It was just after midday when Karl Webber opened his eyes. Clouds had blocked out the sun, the temperature immediately dropped a few degrees. On the far side of the lake the grass was being cut. The little wind there was blew towards Karl. It smelled sweet, fragrant, and familiar. Nothing had an aroma of freshly cut grass, he thought.
In the attic of the Concertgebouw he could smell nothing of the outside world, it was stale, dry, and musty when the building was empty. During a full concert it was replaced by the smell of perfume, aftershave, body odor and sweat all rolled into one. It took a while before he got used to it, driving him out of his hideout and onto the roof. But it did not take long before the might of the music pulled him back in.
In hospital he spent most of his waking hours listening to the national or local radio stations. Disc jockeys who yapped continuously between each record yet said nothing worthwhile, irritated him. Then he switched to stations that only played rock or pop, with no disc jockey. Not long after it also became monotonous, eventually reaching the switch in his brain, marked bored. He stopped listening.
He never thought he would come to like classical music, but it opened up a whole new world in his mind. Each time he heard the same piece it would bring up different feelings, different thoughts, like a new experience being reborn over and over again. Nothing modern could go as deep.
The high point came one Saturday night when it was cold outside, windy and lashing rain, a concert started he would never forget, Mozart's Requiem. There was no recording that evening, which meant no sound engineers would be in the attic. It was safe to come out of the hideout.
The quiet sounds of the violins and woodwinds in the beginning caught his attention, then the choir, then the female soloist. He never considered classical music very melodic, but this had a style and a rhythm all of its own and a haunting and powerful melody.
Karl sat on the floor directly above the stage and the orchestra, and peered through the holes in the ceiling normally used to lower cables for the recordings.
To each side of the enormous organ, encased in an elaborate and decorative wooden frame which towered above the orchestra at the back of the stage, a large male and female choir dressed in black suits and gowns sang.
Hearing everything directly above the orchestra was an incredibly moving experience. Remembering it, all the hairs on the back of Karl's neck stood on end once again.
He switched on the MP3 player he once found among the seats after everyone had left the building. Usually security, or ushers would find them first, but this was stuck in the side of one of the dark red velvet covered chairs at such an angle nobody could see. He only managed to spot it because one corner of the player caught the light at a particular angle from his position in the attic.
That started off his little game of finding things others missed. Over time he acquired four mobile telephones, three of which were protected by a password. The fourth was an ancient Nokia, although he had no way of charging the battery. He thought he might use it one day, so he took the battery out to prevent it from losing its charge. The MP3 player on the other hand had a mini USB port which he managed to keep charged using a compatible adapter he stole from one of the offices in the building in the deep in the night.
Slowly, he transported his mind back to the Vondelpark where the sun had reappeared. He could feel the muscles in his entire body tingle, which made him restless, and gave him the urgency to move. The drugs had kicked in and he needed to burn off energy.
He walked around the edge of the pond to the far side then headed back to the Concertgebouw. It was easy to walk in with the rest of the staff, unnoticed. In his hideaway, he checked out the postal codes connected to the addresses, then decided to check out the area on foot.
An hour later he was heading for the Jordaan, an area he knew well but not the exact locations for the experiments. This time, unlike the others, he had to prepare and research carefully. There was no room for mistakes.
The Amsterdam Chronicles: Def-Con City Trilogy Part 1 Page 48