Birnam Wood

The new Sir Owen and Lady Jill Darvish are having old friends over for dinner. Both Owen and Jill are annoyed that their friends aren’t impressed by the knighthood and even seem to pity them about the land not selling. Jill lets slip that they have in fact sold it but are under a non-disclosure agreement to Lemoine who is a doomsday-prepper billionaire intending to put a bunker on the land. Owen feels proud that he brought Lemoine’s business to New Zealand but would somehow like to defeat him. He thinks that it comes from a national feeing of New Zealand being an underdog in world affairs. When Owen checks his email, he finds something from an Anthony Gallo asking for an interview about Lemoine’s recent purchase of their property. He and Jill wonder whether their friends have told others. Jill researches Tony and finds that he isn’t attached to news agencies.

Tony wakes up in his childhood bedroom with an idea for an article exposing the super-rich who are buying up New Zealand. He rants in a rough-draft on his computer but concludes that the actual story is Lemoine offering to fund Mira. He considers apologizing and going to Thorndike as a cover for researching his article, but then considers it too much of a betrayal.