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. He still plans to write the article, but “he wouldn’t openly deceive” his old friends (142).

Over breakfast, Tony’s sister questions him about making out with a girl named Rosie at a pub after he left the meeting. Tony storms out. He remembers earlier times with Mira and wonders why it was so hard to kiss her when it was so easy to kiss Rosie. He assumes that Shelley told Mira that he was back and that Mira doesn’t want to speak with him. His sister interrupts him with an apology. He asks to borrow her car and she agrees, impressed with his idea for the article. Rosie is similarly impressed when they meet later and, though he kisses her goodbye, he feels that they have no future. Tony begins researching and tries to find Mira’s billionaire. He can only find a company called Autonomo with whom the Darvishes are doing business. He is suspicious of an environmentally friendly partnership between an international company like Autonomo and a company that exterminates animals. He continues searching and finds that, contrary to what Lemoine told Mira, there’s no trace of the land purchase and feels that he is onto something. The next day he drives to Thorndike and hikes into the wilderness, hoping to do surveillance on Birnam Wood and the property in question. The next day, he happens upon an area with a sign saying that there is research in progress and to keep out. Further on, he sees two trailers with a cell mast and a mobile home.

A man is there, and when Tony inquires, he says that he’s a security guard and knows nothing about it other than that it’s a geophysics and radiometric survey. When Tony goes to leave, he sees what he thinks is the security guard pulling a gun out of a holster. Tony returns to the Darvishes’ land and sees Mira and Lemoine talking. Lemoine gets into his plane and flies away. Tony writes down the plane registration number. When he gets back to town, he inquires with a local restaurant owner about the property and Lemoine. The man doesn’t know anything about a rich American and shares his opinion that Darvish’s knighthood is a joke but that his wife Jill is a good person. Tony uses open-source flight logs to discover that Lemoine has been flying in on a regular basis. He gets an email confirming that the land is still the Darvishes’, which contradicts what Mira had told them about Lemoine. He decides to ask the source itself and sends an email to Darvish Pest Control. To Tony’s surprise, Owen Darvish calls him. Darvish doesn’t confirm or deny any relationship except that with Autonomo. It changes, however, when Tony asks about work in the National Park behind the property and mentions what the security guard said about a radiometric survey. Darvish seems surprised and hangs up. Tony takes this as a sign that he is onto something and texts Rosie, who texts him back a smoking gun emoji.

Mira, Shelley, and a small group from Birnam Wood are at the farm working. Mira and Shelley’s conversation turns to Tony; Shelley thinks that Tony has changed, but Mira doesn’t agree. She’s sad that Tony didn’t call her when he got back from Mexico. She regrets the way she seduced then ignored him the night before he left, admitting to herself that she feared he’d come back and think that she was ordinary. Mira feels guilty that she hasn’t told anybody the truth about Lemoine and the farm. She implied that he owns it, but he doesn’t. Mira suspects that Lemoine might be a “psychopath” and reflects on their interactions and verbal sparring about motives and money and how he could change the world but doesn’t. He points out that she wants to be god just as much as he does. When she accuses him of having a secret agenda, he deflects her point. She confesses to herself that she finds him charming and fantasizes about a sexual encounter in which she can snub him. This makes her worry that she’s a prude and she determines to have sex with him if he approaches her. She looks up from weeding and sees a figure in the forest that looks like Tony.