Black Swan

by Chris Knopf

  Back on board, I used the radio to check the NOAA weather report, which foretold a slow decline in wind speed during the day, with the promise of gentle winds tomorrow.

  The storm was all but over.

  We celebrated with a large breakfast, recklessly depleting our provisions on the assumption that we'd be shopping at the Southampton delis long before we ran out of food.

  I dug the dinghy and related equipment out of the deep lazarettes and put it all back together again. After that I took Eddie over to the pebble beach so he could run around for a while and get out the kinks. I brought my coffee with me, which I would have enjoyed more with a cigarette, but I'd quit, for the second time in my life. The first time was when I was around twenty-five, never having quite acquired the habit. In those days I was trying to sustain a career as a professional boxer, and the training was hard enough with clear lungs. I took up smoking again about twenty-three years later, the day I lost my job, left my home and wife, lost all my money and essentially burned my life to the ground. Adding a deadly habit didn't seem like such a big deal at the time.

  Things had improved since then. The route had been circuitous, but I was better for the trip. When I was living on the bottom of a ditch, self-reflection had seemed a meaningless endeavor, so I sought a blank calm, an unknowingness that would decouple waking consciousness from all that aching sadness and regret. To maintain this state of mind in the face of undeniably improved well-being seemed churlish and vain.

  Instead, I'd begun to count blessings the way I once catalogued guilt and remorse. While not what most people would consider an ideal romance, Amanda and I had found an equilibrium capable of sustaining the relationship. We lived together at the end of a peninsula, albeit in separate houses. We were both in the building trades, though in

  Chris Knopf 117

  separate ways—she a general contractor and me a journeyman carpenter and cabinetmaker. She tolerated the few friends I'd made (with the exception of Burton Lewis, whom she adored), and they tolerated her, but she never begrudged time spent with them and I never asked about times away from me, frequent occasions that were unannounced and rarely explained.

  I knew from my daughter Allison that some of these episodes involved the two of them cavorting around New York City. This constituted the greatest and most mysterious blessing of all. Allison had spent the first twelve years of her life trying to engage my attention, exerting the full force of her yearning will, and yielding the most meager of returns. She'd spent the next twelve, give or take, hating me for it, an inclination aided, abetted and reinforced at every opportunity by her mother. I got to it late, and only when there was almost nothing left of my life, but we'd more or less brought our relationship back from the dead. But then to have her magically connect with Amanda was astounding.

  And I'd lived to see it, an outcome that was far from an eventuality. In fact, on several occasions the odds were heavily weighted the other way. So whatever time I had left I decided to treat as a bonus, out of respect for which I'd make some effort to support the cause.

  chapter

  11

  I didn't have the heart to put Eddie back on the leash, but we were still in an untested environment. So I compromised by forcing him to heel, something he would do if convinced I really meant it. A few carefully chosen words were usually all it took.

  Thus configured, we were nearly at the boat when I heard someone running up from behind. It was Anika.

  She gripped my arm with both hands and said, "I'm not ready to panic yet."

  "Over what?"

  "I can't seem to locate Axel."

  "Does he like to disappear?" I asked.

  "No. That's sort of the point. He likes to cling."

  "What about your dad?"

  "He's pretending to be unconcerned, but he took off in the car a few minutes ago to search the roads. I've already looked all over the hotel and around the Harbor Club. I don't think Axel's been anywhere else on the island by himself."

  "It's not that big an island," I said.

  "Big enough. Though he can't get lost. He has a map of the place in his head."

  118

  Chris Knopf 119

  "We could report a missing kid, but there's no one to report to."

  "Technically, he's not a kid. He turned eighteen last month. Of course, if you say he's autistic, there's no problem. As if he's retarded or something, which he's anything but. I hate that label."

  I pulled her along to the boat as we talked so I could deliver Eddie to Amanda. I asked Anika to wait for me, and went below to explain things.

  "What's next?" said Amanda. "Are you going to lead the local militia against an invading horde?"

  "You remember how to start the engine and drive the boat?" I asked.

  "I do. Why?" she asked, stretching 'why' into two syllables.

  I pulled a detailed chart of Fishers Island out of the navigation table.

  "We're here," I said, pointing to the waterway beyond the breakwater. "Up here on the eastern shore of West Harbor, there's this little lagoon. The charts tell you it's too shallow for our draft, but that's not true if you follow this course."

  I used a pencil to draw a route from the Inner Harbor, through the breakwater, around a buoy and a cluster of rocks, and then through the narrow inlet, favoring the southern shore.

  "I've been there with Burton on a bigger boat than this. I've been tucking in there since I was a kid. It's part of a big estate and there's nothing on shore, no access roads or houses."

  "Why are you telling me all this?" she asked.

  "Unless I radio and say to head straight for New London, this is our best bet. Don't make a big deal of it, just start the engine, untie the lines and slip away. I'll tie the dinghy off on the dock before I go, and meet you there as soon as I can."

  120 BLACK SWAN

  "You'll never stop scaring the hell out of me."

  "I'm just getting started," I said, pulling the shotgun out of the hanging closet. "Ever used one of these?"

  Before I gave her a lesson, I poked my head out of the companionway and reassured Anika I was coming. She had her arms clenched across her chest, holding herself. She said to meet her back at the hotel and to take my time, though she didn't mean that last part.

  Down below Amanda was staring incredulously at the Remington's long black barrel. As I loaded it, I gave her the essentials of safety and proper use. I don't like guns, and have never owned one. But as a young mechanical engineer, I'd made a study of their inner workings.

  "With a shotgun, you don't have to be a very good shot. Just aim the barrel in the general direction and pull the trigger. Try to stay on your feet. This model has a reduced recoil so a cop can get off a few shots at a time, but it still has plenty of kick."

  "You're saying this as if it's going to happen," she said.

  "Better to be ready."

  "For what?"

  "I don't know, but we're in the realm of three."

  "The realm of three?"

  "A term coined by a guy who taught me how to troubleshoot process applications. Two simultaneous coincident failures could easily be unrelated. The likelihood of coincidence drops dramatically after you hit three. Sanderfreud is killed. Poole beat up. Now Axel's missing. All in a short period of time. It's got my attention."

  Amanda and I had been through a lot together, so she wasn't completely unfamiliar with moments like these. Though past events never involved sailboats, hidden lagoons or pump-action shotguns. Or beautiful young artists.

  "This will make Anika happy, "said Amanda.

  "Her happiness isn't my concern," I said.

  Chris Knopf 121

  "It isn't?"

  We stood and looked at each other, stopped in our tracks by a topic neither of us had ever broached.

  "It's not like that," I said.

  "When you asked me what I thought was going on at the Swan, I almost told you that Anika was trying to seduce you, but thought better of it. You might re
alize it, or you might not. You can be pretty oblivious about that sort of thing."

  She was right about that, having little experience with the romantic dance. But this time, Anika had left little room for ambiguity. None, actually, which I shared with Amanda.

  "I've never asked you to be faithful," said Amanda, her voice stripped of inflection, "and I won't now. I just don't want to feel like a fool."

  "I have no intention," I started to say, but she stopped me by putting her fingertips on my lips.

  "Don't say it. I know your intentions are good. But things happen. Let's leave it there."

  I didn't want to, but she stuck the backpack in my hands and hustled me up the companionway. I knew her well enough to leave without further protest.

  I tied the dinghy off under the dock with a mixture of confidence and dread. There were no guarantees Amanda could drift off unnoticed, or that I hadn't been seen separating the dinghy, or that either of us wouldn't be followed, but since I had no reason to think any of these things would happen, it felt reasonable to ignore unsubstantiated fears, which I almost did.

  Christian Fey was pulling his Mercedes station wagon into the hotel parking area as we reached the end of the dock. The car jerked to a stop, a small cloud rising around the wheels where they dug into the sandy gravel. His normally placid face was alight with angry worry. I hung back when Anika approached him so I didn't hear what they said

  122 BLACK SWAN

  to each other, but it was clear she was pushing him hard and he was fighting back. When he saw me standing there, he walked over.

  "I don't know why my daughter involved you in this," he said. "I appreciate your concern, but it's a simple family matter."

  "I sure get a lot of appreciation on this island and not much else," I said. "Has your son done this before?"

  Fey shook his head, then stopped himself.

  "Really, Mr. Acquillo," he said. "We don't need your help."

  "It's Sam, and yes you do. Where're the boys and girls from Subversive Technologies?"

  "They said they were going sightseeing."

  "That's a short morning's work. I don't suppose you'll tell me what's really going on," I said.

  Fey's quizzical look was almost convincing.

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  "Quit the bullshit. Hammon and 't Hooft aren't here to go bird watching. Something's going on with Subversive that caused them to make a surprise visit. Something big enough to drag in Sanderfreud. They want something from you, but so far the trip hasn't paid off too well."

  Fey struck an imperious pose of a type only a European can achieve. Chin up, lips pursed, hauteur leaking out of every pore.

  "You seem to know an awful lot for a boat deliveryman," he said.

  "I watched you guys in the bar last night. My dog could have figured that one out."

  "Sam used to be senior vice president for R&D at Consolidated Global Energies. The third largest hydrocarbon processor in the world," said Anika, "before they imploded. Not his fault. He was long gone."

  To his credit, Fey shook that off, though the tenor of the conversation took a different turn.

  Chris Knopf 123

  "Buyouts are always messy things," he said. "We're still haggling over silly details."

  "I don't believe you," I said. I could feel Anika stiffen, the reaction communicated across three feet of breezy Long Island Sound air. "Not that it's any of my business. But I might be able to help you out if you let me in on it."

  He glowered at me, his hands on his hips, his broad shoulders squared off. Anika reached out and took his forearm.

  "If you don't," she said to him, in a soft, firm voice, "I will."

  Suddenly distracted, Fey looked over my shoulder toward the Inner Harbor.

  "Isn't that your boat?" he asked.

  I didn't bother to turn around.

  "Amanda has to get back to Southampton. She's leaving Carpe in New London. I'll take the ferry over and pick up the boat when I can. Your daughter said I could have a room."

  Anika nodded, even though this was news to her.

  Fey did his best to maintain a manly resistance, but something about seeing Amanda float away undermined his resolve.

  "Come inside," he said to me. "I need a cup of tea."

  We went into the woody darkness of the Swan's lobby, then through the sitting room and out to the dining area that overlooked the docks, the brightest part of the building. Fey went into the kitchen to get the tea while Anika and I waited at a round table. I started to ask her a question, but she cut me off and pointed toward the kitchen.

  "Let him tell you," she said. "It'll be good for him."

  So I kept quiet until we each had our teacups and saucers in front of us. Of all the beverages I might pick to drink at any moment, regular tea would barely make the list.

  "So how does this work?" I asked.

  124 BLACK SWAN

  Anika helped me through the mechanics, which I found ridiculously more complicated than building a simple cup of coffee, though I kept my criticism at a minimum.

  "Didn't drinking tea cause the fall of the British Empire?"

  Despite the aspersions, the first sip seemed to calm Anika and Christian alike. The elder Fey leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

  "Children are the best and worst thing that can happen to a person," he said, opening his eyes.

  "Not sure how to take that one," said Anika.

  "There's no better example than Axel. A mind like a Formula One race car with the maturity of a go cart."

  "Interesting metaphor," I said.

  "Thank you. I've used it before. With the therapists who've tried to help me cope with this delectable dichotomy. With the constant joy and sorrow."

  "That's great, Dad. How're we going to find him?" said Anika.

  "Maybe we're not," he said, his voice rising several decibels above appropriate.

  Anika sat back in her seat, both hands turning her teacup, her eyes frustrated and patient, fixed on her father.

  "Did you say something to him? Do something to him?" she asked, her voice low, but firm.

  Fey looked down and shook his head.

  "I've barely spoken to him since Hammon and his minions arrived. And even if I had, he's not that sensitive. Lord knows," he said, looking over at Anika for confirmation. She nodded her head.

  "Another blessing and a curse," she said to me.

  "How much did Axel contribute to N-Spock 5.0?" I asked.

  The Feys looked at each other.

  "He helped around the edges," said Fey.

  "So what's the problem?" I asked. "Why the delay?"

  Chris Knopf 125

  The two Feys sat back in their chairs as if pulled by invisible strings. Anika crossed her legs and Christian folded his hands in his lap. They looked at each other, then back at me, then back at each other.

  "We don't know," said Christian, finally.

  "Yes we do," said Anika. "They can't transfer essential data from the existing version into 5.0. What they don't know is why."

  Fey was unhappy, but couldn't resist further explanation.

  "Let's pretend you're still running your lab and you're on N-Spock 4.0," he said. "You have a vast—too small a word—a galactic amount of data that you'll need to transfer when you upgrade to 5.0. For some reason, when they try to do this in beta test, it gets three quarters of the way through and then suddenly turns chaotic and the whole program crashes. This doesn't happen with fresh data, only during the mass conversion of an existing database. Therefore, they can prove the program is light-years ahead of anything they developed in the past, or any competitor could conceive of today, but when they try to make a legitimate conversion, the application blows itself up. And it's not a virus, or a glitch you can isolate and reverse. It's in the body of the code itself. Inextricably intertwined."

  "Who wrote the code?" I said.

  After a long pause, Anika nodded toward Fey.

  "My father owns the hear
t of N-Spock. The other developers, Axel included, just played around with the fingers and toes."

  "And it can't be reverse engineered," I said.