He sank down into the sprawling armchair in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and watched as dusk enveloped Shanghai. The city was sprinkled with multicoloured lights, an impressive spectacle despite the lousy weather, but all Xin could see was the betrayal of his aesthetic principles. Jericho, Yoyo, Yoyo, Jericho. The transgressions in the box needed to be corrected. Where was Yoyo? Where was the detective? Who had been driving the silver flying machine? The box, the box! Unless he created order there he would drift right into insanity. He began to rearrange the remaining pralines according to the Rorschach style, starting from scratch again and again until an axis ran through the box, a stable, regulatory element, on either side of which the remaining pralines mirrored each other. After that he felt better, and he began to take stock of things. There was no longer any point in following Yoyo and the detective. In just a few days everything would be over anyway, and then they could talk all they wanted. They were no longer important. The operation was the priority now, and there was only one person who could still endanger the plan. Xin wondered what conclusions Jericho had drawn from the fragments of the message that he, Kenny Xin, had sent to the heads of Hydra after tracking down the Berlin restaurant of a certain Andre Donner, recommending his immediate liquidation. Unfortunately he had attached a modified decoding program to the mail, an improved, quicker version. Every few months, the codes were exchanged for new ones. The fact that Yoyo had intercepted this very email had been the worst possible luck.
And there was nothing that could be done about it.
Andre Donner. Nice name, nice try.
He dialled a number on his mobile.
‘Hydra,’ he said.
‘Have you eliminated the problem?’
As always, their conversation was transmitted in code. In just a few words, Xin reported on what had happened. His conversation partner fell silent for a while. Then he said:
‘That’s a mess, Kenny. You’ve done nothing you can be proud of.’
‘Those that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,’ responded Xin illtemperedly. ‘If you’d implemented a safe algorithm, we wouldn’t even be in this situation.’
‘It is safe. And that’s not the issue here.’
‘The issue is whatever I consider worthy of being the issue.’
‘You’ve got a nerve.’
‘Oh really?’ Xin roared with laughter. ‘You’re my contact man, or had you already forgotten that? Just a glorified Dictaphone. If I want to hear a lecture, I’ll call him.’
The other man cleared his throat indignantly. ‘So what are you suggesting?’
‘The same thing I’ve already suggested. Our friend in Berlin has to be got rid of. Anything less would be irresponsible. And besides, the address of the restaurant is in the goddamn email. If Jericho comes up with the idea of getting in touch with him, then we really have a problem!’
‘You want to go to Berlin?’
‘As soon as possible. I’m not leaving that to anyone else.’
‘Wait.’ The line went dead for a moment. Then the voice came back. ‘We’ll book a night flight for you.’
‘What about backup?’
‘Already on its way. The specialist is setting off in advance as requested. Try to be more careful with the personnel and equipment this time.’
Xin curled his lip contemptuously. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘No, after all, I’m just the Dictaphone,’ said the voice icily. ‘But he’s worried. So make sure you finish the job this time.’
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
On 21 April, Sid Bruford and two of his friends made a pilgrimage to an event in Calgary, where EMCO had proposed to outline a future that no longer existed. No one harboured any illusions that Gerald Palstein would announce anything other than the end of oil-sand mining in Alberta, which meant that all hopes were now focused on strategies for redevelopment, consolidation, or at the very least a social security plan. It was in hope of this that they were standing there, aside from the fact that it was only right and proper to be present at your own burial.
The plaza, a square park in front of the company headquarters, was filling slowly but steadily with people. As if mocking their misery, a bright yellow sun shone down on the crowd from a steel blue sky, creating a climate of new beginnings and confidence. Bruford, unwilling to abandon himself to the general bitterness, had decided to make the best of the situation. It was part of the dance of death to make fatalism look like self-confidence, to stock up on the required quota of beer and to avoid violence wherever possible. They talked about baseball for a while and stayed towards the back of the crowd, where the air was less saturated with sweat. Bruford held up his mobile and circled, trying to capture the atmosphere around them. Two pleasingly scantily clad girls came into sight, noticed him, and then started to pose, giggling. A complex of empty buildings stretched out behind them, the headquarters of a now-bankrupt firm for drilling technology, if he remembered rightly. The girls liked him – that was as sure a bet as the closure of Imperial Oil. He had handsome, almost Italian-looking features, and the sculpture of his body was his incentive for wearing little more than shorts and a muscle shirt, even in frosty temperatures. He lingered on them with the phone’s camera and laughed. The girls teased. After a few minutes he turned back to his friends for a second, then when he looked round at the girls again, he realised that they were now filming him. Flattered, he began to play the fool, pulling faces, swaggering around, and even his friends felt encouraged to join in. None of them was behaving particularly maturely, or like people who had just had their sole source of income taken from them. The girls began, amidst fits of laughter, to enact scenes from Hollywood films, prompting the boys to respond to their pantomime repertoire, calling out the solutions to one another boisterously. The day was shaping up to be more fun than expected. Besides, whenever Bruford examined his reflection in the mirror he always thought he would be better placed in the film industry than the Cold Lake open-cast mine. Perhaps he would even be grateful to EMCO one day. His mood soared up to the April sun on the wings of Icarus, with the result that he almost missed the small, bald-headed oil manager climbing up onto the platform.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was time. Bruford turned his head just in time to see Palstein stumble. The man steadied himself, wobbled and then collapsed. Security personnel rushed past, forming a wall against the chanting crowd. Bruford craned his neck. Was it a heart attack, a circulatory collapse, a stroke? He pushed forwards, holding his mobile up above the heads of the agitated crowd. It was an assassination attempt, it was obvious! Hadn’t people seen enough of that kind of thing in films! The stumble, a mishap. But something had jerked the manager around before he had fallen to the floor. A shot, what else? Someone must have shot at Palstein – that had to be it!
What Bruford didn’t know was that twenty minutes before the incident, while he was filming the girls, one of the security cameras had captured him for just a few seconds, albeit blurred and out of focus. When the police came to analyse the transmitted material, they simply overlooked him.