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....