Trains. What heavy-handed symbolism. How could he be having such ploddingly obvious dreams? He looked the blond man in the eyes, and imagined him simply turning away and walking off into the mirror, leaving him alone there in the bathroom, sick and tired of his inadequacies, the inadequacies of that pimply kid.
He had to get rid of the kid somehow. Anyhow. Enough was enough!
Vogelaar
His shout burst through the lounge like a nuclear blast, tearing to shreds all conversation, all thought. Sleepy jazz muzak tinkled away in the sudden silence. On the low glass table in front of him, an abstract composition in coffee and foamed milk surrounded a jagged heap of shattered porcelain.
He stared at the display.
‘Do you understand me?’ Xin asked.
His knees gave way. Nyela’s muffled sobs sounded in his ear as he sank back into the leather chair. Nothing had happened. The scalpel had not plunged into her eye, had not sliced through pupil and iris. It had simply twitched, and then stopped dead still once more.
‘Yes,’ Vogelaar whispered. ‘I understand.’
‘Good. If you play by my rules, nothing will happen to her. As for what will happen to you though—’
‘I understand.’ Vogelaar coughed. ‘Why all the extra effort?’
‘Extra?’
‘You could have killed me by now. As I left the building, on my drive across town, even here in the bank—’
The picture vanished, and then he saw Xin again.
‘Quite simple,’ he said, back to his chatty old self. ‘Because you’ve never worked without a safety net and an escape hatch. You believe in life after death, or at least you believe in lawyers opening deposit boxes and releasing their contents to the press. You’ve made arrangements in case you die suddenly.’
‘Do you need help?’
Vogelaar looked up. One of the lounge staff, with a startled look on his face, a hint of disapproval. No screaming and shouting in banks. At most, they were places were you could contemplate a dignified suicide. Vogelaar shook his head.
‘No, I – it’s just that I’ve had some bad news.’
‘If there’s anything that we can do—’
‘It’s a private matter.’
The man smiled with relief. It wasn’t about money. Someone had died, or had an accident.
‘As I say, if—’
‘Thank you.’
The staffer left. Vogelaar watched him go, then got up and left the lounge hurriedly.
‘Go on,’ he said into the phone.
‘Your sort of insurance rather depends on the idea that if anyone’s out to cause you harm, they’ll go after you,’ Xin continued. ‘So you can warn them to keep their hands off. If I don’t turn up to take afternoon tea tomorrow at such and such a time and place, with all my bits and pieces intact, the bomb goes off somewhere. It’s a lone wolf strategy, because for most of your life you were a lone wolf. But you’re not any longer. Perhaps you should have changed your plans.’
‘I have.’
‘You haven’t. That bomb will only be detonated if it’s your life at stake.’
‘My life, and my wife’s.’
‘Not exactly. You’ve changed your mind but you haven’t changed your habits. Earlier you’d have said, get the hell back on the next plane out, Kenny, there’s nothing you can do. Or, kill me and see what happens. But now you’re telling me, leave Nyela alone or I’ll make things hot for you.’
‘You can be sure of that!’
‘Meaning that you could still set off the bomb.’ Xin paused. ‘But then what would we do with your poor innocent wife? Or to put it another way, how long would we do it to her for?’
Vogelaar had crossed the foyer, and went out into the crowds on Friedrichstrasse.
‘That’s enough, Kenny. I see what you mean.’
‘Really? Back when Vogelaar only cared about Vogelaar, life was hard for people like me. Back then you’d have said, go on, kill the woman, torture her to death, see where it gets you. We’d have played a little poker, and in the end you’d have won.’
‘I’m warning you. If you harm even a hair on Nyela’s head—’
‘Would you die for her?’
‘Just come out with it and tell me what you want.’
‘I want an answer.’
Vogelaar felt his mind soar, saw his whole life spread out beneath his wings. What he saw was a bug, biting, pinching, stinging, playing dead or scuttling lightning-fast into a crack. A drone, a programmed thing, but one whose armour had been corroded these past few years by regular doses of empathy. His instincts had been ruined once he realised that there was in fact a purpose to life, that there could even be a purpose to dying so that others might live. Xin was right. His plans were out of date. This bug was sick and tired of creeping into cracks, but right now the future held nothing else.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I would die for Nyela.’
‘Why?’
‘To save her.’
‘No, Jan. You’d die because altruism is an egotist’s crowning glory, and you’re a deeply egotistical man. Nothing appeals more to a man’s self-importance than martyrdom, and you’ve always had a very high sense of your own importance.’
‘Don’t speechify, Kenny.’
‘You have to know that you won’t save anyone with your death, not if you try to cheat. You’d be leaving Nyela on her own. There’d be no end to her suffering. You’d have achieved nothing.’
‘I understand.’
‘So what’s your escape hatch this time?’
‘A dossier.’
‘This is what Mayé wanted to blackmail us with?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘In the Crystal Brain. It’s on a memory crystal.’
‘Who knows about it?’
‘Only my lawyer, and my wife.’
‘Nyela knows what’s in the dossier?’
‘Yes.’
‘And your lawyer?’
‘He doesn’t know a thing. He just has instructions to retrieve the crystal if I should die a violent death, and upload the contents to a distributor feed.’
‘Why didn’t you tell him what was in the dossier?’
‘Because it’s nothing to do with him,’ Vogelaar snorted, growing angry. ‘The dossier only exists to protect Nyela’s life, and mine.’
‘That means that as soon as I have this crystal— Good, fetch it. How long do you need?’
‘An hour at most.’
‘Is there anyone coming by here before then we should know about? Cleaner, kitchen porter, postman?’
‘No one.’
‘Off you go then, old friend. Don’t dawdle now.’
Vogelaar was no tree-hugger. He drove a solar-powered Nissan because Nyela was concerned about the environment. He realised of course that more small cars meant less traffic in the city, but something in his genes cried out for a jeep. But now that he was crawling painfully through the government quarter, he cursed aloud every vehicle bigger than his own, and felt a sweeping rage against all the damned ignorant drivers hereabouts.