Deep State

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There he was on BBC One, Ian Attila Gordon, dressed in blue jeans and a vintage military jacket worn over a white ruffled shirt, with the ruffles dashingly unpinned and hanging over one lapel, a picturesque little piece of asymmetry. He hadn’t shaved recently, and heavy whiskers blued his cheeks and chin.

“I wonder who dresses him?” Dagmar said. “That outfit looks good.”

“But can he act?” Helmuth said. “The Bond movie sort of left the question open.”

“I guess we find out now,” Dagmar said.

The Brigade had left the ops room for Lincoln’s suite, which had a high-definition television and more comfortable furniture. During the course of the afternoon they’d discovered that four of their scavenged modems would actually function under MS-DOS and they set up their own DOS-based LAN. Instructions had been sent to Rafet and others to put together DOS machines.

But in the meantime, since the Internet was working again, they sent messages to prepare for a demo in Ankara the following day, place and time to be determined later. Rafet and the Skunk Works drones had been sent out to find a suitable place.

Lincoln’s rooms, intended for visiting VIPs, resembled those of an upscale hotel, with fabric flowers in vases, gold-and-white-striped wallpaper, and competent but soulless oil paintings on the walls. Lincoln had thrown a packet of Orville Redenbacher in the microwave, and the scent of buttered popcorn floated through the suite. Dagmar sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the television, leaning against the warmth of Ismet’s legs. Ismet had joined them in late afternoon, saying that he was bored in his apartment, and now sat on Lincoln’s mustard-colored sofa next to Helmuth.

Dagmar ate a handful of popcorn, passed the bowl on to Helmuth, and hoped that Attila would remember his lines.

Attila stepped up to a battery of microphones. He was on the lawn of his East Sussex home, with the last glimmer of the setting sun lighting the ivy-walled house behind him. TV spotlights glowed in his eyes.

Photo flashes lit his cheekbones. He offered a half-shy smile.

I bet he’d look good in a kilt, Dagmar thought.

“I’d like tae address the claims that Ah’ve somehow masterminded the revolution in Turkey,” he said. There was a light in his eye that seemed to suggest he found the notion absurd, that he was just amused by the situation and going through what celebrity and the situation demanded.

“First off,” he said, “I’d like tae express mah true love and admiration fae the folk of Turkey. I traveled through the country when Ah filmed Stunrunner last year, and I niver failed tae meet with anything but friendship and hospitality. I made some good friends who Ah’d hope tae see again one day.”

The amusement went from his eyes.

“I wasnae happy when Ah realized mah new friends would have tae endure a military dictatorship. The coup was an unexpected blow that knocked Turkey’s hopes of modernization aw tae hell.”

Laughter returned to Attila’s eyes. A cocky grin flashed across his face.

“And so Ah decided tae do somethin aboot it, ken? Ah’m here tae tell yis that the claims made this mornin werenae bullshit.”

Dagmar clapped in delight as a roar of interest rose from the ranks of the reporters. More flashes lit Attila’s face.

“The only bit o story they got wrang was that Ah’m doin all this fae money,” he said. “Ah’ve enough poppy nae tae sell oot mah principles fir a bribe. And tae prove it-” He raised a finger in the air and then brought the finger decisively down on the podium. “Tonight Ahm lettin’ yi aw ken that aw mah profits fae the new album Ararat will be put into the cause of freedom fae the Turkish people. Ahm committed tae this, and willnae rest until they generals are behind bars.”

“Yes!” Dagmar pounded fists on the floor, torn between joy and laughter.

Reporters were screeching questions. Attila pretended not to hear, laughed, then cupped a hand behind an ear, the gesture revealing the tattoo on his neck. He answered the question he wanted to.

“What exactly am Ah doin’ tae aid the Turks?” he said. He offered an apologetic grin. “Please, Ah cannae exactly go spoutin mah plans over the air, ken? These guys are haudin’ enough cairds as it is.”

One tenor voice lofted above the others crying questions. It was a nasal, braying cry that carried all the assumed cultural superiority of Thameside, a voice calculated to raise the hackles of anyone born north of the Humber.

In other words, the perfect foil for someone like Attila.

“Are you aware,” the voice said, “that it’s illegal for a citizen of the United Kingdom to attempt to overthrow a foreign government?”

Attila laughed. “Surely that depends on the government’s legitimacy, no?” He shrugged. “Besides, if it aw goes tits up Ah’ll only get banged up. Nae great shakes.”

Reporters continued to shout questions. Attila affected to be baffled by the volume, then grinned and waved.

“Nae more answers, then,” he said, and raised two fingers in a V. “Peace oot,” he said.

Brilliant, Dagmar thought.

“What the hell,” Helmuth said from the couch, “did that man just say?” English was his second language, and its remote dialects were clearly not his forte.

“He pretty much stuck to the script I wrote for him,” Dagmar said. “He just translated it into his own, ah, idiom.”

“Does he talk like that all the time?” Richard asked.

Dagmar reviewed their conversations that the afternoon, in which Attila had seemed perfectly competent in Received Standard English, at least when he wasn’t upset and in what Dagmar had come to think of as “balls on the rail” mode.

“I think he’s exactly as Robbie Burns as he wants to be,” she said. “I also think he’s underrated as an actor.”

Lloyd laughed.

“Imagine some poor bastard trying to translate that into Turkish for Bozbeyli. My god!”

“Are our people going to get it, though?” Helmuth said. “I certainly didn’t.”

Dagmar considered it.

“Attila was doing that deliberately,” she said, “and he was winking at the audience the whole time. He’s setting up a division between those that get it and those that don’t.”

“Just as we’ve been trying to do,” Richard said.

“Right,” Dagmar said. “You’re hip to the Scottish jive or not, just as you’re hip to Ozone or not. Our folks will get it, I’m sure.”

“Hip,” Helmuth said, “isn’t going to do much against guns.”

“No,” Dagmar said. “Events have demonstrated that well enough.”

The day’s news, generally speaking, hadn’t been good. At dawn that morning, under cover of the High Zap, the Turkish military had moved against Ankara’s former mayor forted up in the Ministry of Labor. The building had been stormed, apparently with massive loss of life. Now that the Internet had been restored, photos and video was being uploaded by those survivors who had managed to escape. There was little narrative to be discovered in these artifacts, only a lot of confusion, running, screaming, and the sound of automatic weapons fire.

The Turkish media claimed that Mayor Erez had been killed trying to escape custody, but had not as yet shown pictures of his body. That was promised for later.

If Erez had recorded any last message, any declaration of defiance or principle, it had not yet surfaced. Muzzled by the High Zap, he had died as anonymously and silently as so many of his followers.

Otherwise, as video uploads and Rafet’s drones showed, the day in Ankara had been mixed. There hadn’t been any big demos, but there had been constant skirmishing between protestors and the security forces. There were videos of a cop being knocked off his motorcycle by a well-thrown brick, an armored car smashing a storefront, ambulances screaming down Ataturk Boulevard, a screaming woman being manhandled into a police car by a party of sweating men in suits and ties. Piles of tires and debris had been set afire to block roads or rally resisters, and the names and addresses of Gray Wolves and police-and their families-had been posted in order to invite popular vengeance.

These scenes were duplicated elsewhere, though with less intensity. There was general unrest in many of the cities, but nothing as well-defined as the demonstrations and occupations of the previous day. It was as if, with the Lincoln Brigade sealed away by the High Zap, the opposition throughout the country was taking a breather and trying to work out a new approach.

The mayor of Bodrum, off in the southeast, still held out on his peninsula. The junta had so far ignored him, perhaps on the theory that his pitiful blockade did more to isolate him than to threaten the generals.

The BBC talking heads were discussing Attila’s address. One wondered if Attila weren’t taking the role of James Bond far too seriously. Another said that his claims that he was responsible for the disorder in Turkey were absurd.

“It’s not Attila Gordon who’s making the claim, however,” said another. “It’s the official Turkish media that’s claiming he’s responsible for the anti-government actions. All Gordon did was confirm their accusations. What are we to make of this extraordinary series of claims?”

Nothing much, as it turned out. They did agree that if any of this was true, Attila Gordon would shortly be in jail.

Dagmar had no worries on that score. The British government knew perfectly well who was stirring up trouble in Turkey and knew it was being done with Whitehall’s cooperation, from the Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri. If they made the ridiculous mistake of arresting Attila, he’d walk.

The talking heads shifted to other news. Lincoln raised the TV remote and turned off the set.

He walked in front of the television and turned to the others.

“Helmuth’s right that we’re not much good against guns,” he said. “But please bear in mind that behind each of those guns is a person.” He looked at the TV remote in his hand, then placed it on the stand next to the set.

“The average Turkish conscript-in the country he’s known affectionately as ‘Mehmet’-has more in common with the demonstrators than with the generals,” he said. “When Mehmet realizes this and acts on it, the junta is finished. The officer class has a good deal more esprit and ideological solidarity, but they know full well how corrupt their leaders are, and they know how the junta is corrupting the military itself. The best members of the officer class are not natural allies of the generals but obey out of habit, or because they see no other path. When presented with alternatives, they may come over to our side.

“Mehmet is our target,” Lincoln said, “but we’re not firing bullets. If our people start killing soldiers, they’ll close ranks in solidarity. Our strategy has to be to split them, not force them to unite.”

“What are the officers going to make of Attila Gordon?” Richard asked.

Lincoln spread his hands. “Lord only knows,” he said.

“Well,” Helmuth said. “On that note…” He rose to his feet. “I’ll see you all in the morning. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”

Dagmar rose and helped Ismet escape from the spongy clutches of the mustard-colored sofa. She felt Lincoln’s hand on her arm and turned.

“Good save,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Guards took the Brigade to their quarters. Dagmar paused outside Ismet’s door and carefully put her arms around his strained ribs. He carried the scent of soap and antiseptic, as if he carried a part of the hospital around with him.

He kissed her carefully, pressing his bruised lips to hers.

“Were you all right last night?” he asked.

“Slept like a baby,” she said.

“Good.” His voice took on a precise cast. “You need to see a doctor.”

“Lincoln’s arranging it.”

Resentment crackled in her skull as she realized she didn’t want to be the subject of the conversation.

“And you?” she asked. “How are you doing?”

“Still enjoying the pain pills.”

She kissed his cheek, the point of his jaw under the ear. Bristles sang against her cheek. He rested his hands lightly on her hips, then kissed her mouth again, a peck that had the air of finality.

“I’m going to bed,” he said finally. She dropped her arms and stood back.

“Sleep well,” she said.

“You, too.”

His door closed behind him, and she heard the lock click. She turned in silence and walked to her own door, feeling all the way the eyes of the RAF Regiment guard posted on the landing. At least it wasn’t Corporal Poole who witnessed her rejection.

Serves me right, she thought, for being crazy.

It was lucky that she was alone that night, she reflected later, because she had barely gotten into her own room before another flashback struck and suddenly heavily armed intruders were swarming through the door and the windows. They were soldiers, with black scarves wrapped around their faces so only the glittering eyes showed, and they wore the Keystone Kops helmets of the Turkish army. Dagmar lay curled on the couch, whimpering, as they approached.

She felt their hands on her. She felt their hot breath on her neck. Tears shot from her eyes as if under hydraulic pressure.

She remembered how Corporal Poole had returned her to reality two nights before, by calling attention to the ordinary objects around her, and she began to do the same thing, calling to her mind the color and texture of the robin’s egg blue couch, the furze of the carpet, the throb of the overhead fan. The soldiers faded.

She sat up, wiped tears from her face, blew her nose. That one hadn’t been too bad, she thought: there was no broken furniture, no guards hovering outside her door, no Ismet standing over her, his face alive with shock and embarrassment. She was fine.

Dagmar couldn’t face the bedroom. She had slept perfectly well the night before, but now the walls seemed to throb with menace. She couldn’t trust the bed that she’d carefully set at an angle-it had betrayed her, and now it looked like nothing but a trap.

She couldn’t trust a bedroom ever again. The alternative was simply not to sleep, so she sat up on the couch watching music videos on the telly and laughed when she saw Ian Attila Gordon appear to sing the bombastic theme to Stunrunner. They played a lot of Attila that night, seeing as he was in the news, and she heard a fair cross section of his oeuvre.

Harmless, she decided. The music wasn’t anything that others hadn’t done better.

But he dressed well. And she could imagine him in a kilt. And he kept her entertained long into the night, until exhaustion finally claimed her.

POP STAR ADMITS DECEPTION

Motivations of Anti-Government Movement Come into Question

Next morning Attila was discussed on all the news programs and one British comic appeared with a subtitled version of Attila’s address, in which his Scots was translated variously as “This is really all about me!” and “Can I have my Peace Prize now?”

The body of ex-mayor Erez was shown to selected representatives of the Turkish press.

The Brigade updated the rebel Web pages, editing and uploading the most recent of the videos and photos that had straggled in since the Zap had ended. Also uploaded were pictures of the junta with the label AW TAE HELL. The pictures went viral instantly, appearing on Web sites and blogs, being downloaded and then forwarded to millions who couldn’t have pointed to Turkey on a map and who then passed it on to others.

Richard went to work creating a memorial Web page for Erez. Helmuth built a page of worship for Ian Attila Gordon, featuring a video of his interview and a bulletin board for comments. This last was a mistake: it was soon inundated by trolls, ghouls, the insane, Scottish nationalists, Kemalist provocateurs, and dozens of mild Asperger’s cases arguing the origin of the phrase “tits up.”

That afternoon Rafet successfully led a demonstration of five or six thousand in Kuulu Park, marching in a chill wind past the lake with its famous Chinese swans. The marchers each carrying a newspaper and a single shoe. Skunk Works drones saw the police response on its way, and the crowd dispersed before the police arrived. A few of the shoes were thrown, a few people arrested off the street, but on the whole it showed that the rebellion still had fight.

The military were not in evidence. According to Lincoln, who had his own sources of information, the Sixty-sixth Motorized Infantry Brigade, part of NATO’s Rapid Reaction Corps, had been sent from Istanbul for the express purpose of storming the Ministry of Labor. The brigade had then since been pulled out of the city but was being kept in reserve at a military airfield near the capital.

Ismet watched the developments in Ankara with growing impatience: after Rafet’s demo ended he went to Lincoln’s office and demanded to be sent to Turkey. Lincoln refused. Anyone in Ismet’s condition would be an immediate object of suspicion-Ismet simply looked like someone who had been thrashed recently by police-and Lincoln didn’t want Ismet arrested the second he stepped off the train.

When he wasn’t arguing with Ismet, Lincoln spent most of the day in his office, sending coded messages to his superiors, receiving intelligence in return, and arguing with the Brits. He emerged in late afternoon to announce that a general strike was going to be called in three days’ time. It was time, he thought, to test soft power against the might of the junta.

Dagmar slept alone that night. No ghosts walked.

Monday featured clashes in Kizilay, a rally in Bursa, and small demonstrations elsewhere. Rafet’s demonstration in Ulus was called off when police flooded the area before the demonstrators could get there. This meant that the government had gotten inside the Brigade’s communications loop-they’d turned someone or gotten hold of a cell phone, or someone had unwittingly recruited an informer. But this had been anticipated and the next day’s orders sent people off into a dozen districts, carrying a wide variety of ordinary objects found about the home. Those carrying paperback books, playing cards, pillows, and decks of index cards succeeded in their meet-ups and had successful minidemonstrations that dispersed before the authorities could arrive. But those carrying small jars of condiments were swarmed by police, demonstrating that the condiment carriers’ sub-network had been compromised.

That compromised sub-network would be frozen out of future actions, unless of course they were needed to draw police away from something more crucial.

In late afternoon Ismet was checking the video of a demo that had just been uploaded, and he gave a call. Soon the video was being broadcast by the big wall-mounted flatscreen above Helmuth’s desk. It showed a file of demonstrators marching past the camera, chanting and waving fists and signs. They carried CDs and towels. There was no audio.

“This demo is supposed to have taken place in Diyarbakyr this morning,” Ismet said. “The signs are calling for independence for Kurdistan and praising the PPK.”

“Crap,” Dagmar said. The actions were supposed to be about democracy for Turkey, not self-determination for one of its minorities. Now the authorities could point to the demonstration and say that the movement wasn’t really about political freedom but Kurdish separatism.

“This doesn’t make sense in a lot of ways,” Lloyd said. “Are you sure it’s supposed to be Diyarbakyr?”

“Yes.”

“Diyarbakyr is the largest Kurdish city in the country,” Lloyd said. “But it’s also the largest garrison town. There’s the whole Seventh Army Corps in Diyarbakyr to make sure demonstrations like this don’t happen.”

Dagmar perched on the edge of Richard’s desk and considered the video. “Could the government be gaming us again?” she asked. “Trying to split the movement?”

Lloyd fingered his chin. “I’d say it has to be that way.”

“Right,” Dagmar said. “Let’s watch the video again and look for proof.”

On the second viewing, Lloyd jabbed a finger at the screen. “Stop,” he called. Ismet pressed the Pause button. “Back up.” Ismet reversed the video’s direction, staying in slow motion. Marchers creeped past, moving backward, swallowing their unheard chanted words.

“There. Stop.” The picture froze. Lloyd studied it.

“See the man on the left?” he said. “Red tie? Dark glasses?”

Dagmar located him.

“Yes.”

“I think that’s Muammar Sengor.”

The name meant nothing to Dagmar. Ismet adjusted his spectacles and studied the figure.

“Yes,” he said. “That could be him.”

“Let’s see if Chatsworth recognizes him.”

Lincoln was brought from his office to view the video. He shook his head.

“I don’t know Sengor. After my time. Sorry.”

“I’ve got his Web page here.” Lloyd brought the page up on another screen. It showed a smiling Sengor under a patriotic red banner featuring Turkish stars and crescents. He was a handsome man, in his thirties, with a mustache and a bright white smile.

“It looks like him, all right,” Ismet said. “He’s even got a red tie in his official photo. Maybe even the same one.”

Dagmar cleared her throat. The others turned to her.

“I’m all four-oh-four,” she said. “Who is this freakin’ Sengor?”

“The unfortunate thing about the Kurds,” Lloyd said, “is that they’ve never been politically united. Some are assimilated into Turkish society-Turkey has had Kurdish generals, Kurdish presidents-and others are tribal and owe allegiance to their sheikhs. The Kurds don’t have a common religion-there are Jewish Kurds and Christian Kurds and Yezidis, and even the Muslims are divided between Sunni and Alevi. There are regional dialects of the Kurdish language that make it difficult for Kurds to communicate with each other. And just to complicate things, some Kurds don’t even speak Kurdish; they speak Aramaic. When the PKK started calling for an independent Kurdistan, a lot of Kurds probably wouldn’t have understood what they were talking about. Ethnic identity has always been a little slippery.”

He raised a hand toward Sengor’s picture and waved his fingers as if trying to grasp at something elusive.

“Sengor operates in this realm of ambiguity very well. He’s an assimilated Kurd who has his own political party based in eastern Turkey. He’s supposed to be Alevi, though that’s unofficial. He’s been a supporter of the military government from the start.” His glance shifted to the smiling man on his official Web page. “He’s also said to be a gangster. Probably has a piece of the heroin trade, and is supposed to loan gunmen to the government to kill moderate Kurds.”

“Right.” Dagmar pointed at the frozen picture of the demonstration. “So now we’ve got him dead to rights, leading a phony demonstration intended to discredit the revolutionary movement. We put out our disclaimer right away.”

“That may not be Sengor,” Ismet pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dagmar said. “The man in the red tie is Sengor from now on.”

Ismet and Lloyd went to work on updating the Web pages with the video while simultaneously debunking it in English and in Turkish.

Dagmar followed Lincoln back into his office.

“Do we have to keep calling you ‘Chatsworth’?” she asked. “Everyone left in the group knows your real name.”

“Squadron Leader Alvarez doesn’t know my name,” he said. “Neither does Alparslan Topal, or any of the people here at the aerodrome.” He took papers off his desk and locked them in his safe. “Now that we’re in the habit of maintaining security, let’s keep doing it. Just in case.”

Dagmar dropped into one of the chrome-and-vinyl seats.

“Someone in the Turkish government is trying to play us,” she said. “It’s not Bozbeyli or the generals-those were the people who sent gunmen to kill me. This is someone new.”

Interest glimmered in Lincoln’s blue eyes.

“That’s possible,” he said.

“You’ve got access to intelligence reports,” Dagmar said. “Do you have any idea who this new person might be?”

Lincoln seemed to give the idea thorough consideration. His eyebrows went up.

“The man who reengineered the High Zap?” he said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Dagmar said. “Do you have any reports on whatever team deconstructed the Zap?”

Lincoln spread his hands. “I have no information here. I’ll make inquiries.” He tilted his head. “But this… gamester.”

“Kronsteen,” Dagmar said. “The chess player in From Russia with Love.”

“Kronsteen,” Lincoln echoed. “Do you have any idea what he’ll do next?”

“He’ll do whatever he can to divide us. He just uploaded a video showing that the rebellion was all about Kurdish independence.” Lincoln began to speak, but Dagmar held up a hand. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I handled it.”

He nodded. “I applaud your initiative.”

“But what other splits can be engineered in our alliance?”

“Religious Turks versus seculars,” Lincoln said immediately. And then, on reflection, “Rich versus poor. City versus rural. Sophisticated, Westernized Istanbul versus the patriotic heartland.” He flapped a hand. “Any society has similar fault lines. And any popular movement.”

“He’ll have a hard time taking this line if he goes too far,” Dagmar said. “Within forty-eight hours he’s already told us that the rebellion is about both a Scottish rock star and Kurdish separatism.”

“Next,” said Lincoln, “it’ll be a candy mint and a breath mint.”

“You’re dating yourself.”

Lincoln sighed. “I roll deep,” he said. He looked up.

“By the way,” he said, “we may be wearing out our welcome from our friends the Brits. A general officer pointed out to me this morning that we can do our job anywhere-which is true enough-and asked when I thought I’d be finishing up here. I think getting hit with the High Zap has strained their hospitality.”

Dagmar considered this. Moving wasn’t necessarily a bad idea.

“We need to shift to a place with a lot of bandwidth,” she said.

“And we won’t have Byron and Magnus to give our location away,” Lincoln said.

Dagmar narrowed her eyes.

“Indeed,” she said. “How much time do we have?”

“Negotiations are in progress on a number of fronts. dai Military Base has been mentioned-that’s in Latvia. So have bases in Germany.”

“I don’t have the appropriate wardrobe for Latvia,” Dagmar said. “I’m used to Southern California, for heaven’s sake.”

“I believe you can afford a coat on what we’re paying you,” Lincoln said.

“I can’t get another wardrobe out of Uncle Sam?”

“We don’t have a regular supplier,” Lincoln said, “for T-shirts branded with the logos of failed start-ups.”

Dagmar gave a laugh.

“Touche,” she said. She thought for a moment.

“We’ve got Byron and Magnus locked up here, right?” she said. “Why don’t we have one of them tell the Turks that we’ve got evicted and that out little project is canceled?” She thought for a moment. “Byron, for preference. If he defects, he won’t see his family again.”

Lincoln laughed.

“You’re starting to think like me,” he said.

“And that,” Dagmar said, “is terrifying as hell.”

By the next morning Rafet had a backup MS-DOS machine set up inside the safe house, with a modem scavenged from a carpet shop. Instructions for joining the DOS network had gone out to the various heads of the various sub-networks. Richard had put together a bulletin board system within DOS, where instructions to the network could be posted. In the event that the Zap struck Ankara again, Rafet would use a landline to call out of the country, to a number set up in Luxembourg. The Luxembourg number would automatically be forwarded to another number, this one in Milan, and so until it reached the computer humming away in Akrotiri.

If the High Zap lasted long enough, the landlines would go down as well, but Dagmar hoped the Turks wouldn’t dare to keep their own cities blacked out for very long. They wouldn’t want to crash their own economy, which like the rest of the world was now dependent on the Internet.

Next morning the military staged a formal military parade down Ataturk Boulevard in Ankara, the Sixty-sixth Motorized Infantry Brigade returning to the scene of their triumph. The junta stood on a reviewing platform in Cankaya and distributed medals. Whose morale the parade was intended to boost was open to question.

What this meant, practically speaking, was that the military and police were busy guarding the parade route, which allowed Rafet to lead a demo near the Cebeci Campus of Ankara University. A swath of old houses had been demolished and not yet replaced, and the demonstrators made a brave sight, waving flags among the ruins and carrying signs in support of the next day’s general strike.

The first amateur videos being uploaded, however, seemed to be from some other place altogether. These featured men in shades and galabia and white keffiyehs, who carried flowers and paperback books and waved signs in Arabic. They marched down a wide boulevard past white-walled stucco buildings. Palm trees waved on the horizon.

“What the hell?” Helmuth demanded.

The video was put up on one of the big wall screens. Dagmar studied it.

“No one here reads Arabic, right?”

“A little,” said Ismet. “But they’re not really showing us the signs; the writing isn’t big enough.” He squinted at the signs. “It’s very idiomatic. I doubt I can make much sense of it.”

“The point is,” Dagmar said, “this isn’t anywhere in Turkey, right? Not even in the far southeast, where there are lots of Arabs?”

Ismet shook his head. “The Gulf States, maybe? Yemen?”

The Arab men reached a park featuring a geodesic-looking jungle gym. Glittering glass buildings shimmered on the horizon. Mercedes and BMWs prowled past the camera. The men began to create designs with their books and flowers.

“Qatar?” Lloyd wondered. “Bahrain?”

“What is going on over there?” Richard wondered aloud.

Helmuth slapped his hand to his forehead. “Fuck,” said Helmuth. “It’s revolution creep.” He was utterly disgusted.

Dagmar looked at him, mouth open.

“Revolution creep,” she said. “That’s it.”

The software business had always been prone to what was called scope creep or feature creep, in which shiny, attractive, but poorly conceived new features were added to projects that had already been approved, usually without any changes in budgets or deadlines. The result would be a large, unwieldy, badly functioning piece of bloatware, a prime example being Windows Vista, which jammed together the features of two separate projects, Longhorn and Blackcomb, then jettisoned the original source code to produce a program that glittered with surface appeal but operated with less efficiency than its predecessor. Vista’s problems were eventually fixed, but the damage to Microsoft’s reputation had been done.

In Dagmar’s business, scope creep was a deadly danger. Plots could have so many elements and dimensions that they would run completely out of control. So could the software projects, and the video and audio. Half the anxiety of her job was making sure her projects were streamlined enough to be online by the deadline.

Richard looked at Helmuth.

“They’re using our tactics,” he said. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

“Yes,” Dagmar said. “We sent the meme out into the world, and now anyone can use it.” And then she studied the men putting down books on the ground, setting them in patterns that might be Arabic writing.

“I wonder if it’s Kronsteen,” she said.

Ismet looked up at her. Dagmar explained.

“We’ll know if it’s Kronsteen behind it,” Ismet said, “if there are a lot more demos like this in different parts of the world. Because then he’ll be trying to trivialize the whole process, show it’s just a game that people are playing.”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “If people are suddenly using these techniques to protest the appointment of a dogcatcher in Aswa-n, then it’s Kronsteen behind it.”

Kronsteen’s work was revealed later in the day, when Turkish television released an interview with an imam who had allegedly defected from the Tek Organization. He proclaimed that Riza Tek’s goal was to restore the caliphate and establish sharia law in Turkey and that Tek’s money was behind the rebellion.

“Now we’re a Scots rock star, Kurdish rebels, and religious zealots,” Dagmar said.

“We contain multitudes,” Richard said. Dagmar looked at him in surprise. She hadn’t reckoned him as the sort of person who would know Whitman.

She turned to Ismet. “Estragon,” she said, “can you write an editorial pointing out the insanity of all these competing claims?”

“The nationalists aren’t going to see contradictions in this,” Lloyd said. “They’re going to see conspiracy.”

“Well,” Dagmar said. “Then let’s give them one.”

They began the editing and uploading of the various videos. Ismet wrote an editorial denouncing the imam and pointed out that his own government said that the rebels were working for a Scotsman.

Lincoln had been away for most of the day. As evening came on, he arrived and called Dagmar into his office. He held out a sheet of paper.

“I’ve been on the phone with the team in the States working on the High Zap. Turns out they have a clue as to the team-or more likely the individual-who reverse-engineered the High Zap.”

“They recognized the way he codes?”

Lincoln looked disgusted. “They haven’t managed to decompile the Turkish version yet. Whatever algorithm the guy used was elaborate beyond description.” He looked at Dagmar. “He signed it after he compiled it-they must have let him compile it himself.” He looked skeptical. “Problematic from the security point of view.”

“Maybe they were in a hurry.”

“Anyway.” He opened his briefcase and took out a single sheet of paper. “He signed it with his handle, but we don’t know who the handle belongs to. He calls himself ‘Slash Berzerker.’ ”

He put the paper on the table and turned it so that Dagmar could read it.

“Slash Berzerker?” Dagmar said. “What is he, fourteen?” She looked at the paper and checked the spelling. “Fourteen,” she said, “and a bad speller?”

Lincoln only shrugged, then retrieved the paper.

“Are you going to burn that?” Dagmar asked.

“If you want me to.”

“I’ve never seen a spy burn an important paper before.”

Lincoln shrugged again. “Whatever lifts your luggage.”

He crumpled the paper, then looked around the room.

“I don’t have an ashtray,” he said.

She grinned. “You could swallow it.”

Lincoln put the crumped paper on top of his safe, rummaged in his desk for a disposable lighter, and then set fire to the paper. It burned into a gray ash, and the smell of burning began to fill the office. Lincoln batted at the air to disperse the smoke.

“The things I do for people,” he muttered. “Are you satisfied now?”

“Yeah.” Dagmar rose from her chair. “Because I know exactly how I’m going to find Mr. Berzerker.”