Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late

by Marc Elsberg

  Within seconds the cab disappeared beneath a swarm of people.

  Bollard heard the deep churning of the engine and looked on helplessly as the lorry slowly made its way through the disappointed crowd. Whoever got in the way could count on being run over. Above the baying of the crowd, Bollard heard the clear and terrible crack of a cobblestone striking the windscreen. The vehicle began to pick up speed. Bollard heard ugly, dull thuds; the lorry reached the street, accelerated. Those who had been clinging on had either let go or fallen off. Some picked themselves up, faces twisted in pain, and dusted themselves down; others lay still on the ground.

  Düsseldorf, Germany

  Manzano didn’t know where any of the official food distribution sites were in this city, and he wouldn’t have dared to visit them anyway. Hartlandt would most likely have circulated his description, assuming he would turn up in need of food. After he had searched the empty and deserted hospital kitchen yet again, he wound his way back to the entrance. On the way he looked into the emergency ward, hoping to find some winter clothing that would fit him. He found plasters, bandages, tape and disinfectant, which he stuffed into his jacket pockets. He also grabbed a pair of scissors and two scalpels. Finally he came upon a room piled high with bags full of white trousers and shirts – all soiled and presumably destined for the laundry service, had it been operating. He climbed back up to the third floor and tried the gynaecology and internal medicine departments. In a cabinet he stumbled upon two pairs of trousers that someone had left behind. The first was too small, the other seemed clean enough, and even his approximate size.

  He sat down heavily on a bed, changed his bandage and slipped into the trousers. Now he could at least risk going out on the street without immediately arousing suspicion. But where would he go?

  ‘Piero?’

  Manzano jumped out of his skin. He looked around in a panic.

  ‘Hello, Piero.’

  In the doorway stood Lauren Shannon.

  ‘What … what are you doing here?’ he stammered.

  ‘I spent the night in the hospital.’

  ‘But how did you get here?’

  ‘I followed you from The Hague. I have a fast car, as you know.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘I followed you all the way to Talaefer. I saw them taking you into custody, you trying to escape, you getting injured. It was last night, here in the hospital, that I finally lost you, after you got the better of your guard. What exactly is going on here?’

  ‘I’d like to know that myself.’

  He sat back down on the bed.

  ‘Are you alone?’ he asked carefully.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re giving me this weird look.’

  ‘Who told you where I was going when I left The Hague?’

  ‘Nobody. I saw you packing, so I did the same and went after you.’

  He sat there, studying her face intently, conscious of the wound in his thigh pulsing. Then he told her the whole story.

  The Hague, Netherlands

  The jostling in the square had quietened down. Most of the crowd had moved on; those that remained gathered around the farmers on their horse-drawn carts, trying to outbid one another for a few potatoes, turnips, carrots, heads of cabbage or withered winter apples. The guards, armed with pitchforks or clubs, saw off any unruly customers. Bollard took out his wallet and checked its contents. Thirty euros. How much could he buy with that?

  He had to try at least. He pushed his way to the front, held his cash up in the air, shouted, ‘Here! Over here!’

  The farmer on the cart ignored him. In other outstretched hands Bollard saw significantly larger sums. Why the hell didn’t the police stop this craziness, he wondered. As a Europol officer, this was outside his jurisdiction. And without a gun, there was nothing he could do in any case. A police badge would only encourage derision. Exhausted, he let himself be pushed aside. They had enough canned goods for Marie and the kids’ lunch, he thought as he made his way back to his bicycle. But what about tomorrow?

  Düsseldorf, Germany

  ‘So what now?’ asked Shannon.

  ‘No idea,’ Manzano replied.

  ‘Hey, you’re the computer genius. If it’s really true that some unknown person sent the emails from your computer, can you find out how they did it, or even who it was?’

  ‘Maybe. Depends on how professional this person is. If he’s good, there won’t be any clues. But I need my laptop to find out.’

  His injured thigh throbbed.

  ‘Let’s assume that our friends in the police force are upstanding officers who are only doing their jobs. How would the attackers have known about your trip?’

  ‘They’d have to be spying on Europol somehow. Bollard had my laptop under surveillance. He could have opened a gateway for the attackers.’

  ‘If someone has actually infiltrated the Europol system, would it be possible to detect the intrusion?’

  ‘If you knew where to look and looked long enough, most likely yes. Unfortunately, their software specialists have more important things to do at the moment.’

  ‘OK. You wait here. I’m going to try something.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’

  ‘Rest. Believe me, you’ll have a hard time finding a better spot at the moment. I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours.’

  The Hague, Netherlands

  There was no need for Bollard to get off his bicycle. He could see the bank was closed. He pedalled on past. A couple of streets further on, he found another. Behind its door was a handwritten sign to say the bank was closed until further notice. Increasingly anxious, he pedalled on towards Europol. Oh God, he thought. Oh God, oh God. He passed three more banks. Lights off in every one. His last-chance saloon – the Hotel Gloria, where he had lodged the Italian, was on the way. Built to accommodate guests of Europol, it was better equipped than the other hotels in the city.

  A few lone lamps shimmered in the lobby. Bollard thrust his ID towards the receptionist. The man nodded grimly. Bollard passed swiftly through the deserted restaurant, swung through some doors into the kitchen.

  He was greeted by a cook wiping his hands on a soiled apron.

  ‘Entry for staff only,’ he said.

  Bollard showed him his ID. ‘I need a few meals. What have you got?’

  ‘Are you a guest?’

  ‘Do you want to keep your job?’

  ‘Potatoes with vegetables or vegetables with potatoes – your choice,’ the man responded drily.

  ‘I’ll take some of each. I need it to take away.’

  ‘I don’t have takeaway containers.’

  ‘Then I’ll come back with some later. If you care about your job, make sure you pile the portions high.’

  Düsseldorf, Germany

  Shannon uncovered a couple of rubber tubes, scalpels, funnels and a bucket from the hospital. Abandoned cars littered the underground car park. Torch gripped between her teeth, Shannon measured the opening to the fuel tank of her Porsche, then she walked to the nearest car. The fuel-cap cover was locked. She returned to her car, found a wrench in the emergency tool kit along with a second tool for leverage. Then she went back to the other car, prised off the cover, fed the tube into the tank, crouched down, and started to suck. The driving force of our civilization, she thought. But for how much longer?

  After two more rounds of siphoning, Shannon’s Porsche had a full tank. She threw her fuelling utensils into the boot – she might need them again. She stowed the tools she’d used for breaking the cover off in the boot. The scalpel she dropped into the compartment in the driver-side door. In the underground car park the roar of her car’s flashy exhaust was twice as loud as on the street.

  Ratingen, Germany

  Hartlandt opened his laptop and brought up the message that had come in the previous day.

  ‘CORRECTION’ blared the subject line, just to make sure everybody would catch on right away. Granted, the news warranted the fanfare, e
ven if it did shatter the one potential lead they had on the attackers. In the message, Berlin revised the reports from the previous day about arson in substations and the dynamited transmission towers. Suddenly, most of the cases weren’t acts of sabotage after all but were attributable to other causes. The fire in Lübeck had originated from a short circuit, two of the towers in the north had collapsed under the weight of freezing rain and snow.

  He picked up the radio-phone and called the people who’d sent the message at headquarters in Berlin.

  ‘You’re the third guy to call me about this,’ was the man’s answer. ‘No, I didn’t send that message. And I don’t know anyone else who could’ve done it either. And on top of that, we have no information from the utilities.’

  ‘But I’m looking at the message right now,’ argued Hartlandt.

  ‘I’m not disputing that you received the message,’ said the other. ‘Or that it was sent from my computer. But—’

  ‘So some jerk is sending out information from your computer, but neither you nor your colleagues know anything about it?’

  ‘Looks that way to me.’

  ‘Does that mean that the original information is still accurate?’

  ‘Well, no one’s told us any different,’ the other replied, hesitant now.

  ‘Then get it clarified, ASAP!’ Hartlandt bellowed, and hung up.

  He called Bollard.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, and recounted his conversation.

  ‘And your colleague in Berlin denies all knowledge of this message?’ asked Bollard.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hartlandt. ‘Just as the Italian denied sending that email.’

  In the Talaefer car park there were fewer vehicles than the day before. Shannon parked the Porsche behind a van so that it wouldn’t be so noticeable from the entrance. Manzano’s car was still standing right where he had left it. Shannon slung the bag with her camera and laptop over her shoulder.

  The same woman was sitting at the reception desk, the same woman who had witnessed her ‘little girl lost’ act the previous day.

  ‘Have you lost yourself again already?’ she asked in heavily accented English.

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Hartlandt,’ Shannon announced. ‘And I’m going to stay right here until I get to see him or until he exits the building.’

  From the woman’s confused look, Shannon could tell that that had been beyond her poor grasp of English. She repeated it more slowly.

  ‘If you don’t leave, I will call security.’ So the woman had got the gist.

  ‘Go ahead. I’m a journalist and I’ll file a report on it.’

  The receptionist sighed, reached for the telephone. Moments later, two men appeared behind the desk. Shannon turned as three more entered from a hallway. Shannon recognized one of them immediately.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ she called out to Hartlandt.

  Hartlandt and his crew, a man and a woman, stopped. Shannon felt uneasy under his gaze. Did he recognize her as the woman from the hospital last night?

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked her in English.

  Behind her, the security guards inched closer.

  ‘I’m a journalist from CNN. I’m interested in what German investigators are looking for at one of the most important manufacturers of power plant control systems worldwide.’

  He fixed her with a look and said, ‘Excuse me, I didn’t catch your name.’

  In that moment, Shannon was praying for three things: that he hadn’t watched too much TV in the past few days and so had missed her ‘fifteen minutes of fame’; that Bollard hadn’t sent through anything about her connection to Manzano and her disappearance from The Hague; and that she could somehow untangle herself from this mess that she had so blithely walked into.

  ‘Sandra Brown.’

  ‘What can I do for you, Sandra Brown?’

  Shannon threw a look of triumph at the two men who by that point had grabbed her by the arms. They loosened their grip.

  ‘You can tell me what’s going on here. People are aware now that the power outages were caused deliberately. What’s Talaefer’s role?’

  ‘Follow me.’

  With a shrug she left the meatheads from security standing.

  Hartlandt led her to an office on the ground floor. The room was flowing with crates and computers.

  ‘Can I offer you anything? Coffee? A snack?’

  Yes, yes, yes! screamed the voice in her head, but she managed to say, ‘Sure, thanks.’

  The moment he’d gone, Shannon cased the room. It looked like an improvised workspace. On a filing cabinet next to the wall there were stacks of hard drives and laptops. The one on top looked a lot like Manzano’s. She took a closer look. There was the same green sticker she’d seen on Manzano’s computer.

  That was almost too lucky.

  She returned to her seat in the nick of time; Hartlandt walked back in seconds later. When he placed the coffee, a bottle of water and a sandwich before her, it took an act of will not to wolf the whole lot down at once.

  ‘So,’ he said with a smile. ‘Ask your questions. Since you don’t have any recording devices, we can go ahead and speak openly.’

  ‘Maybe I could charge my camera here?’

  ‘Sorry, but energy is very valuable at the moment. We need the electricity for more important things,’ said Hartlandt.

  ‘And what would those be, exactly?’ asked Shannon.

  Shannon sank her teeth into the sandwich. She couldn’t remember ever eating anything so delicious. She chewed slowly and intently.

  ‘You’ve already guessed,’ answered Hartlandt.

  ‘You confirm then that you’re here at Talaefer as part of your investigation into the blackout?’

  Another bite. Then a sip of hot coffee, with milk! It didn’t bother her at all that there was way too much sugar, quite the opposite.

  ‘Every manufacturer is assisting with the investigation at the moment,’ said Hartlandt. ‘Talaefer is no exception.’

  ‘Have you found anything yet?’

  ‘So far, no.’

  Shannon didn’t ask any more; she ate her sandwich instead. Let Hartlandt be the one to talk. Meanwhile, she tried to figure out a way to get hold of Manzano’s laptop without being noticed.

  ‘Is it good?’

  Shannon nodded.

  ‘Would you like anything else?’

  ‘Another coffee would be great.’

  He had barely left the room when she grabbed hold of Manzano’s laptop and stuffed it in her bag. When Hartlandt returned a few minutes later, she took the coffee from him and downed it in one go. Then she said, ‘I take it there’s not much more you’re going to tell me, right? Thanks for your time.’

  ‘Can you still get through to your network?’ Hartlandt asked as they walked towards the exit.

  ‘It ain’t easy, but it works.’

  They had reached the lobby.

  ‘Is it possible you don’t know the US was attacked yesterday?’

  Shannon froze. ‘What?’ It was close to a scream.

  ‘I thought it might interest you.’

  Before she could answer, he led her out of the door.

  ‘I had no idea that CNN had a bureau in Düsseldorf,’ he said as they parted.

  ‘We don’t,’ she said absently, before regaining her composure. ‘I made the trip over especially. I still had a little gas left in the tank.’

  ‘I wish you a good trip back then.’

  Hartlandt stood in front of the entrance and watched the woman leave. As she drove off in her shiny Porsche, he gave a single nod. As soon as she had left the car park, the grey Audi A6 with Pohlen at the wheel started up and followed her at a distance. Hartlandt pulled the printout out of his pocket that showed Lauren Shannon reporting the attack on the power grid on television and, in a photo taken by a surveillance camera, in a hotel room in The Hague with Piero Manzano.

  ‘Do you think we’re stupid, girl?’

&nbs
p; Shannon checked her rear-view mirror again. The grey Audi had reappeared. The streets were so deserted that every car drew her attention. She spent a few minutes trying to find a radio station, but only static came through the speakers. She could barely concentrate on driving as her thoughts jumped from her parents to her grandparents and her half-siblings, scattered across the United States. She thought of friends, people she knew from school, people she hadn’t seen in years. The grey Audi was still there. For a few minutes she was distracted by a military convoy that stretched for a kilometre in the oncoming lane. By the time she reached the outskirts of Düsseldorf, the Audi was still there.

  She had saved the location of the hospital in her navigation system. She could take a few detours and it would still lead her back there. Acting on impulse, she turned from the route indicated, her eyes darting back and forth between the road and the rear-view mirror.

  The Audi was still visible.

  One more test.

  Yep. It was definitely tailing her.

  It could only be one of Hartlandt’s men. She had become familiar with their methods. They had shot Manzano cold-bloodedly when he tried to flee. Shannon accelerated. Felt herself being pushed back into the seat. A test with the pedal, a quick look in the mirror. The Audi was falling behind. The motor roared, the speedometer climbed up to one hundred and thirty kilometres per hour. At the next intersection, Shannon braked hard, swerved right and accelerated again. When she came to another junction, she repeated the manoeuvre. Now she hadn’t the faintest idea where she was. Somewhere in the industrial district. After the seventh or eighth turn-off, she risked a look behind her. The Audi was gone. She slowed and took a deep breath.

  The female voice of the satnav gave her a new route. Shannon followed it.

  Her stomach dropped. There was the Audi in her mirror again. Resigned, she let the GPS lead her back to the access road. Shannon slid the laptops out of the bag on the passenger seat, then the cameras and everything else. From the glove compartment, she took the user manual, chunky as a phone directory, and stuck it in the bag. With the press of a button she slid open her window and tossed the bag out. In the wing mirror she watched the bag roll over and over. The Audi slowed. A man leapt from the car, picked up the bag. Shannon floored it. Quickly the car in the rear-view mirror grew smaller. At the next junction she turned off on to a side street and re-emerged in a web of small avenues that made up a residential area. The Audi did not reappear.