him a lot too,” he said.
The thickset man turned reverential. He might have been pledging allegiance. “We owe it to him,” he said. “We owe it to his
memory.”
Wanamaker nodded in grudging agreement.
13
I t was the one weekend in two when the Weeder didn’t have visitation rights with Martin. So he spent the morning drowning his
aching emptiness in history. He wandered around an outdoor flea market lusting after a pre-Revolutionary powder horn and a
Pennsylvania rifle engraved with the initials of the German-immigrant gunsmith who made it and a narrow truckle bed and a
collection of Continental coins and a worn leather portmanteau with the date 1776 embossed on it. He almost bought a copy
of Frederick’s
Instructions to His Generals
but abandoned the idea when he discovered the asking price. Reluctantly. Washington, the Weeder remembered, had kept a copy
of Frederick’s
Instructions
on his desk during the battles of Long Island and, later, Harlem Heights. The Weeder wondered if Nate had noticed the book
when he was summoned to the Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters. Knowing Nate, knowing his love for books, he thought it more
than likely. The Weeder made a mental note to check if the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library had a copy of Frederick’s
Instructions
next time he got up to Yale.
At mid-morning the Weeder headed south toward SoHo and the loft. Even though it was Sunday he couldn’t resist seeing if his
computer had come up with anything interesting on Farmer’s Almanac. Wanamaker often worked Saturdays and sometimes late into
Saturday night; he was one of those people who had to be pried away from hisdesk. Operation Stufftingle consumed most of his working hours, most of his thoughts; all (if you read between the computer’s
neatly typed lines) of his passion. But what was he up to? Operations Subgroup Charlie, the Weeder knew, was keeping track
of a handful of terrorist cells in the Middle East; almost all the chitchat that the Weeder had picked up when he first programmed
his computer to eavesdrop on Wanamaker dealt with details of various terrorist groups: where they got their money or their
arms or their marching orders. But when Wanamaker and Parker and Webb and a woman called Mildred were alone, the conversations
had taken another turn. In the beginning there had been a lot of airy right-wing rhetoric. “America,” one of the early Wanamaker
intercepts had said, “occupies some hypothetical middle ground in international disputes, feebly supporting the side we want
to win, feebly opposing the side we want to lose.” “What we have to do,” another person had chimed in, “is commit ourselves
to the hilt even if it means taking risks.” “Bite the bullet,” someone had agreed, “set matters right.” “Why become a world
power if we are afraid to wield that power so that the world functions in a way that is congenial to us?” someone else had
asked.
Eventually the theoretical discussions had given way to something more concrete. The Weeder had picked it up the very day
he had gotten the bright idea of programming the computer to register noun-rich sentences. The words
rods
and
hair triggers
and
wedges
had leapt off the printout page. For days Wanamaker could talk about little else. The Weeder had assumed that rods and hair
triggers had to do with guns, that wedges were some sort of plastic explosive. It seemed as if Wanamaker’s Operations Subgroup
had stumbled across a terrorist assassination plot. And the Weeder had stumbled across Wanamaker stumbling across it.
The idea of targeting his computer on Wanamaker had come to the Weeder after he had run into him at a Yale reunion the previous
spring. The Weeder had been staring out at the sea of faces in the lecture hall when he spotted Wanamaker in a back row. To
hide his confusion he had looked down at his three-by-five index cards spread out on the lectern. Sentences were
The thickset man turned reverential. He might have been pledging allegiance. “We owe it to him,” he said. “We owe it to his
memory.”
Wanamaker nodded in grudging agreement.
13
I t was the one weekend in two when the Weeder didn’t have visitation rights with Martin. So he spent the morning drowning his
aching emptiness in history. He wandered around an outdoor flea market lusting after a pre-Revolutionary powder horn and a
Pennsylvania rifle engraved with the initials of the German-immigrant gunsmith who made it and a narrow truckle bed and a
collection of Continental coins and a worn leather portmanteau with the date 1776 embossed on it. He almost bought a copy
of Frederick’s
Instructions to His Generals
but abandoned the idea when he discovered the asking price. Reluctantly. Washington, the Weeder remembered, had kept a copy
of Frederick’s
Instructions
on his desk during the battles of Long Island and, later, Harlem Heights. The Weeder wondered if Nate had noticed the book
when he was summoned to the Commander-in-Chief’s headquarters. Knowing Nate, knowing his love for books, he thought it more
than likely. The Weeder made a mental note to check if the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library had a copy of Frederick’s
Instructions
next time he got up to Yale.
At mid-morning the Weeder headed south toward SoHo and the loft. Even though it was Sunday he couldn’t resist seeing if his
computer had come up with anything interesting on Farmer’s Almanac. Wanamaker often worked Saturdays and sometimes late into
Saturday night; he was one of those people who had to be pried away from hisdesk. Operation Stufftingle consumed most of his working hours, most of his thoughts; all (if you read between the computer’s
neatly typed lines) of his passion. But what was he up to? Operations Subgroup Charlie, the Weeder knew, was keeping track
of a handful of terrorist cells in the Middle East; almost all the chitchat that the Weeder had picked up when he first programmed
his computer to eavesdrop on Wanamaker dealt with details of various terrorist groups: where they got their money or their
arms or their marching orders. But when Wanamaker and Parker and Webb and a woman called Mildred were alone, the conversations
had taken another turn. In the beginning there had been a lot of airy right-wing rhetoric. “America,” one of the early Wanamaker
intercepts had said, “occupies some hypothetical middle ground in international disputes, feebly supporting the side we want
to win, feebly opposing the side we want to lose.” “What we have to do,” another person had chimed in, “is commit ourselves
to the hilt even if it means taking risks.” “Bite the bullet,” someone had agreed, “set matters right.” “Why become a world
power if we are afraid to wield that power so that the world functions in a way that is congenial to us?” someone else had
asked.
Eventually the theoretical discussions had given way to something more concrete. The Weeder had picked it up the very day
he had gotten the bright idea of programming the computer to register noun-rich sentences. The words
rods
and
hair triggers
and
wedges
had leapt off the printout page. For days Wanamaker could talk about little else. The Weeder had assumed that rods and hair
triggers had to do with guns, that wedges were some sort of plastic explosive. It seemed as if Wanamaker’s Operations Subgroup
had stumbled across a terrorist assassination plot. And the Weeder had stumbled across Wanamaker stumbling across it.
The idea of targeting his computer on Wanamaker had come to the Weeder after he had run into him at a Yale reunion the previous
spring. The Weeder had been staring out at the sea of faces in the lecture hall when he spotted Wanamaker in a back row. To
hide his confusion he had looked down at his three-by-five index cards spread out on the lectern. Sentences were
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