Текст книги "Lock in"

Автор книги: John Scalzi

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Chapter Sixteen

“TELL ME YOU have video of your fight,” Vann said to me, when I got back into the office.

“I’m fine,” I said, coming around to her desk. “Thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t ask because I knew you were fine,” Vann said. “You were in a threep. The worst that could happen is you get a dent.”

“That’s not the worst that could happen,” I said. My last moments in the Los Angeles area consisted of handing my insurance information over to a very annoyed manager at the Pasadena Avis, so they’d deal with the threep I had brought back with a cracked and dented head.

“You survived,” Vann said.

“The other threep got it worse,” I allowed.

“And do we know who the other threep was yet?” Vann asked.

“No,” I said. “The L.A. forensics team is looking at it now. But when I was looking at it I didn’t find any make or model information on it.”

“Which is weird,” Vann said.

“It’s very weird,” I said. “Every commercial threep carries that information by law, along with a vehicle identification number.” I raised my arm to show where my threep’s number was etched, just below the armpit. “There was none of that.”

“Theories?” Vann asked.

“One, it’s a prototype model,” I said. “Something that’s not on the market yet. Two, it’s a market model with aftermarket modifications, including stripping off make and model numbers and the VIN. Three, it’s a ninja.”

“Ninja threep,” Vann said. “That’s funny.”

“It wasn’t so funny when it was trying to bash my head in with a pot,” I said. “The L.A. team said they will let me know when they find something. I told them to pay special attention to the processor and memory. They looked at me like I was an asshole.”

“No one likes to be told how to do their job, Shane,” Vann said.

“I’m not hugely impressed with the L.A. office, I have to tell you,” I said. “But maybe their trying to put me in a threep in a wheelchair set me off a bit.” A fleeting memory of a very annoyed call from Agent Ibanez, who waited ten minutes for me to return before figuring out I was gone for good, surfaced in my memory. I won the argument when I pointed out that if I had showed up at the Bradbury Park Apartments in a wheelchair, our mystery threep would be long gone, and with important evidence.

Which reminded me about the evidence. “I need to go back to Arizona this afternoon,” I said.

“Random shift in conversation, but okay,” Vann said.

“It’s not random,” I said. “Johnny Sani left a data card for his sister and grandmother. It’s what the ninja threep was there for. It’s got data on it but it’s password protected.”

“Whatever password Johnny Sani is going to think up is not going to be that difficult to figure out,” Vann said.

“Probably not, but it will still be easier to ask his family first,” I said. “Pretty sure it was meant for them. I made a copy of data. I need to take the copy to them and see if they know what to do with it.”

“Are you going to ask them if they know why Johnny was living under an assumed name, too?”

“I will, but I don’t expect they’re going to know,” I said, and thought about it a bit. “What’s weird is that Oliver Green doesn’t seem to have any ID, either.”

“What do you mean?” Vann asked.

“When I was talking to the lady at the post office, she said that Sani wanted to rent a P.O. box, but when she said he’d need two forms of identification, he lost interest,” I said. “And the apartment wasn’t rented by him, it was rented by Filament Digital. He didn’t need any ID there, either.”

“What is Filament Digital?”

“It’s a component manufacturer for neural networks,” I said. “It’s a Chinese company. I called and no one answered. It’s the middle of the night over there right now.”

“They don’t have a U.S. office?” Vann asked.

“As far as I can tell that apartment was the U.S. office,” I said. “I have the L.A. office looking into that, too.”

“The L.A. office must love you right about now,” Vann said.

“I don’t think I’m their favorite person, no,” I said. “What have you been up to?”

“I cleared out some more of the Hadens from Metro’s holding pens,” Vann said. “Most of them took the ‘get the hell out of D.C.’ option, but there were a couple who didn’t and a couple who really needed to be prosecuted, so they’re all now guests of the federal government for the next few days. We’ll deal with them after the march. The Metro people tell me things are getting a little tense out there. Oh, and I shook up that Integrator.”

“Which one?” I asked. “Brenda Rees?”

“Yeah, her,” Vann said. “I called her up and identified myself and said that I would like her to come meet with me to answer a couple of questions. She asked why and I said we were following up on the Loudoun Pharma explosion. Then she asked why I’d want to talk to her about that, and I told her we were just following up on an anonymous tip.”

“We didn’t get any anonymous tip about her,” I said.

“No, but it made her nervous when I said it, which I thought was interesting.”

“Anyone would be nervous if you told them you were following up an anonymous tip about a bombing by talking to them,” I pointed out.

“What’s important is how they get nervous,” Vann said. “Rees got all quiet and then asked to meet this evening.”

“We bringing her here?” I asked.

“I gave her the address of a coffee shop I like in Georgetown,” Vann said. “Feels less formal, and will get her to relax and open up.”

“So first you make her paranoid and then you want her to feel comfortable,” I said. “You don’t need me to help you play ‘good cop, bad cop.’ You can do it all on your own.”

“This is the sort of thing your pal Trinh calls ‘sloppy,’” Vann said.

“I’m not sure she’s wrong,” I said.

“If it works she’s wrong.”

“That’s a dangerous philosophy,” I said. Vann shrugged.

A call popped up in my field of view. It was Tony. “You didn’t tell me I would be working in an actual morgue with an actual brain when I took this gig,” he said, after we got our greetings out of the way.

“I had to be circumspect until you were vetted,” I said. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Tony said. “I’ve just never seen a real live brain before. Also I had to dial back my sense of smell pretty much down to zero.”

“Have you found anything?” I asked.

“I’ve found a lot of things,” Tony said. “I think maybe I should talk to you about them. And your partner too, probably.”

“Let’s meet,” I said.

“Not in the morgue,” Tony said. “I think I need to get away from all this meat.”

*   *   *

“Okay, here’s the first thing,” Tony said, and he popped up the image of Johnny Sani’s brain, still in its skull, peeking through the veil of tinsel that was the neural net. We were in the imaging lab: me, Vann, Tony, and Ramon Diaz, who seemed amused at Tony taking over his imaging console.

“It’s a brain,” Vann said. “And?”

“It’s not the brain I want you to look at,” Tony said. “It’s the neural network.”

“Okay,” Vann said. “What about it?”

“It’s totally unique,” Tony said.

“I thought every neural network was unique,” I said. “They adapt to the brain they’re in.”

“Right, but every model is the same before it’s installed,” Tony said. He pointed at my head. “The Raytheon in your head is the same as every other version of that model. Once it’s in your head the tendrils and receptors are placed in ways that will be unique to your brain. But it’s still the same hardware and the same initial software.”

Vann pointed at the network on the screen. “And you’re saying this one isn’t any of the current commercial models out there.”

“I’ll go further than that,” Tony said. “This doesn’t match any model ever created. All neural networks have to be submitted to the FDA for approval, or to the matching agency in other countries. All submitted designs are pooled into a single database for those agencies to use, and for people like me to use for reference. This design isn’t in the database.”

“So it’s a prototype,” Vann said.

“We don’t put prototypes into people’s brains,” Tony said. “Because they’re prototypes and they might kill you if they screw up. We model them extensively on computers and animals and specially cultivated brain tissue before they’re approved. By definition if it’s in someone’s brain, it’s a final design.” He pointed at the network. “This is a final design. But it’s not in the database.”

“Can we see the network without the blood and gore?” I asked.

Tony nodded. The image of Sani’s head was wiped away, replaced by a wire-frame representation of the network. “I didn’t have time to pretty up the model,” Tony said.

“That’s fine, it all looks like spaghetti to me,” I said.

“Then why did you want to see it?”

“So I didn’t have to look at someone’s head all opened up,” I said.

“Right,” Tony said. “Sorry.”

“You said this isn’t any version you’ve seen before,” Vann said.

“That’s right,” Tony said.

“Well, then, does it look similar to any you’ve seen before?” Vann asked. “Every car maker I know of has a ‘house look.’ The same thing might apply for neural networks.”

“I thought of that,” Tony said. “And what I see is that whoever made this took a lot of design choices from existing models. The default filament spread looks very much like a Santa Ana model, for example. But then the juncture architecture is pretty much a straight rip-off from Lucturn, which is the Accelerant company I was telling you about this morning, Chris.” He looked at me for acknowledgement. I gave it. “And there are lots of other little touches that come from other manufacturers past and present. Which maybe tells us something.”

“What is that?” Vann asked.

“I don’t think this is meant to be a commercial model network,” Tony said. “It’s a really good neural network. It’s really efficient and elegant, and just from the design I’m guessing that the brain-network interface is really clean.”

“But,” I said.

“But, that’s because this brain is a lot of best-of-breed architecture from other existing designs, designs which are patented to hell and gone,” Tony said. He waved at the image of the network. “If someone tried to put this design on the market, they’d get their asses sued by every other neural network manufacturer out there. This thing would be in litigation for years. There’s no possible way this would ever get to market. None. Whatsoever.”

“Does it matter if it’s a network for an Integrator?” I asked. “It’s such a tiny market, relative to the Haden market. You could argue that it doesn’t represent a commercial threat.”

“Not really,” Tony said. “There’s no real difference in the architecture of a Haden network and an Integrator network. The major difference is how they array in the brain, because Haden and Integrator brain structures are different, and in the software that runs the network.”

“So why make it?” Vann asked. “Why make a network you can’t sell?”

“That’s a good question,” Tony said. “Because the other thing about creating a neural network is that it’s not something you’re going to do in your spare time at home. The first functional neural network ever made cost a hundred billion dollars to research and develop. The costs have come way down since then, but it’s a relative thing. You have to pay for simulations and testing and modeling and manufacturing and everything else.” He waved at the network again. “So this will still have set someone back somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion dollars.”

“A billion dollars right down the hole,” Diaz said.

“Right,” Tony said. He seemed a little surprised that Diaz was still there. “And that’s the thing. You don’t spend a billion dollars on a neural network you can’t sell. You especially don’t spend a billion dollars now, because up to now Haden research costs were heavily subsidized by the government. Abrams-Kettering ends that. The Haden population in the U.S. is less than four and a half million, almost all of whom already have networks in their heads. Even if this architecture were legally viable, it still doesn’t make sense to spend that much money because the market’s already saturated and the number of new Haden’s cases that pop up every year in the U.S. won’t get you into the black. Even worldwide you’d have a hard time with it.”

“It’s a boondoggle,” I said.

“It really is,” Tony said. “As far as I can see, anyway. Maybe I’m missing something.”

“Let’s look at it from the other side,” Vann said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s stop asking why someone would do this for now,” Vann said. “Let’s ask who could do it. If we have some idea of who could do it then maybe we can come back around to why they would do it. So. Who could do it?”

“Lucas Hubbard could do it,” I said. “A billion isn’t nothing to him, but he’d have to lose several billion before he would seriously feel it.”

“Yeah, but you’re describing every owner of a Haden-related company, aren’t you,” Tony said. “We threw a shitload of money at Haden’s because the first lady had it. Hell, Chris, that old picture of you with the pope probably kept Haden funding rolling for a year or two. I’m no big fan of Abrams-Kettering, but one thing they weren’t wrong about was that Haden’s funding’s become a long trough a bunch of piggies are feeding from. Hubbard’s one. So is Kai Lee, who runs Santa Ana. So are about twenty other people in the C-suites of these companies. Any of them could have funded something like this without it hurting them.”

“Yeah, but Hubbard’s got a connection to Sani,” I said.

“The dead guy,” Tony said. I nodded. “What’s the connection?”

“Accelerant owns the company that’s licensed to provide health care to the Navajo Nation,” Vann said. “And Sani’s Navajo.”

“It’s not a really great connection, is it,” Tony said, after a moment.

“Working on it,” I said.

“Hubbard wouldn’t want to toss a billion dollars away at the moment anyway,” Tony said. “Accelerant is trying to merge Metro with Sebring-Warner, and might just try to buy it outright. If he does that, a cash payout is going to be part of that deal.”

“You’re strangely well versed on the business dealings of Accelerant,” Vann noted.

“I keep up with all the companies I do work for,” Tony said, looking over to her. “It’s part of how I know which clients are going to have work for me. And what I know right now is that all the companies in Haden-related industries are getting ready for the crash. They’re either merging or buying each other outright, or trying to diversify as fast as they can. Abrams-Kettering’s knocked over the trough. It’s done.”

“So we’re saying that even if Hubbard or Lee or anyone else could fund something like this, they wouldn’t,” I said.

“Not right now,” Tony said. “That’s my guess. I mean, I’m not an FBI agent or anything.”

“Who else is there, then?” Vann said, looking at me. It was apparently time for a test again.

I thought about it for a minute. “Well, there’s us, isn’t there,” I said.

“The FBI?” Diaz said, incredulously.

“Not the FBI, but the U.S. government,” I said. “A billion dollars wouldn’t matter to Uncle Sam and it’s possible we’d build something we wouldn’t commercially exploit, either for pure research or just because it’s pork for some congressperson’s district.”

“So we have this developed in some NIH institute as busy work,” Vann said.

“The U.S. government has been known to pay farmers not to plant crops,” I said. “No reason that principle couldn’t go high tech.” I turned to Tony. “Any maybe that’s why it’s not in the registry, since it was never intended to be commercial.”

“That’s great,” Tony said. “But it still doesn’t explain how this”—he gestured at the network—“got into someone’s head.”

“Working on it,” I said again.

“Work harder,” Tony suggested.

“What about the software?” I asked.

“I’ve only glanced at it,” Tony said. “I was going to get to that next, but I thought you might not want to wait for a hardware report. From what I can see it’s programmed in Chomsky, which makes sense because that’s the language designed specifically for neural networks. The software’s got substantially fewer lines of code than most Integrator software I’ve seen. Which means it’s either really efficient, or that whoever programmed it only wanted it to do specific things.”

“When will you be able to tell us which it is?” Vann asked.

“I should be able to give you a general report this evening,” Tony said. “If you want more specifics, you’ll need to let me take the code home with me tonight.”

“That would be fine,” Vann said.

“Uh, I should tell you that when I work in the evening I get time and a half.”

“Of course you do,” Vann said. “Just as long as you have an early report ready for us by seven.”

“Can do,” Tony said.

“And you,” Vann said, looking at me. “You think you’ll be back from Arizona by then?”

“I should be,” I said.

“Then fly, Shane. Fly.” Vann walked off, reaching into her jacket for her e-cigarette.

Chapter Seventeen

IN THE OFFICES of the Window Rock Police Department is a conference room. In the conference room today was a display, with a password-protected video file waiting to be opened.

I was also in the room. So were May and Janis Sani. Klah Redhouse and his boss, Alex Laughing, sat across from the two women. Standing the back of the room were Gloria Roanhorse, speaker of the Navajo Nation, and Raymond Becenti, its president.

It was the last two who had been making Redhouse jittery when he spoke to me earlier in the day. It’s one thing to have your boss breathing down your neck about a case. It’s another thing to have the two most powerful people in the Navajo Nation doing the same thing.

I glanced over to Redhouse. He still didn’t look entirely thrilled to be in the room.

“I don’t know any password,” May Sani was telling Redhouse. “Janis doesn’t either. Johnny never told us any passwords.”

“We don’t think he did,” Redhouse said. “We think maybe he wanted to give it to you but then he died before he could do it. But we do know he wanted the two of you to see this. So maybe the password would be something that meant something to you, or something only the two of you would know.”

Janis looked over to me. “You couldn’t just break the password?” she asked.

“We didn’t want to do that,” I said. “It would be disrespectful to Johnny, and to the two of you. If you want, we can try. But it might take a long time. I agree with Officer Redhouse here that before we try doing that, you should take a few guesses.”

“When people make passwords, they sometimes use the names of family members or pets,” Redhouse said, and went over to the keyboard that was wirelessly connected to the display. “For example, ‘May.’” He typed in the word. It came up wrong. “Or ‘Janis,’” Redhouse said. That one also came up blank. “Any pets?”

“We had a dog when Johnny was a boy,” Janis said. “His name was Bentley. Our mom named him.” Redhouse tried it. It came up blank. Several combinations of the three names likewise came up uselessly.

“We’ll be here all day,” Roanhorse whispered to Becenti, who nodded.

“Did Johnny know any Navajo?” I asked. “Did he speak or write the language?”

“A little,” Janis said. “We were taught it at school, but he didn’t do very well in school.”

“He loved the stories about the Code Talkers,” May said. “The ones from World War Two. There is that old movie about them that he used to watch when he was a boy.”

“Windtalkers?” Redhouse asked.

“I think so,” May said. “I didn’t like watching it. Too much blood. One year for his birthday I got him a Code Talkers dictionary. He would read that a lot.”

I pulled up a Navajo Code Talkers dictionary online. It had several hundred words in it, a number of categories, including names of airplanes, ships, military units, and months.

“Tah Tsosie,” I said.

Everyone in the room looked at me strangely. “What did you just say?” Redhouse asked me.

“Tah Tsosie,” I repeated. “I just looked up the Code Talkers dictionary. The month of May is Tah Tsosie. I am aware I’m pronouncing it terribly.”

“You really are,” Redhouse said, smiling.

“Johnny called me that for a little while after I gave him the book,” May said.

“It’s worth a shot,” I said, to Redhouse. He typed it in.

The file opened.

“May, Janice,” President Becenti said. “Do you want to see it alone first?”

“No,” May said. She reached over to her granddaughter, who took her hand. “Stay.”

Redhouse hit the keyboard again to play the file.

And there was Johnny Sani, alive to me for the first time.

“Hello, Grandma. Hello, Janis,” he said, staring into the lens, which he held close to his head so that it obscured most of the background. “I think maybe they can hear what I do on my phone so I went and bought a camera. I’m going to hide this for now, so if something happens to me you’ll find it.

“I think there’s something wrong with me. I think maybe something they did to me is making me sick.

“You remember I went in to look at a job for a janitor. After I did that I got a call from someone who said he was a recruiter for another job. Said that it would pay really well. He said to go back to the computing facility and that there would be a driverless car waiting for me. All I would have to do is tell it my name and it would take me to my job interview. So I did and the car was there and I told it my name.

“The car drove me to Gallup, to a building where a threep was waiting for me. He said his name was Bob Gray and that the job would be acting as a personal assistant for an important man. I asked them what that meant, and he said it mostly meant running errands and taking him to places he wanted to go. He said I would get to travel and see the world and it would pay well, and all that sounded good to me.

“I asked Bob, why me? And he said it’s because I was special in ways I didn’t even know about. Then he gave me two thousand dollars in cash and said that was the first week’s salary right up front and I could keep it even if I said no. He said the job paid cash so I wouldn’t even have to pay taxes on it or nothing.

“Well, I took the job right then. Bob said that the CEO liked his privacy so I shouldn’t tell people anything but that I got a job. So I did.

“And then after I said good-bye to you, the car drove me to California. Bob met me and showed me my apartment and said it was mine now. Then he gave me some more money.

“The next day Bob took me to meet my boss, who was named Ted Brown and who was also a threep. He said that as his assistant I would become an Integrator, which is someone who took people places in his head. They would need to put a computer into my brain for that to happen. I was scared at first but they told me it wouldn’t hurt and that Ted would only need me to do it every once in a while and the rest of the time I could do what I wanted. But because my job was secret they would have me use a code name, named Oliver Green.

“They took me to a doctor’s office and I went to sleep and when I woke up they had cut all my hair off my head and said that they had put a computer into my brain. I had headaches for the next few days. They said it was the computer getting used to my brain. They said it would take a couple of weeks for it to get used to me.

“When that was done Ted and Bob came over and said it was time to try integrating. Ted said that he would come over into my brain and move my body around. I said okay, and then I felt a little sick, and then my arm moved by itself. That scared me but Bob told me to relax and not to worry. Then Ted walked my body around my apartment for a while.

“After that Ted would use my body a little bit every day. We would go to the store or the library and once he even mailed a money order for you at the post office. And I thought, this isn’t so bad, I just had to remember to relax.

“We did this for three months. I asked him when we would travel and he said soon.

“And then it started to happen.

“One day I was watching a show and I blinked and the show was over and another show was on. And I thought I must have fallen asleep and not even known. Then the next day I put a burrito in the microwave and pressed a button to start it and I blinked again and it was dark outside and the burrito was cold. I could tell I cooked it because stuff leaked out of it. But it was done cooking for so long that it got cold again.

“It started to get worse. I would be doing something and then I would be somewhere else, doing something else. I would put on one shirt and then another shirt would be on me. I once went to put on a show that is on TV on Monday and it was Tuesday, and it was morning, not night.

“I didn’t tell Ted about it because I was worried I would get fired if he knew I was sick. But I finally got so scared that I had to tell him. He sent me to the doctor and the doctor said I was fine and that sometimes people who were Integrators had what he said were ‘dropouts.’ He said they would stop and that when they did I would get my memory back. I tried not to worry but it kept happening.

“Then one day I looked up and I was in a group of men I didn’t know and one of them was talking to me and I had no idea what he was saying. Then he said something about killing someone. I don’t remember the name. He asked me a question and I didn’t know what he was talking about so I stayed quiet and didn’t do anything. And then one of them said, ‘He lost the connection,’ and another one said, ‘shit,’ and then another one asked if that meant the other guy was in the room. I was pretty sure he meant me. I just stayed quiet and did nothing and then it was the next day. Bob came by to ask me how I was doing. I lied to him and I said I was fine.

“I think I figured it out. I thought I was having dropouts because they put the computer in my head. But I think it’s really that Bob and Ted are using the computer in my head to give me dropouts.

“The thing is, the dropouts are getting longer now. The last one I lost three whole days. I don’t know if I can do anything about it. I thought about trying to run away but I have a computer in my head now. I know they will find me. And they can make me drop out any time they want. And I think when they drop me out they use me to do bad things. Or they are going to make me do bad things.

“I don’t know what to do now. I’m making this so that if you find out that I’ve done something bad, you’ll know it wasn’t really me. You know I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know if I can stop them from using me to do something bad. But I promise you if I can I will.

“All I wanted was a job. I wanted to give you someplace nice to live, Grandma. And you too, Janis. I’m sorry. I love you.”

The picture wheeled from Johnny Sani’s face, showing the interior of his bedroom in Duarte. Then it went blank.

*   *   *

“Who in goddamned hell does something like that?” Becenti said. It was fair to say he was fuming.

By this time May and Janis Sani had left the conference room, distraught. Captain Laughing had escorted them out, motioning to Redhouse that the conversation should continue in his absence. President Becenti did not need any prompting.

“Is that actually even possible?” Redhouse asked me.

“To black someone out and then control their body?” I asked. Redhouse nodded. “I’ve never heard of it ever happening.”

“That’s not the same thing as it not being possible,” said Speaker Roanhorse.

“No, ma’am, it’s not,” I said. “But if it was something that was possible, it’s surprising that it hasn’t been done before. Neural nets are built to be resistant to hijacking,” I said, and paused.

“What?” Redhouse asked.

I briefly debated what to tell them, but then thought, screw it, this is the Navajo Nation’s leadership. I wasn’t blabbing to just anyone. “The neural network in Johnny Sani’s head is one of a kind,” I said. “It’s entirely possible it’s fine-tuned for something like this. It would make him a unique case.”

“Why him?” Becenti asked. “Why do this to Johnny Sani?”

“Anyone else leaves a trail,” I said. “Johnny Sani never left the Navajo Nation. All his medical records are here. He has no outside identification except for his Social Security number, and he’s never used that for anything. He doesn’t appear to have ever had a job that wasn’t paid in cash, under the table, including this one. He doesn’t have a whole lot of friends, and very few family members.”

“In other words, if you want to use someone for a medical experiment, he’s perfect,” Redhouse said.

“That’s about right,” I said.

Becenti fumed some more. “I knew Johnny Sani,” he said, to me.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I had heard that.” What I had actually heard, from Klah Redhouse, was that in his earlier days Becenti had carried a torch for Johnny and Janis’s mother, June. It was never reciprocated, as far as anyone could tell, but that didn’t make it any less real to the current Navajo Nation president. Old flames die hard.

Becenti pointed to the display, which had reset to the beginning of the video, with Johnny Sani’s head in the frame. “I want you to find out who did this,” he said. “And then I want you to snap their head off.”

“I will do what I can, Mr. President,” I said. I was not entirely sure if protocol called for “Mr. President,” but I didn’t think it would hurt.

“Anything we can do to help, you let us know,” he said.

“Officer Redhouse has already been an immense help,” I said. “I’ll let him know if there’s anything else I need.”

Becenti nodded and left the room.

“When are you going to release the body to the family?” Roanhorse asked, after Becenti had gone.

“Soon,” I said, to her. “Our specialist is finishing up his examination of the network in Sani’s head. As soon as that’s done I think we can release the body.”

“I understand you’re helping the Sanis get Johnny back here,” she said.

I glanced over at Redhouse at this comment. His expression was blank. “Arrangements will be taken care of, yes,” I said. “The person helping has asked to remain anonymous to avoid any possibility of spectacle.”

“I’m wondering why this anonymous person decided to help,” Roanhorse said.

“Because somebody should help, and this somebody could,” I said.

“You do understand what ‘anonymous’ means,” I said to Redhouse, after Roanhorse had left the room.

Redhouse pointed after her. “That’s the speaker of the Navajo Nation and also a good friend of my mom,” he said. “You try to keep a secret from her.”

“Don’t let it get back to the Sanis,” I said.