Bandwidth, p.4
Bandwidth, page 4
But Dag’s elevated sensitivity to the details around him was shifting into a new kind of self-awareness. Without the murmur of his feed, there was nothing to dull the sharp edge of hypocrisy. Earlier that day, he had luxuriated in a daydream of how the country was heading in a good direction. But he had made a career out of opposing those very changes and empowering incumbents to build moats around the status quo. For who but the already powerful could afford Apex’s rates, the rates that made his status as a newly minted partner such a financial windfall? He helped real estate magnates carve up land beyond the coastal buffer so they could rake in the returns as erosion pushed communities to higher ground. He bartered water-rights transactions that cursed downstream towns to fade into dusty oblivion. He was a knight defending the divine rights of wealth.
There was a beat. The anger written across Sean’s features transformed to a look of concern. He was a good man, a good mentor. Dag had capitalized on that, leveraging Sean to secure a steady series of promotions. Dag should tell him about the woman, the room. They were a complication. The firm needed to know, lest he put them all at risk. He was a partner. They were a team. The whole situation was just so strange, so personal, the motive so obscure. Someone might be blackmailing me, but I don’t know who or why, and there are no demands. Is that what he was supposed to say? Yes, that was precisely what he was supposed to say. The delicacy of their work required full internal disclosure.
And yet. When Congress had subpoenaed Dag to testify about the Arctic deal, Sean had coached him through the whole process. When facts won’t do, good lobbyists lie. He held up a thick finger and smiled through his beard. Great lobbyists are like novelists, they use lies to tell a deeper truth. Lowell had adored that line when Dag passed it along over bourbons after the hearing.
Dag looked Sean in the eye. “Have I ever asked you for a favor?”
Lamplight played across the hardening lines of Sean’s face. “Dag, what’s going on? You’re our best operator, and nobody has better relationships in Mexico. Why would you do something like that?”
Dag felt a flush of pride at Sean’s praise. Its rarity gave it weight. But that didn’t change what had to happen next, or how much it would disappoint the firm. Butterflies fluttered in Dag’s stomach.
“I need to take a leave of absence,” he said.
CHAPTER 8
Leaves of absence were supposed to be fun. Blow off steam on a private jet hopping from metropolis to metropolis, picking up exuberant newcomers and dropping off exhausted veterans of a never-ending airborne sex party hosted by a billionaire princeling. Go on a backcountry trek to Bhutan where a perilous journey through the Himalayas forces you to discover new things about your own personal quest for meaning. Or maybe sit back and relax, get your house in order, and catch up on all that reading you’ve been meaning to do for so many years. Refreshed, rejuvenated, and energized, you return to work brimming with perspective and an unflagging sense of mission.
This wasn’t that.
Dag had spent the first week of leave on an obsessive quest to root out information on the woman from Room 412. He had scoured the feed, surreptitiously reached out to law enforcement contacts, and called in as many favors as he dared. He’d even set up a meeting with Diana.
But it was all to no avail.
There just wasn’t anything to go on. He had no name, no image, no address. Nothing. At random intervals, she would flash into his feed like a mosquito buzzing past your ear as you tried to fall asleep. And like such mosquitos, she seemed impossible to catch. That left Dag in a vicious spiral fueled by fascination and frustration.
It wasn’t just the sense of personal violation that scared him. If even a small percentage of the contents of Room 412 leaked, this leave of absence would become permanent. Sean’s career would be over too, and the way these things went, half their contacts would go down with them. Dag remembered the taste of dust on his tongue as he and Lowell drove along Northern California suburban byways scoping out undervalued acreage that the coming disasters would transmute to prime real estate. Dag had made partner at Apex because of his discretion, his capacity to handle situations that regular lobbyists couldn’t, his knack for solving impossible problems without raising awkward questions. The questions raised by Room 412 weren’t awkward.
They were apocalyptic.
Pushing the inbound and outbound flight manifests from Mexico City International Airport to the edges of his feed, Dag looked around the Berkeley hotel room that had inadvertently become his little command center. Sunlight glowed through silk curtains. The sheets were a rumpled mess. Stubble shadowed the jaw of his reflection in the mirror.
He should have been out of here days ago, on to the next stage of the search. Instead, here he was. Wheels spinning.
Dag stood and stretched, feeling muscles strain and joints pop. Adding a dose of stir-crazy to his already volatile mood wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Maybe he just needed to get outside, force his mind onto other things so that the search could ferment in his unconscious. Maniacal focus wasn’t always the best path. Sometimes you had to find a new angle, slice a problem into pieces and reassemble it again and again until something clicked.
Afternoon sunlight lanced into his eyes as he threw open the door and stepped outside. He had to blink away purple blotches and swirls to regain his vision before picking a direction at random and setting out down the street.
Berkeley was an odd town. It was a world unto itself, a quality usually limited to major cities like Shanghai or New York. Here, slightly off-kilter progressive values paired with an almost academic sense of moral superiority made up for the small population with strident advocacy. There was an unusual number of backyards featuring expansive chicken coops. “Free Tibet” placards championed a cause the rest of the world had long since abandoned. It was the kind of place where a city council meeting about zoning might be overwhelmed by an impromptu poetry slam filled with impassioned manifestos that channeled Marx with nostalgia for a revolution that had never materialized.
Dag retraced a step and did a double take. There, down a deserted back alley, a line of matryoshka dolls faced out from a grimy window. A small sign hung above the window, upon which illustrated paintbrushes formed a kind of insignia.
Curiosity piqued, Dag wandered up the alley to investigate.
The entrance was below street level, and he had to descend a crumbling concrete staircase to reach it. A bell tinkled as the door swung shut behind him, and he waited for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom.
“The bathroom is for customers only!” an angry voice called out from behind a line of shelves piled with ancient turntables, record players, and phonographs. A bout of violent coughing followed this pronouncement.
“Don’t worry,” said Dag. “I’m not looking for a restroom.”
A bent elderly man tottered out from the maze of shelves, bifocals making his sour expression almost comical. He wore a tattered tweed jacket and smelled distinctly grandfatherly. Wisps of white hair clung to the sides of his bald pate like desperate alpinists to an uncaring cliff.
“Well then.” He squinted suspiciously at Dag. “What do you want?”
“I noticed the matryoshka in the window and was hoping to have a look around.”
“Hmmph,” said the old man, as if Dag had threatened nuclear war. “Make it quick, and don’t you dare try to flounce out of here without making a purchase. This is a business, not an amusement park.”
With that, the proprietor coughed again and retreated behind a small counter in the corner. Although the man ostensibly ignored everything but the pocket watch he was inspecting, Dag couldn’t shake the feeling that his every move was being watched, weighed, and judged.
Dag soon discovered that this strange little establishment offered far more than retro sound equipment. It was a weird amalgam of antique and art-supply shop. There were baseball cards of minor players from the twentieth century alongside a surprisingly large array of pastels. Cast-iron tortilla presses were stacked haphazardly in a crate next to a collection of vintage frames and fresh canvases in a variety of sizes. Paintbrushes sat in neat racks balanced against a wall lined with grandfather clocks that ticked and tocked in almost-but-not-quite unison.
He found the bizarre collection of relics reassuring in a hard-to-define way. He’d always loved history, and these items were clues to a forgotten past, a whole series of worlds that would never be seen again. It was almost as if he might be able to escape the dark environs of his personal history if he could immerse himself in that of others. Like memory, history was synthetic. Humans thought of both as factual records, but study after study confirmed that they were more like dreams, narratives constructed and reconstructed by the mind to fit the demands of the present, not the reality of the past.
Whenever he came across these kinds of antiques, Dag couldn’t help but imagine the father who might have gifted the set of dolls to his young daughter in far-off Saint Petersburg or the horologist who might have last repaired the clocks with painstaking precision.
And that’s when it hit him. Not a brilliant flash of realization but the delayed recognition of something so obvious that its discovery was more frustrating than inspiring. It might not even work. But even the sliver of a chance was better than straining against the yoke of futile investigation in a shitty hotel room.
It must be here somewhere.
There.
An entire shelf was devoted to paper, pens, and pencils. He selected a large spiral-bound sketchbook and a set of fine art pencils before making his way to the counter.
“Leaving so soon?” The old man remained surly and gruff, but seemed to be enjoying the company. “Did you see my collection of baseball cards? I’ve got vintage Barry Bonds back from when people still liked him.”
“You’ve got a great collection,” said Dag. “But this’ll be all.”
“Hmmph.” The proprietor frowned. “Well, a young man like you must need a discount, times being what they are.”
“Thanks,” said Dag. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m happy to pay full price. I found what I needed.”
“Nonsense,” said the old man. He reached under the counter and pulled out a jug of clear liquid and a pair of shot glasses. “Here, to fortify your health and inspire the Muses to whisper in your ear.”
“Really, I’m—”
“I distilled it myself,” said the old man proudly. “Quality gin. Only the best. You can’t trust what you find in the liquor store anymore.”
He handed over a shot, which Dag accepted reluctantly, then raised his own.
“To survival,” he said in his thin, reedy voice. “If you can’t beat ’em, outlive ’em.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Dag.
It tasted like gasoline, but Dag kept it down.
Approving the purchase via feed, Dag was amazed when the old man used an antique physical screen to process it. It was hard to remember that there were still some people who lived their whole lives as if in Analog, peering into the global hive mind of whirling information only through shards of glass.
Perhaps the worthiest antique in this shop was its owner.
CHAPTER 9
Dag lurched in surprise as a hand appeared out of nowhere to caress his cheek.
“Jesus Christ, Diana,” he said, turning. “Why do you always have to do that? I could have fallen.” He indicated the precipice only a meter away. They stood atop Indian Rock, the massive outcropping of gray boulders that rested in a quiet residential neighborhood of the Berkeley hills like slumbering giants from a medieval fairy tale.
“Oh, the melodrama! You’re just so cute, I couldn’t resist.” Diana, surely an alias, twirled a forefinger in her brunette curls in full faux flirt. She was neither beautiful nor ugly, neither fat nor skinny, neither tall nor short. Her brown eyes and freckled face were friendly but unremarkable. She was someone you wouldn’t notice in a crowd, someone eminently forgettable. That was likely why she had been recruited by the intelligence community in the first place, skipping from agency to agency like a bored toddler until she tired of the bureaucracy and struck out on her own. “You’re particularly jumpy today, though. Relax. Drink a smoothie. Schedule a vacation.”
Dag smothered a grin—she might be his go-to consultant when he needed a guide to the shadow world, but she was also irrepressible. She had funneled him trade secrets as they negotiated with OPEC and had made that incendiary video of Senator MacMillan disappear. She’d introduced him to the discreet security outfit they’d used for the Arctic operation, the introductory message nestled away in a secure cache but bursting with emojis. He heaved a theatrical sigh. “A holiday sounds wonderful—do you think you could help me arrange that as well?”
The ringlet of hair sprang free. “Oh, I don’t think you could afford my rates as a travel agent,” she said. “Haven’t you heard? I’m very exclusive. Not for small-fry.”
“Are you saying I’m small-fry?”
She rolled her eyes. “Ahh, the endless bounties of male ego. I hope this new love interest of yours appreciates your boorish attitude.”
“I told you, she’s not a love interest. And that’s not what I meant.”
“I was starting to feel jealous, but then, wow, is she out of your league. I mean, you have as much of a chance as an earthworm aspiring to win an Olympic gold. No matter how much wriggling he does, it’s not going to help his triple axel. You’re better off getting into figure skating yourself. My second cousin is a coach up in Minnesota. I could introduce you.”
Dag stepped toward Diana, suddenly intent.
May I join you? He could almost taste the tequila, almost feel the energy in her gaze. The first thing he did upon stepping out of Analog two weeks ago was check his feed. But she was gone. In her place was footage of mass migrations from flooding Bangladesh, a dozen messages marked urgent, a report from one of his contacts in Juárez, and a self-important expert predicting the demise of yet another round of international climate change negotiations. No matter how he searched, he couldn’t locate the clip. The original post had no attribution, and now it had vanished into the ether. Two impossibilities in one.
She had disappeared as mysteriously as she had from the hotel in Mexico City. He had checked it out, of course. But the staff reported that no guest had been registered for Room 412 that night and no, housekeeping had noticed no irregularities when they freshened up the suite. The local security firm that had supplied his bodyguards for the meeting with Federico procured surveillance footage, but all the relevant coverage was conveniently riddled with technical errors.
“Does that mean you found her?” he asked, unable to keep the urgency from his tone. The woman had dropped into his feed again at random intervals, even as his search intensified into an obsession. She blew him a kiss, pushed her thick-framed glasses up her nose, frowned in concentration. Every time it was nothing more than a few seconds. Every time it was unattributed. And every time it would disappear before he was able to capture any record of its existence.
“Whoa, cowboy,” said Diana. “Hard to believe she’s not a heartthrob, if that’s how you react.”
He clenched his fists. The frustration of fruitless pursuit tightened his chest. Without a name, a picture, a DNA sample, he had nothing to go on. He had replayed their conversation at the hotel bar time and again, trying to tease out any detail that might be useful, anything that could provide a chink in the fortress of his ignorance. Sean had given him a month, had promised to smooth it over with the partnership, blame it on emotional fallout from the assassination. Four short weeks to get to the bottom of this mess, unravel the tangled setup that he had somehow found himself at the center of. And two weeks had yielded nothing but insomnia and self-doubt.
“Enough games,” he said. “I need to know.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time,” she said. Opening her purse, she pulled out a large spiral-bound sketchbook and handed it over. “I made a few, uhh, improvements to your work. I hope you don’t mind. In fact, I think you’ll like it.”
He accepted the sketchbook, remembering the harsh burn of bootleg gin.
“Diana.”
“This was a highly unusual job,” she said. “I mean, I’m the best in the world at what I do, obviously.” She offered a wry curtsy. “So you came to the right person. But this wasn’t so much finding a needle in a haystack as inventing a method for constructing a needle from its component subatomic particles.” Her expression turned thoughtful. “I like a challenge—you should bring me puzzlers like this more often. Most projects are ever so boring. I mean, how many politicians have mistresses? How many bumbling executives expose themselves to data breaches? Who’s even surprised by that kind of stuff anymore? Can’t we all just get along?”
“Diana.”
“Fine, fine. You know how to take all the fun out of a thing, don’t you? There is one last thing before I give you the goods, though. I noticed you’re not using the normal account.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your money.”
She tapped her chin. “Not on Apex’s orders, then.”
“I’m working independently on this one.”
“Has someone been a naughty boy? I saw some unfortunate news reports from Mexico City. I’m glad we don’t meet for macchiatos.” She formed a pistol with her forefinger and thumb, blowing away imaginary gun smoke.
“You’re paid handsomely to not ask questions.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me spilling your beans.” She zipped her mouth shut with a thumb and forefinger. “But it’s my business to know my clients’ business. Otherwise, you can never know what you might get caught up in. A girl has to be careful.”
