Code 6, p.1
Code 6, page 1
Epigraph
It will be found very generally that the persons called upon to give information will do so without objection or delay.
—instructions to U.S. Census enumerators, June 1890
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by James Grippando
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
“Kate Gamble!” the silver-haired director shouted from his seat in the fifth row of the auditorium.
It startled Kate to hear her name called, even if she had been waiting nearly an hour for her brief moment onstage. She was an aspiring playwright, emphasis on “aspiring.” More than four hundred contestants nationwide had submitted spec scripts to win the honor of a live critique from Tony Award–winning Broadway director Irving Bass. The “Bass Workshop,” as it was immodestly billed, included public readings, though it mostly drew friends and family of the winning contestants. Kate’s hope was not to wow the audience, but merely to take the stage, face the spotlight, and read her opening scene aloud without her knees buckling.
“Gamble! You’re up!”
Kate was seated in Row J, almost hiding behind one of nine white columns that supported the dress circle above. The famous Ford’s Theatre, site of Lincoln’s assassination, was still a living and working playhouse, and just being there made her feel sorry for anyone who didn’t “get” the excitement of live theater. Kate was a child when her father had taken her there to see A Raisin in the Sun, a transformative experience that had sparked her dream of picking up the pen. It took more than inspiration to return, years later, and present her own work. Courage was essential. A touch of insanity didn’t hurt. After countless hours of rehearsal in front of her bedroom mirror, Kate could probably have recited her play by heart. But stage fright could strike at any moment. She gathered up her script like a safety blanket and hurried up the steps at stage left.
“I see your play is untitled,” said Bass.
Kate walked tentatively to center stage, shielding her eyes from the bright spotlight. She was five foot six in flats, but just the sound of the director’s voice made her feel much smaller. Bass was in the aisle seat, a talking silhouette.
“I hope that’s not a problem.”
“Why would that be a problem? By all means, if you’re at a loss for words, become a writer.”
Kate wasn’t sure if she should laugh it off or disappear through the trap door, if there was one.
“How long have you been working on your script?”
Kate hesitated. In a way, she’d been researching this story her entire life, mostly at the family dinner table. Her father was Christian Gamble, CEO of Buck Technologies International, a private data-integration company whose clients included the CIA, the NSA, and virtually every counterterrorism organization in the Western world. Kate’s father adored her, and a play about the dark side of Big Data would have been the ultimate betrayal in his eyes. So Kate had worked in secret, telling precious few that her story was about the processing of personal information, and telling absolutely no one that her inspiration was the data-integration software her father had licensed to the federal government.
“I’ve been at this a very long time,” said Kate.
Bass’s assistant brought another liter of vodka and placed it next to the pitcher of orange juice on the tray table in the aisle. Bass poured the vodka into his tall glass, seemed to consider the need for more OJ, and then thought better of it. He added only ice.
“Haven’t got all day,” said the director. “Let’s hear the best you’ve got.”
Kate did the nervous head jerk that she’d told herself not to do, tossing her copper-brown hair over her left shoulder and then her right. She collected herself and began by setting the scene. “June 1890. We are in the common dining area on the ground floor of a Lower East Side tenement building. There is a simple wood table with two chairs that don’t match. Seated at the table is a young mother, Shayna Fine, breast-feeding a newborn.
“At rise: Enter Hans Albrecht, a young man dressed in a summer suit and flat-brimmed straw hat. A portfolio labeled ‘U.S. Census’ is tucked under his arm.”
“Hold, please,” said Bass.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a playwright, not a costume designer. I don’t give a shit what you think Hans Albrecht is wearing. Understood?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“Proceed.”
Kate feared she’d already lost him. “Let me skip ahead to the good part. Albrecht is a census taker and he is asking Shayna, the young mother, the series of questions he is required by law to ask.” She shifted to her Albrecht voice, responding as Shayna:
“‘Ma’am, what is your race?’”
“Jewish.”
“That is not one of the choices. Not sure why that is. I should mention it to my superintendent. White, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian?”
“Qua-what?”
“Quadroon. One-quarter African and three-quarters European ancestry. Octoroon is one-eighth African and—” Kate paused for effect, conveying the census taker’s realization that the ancestral fractions were lost on Shayna. “Let me ask it this way: Are you and your children the descendants of slaves?”
“Sir, my children are Jewish. Have you never read the Book of Exodus?”
“Hold, please,” said Bass, groaning.
Kate looked up. “I was just getting to the good part.”
“That’s what you said five minutes ago. You can’t begin a play in the Gay Nineties talking about kangaroos and macaroons.”
“Quadroons and octoroons. The terms are outdated and offensive. I get it. But that question is verbatim from the 1890 census. I researched it.”
“The cutting room floor is smothered in research.” Bass tore the page from the script, crushed it into a ball, and pitched it into the aisle. He might as well have ripped Kate’s heart from her chest.
“But this is a critical point,” she said. “The census of 1890 is the first time the U.S. Census office used electromechanical tabulating machines.”
“So what?”
“Our government got its first taste of technology—and it couldn’t help but turn it against its own people. Suddenly, the Census Bureau could nail down the name and address of every single American with a drop of African blood in his or her body. This is 1890. The possibilities are so much scarier now. This goes to the heart of my theme.”
“What theme?”
“Technology and the abuse of personal information.”
Bass poured more vodka. “Ms. Gamble, this is a playwriting competition for scripts about women’s health and sexuality. We’re looking for the next Vagina Monologues or Menopause: The Musical. Not the next Snowden or Oslo.”
Kate blinked hard, confused. Bass definitely should not have started that second liter of vodka. His assistant corrected him gently, his voice carrying.
“Mr. Bass, the women’s festival is next week.”
“Well, even so. Ms. Gamble, you can’t write a historical play that isn’t historically accurate. What kind of tabulating technology even existed in 1890?”
“Hollerith machines,” said Kate. “The old punch-card technology that predated computers. It was invented in the nineteenth century by Henry Hollerith.”
“Which your audience couldn’t care less about.”
“They should care. I wrote a short scene to explain. It starts at page eight.”
“And it runs to what page?”
“Twelve.”
&nb sp; Bass yanked the pages from the notebook and tossed them into the aisle.
He might as well have grabbed Kate by the throat and thrown her across the stage. “You’re just awful,” she said.
Bass closed the notebook on what was left of her tattered script. “This is awful.”
With a snap of the director’s fingers, his assistant summoned the next victim.
“Contestant two-oh-nine, Esther Baldwin.”
“That’s it?” asked Kate. “I’m done?”
A young woman hurried down the aisle, script in hand.
Bass shot one final dismissive glance in Kate’s direction. “If your name is not Esther Baldwin, then yes, you are done.”
Kate stepped away, and Ms. Baldwin took her place at center stage. The polite response would have been to find a seat and wait for all the contestants to finish. Kate wasn’t feeling it. She hurried off the stage and headed straight for the rear exit, taking the side aisle farthest away from Bass. The door creaked on her way out, barely audible, but Bass was incapable of letting anything slide.
“Quiet!”
Kate continued through the empty lobby, past the will-call window, and out the main doors. There was a trash can at the curb outside the theater. She shoved the script into the receptacle with all the anger, disappointment, and embarrassment she was feeling, never looking back on her way to the Metro station. She caught the train as the doors were closing and took a seat by the window.
What a jerk, she thought, as the train entered the dark tunnel, but she actually pitied him. She wanted to admire a director of his talent for “paying it forward” and holding contests for aspiring playwrights, but maybe the rumors were true: he was a drunk who could no longer find work on Broadway, and he simply needed the money. Alcoholism is a scourge. Kate’s mother struggled with it. She’d been sober for nearly two years, but even at her lowest point she was classified as “high-functioning.” Bass was the same, which meant that while his words wounded, all too often it was only because the truth hurt. Still, he could have been nicer about it. The words of John Wilkes Booth as he leapt from the president’s box to the stage on the night of April 14, 1865—“Sic semper tyrannis!”—had no application to Lincoln but seemed to foreshadow the arrival of Irving Bass more than one hundred fifty years later:
“Thus always to tyrants.”
Squealing brakes brought the Metro train to a gradual stop, and the mechanical voice announced Kate’s arrival at Tysons Corner station. Kate exited to the elevated outdoor platform, converging with dozens of other late-afternoon commuters, a human funnel that emptied into the downward escalator. Kate pushed through the turnstile at the station exit. The sidewalk was still wet from a summer shower that had passed through earlier. September was the tail end of the hot and muggy season in northern Virginia, but a late-afternoon or early-evening shower was still common. A limo was waiting for her at the pickup circle, beaded raindrops glistening in the twilight. Kate could see her parents’ penthouse apartment from the station. It was less than a half mile away. Kate enjoyed long walks, and she’d told her mother not to send the driver. But Kate knew she wouldn’t listen; she never did. As the family counselor often reminded her, “No point arguing over the small stuff.”
The mother-daughter arguments had been epic, starting with the time Kate had bravely called her out on a daily routine that was poisoning her body. Her mother started each morning at the club around 11:00 a.m., when her tennis friends came off the court for a round of Bloody Marys. The server was under a standing order to bring Kate’s mother a double. After the tennis players left, the first wave of golfers rolled in from the ninth tee around noon, which meant wine with lunch, lunch optional. Some of her friends played eighteen holes, slightly more serious about golf than chardonnay, and Mrs. Gamble met them for afternoon cocktails until it was time for happy hour. On rainy days she’d settle for the card room, an older group of women who were generally so lit up by lunchtime that it didn’t matter who actually knew how to play. Through it all, she managed to remain in total control of her daughter, if not her own faculties.
At least Cooper was happy to see her. “Coop,” as Kate called him, had been the family driver as long as she could remember. He hopped out of the car and hobbled around to the passenger side as quickly as his seventy-year-old bones would carry him.
“Looking lovely as always, Miss Kate,” said Cooper as he opened the door for her.
Twilight was quickly fading to darkness, and Kate felt a raindrop. Another band of showers was passing. Maybe her mother had been right, after all, about not walking from the station, though Uber would have been just fine.
“Thanks, Coop,” she said, as she climbed into the backseat.
“There’s bottled water in the beverage bin, if you like.”
Cooper was ever loyal to Kate’s mother. It was his way of saying, “Go ahead, check. You won’t find any vodka in that bin. Your mother has changed.”
“I’m fine, thanks,” said Kate, and the car pulled away from the station.
Tysons Corner was regarded by many city planners as the quintessential “edge city,” a term popularized by a Washington Post reporter to describe the transformation of what was once the quiet suburbs into a more intense concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown. Technically speaking, Tysons Corner was a “census-designated place”—more research for the cutting room floor—situated along the Capital Beltway in Fairfax County. The tech industry fueled much of the growth, and Kate’s father had been years ahead of the trend by picking up his family when Kate was a little girl and moving the headquarters of Buck Technologies from Silicon Valley. One of Kate’s earliest memories of her new hometown was waiting in line with friends for the opening of the world’s first Apple store at Tysons Corner Center, one of two superregional malls that were the city’s retail crown jewels.
“Looks like we got ourselves a bit of a traffic jam,” said Cooper, as the limo came to a complete stop.
They were in the center lane of a busy three-lane boulevard. For the next several minutes, they didn’t move an inch. Cars to either side of them were frozen in place. Kate peered ahead, through the windshield at the long line of red taillights. No sign of movement. Not even a flashing brake light. Hundreds of vehicles all seemed to be stuck in park.
“I think I’m going to walk,” she said.
The wipers squeaked across the windshield. The accumulation had been growing steadily with each sweep of the intermittent cycle, as if to forecast the imminent transition from sprinkles to downpour. Cooper handed her the umbrella he kept in the front seat.
“Be careful, Miss Kate.”
She promised she would and popped the umbrella as she climbed out and shut the door behind her. The pop-pop-pop of raindrops bounced off the Buck Technologies logo as she wended her way between stopped vehicles to the sidewalk.
Up ahead, the red and orange swirl of emergency beacons caught her eye. Two ambulances were on the scene. A line of squad cars stretched across the east- and westbound lanes, stopping traffic on both sides of the long, skinny island of grass, trees, and flowers that bisected the boulevard. Kate walked faster and stopped at the yellow police tape that closed off the street and crosswalk. She was still two blocks from the flashing emergency vehicles. A pair of perimeter-control officers stood on the business side of the tape, their orange rain ponchos soaked and glistening beneath the glowing streetlights.
“What’s going on?” asked Kate.
“Street’s blocked,” said the officer, stating the obvious.
“I’m trying to get to Tysons Tower,” she said, indicating the high-rise building straight ahead.
“The detour starts here. Follow the crowd.”
“Was there an accident?” asked Kate.
The officer didn’t respond. Several bystanders had joined Kate at the police tape. An older man spoke up. “I’m told a pedestrian got run over. A woman.”
“Please,” said the officer, “everyone just move along.”
A local television news team came up quickly behind Kate. A cameraman nudged her out of the way, gently at first, and then not so gently, as if it were imperative that he have her exact spot on the sidewalk. The reporter began pleading her case for closer access, but the perimeter control officers were not budging. Kate turned away and followed the line of pedestrians up the cross street, dialing her mother’s cellphone as she continued on the detour. The rain was falling harder, which made the unanswered rings sound even lonelier. The call went to voicemail. Kate left a message.
