruction are more sophisticated than ever. But planning to use them is typically and necessarily an analog exercise.
She looks out the wide picture window in this fetid rented room. Fog covers the top of the distant Golden Gate Bridge. Weather. Merde. She doesn’t want to worry about weather. So many variables she can’t control, too many unknowns. She’s hearing rumors inside the group: They’ve still got to identify the location of the attack. The near vicinity will not do the trick. To make this statement, it’s got to be precise. How can they not know that yet?
Is the answer in the fax machine?
As the paper begins to emerge from the fax, she sees that the bottom half of the image, the dark morass, is a big, bushy beard. And as the paper falls to the floor, she can make out the rest of the face. Predictably pronounced nose, soft eyes looking to the side, huge beard. She thinks the man has an old face but the wicked soul of a three-year-old boy who hates having his picture taken. At the top of the page, three scrawled words: “your better half.”
Then, in small, fine script: Oakland Port, tonight.
Her better half.
She winces at the cruel joke.
Not a location, an ally, another one. A key one. It’s a joke because he has the visage of a historic enemy. He’s a Slav, worse, a Jew.
But a Guardian too.
She calms herself: we’re all on the same side now. There is a much bigger picture. Only through an unholy alliance, only through the Guardians, can we bring holy peace.
She strikes a match and lights the edge of the picture. It gives her no solace to watch the hairy visage burn.
She turns and looks at the door of her small closet. She can picture the suitcase inside it, packed with the precious piece of metal, smooth, seemingly so innocuous. Her half of the bargain.
NOW JUST MILES away, the bearded man listens to the voices in the corridor. “Adam.”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. Adam.”
Adam. Hearing the name, the bearded man grits his teeth. He hopes he didn’t kill someone named Adam, a holy name.
This Adam, the bearded man thinks, now packed beneath piles of socks, destined for some low-cost retailer.
Outside, the waves have stopped. The storm has passed. The bearded man closes his eyes, presses himself in the dark
between the containers, tries not to make any sound that would alert the searchers to his presence. He calms himself with the knowledge of his purpose, the purity of his purpose. I am, he reminds himself, a Guardian of the City. He wonders: How many others have faced much worse peril with much more courage? How many have acted on the basis of such faith, anonymous contacts and dead drops and unseen allies? He considers the rumors, the whispers: that there are now so many allies, the belief and wisdom multiplying beyond any previous comprehension.
How many others like me are out there, right now, en route to undo a century of calamity, millennia of political folly? Are they enjoying this much good fortune?
CHAPTER 13
WIKIPEDIA DESCRIBES TANTALUM as deriving its name from the Greek mythological hero Tantalus. He was the son of Zeus, condemned for eternity to stand in a pool of water beneath a tree of low branches bearing sumptuous fruit that is just, just, just out of reach. The son of God, relegated to an eternity of suffering with satiation just out of reach. Jeremy feels like he can relate.
He’s hoofing it down the Embarcadero, reading his iPad, impervious to the drizzle, trying to focus on substance, not his suffering. He can add his building manager to the sources of it.
The asshole actually took a look inside Jeremy’s apartment and shook his head. His head, clad in a fucking beret.
“Who else has a key to your place?”
“Does it seem like I’d give the key to a crazed samurai?”
“Are you saying they were Asian?”
“That they did it with a knife. This knife.”
“Your knife.”
“Are you seriously being hostile with me? Condo board’s gonna love this.”
“I’d call the police.”
“I could call the police. I was trying to involve you in the process.”
“What are you asking of me, Mr. Stillwater?”
“Security tapes.”
The building manager gets it. “I’ll make a backup.”
“We should call the cops.”
