‘Algorithm?’
‘A mask, a decoding process. It lets you block out all of the non-encoded bees. Only the encoded ones stay. And suddenly you realise that they represent something too. You see a film within a film. That’s called an electronic watermark. It’s not a new process: at the beginning of the millennium it was used to encode films and songs when the entertainment industry was fighting against pirate copiers. It was enough to make just a small adjustment in the frequency spectrum of a song. The human ear can’t tell the difference, but it enabled the computer to investigate the origin of the CD.’ He paused. ‘Today, the difference is this: the old internet mapped the data streams two-dimensionally, whereas nowadays the internet is construed for three-dimensional content. These kinds, of data streams have to be pictured cubically, which offers much better opportunities for hosting complex watermarks. Although, admittedly, decoding has become equally complex.’
‘And you’ve decoded one of these watermarks?’ asked Chen, awestruck.
‘Yes. That is, Diane – erm, my computer – found a way to make it visible.’
By now, the group of hikers had valiantly climbed to a high plateau. The pretty city girl was approaching a sheep. The sheep didn’t budge, and stared at the woman, who took this as encouragement to circle round, giving it a wide berth.
‘Don’t keep us in suspense,’ said Yoyo.
‘Okay.’ Jericho looked back at the wall. ‘Diane, start the film again. Decoded and compressed, high resolution.’
The alpine world disappeared. In its place appeared a recording of a car journey, filmed from inside the vehicle. It made its way along a bumpy street. Hilly farmland stretched out on both sides, broken up now and then by bushes and the occasional tree. There were a few huts here and there, most of them very run down. The sky was swollen with rainclouds. As the landscape steepened and became more densely populated with trees, the grey cross-hatchings of downpours stopped.
A truck was being driven a fair way ahead of the car, whirling up dust. There were a number of black men sitting in the back, most clad only in shorts. They looked lethargic, at least as far as you could tell from this distance and through the dirt from the road. Then the camera swung round to the driver, a man with ash-blond hair, a moustache and a strong jawline, wearing sunglasses.
The person holding the camera said something incomprehensible. The blond man glanced over and grinned.
‘Of course,’ he said in Spanish. ‘Praise the President.’
They both laughed.
The picture changed. The same man was shown sitting at a long table in the company of men in uniform, this time dressed in a khaki shirt and light jacket, and without sunglasses. The camera zoomed in on him. His eyebrows and lashes were as pale as the hair on his head, his eyes watery blue, one of them with a fixed gaze, possibly a glass eye. Then the camera panned out and captured the table in its entirety. Two Chinese men in suits and ties were presenting some charts. The target audience of their report seemed to be a brawny figure at the head of the table, bald, bull-necked and as black as polished ebony. He was wearing plain overalls. The uniforms of the other participants, who were also black, seemed more formal, dark with red-gold epaulettes and all kinds of decorations, but the bullish one was clearly the nucleus of the whole meeting, while the blond seemed to be taking on the role of spectator.
This conversation was taking place in Spanish too. The Chinese spokesman was fluent, but had an appalling accent. The topic of discussion was clearly the building of a gas to liquid plant, which was eliciting approving nods from the bullish man. The Chinese man asked his colleague for some files, with a light Beijing accent.
The camera zoomed in on the blond man again. He was making notes and following the presentation attentively.
Lines and whirling shapes suddenly flashed across the multimedia wall. Someone was trying to focus the picture. A street came into view, an inner-city landscape, full of cars. Someone was coming out of a glass building on the other side of the street, where holographic advertisement films were hovering over the façade like ghosts. The camera zoomed in on the person, going hazy many times in the process, then captured the head and upper body. Tall, clean-shaven and with his hair dyed dark, at first glance the blond was hardly recognisable. He looked around then walked off down the street. The camera flickered again, then came back into focus to show him sitting in the sun, flicking through a magazine. Now and then he sipped at a cup, then he looked up and the film ended abruptly.
‘That’s all there is,’ said Jericho.
For a while, they were all silent. Then Yoyo said:
‘It’s to do with Chinese interests in Africa, right? I mean, that conference, it was obvious.’
‘Could be. Did any of them look familiar to you?’
Yoyo hesitated. ‘I’ve seen the bull-necked guy before.’
‘And the Chinese men?’
‘They look like corporate types. What was it about again? Gas to liquid plants? Oil managers, I’d say. Sinopec or Petrochina.’
‘But you don’t know them?’
‘No.’
‘Any other thoughts, anyone?’
He looked around. Tu seemed to want to say something, but shook his head.
‘Okay. I haven’t had a chance to analyse the film yet, but I can tell you a few things. In my opinion the recordings are purely and simply about the blond guy. Twice we see him in an African country, where he seems to hold a public position, then later, with his appearance changed, in a city somewhere in the world. He’s dyed his hair darker and shaved off the moustache. Conclusions?’
‘Two,’ said Yoyo. ‘Either he’s on a secret mission, or he had to go underground.’
‘Very good. So let’s ask ourselves—’
‘Owen.’ Tu gave him a lenient smile. ‘Could you not come straight to the point?’
‘Sorry.’ Jericho shrugged apologetically. ‘So, I instructed Diane to scour the internet in search of the man, and she found him.’ He added a dramatic pause, not caring whether Tu liked it or not. ‘Our friend’s name is Jan Kees Vogelaar.’
Yoyo stared at him. ‘There’s a Jan in the text fragment!’
‘Exactly. So we’ve got two men who are connected with the incidents of the last few days. One of them being Andre Donner, about whom all we know is that he’s running an African restaurant in Berlin, but nonetheless. And Jan Kees Vogelaar, top mercenary and personal security advisor to a certain Juan Alfonso Nguema Mayé, if that rings any bells with any of you.’
‘Mayé,’ echoed Tu. ‘Wait, where have I—’
‘In the news. From 2017 to 2024 Juan Mayé was the president and sole dictator of Equatorial Guinea.’ Jericho paused. ‘Until he was violently removed from office.’
‘That’s right,’ murmured Tu. ‘Look! We may have our coup.’
‘Possibly. So let’s assume it’s not about plans to overthrow the Communist Party after all, nor some other crazy conspiracy story. That means the coup being discussed in the text fragment would have taken place a long time ago. Last July, to be precise. And with the involvement of the Chinese government no less!’
Chen raised his hand. ‘Where is Equatorial Guinea anyway?’
‘In West Africa,’ Yoyo explained. ‘A horrid little coastal state with a hell of a lot of oil. And the guy with the bull-neck—’
‘—is Mayé,’ confirmed Jericho. ‘Or rather, was. His ambitions to stay in power didn’t do him any good. They blew him and his whole clique up. No one survived. It was all over the news in 2024.’