![]() ![]() Eric and Driscoll, two temporarily homeless programmers, move in with them. March, a blogger, leans towards low-level conspiracy theories (but nothing close to truther ideas). But he and his business partner had watched Monday Night Football and fallen asleep, and the morning of 9/11 had joined the masses seeking refuge in New Jersey and was unable to get through. ![]() The day before, Maxine's ex-husband Horst had told her that he was going to be working all night, and she now fears the worst. The following Tuesday, the 9/11 attacks occur. She finds Felix, a teenage programmer also involved with zapper fraud, but he won't say anything about Lester. She attends a humongous dotcom-style-excess party, sponsored by Gabriel Ice on Saturday night, September 8. Maxine receives a videotape of men apparently rehearsing on the Deseret rooftop the shooting down of a jet plane using a Stinger missile. The smell also horrifies a friend of Conkling's with a supernatural sense of "foresmell" who has been smelling not-yet-existent great fires in New York for some time now. This scent is identified as " 9:30 Cologne" and is soon connected with Windust. With the help of Conkling Speedwell, a man with a superhuman forensic sense of smell, she learns there is a peculiar mystery scent at the scene of Lester's death. She agrees, but next day he is found dead, an apparent suicide. She confronts him, and he is terrified, and intends to return the money, and asks Maxine to arrange terms. Maxine, in following the hashslingrz money, finds some of it is being diverted into Lester Traipse's account. ![]() The sudden appearance of a strange, short, human-like creature sends her into a panic and she flees in a hurry. She finds a mysterious code-locked door that she breaks into, and finds it leads to a baffling underground complex. The local sneaks her into the mansion Gabriel Ice is building, where he has her help him steal vintage wines. While trying to find the exact house, she's informed by a local that the house burned down a few weeks previously. Maxine receives a videotape which directs her to a Montauk house that suspect Vip Epperdew is known to visit. March and Maxine deliver some money to March's ex-husband, Sid, who takes them on his boat for a short drop off, but he is approached by patrol boats and races down the Hudson River, only shaking off his pursuit when he reaches New Jersey near the landfill islands. Igor is very thankful, realizing he got out of Madoff Securities in time, and rewards her with illegally unhealthy ice cream. The next morning, Maxine has an unexpected pre-dawn visit from Russian heavy Igor and March. She sees Tallis exiting the building, walking a bit then someone else exiting, proceeding in the opposite direction, getting in a go-go mobile and picking up Tallis, so Maxine trails them. Maxine pays a visit to Darklinear Solutions, another mystery vendor found associated with hashslingrz. A quick scan reveals to Maxine that the numbers are obviously too good to be true. Rocky introduces Maxine to Igor Dashkov, who asks her about Madoff Securities. Tallis does admit to having concerns, but is unwilling to allow any auditing. Maxine's friend March Kelleher is suspicious about the activities of Gabriel Ice, her son-in-law, and asks Maxine to informally interview her daughter Tallis, Gabriel's wife. ![]() Meanwhile, mysterious government heavyweight Nicholas Windust puts pressure on Maxine, asking her to pump her Israeli brother-in-law for information regarding Mossad hacking methods. She talks to Rocky Slagiatt, VC investor behind some of Gabriel's start-ups, who is nervous about where they may be going. She talks to an ex-temp for that site, learns they have strong Arab connections and move large sums of money through hawala, and notices she is being tailed afterwards. She finds much of their financial numbers fail basic plausibility statistics, and notices large payments going to a now defunct website. Maxine, a former certified fraud examiner, is approached by Reg Despard regarding suspicious goings-on at hashslingrz, a computer security firm run by Gabriel Ice. The often surreal and dream-like plot of the novel opens on the first day of spring 2001, with Maxine Tarnow walking her two sons to school before going to work. ![]()
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