IS THIS ABOUT the break-in? At the office, and my apartment?” Nik asks.
“Nik, did you know about Evan and Andrea? You knew. I know you knew.”
“So much for pleasantries.”
Jeremy points left, directing Nik onto Broadway, a four-lane thoroughfare that travels from the Embarcadero—downtown—through North Beach, toward the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge. That view.
It’s drizzling, dark, the barest hint of morning, pre-morning, predawn.
“This is what it’s going to be like, Nik.”
Nik turns left, doesn’t respond. He’s used to Jeremy brainstorming aloud, using Nik as a silent sounding board. He’s not sure what Jeremy means, which is: this is what the world will look like when it’s been darkened by nuclear weapons.
“Kind of peaceful,” Jeremy says. “I really need to fill in the blanks, Nik. Did you know about them?”
“You remember that party, the one with the theme?” Nik’s response, spoken quietly.
Jeremy nods. The Binary Bash; come as a One or a Zero. Another cocktail party, not in Jeremy’s honor, but he was one of the signature guests mentioned on the evite. “Andrea wasn’t there,” Jeremy says.
“I heard Evan on the phone. Arguing, trying to convince someone of something, laughing. I thought it was Andrea.”
Jeremy doesn’t say: why didn’t you tell me? That’s just not Nik’s style.
“Another thing I’m wondering: Has anyone messed around with your computer? Any sign of hacking?”
Nik takes his eyes off the road—also not Nik’s style—and turns to Jeremy. No driving risk, really; the only car on the street is a taxi, and it’s parked in front of a twenty-four-hour corner food mart. Nik looks back at the road. He passes through a green light, cresting a hill. Jeremy can see the gateway to North Beach, announced by the neon from Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club and the more traditional Condor Club on the right. Classic San Francisco: new-money nudity and old-money nudity right across the street.
Jeremy’s thinking about something Andrea said: that Jeremy had emailed her about Evan. Was she lying? If so, wouldn’t that be the strangest lie? Obviously, Jeremy would know whether he emailed or not.
Wouldn’t he? Not if Nik co-opted his email. But why?
He’s struck by the strangest thought, which he expresses aloud. “What if my computer is doing something on its own?”
“Still straight?”
“Not possible. Yes. Right on Van Ness.” He opens the cover on his iPad. He looks at the map. Red, red. Countdown clock at just around thirteen hours. He thinks back to the Binary Bash. Nik wound up talking to that woman from CNET, the reporter with the limp and the thick glasses.
“Remember that reporter you dated?”
“We just went out a couple of times.”
“I’m going to need you to do something for me. I need you to tell her, and others.”
Jeremy opens Yahoo mail and zips an email to Nik: The conflict machine predicts there will be an attack. Tonight at 8 pst. In San Francisco. It will lead to nuclear war. Nik, tell the reporter you know. Tell them Jeremy Stillwater will stake his reputation on it. And that they should not hesitate to tell the world—before it is too late.
“Nik, I sent you an email. It explains something very important. I need you to spread the word. For now, it is better that it comes from you than from me. I’m persona non grata. But frankly, that doesn’t matter. The press, such as it is, will eat this shit up. It’s a 24/7 news cycle, a cycle that needs filling. So even if they think this is nuts, they’ll print it and spread it, and link to it. It’ll light up Twitter. Even if people think it’s nuts, they won’t be able to ignore it.”
“Is this about Evan and Andrea?”
“No. I don’t know. Then I need you to find Emily, and Kent. You have to take them somewhere.”
Just ahead, a traffic light turns yellow, and Nik slows. At the light, he turns to Jeremy.
“I do a pretty decent job keeping your affairs organized.”
“I know.”
“So I must not be a complete idiot.”
Jeremy turns to look and Nik looks away, back to the road. Jeremy takes his meaning: stop treating me like a child.
“I think there’s going to be an attack, Nik. That’s what this thing is telling me. I sent you an email with the details. You’re the only one I’ve told. But there are a lot of variables. With your permission, I’d like to think about it for a second.”
“An attack.” Nik accelerates through the green light. The car makes a whining noise. Jeremy sees Nik wince. His assistant takes care of the little things, like making sure his car, tattered though it might be on the outside, is kept up, the oil changed, the dash dusted, the handful of compact discs kept in their cases and stacked neatly in the center console.
“An attack.”
“Then all-out nuclear war. Tens of millions dead.”
Nik swallows. Jeremy sees him pull a hand from the steering wheel and touch his chest, the shirt above the cross that hangs around his neck.
“Maybe it’s wrong.”
“It was right, Nik. The computer was right. About the Middle East, the stuff with the Pentagon.”
“I thought—”
“Andrea came clean. The government lied. They manipulated me. I’m not sure why. But I’m sure they did.”
“You haven’t told anyone?”
“About the Pentagon?”
“About the . . . the attack, the thing the computer is telling you.”
Jeremy sees Nik glance in the rearview mirror. Jeremy looks over his shoulder. A dark car has materialized. No, a van. Its windshield wipers rapidly dust away the drizzle, obscuring the face of the driver. A woman, short hair?
Nik takes a right onto Van Ness. The van and its driver continue straight.
“Left on Bay,” Jeremy says, not answering Nik’s question. “Go past the Safeway. I need a minute.”
Jeremy looks at the iPad, and his eyes glaze over. He’s trying to add everything up—the clues, the computer’s prediction, the murder, or is it murders. He doesn’t doubt that Harry is dead, but Lavelle, the lieutenant colonel. Is he? And if so, so what?
He’s the guy who oversaw Jeremy’s visit to the Pentagon, who approved it, who made it a lie. At least according to Andrea. They told him they wanted to test his technology, then told him it didn’t work, then offered to send him to the Middle East to see for himself. Then pulled the plug. A dog-and-pony show. Were they using his technology? Are they using it now? How? He’s the only one who can get inside the machine, right?
He thinks about Harry’s cryptic messages. A note, a symbol. V, victory, or something else. Country codes, Israel, the West Bank; and superpowers, China and Russia; and Morocco, a crossroads, a land of great insignificance, at least in the larger scheme.
All the codes coming together at the point of the symbol with numbers that don’t correspond to a country code, that don’t correspond to anything obvious.
He thinks about cooling conflict rhetoric in the Fertile Crescent, which includes Israel and Ramallah, both represented in the country calling codes. The computer has told him that this softening language is the most pointed evidence of an incoming attack. How can that be? Could the softening language from that region be a trap, a deliberate showing? Might the leaders of, say, Israel, or the Arab nations be lulling people to sleep and then planning an attack? That makes no sense; cooperation between these eternal enemies?
He makes a mental note to look into the details of language from the Middle East. Who is saying what to whom?
And what of the intensifying language of war from around the globe—Mexico, Russia, North Korea. The world is heating up. It’s a tinderbox. Isn’t it always?
Where do the Russian arms dealers fit in, if at all? A missing bomb or a red herring?
Maybe there’s going to be an attack; maybe the computer is lying. Maybe someone messed with the computer. But there’s no doubt that Harry is dead.
“At the least, it’s a murder mystery.”
“Which way?”
“Toward the right, past the courts.”
The volleyball courts. And the marina, down by the waterfront, the Golden Gate Bridge looming ahead. In silence, they drive down Bay, passing between the water on the right and, on the left, the high-rent fitness-centric businesses: the sporting goods outlet catering to the overzealous exercisers, the indoor rock-climbing facility, even, for the kids, a house of jumpy castles so that San Francisco’s toddlers can get their cardio on.
On the grass that leads to the beach, someone has erected a placard with a picture of a lion on its hind legs.
“The Lion of Judah.”
Jeremy feels the car swerve. He looks up. Nik seems transfixed by the protestors.
“Nik!”
He jerks back the wheel. “Sickening.”
“You’re really broken up about the lions.”
“Of course it’s going to get shot.”
Poor Nik. So boyish. “You know much about the Middle East?”
“My parents, obviously.”
They’d been missionaries all over the world, including in Jerusalem.
“So you know the lion is the symbol for Jerusalem,” Jeremy says. “The Lion of Judah.” Then Jeremy shakes his head. He takes in Nik. Studies his pasty sidekick. Looks back out the window.
“All roads lead there—to Jerusalem.” Almost under his breath. Then: “Where do Harry and Evan fit in? They fit in. It’s all connected.”
“Evan’s not reachable. He’s out of town.”
Jeremy blinks. He just saw Evan. Is Nik lying to him?
“You asked me to find out and so I called his office and his assistant told me that he’s out of town on personal business through the weekend. I told her that I was someone’s assistant too and so she felt comfortable.”
“A rare bit of manipulation.”
“And she said he has an important meeting. Something top secret. Even she didn’t know what. She said, ‘You know how important bosses think they are.’”
“Hmm.”
“Where are we going?”
Jeremy points to a sign. There’s an arrow. It reads: “Log Cabin.”
“He left me something.”
“Who?”
Jeremy doesn’t answer. He’s thinking not only about Harry, and the admonition: log cabin. He’s thinking about Emily, who tells Jeremy that he misses the forest for the trees. She means that Jeremy always thinks about winning, confronting every little battle, rather than about the big picture. When it comes to Emily and Jeremy, it means that he doesn’t think about the overall health of the relationship; he thinks about scoring one more point.
In the case of the “log cabin”—and Harry—Jeremy kept thinking it was a reference to the fight. Maybe that is what Harry was referring to. But there’s another possibility.
Harry came all the time to the log cabin. It was where he did his thinking, wandering in the grassy knoll of the Presidio, a former military base that symbolized war and came to symbolize the transition to peace. And, Harry would prick Jeremy, no Internet access, so Harry could think in peace, let his brain roam without interruption or digital crutch.
From the edge of the grove next to the log cabin, there’s a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The view represented in the puzzle in Jeremy’s dream.
“Not the trees, Nik, the forest.”
“What forest?”
“Peace. Nik.”
They wind up in the darkness, climbing toward the log cabin. Jeremy looks out and sees the very beginning of light, and the tip-top of the bridge. It’s the same view from his dream, the puzzle.
The road veers to the left. A few more turns to the log cabin, answers.