The Secular Monastery

The story involves competitive investigations of an apparent terrorist attack. It pits a formally appointed government commission expected to provide a broadly accepted account against an independent inquiry mandated to understand what actually happened. The independent inquiry engages an organization dedicated to the constructive use of advanced information technology as a corrective to the deficiencies both of the public media and of the intelligence community. As the main characters struggle to establish trust under the pressure of politically ominous and potentially violent threat, they tap the deeper currents of global politics and personal relationships. Not able to disentangle their own fate from the outcome of the investigation, they encounter the ambiguities and dangers as well as the liberating qualities of truth.