by Marc Elsberg
‘It’s no use to you,’ Manzano responded. And repeated, ‘Please.’
‘Get it yourself,’ the man said. ‘But no false moves.’ Manzano pulled the laptop out from under the passenger seat.
‘Now get out of here!’
Manzano and Shannon looked at each other, took a few cautious steps over to the front door of the house, which was swinging open, weak light coming out of it.
‘That asshole,’ hissed Shannon, then a shadow appeared in the door.
‘I said get out of here!’ the man shouted. A shot shattered the silence. Dirt and gravel sprayed from the ground.
‘Shit!’ swore Shannon and jumped back. When the next shot landed close to her, she grabbed Manzano by the elbow and pulled him away.
‘And don’t come back either!’ the man yelled after them. ‘Next time I won’t miss!’
The Hague, Netherlands
‘It tastes disgusting!’
Bernadette threw her spoon into the vegetable stew that Bollard had brought back from the Hotel Gloria.
‘You won’t be getting anything else,’ answered Bollard.
‘I want spaghetti!’
Marie rolled her eyes. The flu medicine had helped, her fever had dropped.
‘You can see for yourself that the stove doesn’t work. Where are you going to boil the water for the pasta? In the living-room fireplace?’
Really, the kids didn’t have it that bad, Bollard thought. They had no school, got to play all day long. The situation meant he and his wife were more lenient with them than usual.
‘I don’t care! And I wanna watch TV!’
‘Bernadette, that is enough!’
‘No! No, no, no!’
She jumped up from her chair and stomped out of the kitchen. Marie gave him a desperate look. Bollard pushed back his chair and followed his daughter. He found her sitting on the living-room floor in front of the fire, combing the hair of one of her dolls.
Bollard sat down on the floor opposite.
‘Listen, sweetie …’
Bernadette lowered her head, fiercely knitted her eyebrows, pushed out her bottom lip and combed the doll’s hair more urgently.
‘I know things are difficult at the moment, but all of us …’
He heard his daughter’s quiet sobs, saw her little shoulders shaking. He hadn’t seen her cry like this before. This wasn’t just her being moody or stubborn. The kids might not know what’s going on, he thought, but they sense it. Our helplessness, our tension, our fear. Bollard stroked her hair, took her in his arms. Her delicate body was racked with sobs now, her tears spilled onto his shirt as he held her in his arms and gently rocked her.
That’s how we all feel, honey, he thought, that’s how we all feel.
Between Cologne and Düren, Germany
Shannon and Manzano struggled to gain a footing over the loose earth. Ahead of them was a wooden shack of about five square metres; it had no windows, the door was unlocked.
She rummaged in her rucksack and found the matches that she had packed in Paris. She struck one and lit up the interior. As far as she could tell in the faint circle of light, the hut was empty save for a few old fence posts and some hay.
‘It’s no warmer in here,’ Manzano pointed out.
‘We’ll fix that,’ said Shannon.
The moonlight glimmered through a large hole in the roof. After a few minutes she had kindled a small fire with straw and bits of wood. The flames threw dancing shadows on the wall. Manzano huddled up in front of the fire and held his hands out to warm them.
‘This is brilliant,’ he sighed. ‘Where’d you learn this?’
‘Girl Scouts,’ she answered. ‘Who would have thought it would come in handy one day.’
She knew it wasn’t exactly safe to fall asleep next to this fire. Stray sparks could set the shack alight and they would suffocate from the smoke in their sleep.
They stared into the flames for a while.
‘What insanity,’ Manzano finally remarked.
Shannon said nothing.
‘There’s one thing I can’t stop thinking about,’ Manzano went on. ‘What are the attackers hoping to accomplish by cutting off the lifeblood of our civilization? Do they want us to start robbing each other and bashing each other’s skulls in – like cavemen in the Stone Age?’
‘If it is, then they’ve succeeded,’ Shannon said bitterly. She stood up, emptied out her rucksack and handed him a few pieces of clothing. It wasn’t much.
‘Something to lie on and something to use as a blanket.’
‘They haven’t succeeded with everyone yet.’
‘What?’
‘The acting like it’s the Stone Age thing. Thank you.’
Manzano bunched together two T-shirts and a sweater for a pillow. Shannon crumpled up a pair of trousers. They lay across from one another, each facing the fire. Shannon felt the cold at her back, less intense than outside. Manzano had already closed his eyes.
Shannon cast another look at the tiny embers that popped out of the glowing wood, one by one. She closed her eyes, too, and hoped she would wake up again the next morning.
Day 8 – Saturday
Ratingen, Germany
‘Dragenau wasn’t Dragenau,’ Hartlandt began. Dienhof was there, the rest of Talaefer AG management, even Wickley. ‘At least not at the hotel. There he checked in as Charles Caldwell. Does the name mean anything to any of you?’
The group shook their heads.
‘My theory is that Dragenau is our man. He didn’t travel to Bali for a vacation, he went there to disappear. To his – and our – misfortune, his accomplices or employers didn’t trust him. And for that reason, he had to be silenced.’
‘This is all speculation,’ Wickley said indignantly. ‘For all we know the dead man is Charles Caldwell. Why would Dragenau be involved in something like this?’
‘Money?’ Hartlandt suggested.
‘Wounded pride,’ Dienhof offered. ‘Delayed revenge.’
Wickley threw him a nasty look.
‘Revenge for what?’ asked Hartlandt.
‘Many years ago,’ sighed Wickley, ‘while still a student in computer science, Dragenau started a company that made automation software. The guy’s a genius, but a lousy salesman. Despite his excellent products, the business never really took off. For a while he was a competitor, but he didn’t stand a chance against Talaefer. By the end of the nineties his firm was deeply in debt, not least because of various copyright disputes with us. We bought him out – primarily it was a strategic move to get Dragenau on the team. He became our chief architect.’
‘A frustrated, failed competitor who was driven into bankruptcy – in your industry, you don’t consider such an employee an extreme security risk?’ asked Hartlandt in disbelief.
‘At first, sure,’ answered Wickley. ‘But over the years he made such a positive impression that at some point all doubts were forgotten.’
Between Cologne and Düren, Germany
Shannon opened her eyes. A few orange embers were still burning amid the ashes. Manzano was breathing heavily in his sleep; sweat glistened on his pale face. Through the holes in the roof she could see patches of blue sky. She lay uncomfortably on her makeshift pillow and pondered their predicament. Panic was beginning to rise within her. She recognized the feeling from school, before an exam; from her travels, when she had nowhere to go or had run out of money. And she knew what she had to do. Freezing like a rabbit in the headlights would get her nowhere – she needed to take action.
Slowly she picked herself up, laid a piece of wood on the fire, blew on it carefully until the first flames started to lick. Then she slipped outside and took a shit in the undergrowth. The night’s frost had covered the surrounding fields and forest in a white layer that sparkled in the sun. For one moment she felt free of the worries that had been weighing her down.
She leaned against the wooden wall, which had been warmed by the morning sun. Up until the day before, her goals had b
een clear: to secure the story of a lifetime. But what kind of news did she want to hear now? The answer was simple: that it was all over.
She wanted to be the one to deliver the good news. But first she had to be sure of the facts. Maybe it was time to stop reporting what others were doing. Maybe it was time to do something herself, just as Manzano had done when he discovered the code in the Italian meters.
Her raw mouth and the rumbling in her stomach were a reminder of their basic needs. She had eaten nothing since Hartlandt had fed her yesterday morning. She had drunk only once, when they passed a stream earlier. Things looked worse for Manzano. He hadn’t even benefited from the policeman’s snacks.
She went back inside the hut.
Manzano opened his eyes. They were glassy.
‘Good morning,’ he said softly. ‘How are you doing today?’
He closed his eyes, coughed.
She laid her hand on his forehead. He was burning up. He mumbled something, delirious.
‘We have to find you a doctor,’ she said.
Step one.
The Hague, Netherlands
Marie pushed her way through to one of the vendors in the square. He was selling kohlrabi, turnips and spotty apples. She pulled out the watch that her parents had given her for her high school graduation. She clasped two gold rings and a chain in her hand, her last reserve. She held one of the rings out to the vendor.
‘Real gold!’ she cried. ‘This is worth four hundred euros. What can I get for it?’
The man’s attention was caught by someone further along who was offering cash. She called out several more times before he looked over.
‘And how am I supposed to know it’s real?’ he asked.
Before Marie could answer, he took money from someone else and handed over two full bags of vegetables.
Deflated, Marie withdrew from the crowd in front of his stall. She wasn’t going to give up so easily, though. At least thirty vendors had spread out over the square. Crowds of hungry people jostled one another, trying to get closer to the vendors. In the middle stood a man with a long beard who wore only a white sheet wrapped around his body. Arms raised, he chanted, ‘The end is nigh! Repent!’
Everywhere she looked, there were people squabbling, yelling angrily, brawling. At one edge of the market people had gathered to listen to a speaker who was spewing rage and hatred. As she fought her way past the stalls, she came upon one that didn’t seem to be selling anything. Though it was smaller than the others, it was guarded by six burly men with unsmiling faces. Marie drew closer. Through a glass clamped to his right eye, the stallholder appraised a piece of jewellery.
‘Two hundred,’ he called out to the woman before him.
‘But it’s worth at least eight hundred!’ she wailed.
‘Then sell it to someone who will give you eight hundred for it,’ he sneered, handing her back the brooch.
The woman hesitated to take it. Then she reached out, and her hand closed around it. The man was already accepting the next piece offered to him. The woman was still hesitating when she was pushed.
Marie felt for the pieces of jewellery in her coat pocket. She bit her lip, then turned away.
She stood helplessly in the crush and roar of the crowd. She wasn’t prepared for such extortionate dealing. The masses around the chanting speaker had grown, and by now occupied half the square. They were shouting something in unison. It took a while for Marie to make out what they were saying.
‘Give us food! Give us water! Give us back our lives!’
Between Cologne and Düren, Germany
Shannon heard the sound of the engine before she saw the car. Then from the left a lorry appeared.
‘Hopefully it’s not the military or the police,’ mumbled Manzano.
‘Doesn’t look like it from the colour,’ said Shannon. It was too late to hide anyway, so she stuck her arm out, thumb in the air.
She made out two people in the lorry’s cab. The vehicle pulled up alongside them. Through the open window a young man with short hair and a stubbly beard peered down at them. Shannon wasn’t sure he understood her request; there was a pause and then, apparently coming to a decision, he opened the door and held his hand out to them. Shannon helped Manzano up first, then climbed in after him.
An older man – also bearded and with a substantial paunch – sat at the wheel. In a thick accent, the young man said, ‘He’s Carsten. And I’m Eberhart.’
It was gloriously warm inside the cab. Behind Carsten’s and Eberhart’s seats a bench offered enough space for her, Manzano and their few possessions.
As soon as she and Manzano were buckled in, Carsten shifted into gear; slowly the lorry started moving again. Manzano sank back against the wall and closed his eyes.
‘We’re reporters,’ explained Shannon. ‘While we were out doing research our car ran out of fuel …’
‘Pretty hard reporting, from the looks of your colleague,’ said Eberhart, gesturing towards Manzano’s head injury.
‘Car accident after the traffic lights went out,’ Manzano informed him.
‘… after a few days our hotel closed too,’ Shannon continued. ‘Now we’re trying to get to Brussels.’
She realized how stupid that sounded.
‘You think the EU is going to help you?’ laughed Eberhart.
Berlin, Germany
‘We have to agree now what our response to the Russians will be,’ the chancellor demanded. ‘The first planes take off in two hours.’
‘We need all the help we can get,’ Michelsen spoke up. ‘What’s the case for stopping Russian aid? We’ve no more evidence against them than we have against the Turks or the Egyptians, but we’re not turning down their aid.’
‘Until we can be certain that the Russians are not behind this, we should regard their “help” with suspicion,’ replied the defence minister. As the leader of the smaller party in the coalition government, his role would become crucial in the event of a military conflict. By this point, Michelsen felt the man might provoke a war for that very reason.
‘The first wave Russia is sending consists almost exclusively of civilian forces,’ said the interior minister.
There was a knock on the conference-room door. One of the chancellor’s aides answered, stuck his head round the door, then walked purposefully over to the head of state, and whispered something in his ear.
The chancellor pushed back his chair and stood up. ‘You should all see this.’ Then he left the room.
The others followed him, puzzled. The chancellor left the secured area and continued into the corridor from where they could see out on to the street.
Michelsen felt goosebumps running up her back to the nape of her neck. ‘I can understand where they’re coming from,’ she said to her neighbour, as they watched the massive crowd making their way towards the interior ministry. There were thousands of them. They chanted slogans that Michelsen couldn’t catch through the windows. She saw open mouths, raised fists, banners.
We’re hungry!
We’re cold!
We need water!
We need heat!
We want power too!
Modest demands, thought Michelsen. And yet harder and harder to meet. She was painfully aware of the image they must present to those below, standing in a centrally heated, well-lit building, gazing out as if from a fortress.
The crowd moved this way and that, surging towards the building, retreating, coming back, unable to gain entry because the gates below were locked and guarded by police.
‘I have to get to work,’ Michelsen said and turned away. A muffled noise made her look back. Her colleagues had stepped away from the windows in horror. A shadowy object struck one of the glass panels, and a snarl of cracks spread out like a spider’s web. More stones flew. More windows cracked. In the corridor, even though the security glass was impenetrable, staff stepped further back. They followed each other into the secured central rooms of the crisis centre. A couple of brave soul
s remained.
This is exactly what I’m here for, thought Michelsen: to prevent something like this. She leaned back against the wall, overwhelmed by a sense of failure, as piles of stones smacked against the glass.
Then the hail stopped. Five of the sixteen windows in the corridor were damaged.
‘We let the Russians in,’ she heard the chancellor tell the foreign minister.
Cautiously, Michelsen risked stepping closer to the windows. A thin spiral of smoke rose in front of the building. Fire or tear gas? she asked herself.
Near Düren, Germany
‘What about you?’ Shannon asked the man in the passenger seat. ‘Why are you out here on the roads?’
‘Carsten works for a large food company,’ answered Eberhart. ‘Normally he supplies the local branches with food from the central warehouse.’
At the thought of food Shannon’s stomach tightened.
‘You speak English well.’
‘I’m a student,’ Eberhart explained. ‘They needed extra manpower, so I’m doing this.’
‘And what do you have with you?’
‘Non-perishable stuff. Canned goods, flour, noodles. In the towns along our route a couple of branches were converted into food distribution sites. We’re supposed to hand out rations directly from the truck. Not for much longer, though.’ He looked thoughtfully out of the window.
‘How come?’
‘Our warehouse is almost empty. This is one of our last trips. Even now, we’re really tight on what we give out.’
Shannon hesitated before saying, ‘So you’re carrying food. We’ve eaten nothing since yesterday morning.’ When neither of the two reacted, she added, ‘I might have some money left.’
Eberhart looked at her, eyes narrowed.
An uncomfortable feeling rose in Shannon, but it couldn’t calm her aching stomach.
‘Only a little,’ she added, downplaying it. ‘I thought I might be able to buy something off you.’