he usually finished the Sunday
For one thing, there was a whole universe of cultural phrases and words that were a half-century old that one had to ruminate over before completing a fifty-year-old puzzle, which was a delight. Darren subscribed to a special service that recovered old puzzles from the
Remembering. Darren looked up at the laptop, merrily moving along the program that he had sent into its innards. The line from his Dell laptop was linked with a cable modem, and he spent a few moments just imagining the intricacy of sending those packets of information back and forth, back and forth, along the cable line. One cable here out to a utility pole to a switching station to… another memory, this time of a lecture being given back at the NSA campus — known as Crypto City — when a lecturer from MIT came in and stood in a secure conference room, yapping about something. Darren had sat at the rear, idly listening to the guy drone on, when the man had said something interesting. The lecturer asked, ‘How many computer networks are out there in the world today?’ There had been a low murmur and Darren knew it was a trick question, and he had kept his mouth shut until the lecturer had triumphantly said, ‘One. There is just one computer network in the world.’ Everything else was just a subset of this huge network. There had been a low titter of laughter, and the lecturer had just let it slide right over his pointy head.
Because the right answer wasn’t one. Darren wasn’t sure what the right answer was, exactly, but he knew that the numeral one wasn’t it. For there was another network out there, one that belonged to the NSA. It was called HARDWIRE, and it was a network with a 526-bit encryption technology, based on a new quantum mechanics computing system that existed only in Crypto City. HARDWIRE allowed NSA operatives — like himself — to chat with one another.
He looked down at the crossword puzzle, thinking yet again how the current puzzles were no longer much of a challenge. Ah, a challenge — now, getting a handle on Final Winter and what Adrianna had set in motion, that was one hell of a test, and he knew that he should have been satisfied with what was on his plate. But there was something there that he wanted to dig around, something that just didn’t quite make sense. If he dumped that porn program he was running and logged into HARDWIRE -which could take a while: the verification and password protection system made entering the White House look like buying a day pass at Disneyworld — he could chat with some of his co-workers and see what sniffings they had on Final Winter. Not that he didn’t trust what was going on with his Tiger Team. No, sir, not at all. It was just that -well, he liked things to work out right, to make sense. And right now something wasn’t quite making sense. He wasn’t sure what it was. There was just a tingling back there in his mind that bothered him.
Darren glanced up at the impressively built women flashing in and out of existence on his computer screen. Some women — every one of them, in fact — that he saw flash by were merely representatives of binary numerals, like 100101110100111010011100111, and the merest adjustment to that number stream, say, changing the second zero to a one, could make the photo out of focus. Or blur it completely. One switch of a digit could turn something originally designed to arouse men into a frustrating blend of colors and static.
He looked away from the screen. The unfilled puzzle was still in his lap. He remembered his boss’s orders. Take the day off. We need you fresh.
True enough.
Darren picked up his pen and went to work. Now. Who in hell had been the female lead in the Broadway premiere of
Brian Doyle spent part of his day off heading out to a small park near Greenbelt that looked like it hadn’t been maintained since it had originally been slapped together. The park memorialized some cavalry unit from Maryland that had fought for the Union during the Civil War and save for a few benches and a statue of a man on a horse there wasn’t much to the place. Late-night drinking and sex bouts by local high-school students were probably the main recreational activities. Brian pulled into the gravel parking lot, noting with satisfaction that the place seemed empty. Good. That suited him well.
He got out of the Lexus, went to the rear door and took out a heavy black box with a handle in the center. He walked past the statue, down to a grassy field that overlooked a stream. The grass was ankle high but that didn’t bother him. It seemed to be a good day. He put the box down on the grass, looked around. No picnickers, no witnesses. Brian remembered how, some years ago, in a similar park, the body of the White House counsel had been found, an apparent suicide. Now
So. Nobody had asked his opinion about it. All he knew was that Adrianna was correct. While most folk were focused on the trivial, serious men with serious grievances were preparing to do the American people harm. And were continuing their preparations.
Brian kneeled down in the grass, undid two brass snaplocks and opened up the cover of the box. There, nestled inside and folded, was a set of Highland bagpipes. He took the ungainly tangle of pipes out and stood up. The ebony finish of the tubes was shiny in the sunlight, and he tossed the three drones over his left shoulder, placed the mouthpiece between his lips, and began inflating the bag. As the bag came to life, he recalled the brief and unsatisfactory conversation he’d had with his son Thomas that morning. He had asked questions about school, about Thomas’s friends, about his pitching status on his school baseball team, and most of the answers he received had been the same grunts or ‘Yeps’. About the only time Thomas had been anything like himself was when he’d asked the last question he always asked: ‘Dad, when are you coming home?’
Good question. A
Brian closed his eyes, felt the leather bag inflate under his left arm. He fingered the chanter with both hands, squeezed the bag, heard the drones — one bass, two tenor — explode with that steady tone, and a second later the chanter squealed into life. He dipped his left knee, slid right into ‘The Heights of Vittoria’, a good tune celebrating a British battle in Italy during the Second World War. From ‘The Heights of Vittoria’ he went into ‘The 42nd Black Watch Regiment Crossing the Rhine’ and then to something more cheerful, ‘Highland Laddie’. The tone and depth of the music cut right through him. He played for a while, letting the music relax him, playing the tunes he loved, which most certainly did not include what he thought were the two most overplayed bagpipe tunes of all time, ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Scotland the Brave’. Brian had taken up the bagpipes, just like Dad, after joining the force, and he had become a member of the NYPD’s bagpipe band, playing at functions throughout the city, from ribbon cuttings to parades to funerals…
God, especially funerals. As he went into a slow march -’Skye Boat Song’ — Brian remembered that dreary fall in 2001, playing at funeral after funeral all over the city. Save for one, that of his father, and he never quite forgave himself for one thing: the tears. He had shed plenty of tears for his fallen brothers in the police department, as well as for the firefighters, EMTs and Port Authority cops. But for one funeral he had remained stone-faced and silent — for his own father’s.
And what kind of son was he, that he would not cry at his father’s funeral?
Brian opened his eyes, played another march, ‘Johnny Cope, Are Ye Walkin’ Yet?’ and tapped his left foot in time with the music, thinking about the pipes themselves, how he hadn’t wanted to pick them up, but now he was enjoying both the music and the history. The history, of course, was of war, for the Highland pipes were known for inspiring Scottish fighters and frightening their foes. Killers in kilts, the Scots soldiers were called, and Brian wondered briefly if the pipes had been played by the British troops a couple of years back when they took Basra from Saddam’s forces.
There. He sensed something, spun around.
A man was standing there with a woman and two children. Holding on to their mother’s hands. Boy and girl. All were dressed for a day off, maybe a drive in the country, a picnic in a deserted park. The man seemed apologetic.
‘Sorry to disturb you, but… well, we were enjoying your playing.’
Brian smiled. ‘Thanks.’
