*
Through daily practice, his keyboard skills were improving, yet the gulf between the standard he aspired to and the plateau he had presently reached would take, in his estimation, at least three years to bridge. And now he had reason to believe that the task might be impossible. Several studies suggested that musical training improved subcortical responses. A recent paper by Steinhagen and Krummholz currently burdening his desk showed clear evidence of enhanced neural encoding. But here was the rub – provided the skills in question were acquired in childhood. A quick look in the mirror assured Klein that he was a child no longer, though he knew that already. His hair was thinning; there was no disguising that. Still, all was not lost; grey hairs among the brown were few and far between.
And as if his keyboard problems weren’t enough, several scholars with letters after their names concurred in the view that Johann Sebastian had planned to introduce the theme from Contrapunctus I as part of a grand conclusion to the unfinished Contrapunctus XIV. Locating this theme was easy enough, but his efforts to combine it with the three existing themes fell painfully short of the mark. If the task had been too much for the Great Man, it might also be too much even for him. Looking through the window of his apartment to the leafless trees beyond, he decided to abandon the project altogether. With regret, but there was nothing else for it. The trees might be biding their time for the spring to come but he couldn’t afford to. His spring was over some years since, and like everyone else still breathing, he didn’t know how long he had left. He exhaled against the mirror and watched a section cloud over.
A difficult decision was required, a change of course. With his wonderful new software and its impressive palette of orchestral instruments, he would give full reign to his creativity. Writing directly into the score, he would bypass keyboard skills entirely and concentrate on his symphony, still on its first page, which would, he decided, be powerful and direct of expression. He would shake a fist at the world which the world would ignore at its peril.
Consistent with the regulations governing such matters, Klein’s apartment was as hermetically sealed as he could make it against noxious fumes, particulates and noise from the world outside. But his laptop was not. The arrival of a notification from a superior in the Bundesnachrichtendienst stopped him in his tracks. Sub specie aeternitatis as it were, it was a piffling matter, a monthly return of no import in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps an application to retire early on health grounds might be favourably entertained provided his performance fell below the standard required. That was something he could arrange, though at no little stress to himself, since failure to meet standards in anything from personal hygiene to the completion of tax returns contradicted his nature. Being someone you are not takes a great deal out of a man, almost as much as not being who you really are every day of the week, every week of the year, something Klein knew to his cost. But he had recently found, if not a solution, then at least a way of coping with that.
Once the preserve of automotive mechanics, Transmission Meditation provided both a dynamic service to the world and a powerful vehicle for spiritual development. Its objective was the creation of a vortex or pool of higher energy for the benefit of humanity as a whole. In a room rented for the purpose, Klein’s group met every Tuesday evening at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre. Once a week, Dieter Klein had something to look forward to which was not an activity pursued in private but an event in which other human beings were involved.
25
Catherine Cooper was relaxing on her sofa with a kiwi fruit smoothie. Made in her blender using certified green electricity, she’d added some mango and pineapple for increased nutrition. Living alone suited her well. If the need arose, she could always talk to Schnucki. If his replies failed to satisfy, she could hear the sounds of human voices through radio or television. Finding life heavy enough as it was, she avoided fiction, especially “gritty drama”. Getting rid of her husband had been grit enough for her. Today, she was watching an edition of Heute Journal and thinking her thoughts.
‘I don’t know if you realise it, Schnucki, but this is Valentine’s Day and I haven’t received so much as a card under the door from a secret admirer.’
She said this without regret, since a secret admirer was the last thing she wanted, now or in the future.
Following a report on the troubles in Venezuela and an update on legal challenges facing the new administration in the United States, she was on the point of dozing off when her ear was caught by a report from Los Angeles: an outbreak of avian flu, not in birds as was usually the case, but among airport staff. A press conference had been called, some of which was carried live. She switched to CNN. Law enforcement and public health officials took it in turn to speak from behind a battery of microphones, outlining their collective state of preparedness before revealing that, as yet, nothing was known about the source of the infection. As for answering questions, they were, to a man and woman, reassuring when it came to containment. Disruption to travellers was regretted but could not be helped: the bio-exclusion zone presently covered both passengers and freight. Restrictions would be lifted as soon as it was safe to do so. Public safety took priority.
Cooper muted her TV, extricated herself from Schnucki, who had mistaken her for soft furnishings, ran over to the laptop on her kitchen table and surfed from one news site to the next. According to the latest update from the California Department of Public Health, early indications suggested that the virus in question was H7N9, though its success in infecting people directly suggested they might be dealing with a hitherto unknown mutation. Since this was exactly what she had sent to Gina Saito, it was a cause for concern or, as her ex-husband would put it, had her shitting bricks. Though her plan had been simple, she’d carried it out without first running it past Saito, something she should certainly have done. But she’d thought it out to the last detail, so what could possibly have gone wrong?
She’d taken the bottles from their cool box and packed them in a small cardboard container, heavily protected by bubble wrap to avoid the impact damage which occurred when freight handlers bounced them like basketballs around the belts. Undercover footage had revealed how vigorously negligent these underpaid people could be. As an added precaution, she’d sent them not to Saito’s apartment but to her mailbox on La Cienega Boulevard, an address she’d used before. She considered this doubly safe since it was registered not to Saito herself but to her alter ego, Herschel J Wood, esteemed reviewer of all things technical.
Cooper logged onto the website of Merkur SA, a company specialising in secure delivery. Tracking data from their website confirmed that her package had been delivered to the mailbox two days late. Over the next few weeks, news feeds suggested why this had been. Sniffer dogs in mail handling had found nothing suspicious about her package but X-ray images had raised suspicions. The small container inside was so heavily protected, the inspecting officer thought the only possible reason must be to mask the contents from her machine. Emily Anderson, from Customs and Border Protection, took it aside for physical examination, opened the bottle and removed a swab for drug tests. These proved negative, but still suspicious that the contents might not be the aquarium plant nutrition on the manifest, Mrs Anderson capped the bottle and sent it on to the lab for further analysis.
But she had opened it, as had two lab technicians, all of them going down with serious influenza-like symptoms several days later. In the meantime, during the incubation period no one knew had started, nothing suspicious had been found. The packet was carefully repackaged and forwarded to its intended destination. Biological bombs do not go off quickly.
Since an hour could not pass without an update, it soon became clear that the authorities were concentrating on tracking down any and all contacts of the three infected individuals. In this they were successful, but efforts to find infected birds drew a blank. Which led to the troubling conclusion that the source of the infection had passed
through mail handling, and the even more troubling conclusion that since the incubation period could be as long as nine days, they would have to check their records for every single letter, parcel and item of freight handled by Mrs Anderson and her team going back nine days before this lady, now elevated to the status of a devoted mother and grandmother, had first shown symptoms of disease. The prognosis for Mrs Anderson was not good, nor was it for the other two infected staff.
Only learning all this as the incident reached her screen through constantly updated news bulletins, Saito was as close to anger as she ever came. She spent twenty minutes on a chair beside her aquarium, trying to absorb the calm radiating from her small neon friends as they silently lit up their water. Since she didn’t look remotely like the bespectacled gentleman of her alter ego’s image, a borrowed stock photograph, and had no ID to match, who did Cooper imagine would collect the parcel she’d sent? What planet was this woman on? She had her good points but meaning well was not enough.
When the news broke, Cooper knew she should contact Saito and did so, only to find that her friend was observing radio silence. Either she was angry or, completely in character, said nothing when she had nothing to say. In fact, Cooper had faced her with a serious problem and Saito had to think her way through it. Slowly but surely, her thoughts centred on her amorous colleague, Rafael Munoz. Without asking him first, she copied his photograph from one of the several social media platforms he inhabited and started work on documentation for Herschel J Wood, something that gentleman had lacked up till now. Munoz looked twenty years younger than Wood, but the clerk at reception wouldn’t know that and, unlike Saito herself, Munoz was male. Or, as he never tired of claiming, all male. She would ask Munoz to collect the parcel for her.
This was not without risk. If he was picked up by the authorities, the link with her would soon become clear, however hard he tried to conceal it. For one thing, they both worked at UCLA, and for another, they would soon figure out who Herschel J Wood really was. But though aware of these dangers, the greater risk was that Munoz, a latter-day amorous prawn, would expect sexual favours in return. The fastidious Gina Saito was opposed, in principle, to the exchange of bodily fluids with him or anyone else, this being the surest way to exclude sexually transmitted diseases from her life. She was comfortable with the irony here. At a personal level at least, she was anxious to prevent biohazard, a courtesy she did not propose to extend to humanity at large.
26
‘So,’ Munoz said, trying to get closer to Saito from the driving seat of his second-hand Wrangler, ‘why so secretive, what’s this about?’
‘I was hoping you could do me a favour.’
‘Like what?’
‘No big deal, collect a parcel.’
Munoz sounded doubtful. ‘You can’t collect it yourself?’
‘This will sound strange, Rafael, but I have a sideline.’
‘Right.’
‘I review technology.’
This didn’t surprise him for a moment, and according to Saito she was receiving a new device to review weeks ahead of its official release and couldn’t risk being identified; if she was, her source might be exposed and charged with theft.
Munoz chewed this over for moment; he knew where this new technology was coming from.
‘We’re talking Apple here.’
He believed the corporation leaked like a sieve, especially when it came to pipeline products, so she led him further along the path he was eager to travel. No need to manipulate someone so keen to manipulate himself.
‘Well, Rafael, I can’t confirm that straight out, but you might not be a million miles from the mark.’
He beamed. Being right gave him pleasure. ‘I knew it!’
Sitting in a UCLA car park with Munoz in his clapped-out SUV was not Saito’s idea of heaven, though in this case, sacrifice for the cause was unavoidable. But though he’d suggested it as a private place to talk, the engine was still running because 42 degrees Fahrenheit was on the cool side. Saito didn’t approve and said so.
‘Give me a break here, Gina, it’s cold this early in the morning.’ His face lit up; he’d been visited by a bright idea. ‘I could always switch off.’
‘Good idea.’
‘And keep you warm by snuggling up.’
Without ever saying so explicitly, and without promising anything, Saito had the knack of leading him to expect that someday soon he would hit the jackpot.
‘Listen, Rafael, this is important. I have some papers here you should get your head round.’
She handed him a folder labelled R Munoz, Private and Confidential, which gave him a warm glow as if he’d just been kissed on the earlobe or downed a shot of tequila. In his usual impetuous way, he ripped the documents from it and gave them the once-over.
‘It’s me!’ he said, when he saw his mugshot on a file purporting to identify Herschel J Wood. ‘My God, I’m a genius. Check the credentials on this!’
Saito smiled. Though a sexual predator by nature, Munoz was surprisingly naive in other respects.
‘Believe me, I have.’
Since he was clearly going to help her out, she rewarded him with a swift peck on the cheek. He’d construe it as a down payment with more to follow, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘What would this guy say if he was reviewing my SUV?’
Saito had a pretty good idea.
‘He’d say you were driving yesterday’s technology tomorrow.’
*
And so, three days later, Rafael Ignaz Munoz parked yesterday’s technology in the car park of Yum Yum Donuts, across the road from the LA Mail Collection Company. He sat in his vehicle for some time, observing customers enter and leave in an attempt to determine whether the office was under observation. After all, Apple had the technology, and a succession of motion pictures had accustomed him to think in terms of vans, ostensibly in the delivery or cleaning lines of work but actually, on the inside, bristling with electronic surveillance gear operated by geeks with heavy glasses and heavier qualifications.
Fifteen minutes and two yum yums later, he’d detected nothing suspicious but had a problem with sticky fingers, which he solved by dipping them in his tea and wiping them off on his jeans. As he looked down the highway, bright with light, he remembered his life some years before, feeling the wall of heat rising from the sidewalk as much as the sun overhead. Finding work hadn’t been easy. He’d lost over twenty pounds, but he’d cracked it now. As for the talk of walls, he knew very well that the ones to worry about were not the concrete variety topped with razor wire; the ones to worry about were made of paper.
Marrying a citizen had cost him at the time but secured the green card he needed. And if he ever wanted to marry in earnest, Saito, for example, all he needed to do was divorce Christina. Provided he could find her, she wouldn’t mind one bit. Saito. She had her good points but she was always so serious. Looking out on La Cienega called her voice to mind. These highways of yours were made by human beings, but for vehicles, Rafael, not people. Really, Gina! And who was in those vehicles? Human beings. People like him. Although his case wasn’t heavy, he rested it anyway.
Munoz crossed the road and entered the building secure in the knowledge that few could match his technical competence. He’d taken to Herschel J Wood big time and was less playing the part than being the man himself. So when he approached the counter clerk, he didn’t betray the slightest sign of anxiety.
‘You’ve received notification?’
Munoz showed him the printout and the clerk scanned the QR code.
‘ID?’
‘Of course,’ Munoz said, proudly handing it over.
But when the clerk checked the photograph against the face he hit a snag.
‘Could we lose the shades and baseball cap, Mr Wood?’
If he was going to leave with the goods, Munoz had little ch
oice. But he was reluctant. Apart from the CCTV, which couldn’t be avoided, anyone taking a close look, as the clerk was doing now, had to wonder how it came about that Herschel J Wood had such Hispanic features. But it wasn’t the clerk’s job to consider such factors. The face before him matched the shot on the ID; that was enough. He nodded.
‘We have your package, Mr Wood.’
27
Danie Pienaar felt conflicting emotions; something he was unaccustomed to and didn’t like. It must be important or these people wouldn’t be coming, but he had the uneasy feeling that they’d detected a fault in his procedures. Worried as he was, he’d just wasted several hours failing to find it.
He ushered the visiting delegation into the meeting room and watched as they took their seats. They came with laptops, mobile phones and a variety of attaché cases, two of which, he couldn’t help noting, were finished in leather. The Breitenbach woman was armed with an aluminium case strong enough to stand on. Why? What did it contain? Maybe nothing at all. Perhaps she intended to leave with samples for analysis.
He saw her look round the room, taking in the back wall with its blow-ups of viruses captured under extreme magnification by scanning electron microscopes. She paused at the perfect globe of Hepatitis C with its stemmed red protrusions and lingered for a moment over an image of a bacteriophage and its fearsome array of grappling hooks. No bacterium in its right mind would want to tangle with a virus like that. In the act of sitting down, she held out her hand.
‘Molly Breitenbach. Good of you to see us at such short notice, Herr Pienaar. I believe you know Dieter Klein and Ursula Lang.’
‘By reputation only, I’m afraid, unlike Herr Dietmayer here, our head of security.’
Dietmayer rose to his feet, shook Klein warmly by the hand, acknowledged Ursula Lang with the weakest of smiles and ignored Breitenbach completely. After so many years, she was past caring. Whatever was coming their way, these guys would get it in the end. Pienaar explained that Dietmayer, still seconded to the Austrian security service, had worked at NATO headquarters for several years. But this singular mark of distinction, polished too often, was losing its shine.
The Ears of a Cat Page 11