Spark: A Novel

  “It’s not your job to understand anything. You’ve been hired to listen and obey.”

  “All I’m saying is—”

  “I know exactly what you’re saying and that’s why I’m annoyed. Your newfound desire for explanations is like a wound that needs to be cauterized. Do you know what that word means, Mr. Underwood?”

  “To burn something.”

  “To burn or sear a wound to stop the bleeding.” Miss Holquist turned away from me and began to pace around the loft. “I don’t normally have personal conversations with my employees, but you’re going to meet an important person tomorrow evening. I want to be sure about you before that happens. You need to be clear about your thinking.”

  She stopped and inspected the industrial sewing machine. “I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, in a once-beautiful house that had been transformed into a neighborhood eyesore. And the reason for that was quite clear. My father was a drunkard. I’m not going to excuse his behavior by calling him an alcoholic. He was a drunkard who could never hold on to a job.”

  She moved on to the drill press. “When I was a little girl I tried to find an explanation for his actions. Why was Daddy drunk on Tuesday night and sober on Wednesday? Was it the moon and the tides? Something I said? The food we cooked for dinner? His actions seemed as unpredictable as a coin flipped in the air.

  “What saved me wasn’t religion or morality, but science. I’ll never forget finding out about the periodic table in Miss Foster’s seventh-grade class. There was no reason for hydrogen having only one proton and one electron. That was simply a fact. A fact that had practical uses. As I increased my scientific knowledge, I began to realize that there are only a few real facts and everything else is just an opinion. Are you listening, Mr. Underwood? I’m not going to waste my time if you’re not listening.”

  I nodded.

  “Good.” As she circled the chair, her high-heeled shoes made a sharp clicking sound. “Everything that goes on in the universe is a physical process that involves boson particles that have an integer spin such as one or two, and fermion particles that have odd, half-integer spins. And by everything, Mr. Underwood, I mean everything.” Click. “My father’s drunken behavior and the orbit of the moon. The explosion of a star and the biochemical process by which a thought appears in our minds. These physical facts determine biological facts, including all aspects of human activity.” Click. “So what are the implications of this reality?”

  The towel was sodden with blood and I felt blood dribbling down my stomach.

  “There is no meaning to the universe, Mr. Underwood. No God.” Click. “No soul.” Click. “No grand explanation of life. And why is that? Because none of these big ideas have a scientifically verifiable connection to the bosons and the fermions.” Miss Holquist stopped pacing and faced me. “Are you listening, Mr. Underwood? Or are you just bleeding? Answer me!”

  I nodded and she resumed her pacing.

  “And because there’s no larger meaning to the universe, there’s certainly no meaning to human existence. Our thoughts are created by the bosons and fermions. Our actions are shaped by them as well. Morality does not exist.” Click. “Mass and energy exist. There is no good or evil.” Click. “Religion, history, and philosophy are just fictions we’ve invented to explain our meaningless world.”

  Again, she stopped and faced me.

  “So what motivates human activity? Self-interest. Even so-called virtues such as love and compassion are motivated by our selfish needs. It is in your self-interest to make money and create a comfortable living situation. Thus, it is a rational act for you to follow my orders and neutralize targets. It makes no difference if these targets are male or female, black or white, young or elderly. The bosons and fermions don’t give a damn. Is that clear, Mr. Underwood? Am I communicating with you?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Excellent.” She walked back to me. “Because I don’t want muddled thinking from my employees. Tomorrow night you’re going to meet Alexander Serby, the chief executive officer of the Brooks Danford Group. While you were in Paris, worrying about explanations, Mr. Serby received a disturbing phone call from India. Apparently, there were three coded files on that flash drive that involve something much more important than the black money deals of the Pradhani Group. Mr. Serby is very worried that this information might get into the wrong hands. He wants a face-to-face meeting with both of us. And why is that?”

  “Because we know about Emily Buchanan.”

  “Correct. And he wants to keep the information circle as small as possible.”

  Miss Holquist’s phone rang and she answered it. “Yes. Good. No, stay there. We’re coming down.” She switched off the phone and marched over to the door. “Lorcan is back with my espresso and we’re going to take you to the doctor. Find a clean shirt, and let’s go.”

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, a white cross of gauze and medical tape was in the middle of my chest. Twelve hours earlier I lay on a table in an East Harlem medical clinic while a nurse swabbed away blood and a doctor sewed. Now two lines of black stitches held skin and muscle together; my Shell had been mended like a torn pair of pants.

  The wound felt like a harsh red color as I rolled to one side. I picked up my computer and spoke to Edward. “Show Baxter …”

  “Good morning, Mr. Underwood. It is my understanding that you would like to see A Boy for Baxter. Please say ‘No’ if I have made the wrong conclusion.”

  “Play,” I said, and five seconds later the computer began to show the documentary with the sound switched off. I had watched A Boy for Baxter so many times that I knew what the parents and the doctors and the dog trainers were saying.

  I got halfway through Gordon’s first tantrum, then I moved my thumb across the bottom of the screen and fast-forwarded to my favorite part: when Baxter cocks his head and wags his tail and jumps up on the couch beside Gordon.

  After watching the scene seventeen times, I got out of bed, drank a bottle of ComPlete, and cleaned up the blood on the floor near the drill press. I was stuffing wadded-up paper towels into a garbage bag when Miss Holquist sent me an e-mail. She would meet me at the headquarters of the Brooks Danford Group at 9 p.m.

  That left me plenty of time to search for information about the man I was going to meet that evening. For the last nine years, Alexander Serby had been chief executive officer of the bank. He had increased profits from the international division and the company’s stock price had gone up. A year ago, Serby had been sitting in a TV studio before an interview and wasn’t aware that the cameras and his microphone were switched on. When someone asked him what he thought about the president of the United States, Serby raised his forearm and wiggled his fingers as if he was manipulating a sock puppet. This caused a few days of controversy until a bank spokesperson said that Serby was motioning for someone to bring him a bottle of water.

  At nine o’clock I returned to the BDG building on Maiden Lane and found Jerome Evans standing in the lobby. “You wait here,” he told me. “Your boss is upstairs, talking to the big guy.”

  I sat on a bench for twenty minutes staring at X-Nemo’s huge painting on the wall. No one stopped me when I walked over to the corner and looked for the artist’s bloody handprint. Yes. It was still there.

  Heels clicked on the marble floor as Miss Holquist approached me. “Good. You wore a necktie. Before we meet Mr. Serby, there are a few things I need to explain to you. Don’t tell anyone that you were in Paris. Mr. Serby realizes that Jafar Desai was killed, but he doesn’t want to know what happened.”

  “I understand.”

  “It goes a step further than that. Don’t mention guns or any other kind of weapon. Don’t use the words ‘neutralize’ or ‘kill.’ Never say that anyone is going to die. The language becomes more general as you move higher up the ladder. Those in power don’t want to hear the details unless you’re talking about stock options.”

  “So what do I say?”

  ?
??Mr. Serby is very concerned about the coded files. He wants to know how we’re going to solve this problem.”

  Jerome Evans switched off sectors of the surveillance system as Miss Holquist and I stepped into the elevator. When we reached the twenty-eighth floor, she led me through an empty reception area and down a corridor to a large office with another X-Nemo painting on the wall. If I had been alone, I would have knelt down and searched for the bloody handprint.

  A man wearing a suit and tie came out of a private bathroom, drying his hands. When he saw us, he tossed the towel on the floor. Alexander Serby had a bulbous head mounted on a spindly body. He was a small man, but there was cold energy within his Shell. His eyes were sharp points and they jabbed at me as we walked across the room.

  “And this is Mr. Underwood?”

  “That’s right.”

  Serby sat behind his desk and gestured to some chairs. He knitted his hands together and made a steeple with his forefingers. I looked over his shoulder. A picture window was directly behind the desk and I could see a red river of brake lights moving north on the FDR Drive.

  “Miss Holquist tells me that you’re the person who found a copy of the stolen files.”

  I nodded.

  “Most of the stolen data was about money transfers and the offshore bank accounts controlled by the Pradhani Group. But, for some reason, Jafar Desai downloaded three encrypted files. The files contain highly confidential information and it’s important that we get them back. Now that Jafar is no longer a factor, our top priority is to find Emily Buchanan. Miss Holquist said that you searched her apartment and spoke to her uncle.”

  “Yes. He lives alone in a place called Chestertown.”

  “So who is Emily Buchanan? What can you tell me about her?”

  I decided not to talk about the scent of her pillow and the kitchen photograph of her standing on a dock. “She’s intelligent. Highly organized.”

  The steeple disappeared and Serby placed his hands on the desk. “I already know that. All the associates at BDG are intelligent and organized. But what does she want? Is she greedy? Idealistic? I always prefer greed to idealism. It’s easier to make a deal.”

  “I can’t answer those questions, Mr. Serby. I don’t have enough information.”

  “Can you tell me any facts that can’t be found in her personnel file?”

  “Buchanan ran away from her parents when she was thirteen years old and was raised by her uncle. She was very dependent on her Shadow, but she switched it off a few months ago. This was around the time that she acquired a boyfriend named Sean.”

  “What’s his full name?”

  “I don’t know, sir. But I did find some stickers in Ms. Buchanan’s dresser.”

  “What kind of stickers?” Miss Holquist asked.

  “They displayed antisocial slogans … the sort of thing that growlers would paint on a wall. One of them said ‘Close the EYE.’ Another said—”

  “I get it. We don’t need the whole goddamn list.” Serby pushed his office chair back a few inches and exhaled. “So how are we going to find this criminal?”

  “We’re going to start by analyzing her e-mails,” Miss Holquist said. “Mr. Underwood will examine all the e-mail in her BDG message file. While this is going on, a man named Hoffman will—”

  “No need for names,” Serby said.

  “A computer expert in Germany will run all Buchanan’s messages through a program that will establish a relationship matrix based on e-mail and Internet protocol addresses. Then a tracker program enters the relevant computers and communication devices and searches for messages with key words such as ‘Emily’ or ‘Sean.’ Once we get location data, we can access surveillance networks.”

  “I don’t want anyone else finding out about this.”

  “We understand that,” Miss Holquist said. “That’s why Mr. Underwood is here for this meeting.”

  Serby looked at both of us, and then the steeple returned. His two forefingers were pressed together. “I want this problem solved decisively.”

  Sitting in the green leather chair, I finally realized something about my function. Miss Holquist was right. I was near the base of the ladder and Alexander Serby was at the top. That meant he could talk about solving problems “decisively,” and now I knew what that word meant: that a contract employee would point a gun at a frightened man curled up in a bathtub, pull the trigger—and bits of blood and brain and bone would splatter against the porcelain.

  Ten minutes later, Miss Holquist and I were sitting in the backseat of her town car as the driver headed north to my loft on Catherine Street. I was expecting new instructions, but Miss Holquist gazed out the window and watched the buildings glide past us.

  “What do you like to do, Underwood?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that. Everyone enjoys some kind of activity. I happen to like certain aspects of my job. Alex Serby is one of the most powerful men in the world, but he needs my help with this problem. I find that very gratifying. So what makes you happy, Underwood? I know there’s something.”

  “I like to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and look up at the cables.”

  “All right. That’s an acceptable answer. Please understand that you will no longer be able to walk across that bridge and have that pleasurable experience if I tell Lorcan Tate to slash your throat.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  “Not at all. But I’ve learned that my employees are best motivated by a mixture of earned rewards and possible punishments. You’ve been paid a fair amount of money during the last three years. That’s your reward. But you’ve never been punished. It’s difficult to motivate a man who has no fear.”

  “I can’t change that.”

  “I’m not saying that you lied about what happened in Paris, but I have the feeling that you’ve left out some details. All right. That’s past. What I want at this moment is for you to dedicate all your time and energy to finding Emily Buchanan.”

  “I’ll start looking through her company message file,” I said. “If I get any useful information, I’ll send it to you immediately.”

  “Good. If it relates to names and e-mail addresses, I’ll forward it on to Mr. Hoffman in Germany. Right now we’re thin on the ground here in New York, but I’ve sent messages to Europe and South America. Two or three enforcers should be flying in during the next few days and they can back you up if you get a specific location. Whatever you do … don’t mention Buchanan’s name or connect her to Alexander Serby. I want to keep this information circle as small as possible.”

  The car stopped in front of my building, and I put my hand on the door handle.

  “One minute …” Miss Holquist opened up her attaché case and took out a cardboard box sealed with packing tape. “Here. I’m returning your two handguns. You might need them if our search is successful.”

  “I understand.”

  “Is there anything else we need to discuss, Mr. Underwood? I don’t want any more confusion.”

  “Bosons and fermions. Mass and energy.”

  “Correct. Now do your job.”

  The next morning, I began reading through the business e-mails that were stored in Emily’s mailbox. During the last two years, she had sent thousands of messages about financial reports and meeting prospective clients. I couldn’t find any messages from Sean, but two years ago she had forwarded a list of discount clothing stores from her personal e-mail address. I sent the information to Miss Holquist and, two hours later, the German computer expert working for Special Services sent me Emily’s password.

  Now I had access to my target’s personal e-mail. I discovered that Emily had a mother living in New Hampshire.

  // I told Rev. Taggart about yr big job at bank and he said G-d wants u to send our church $20,000 to fix roof. G-d will bless u for yr offering. If no $ then u are in Satans Army and are Damned to Hell. Wire or check.

  Yr Mother

  Emily also kept in touch with
a few college friends from the University of Vermont, and one of them was getting married. I spent five hours reading e-mail but didn’t find any messages from Jafar Desai—or from a boyfriend named Sean.

  In a day or so, we would have a personal relationship matrix based on Emily’s e-mails, but that didn’t mean that we could find her. People who wanted to protect their privacy could buy a used computer that couldn’t be linked to their name. They’d clean out the computer’s hard drive, download a browser bundle that didn’t use IP addresses, and set up an e-mail account with one of the encrypted sites run by growler collectives. They could stay completely anonymous if their messages never contained identity information.

  Thinking about the problem, I hammered a nail into the floor, attached the cord, and began to pace out a perfect circle. Emily’s personal e-mail address had given me the name of her mother and her friends. But it would also show what kind of advertisements were sent to her because of her search activity.

  I opened Emily’s spam file and found e-mails from online companies selling fake Freedom IDs and card shields that blocked the sensors for the EYE system. I also discovered several weekly announcements of a Dice Night at Crawley’s—a bar in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. Now that most human behavior could be predicted by the Norm-All program, some of the growlers tried to defy the algorithms by deliberately performing random activity. Wandering around New York and London at night, I had noticed signs outside bars and clubs advertising Dice Nights. This was a one-time event when the price of alcohol and the behavior of the customers were determined by a throw of the dice or the spin of a carnival wheel. You could meet a stranger for a Dice Date or even win a Dice Vacation to an unknown destination.

  At some moment during her time in the city, Emily had given her e-mail address to the person who ran the Web site for Crawley’s bar. I found an e-mail with today’s date from someone named “CROWBAR” that said, “Dice Night 2Night! Meet you at Crawley’s. Full bar. Freedom is Uncertainty.”