He's a man we know only as "the columnist." He writes for a newspaper in Seattle, isn't afraid to stir up trouble, and keeps his life--including his multiple lovers and his past--in safe compartments. But it's all about to be violently upended when he goes out on what seems like the most mundane of assignments, looking into a staid company that "never makes news."
The moment one of his sources takes a dive off a downtown skyscraper, the columnist is plunged into a harrowing maze of murder, intrigue, and secrets that powerful forces intend to keep hidden at all costs. All he has to go on is a corporate world where nothing is as it seems, increasingly menacing encounters with mysterious federal agents, and the unsettling meme "eleven/eleven."
Meanwhile, the paper itself is dying. So the columnist joins with an aggressive young reporter to see if one explosive story can save a newspaper. Soon they're running to make the deadline of their lives....
