Our noses were about fifteen inches apart when I asked him in a low voice, “What are you doing later?” I was lying on a bench on my back, pressing 175 pounds.

Hack was hovering over me, ready to grab the bar. “Oh, c’mon, Rol,” he said with a smirk, “I didn’t know you cared.”

I strained to do another rep. “I’m serious, Hack. This is important.”

“Keep your back straight,” he cautioned. “You can’t talk about it here?”

I lifted the bar onto the stand and rested the weights, then took two restorative breaths. “It’s got to be private.”

He shrugged. “Fine. Your call.”

We met at sunset at the base of the ramp along the left side of the Lincoln Memorial. It had been an unusually warm day, and as the Old Professor, Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel, might have said, the city held the heat well. The twilight sky was streaked with the whispered rose of cherry blossoms in full bloom. The ramp led up to a door that opened onto an elevator, which took us up to the central hall. I have never been much for Washington’s tourist attractions, but the Lincoln Memorial was different. Lincoln had always affected me, with his imposing eyes and the tragic nobility that burst out of the marble. I had been there for the first time on a seventh-grade trip and again on my last day in the city before leaving for deployment. I had wanted to remind myself why I was going.

Hack and I stood in silence for a few minutes, watching with appreciation as the shadows of the evening crept slowly across the reflecting pool and the lights of the Capitol twinkled into life. Around us everything seemed so perfectly normal it was difficult for me to accept that we were living in the shell of American democracy.

“Pretty impressive,” Hack said with admiration. “So? What’s going on?”

I glanced around before replying. A young couple, the boy’s arm around the girl’s waist, stood transfixed in front of the statue, looking up into his face. A little boy made the moment special by reading aloud the words of the Gettysburg Address inscribed on the near wall; he struggled with several words and his mother helped him sound them out. In contrast, three soldiers in protective gear, carrying automatic weapons, stood guard in front of the columns.

I laid out the scenario to Hack. Since the Detroit massacre, I explained, I’d become the repository for every crackpot conspiracy theory. “I’ve ignored most of them, and the few that I’ve followed up fell apart pretty quick,” I explained. I told him about the warning from Homeland Security. I told him how Chair had been cyjacked by a kid. I wanted him to know what was going on before he made his decision. “I hate to sound overly dramatic about it, but these days a little too much information can cause you some real problems. If you don’t want to get involved, I get it. Truthfully, Hack, that’s probably the smart thing to do. I’ll just see you at the place tomorrow morning and pretend this didn’t happen.”