“I’m about to smoke a cigar,” I said.

“Bullshit. This is important. Come over here right now or I will permanently write you off my Christmas-card list.”

Worrying about Dirk’s problems was better than worrying about my own. And it was a beguiling spring night; the city was garlanded with the blossoms of the flowering trees and shrubs that lined every street. I drove down Seventeenth Street to Memorial Bridge and crossed the Potomac as the last light lingered over the broad, gentle river. The trees along the banks were etched in black, like photographic negatives. The river itself was painted in the imaginary colors of nightfall—inky blues and greens. If this were any other city, poets would sing of its beauty. Instead, it was fated to be the home of journalists, who regarded beauty as a conflict of interest.

Dirk escorted me up to the Mirror Alert office. The place was almost empty; a sole figure was sitting in the editors’ area behind the partition. Dirk led me back to his small cubicle, which contained two computer terminals: one was a PC with the Mirror Alert news system; the other was a Bloomberg terminal that carried news from financial markets around the world.

“Do you know what’s on the front page of the Mirror tomorrow?”

“No,” I said. I was far from the daily flow of the paper at that point, wound in my own cocoon. “What have we got?”

“A blockbuster. We will carry a story saying that the chairman of the Federal Reserve has heart trouble and will announce his resignation next week. Look at it, I have it right here on the screen.” He pointed to the story displayed on his PC. It led with the expected resignation of the Fed chairman.

“Do you have any idea what the markets will do when this story hits, Eric? They think the Fed chairman is God! They’re convinced that if anything ever happens to him, the president will appoint a moron. This is market-moving news, no?”

“Definitely. The bond market will go nuts. When do we put it out?”

“Aha! That’s the issue. The contents of the Mirror are embargoed each night until nine-thirty. But the major stories are all made available to us at Mirror Alert at seven-thirty, so that we can prepare our own electronic versions to release when the paper hits the streets. That’s why I can get it on my screen—because they’ve already moved it to us. It’s part of the joint-venture deal between the Mirror and Press Alert. Right now, it’s almost eight-thirty, which means we’ve had the information for nearly an hour. If Mirror Alert is airtight, the markets shouldn’t begin to move until nine-thirty. Correct? But guess what?”

“They’re already trading on the news?”