Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘Yes, but it sounds like I see different films to you.’

  ‘Well, there’s a gap in your education there. Look what they’re doing now! I think they’re re-enacting the scene from Death Chat, you know the one, where those small, intelligent creatures go for the woman with the artificial arm and—’

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  The girls doubled up with laughter. This was disheartening. They had already looked at half of the material without seeing anything more than pubescent nonsense.

  ‘What are they doing now?’ puzzled the intern.

  ‘Would you just keep your eyes on the building?’

  ‘It looks like—’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘No, wait! I think that’s from the slushy love film that was hyped up so much last year. A bit cheesy if you ask me. That guy’s in it, that horny old man – you know the one. God, what’s his name? Tell me!’

  ‘Absolutely no idea.’

  ‘Yeah, the old bastard who recently got an honorary Oscar for his life’s work!’

  ‘Richard Gere?’

  ‘Yes, exactly! Gere! He plays the grandfather of—’

  ‘Shh!’ Loreena silenced him with a hand motion. ‘Look.’

  From the side exit of the central building, two athletic-looking men in casual clothes came out, strolled over to the patrolling policeman and started speaking to him. Both were wearing sunglasses.

  ‘They don’t look like oil workers.’

  ‘No.’ Loreena leaned forward, wondering why she had a feeling of déjà vu. She played the section back again and again, zooming in on their faces. A moment later, a slim woman dressed in a trouser suit walked out of the building and positioned herself next to the entrance. The policeman pointed to something, the men looked in the direction of his outstretched hand, one of them holding something under his nose, which might have been a map of the city, and the conversation continued. In the background, a pot-bellied man with long black hair approached, wound his way towards the unguarded side entrance and shuffled inside.

  ‘Look at that,’ whispered Loreena.

  A few moments later, the athletic-looking men shook the policeman’s hand and headed off. The woman in the trouser suit leaned against a tree, her arms folded, and then Bruford’s recording jumped. Sequences followed in which the girls continued to get up to mischief, without anything happening in the immediate vicinity of the building, then the crowd of people and the podium came into view. Both uniformed officials and civilians were pushing their way forward, everything was hectic. Images that had clearly been filmed right after the assassination attempt.

  ‘The guy that disappeared into the house—’ said the intern.

  ‘Could be anyone. The janitor, the engineer, some tramp.’ Loreena paused for breath. ‘But if not—’

  ‘Then we just saw the killer.’

  ‘Yes, the man who shot Gerald Palstein.’

  They exchanged glances like two scientists who had just discovered an unknown, probably fatal virus and could see a Nobel Prize glimmering against the abyss of horror. Loreena isolated a freeze-frame of the fat man, enlarged it, connected her computer with the base station in Juneau and loaded the Magnifier, a program that could do wonders with even the grainiest of material. Within seconds, the blurred features became more contoured, strands of greasy hair separated from white skin, a straggly moustache corresponded with sparse chin stubble.

  ‘He looks Asian,’ said the intern.

  Chinese, Loreena thought suddenly. China was involved in the Canadian oil-sand trade. Hadn’t they even acquired licences? On the other hand, what would the death of an EMCO manager change about the fact that Alberta was lost? Or was Imperial Oil in Chinese hands? But then EMCO would have belonged to them too. No, it didn’t make sense. And killing Palstein certainly didn’t. As he himself had said: Every unpopular decision I make reduces my popularity, but I’m really only the strategic leader.

  She stroked her chin.

  The sequence with the fat man alone was enough to justify a report, even if the guy turned out to be harmless. Yet it would make the police look a laughing stock. Greenwatch would have used up all its ammunition at once. A brief triumph that would cost them their decisive head-start in the investigations. The chance of solving the case by themselves would be blown.

  Perhaps, thought Loreena, you should be content with what you have.

  Indecisive, she rewound the film to the moment when the men with the sunglasses engaged the policeman in conversation. She zoomed in on them and let the Magnifier do its work, extracting details from the blurred image which, with all likelihood, came very close to their actual appearance. But even after that the policeman still looked unidentifiable, just an average policeman. The taller of the two men, however, looked familiar to her. Very familiar, in fact.

  The computer informed her that the editorial office in Vancouver wanted to speak to her. The face of Sina, editor for Society and Miscellaneous, appeared on the display. ‘You wanted to know whether any other managerial figures from the oil trade have been injured since the beginning of the year.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Bingo. Three, one of them being Umar a-Hamid.’

  ‘The OPEC Foreign Minister?’

  ‘Correct. He fell off his horse in January and broke his leg. He’s recovered now. The nag was suspected of having connections in the Islamist camp. No, I’m just kidding. The next, Prokofi Pavlovich Kiselyev—’

  ‘Who in God’s name is that?’

  ‘The former Project Manager of Gazprom in West Siberia. He died in March, a car accident, reported to be his own fault. The man was ninety-four years old and half blind. That’s it for this year.’

  ‘You said there were three.’

  ‘I took the liberty of going further back. Which brings it to three. There’s always someone of course, one gets sick, another dies, a suicide here and there, nothing unusual. Until you look at the case of Alejandro Ruiz, the strategic second in command of Repsol.’

  ‘Repsol? Weren’t they taken over by ENI in 2022?’

  ‘It was discussed, but it never actually happened. In any case, Ruiz was, or is, quite an important figure in strategic management.’

  ‘And now? Which is it: was or is?’

  ‘That’s the problem. We’re not sure if he can still be counted as being alive. He disappeared three years ago on an inspection trip to Peru.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Overnight. He vanished. Lost without a trace in Lima.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  ‘Not much, but if you like I can change that.’

  ‘Please do. And thank you.’

  Alejandro Ruiz—

  Repsol was a Spanish–Argentine company, trailing at the bottom of the field’s top ten. There weren’t all that many points of contact between the Spanish and EMCO. Was she risking wasting her time? Did the disappearance of a Spanish oil strategist in Lima in 2022 have anything to do with this?

  Palstein was a strategist too.

  Her thoughts oscillated between this new information and Bruford’s film recordings, trying to make some kind of sense out of them, knotting the ropes of logic together.

  And suddenly she knew who one of the men in the sunglasses was.

  * * *

  ‘Really! I swear to you!’

  They were sitting in a small café on the Fifth Avenue Southwest, just a few blocks away from the Imperial Oil Limited headquarters. Loreena was drinking her third cappuccino, and the intern was sucking at a Diet Coke and devouring an awe-inspiring breakfast, composed of porridge, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes and much, much more. Loreena’s analytical mind couldn’t help wondering why someone would drink Diet Coke in the face of neutron-star-like calorie compression. Fascinated, she watched as he led a spoon of warm gruel, saturated in maple syrup, towards his mouth for processing.

  ‘The Magnifier can’t perform miracles,’ said the intern. ‘The
picture isn’t that sharp.’

  ‘But I saw the guy just two days ago, and he was this close to me.’ She held her hand in front of her face. Through the gaps between her fingers, she saw a sausage disappear. ‘This close!’

  ‘Which makes me a little concerned that you may have kissed him.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. He wanted to see my ID card. As if Palstein’s house were the Pentagon or something.’

  The intern put his spoon down and wrinkled his forehead.

  ‘There’s nothing unusual about his security people keeping a check on things.’

  ‘And did they? Did they check up on things? What had they lost in the house anyway?’

  ‘As I said.’ He picked his spoon back up. ‘They were keeping a check that—’

  ‘All that cholesterol has blocked up your synapses!’ she said angrily. ‘It’s obvious that he would have security personnel around him, and police too – I mean, he didn’t exactly come bearing Christmas presents. But would you send your private bodyguard into an empty house opposite? After all, Palstein isn’t Kennedy. How likely is it that someone would shoot at him from there?’

  His answer got lost amidst a struggle with an oversized piece of pancake.

  ‘Let’s assume the Asian guy was harmless,’ she continued. ‘He may have just been looking for a bathroom. That would either mean that Palstein’s people overlooked him, or that they weren’t interested in the fact that he went in. Both are unlikely.’

  ‘The two guys were talking to the policeman. They couldn’t even see him.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘Are you sure she was one of them?’

  ‘She came out immediately after them. And besides, those security types all look the same. So, suppose that the Chinese guy is our killer.’

  ‘What makes you think he’s Chinese?’

  ‘Asian. It doesn’t matter.’ She leaned over. ‘Just think, will you, three security people! One standing close to the entrance. Two others chatting with a policeman, just a few metres away. And none of them notices the grotesquely overweight apparition entering a building they were supposed to be guarding?’

  ‘Perhaps the Chinese— the Asian guy was security too. Didn’t Palstein tell you that he only started using a security team after Calgary? I find that much more surprising.’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ She rolled her cup around, mixing the espresso with foam. ‘Just that they’ve been guarding his house since Calgary.’

  ‘Well, it would have been better to take on someone else.’

  Loreena stared at the foam and espresso mixture.

  Would have been better—

  ‘Damn, you’re right.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ said the intern, scraping together the remains of the porridge. ‘About what?’

  ‘He can’t trust them.’

  ‘Because they’re a dead loss. Too dumb to—’

  ‘No, they’re not.’ Unbelievable! Why had she only thought of it now? The security people let the killer pass! In full knowledge of who he was! More than that, they distracted the policeman and kept their eyes on the surroundings to make sure no one stopped him from entering the house.

  ‘Good God,’ she whispered.

  Dallas, Texas, USA

  ‘It’s not long ago that the ability to secure the necessary fossil fuel resources was crucial to the geopolitical role of a nation state. It was under this premise that we foresaw China leading the economic nations in the medium term, knocking the USA down to a distant second, followed by India.’

  Gerald Palstein’s guest lectureship at UT Dallas, a state university in the suburb of Richardson, had brought around six hundred students into the lecture theatre, most of them budding managers, economists and information scientists. It was very popular, which was as much down to Palstein’s media savvy as to the fact that he was depicting a wide-screen panorama of failure, in which a Titanic of an energy industry rammed right into an iceberg called helium-3.

  ‘Russia’s role at this time was one of a major power as far as oil and gas were concerned. Gazprom was also referred to as a weapon. And no one used this weapon in the battle for Russia’s geostrategic role as ably as the country’s former president Vladimir Putin. Does anyone here still remember his nickname?’

  ‘Gasputin,’ called a young woman from the front row. There was laughter. Palstein raised his eyebrows approvingly.

  ‘Very good. At the time, the Americans looked on with concern as China openly flirted with Russia regarding its energy requirements, and also strengthened its contacts to OPEC. The latter was pleased of course. They hadn’t been courted like that in a long time and were hoping for a renaissance of their former status. And so the oil nations in the Gulf started to invest their money in the accounts of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in Turkey and India instead of in American institutions, and China began to settle the bill for its oil supplies from Iran in euros instead of dollars. The balance of power shifted, along with the motivation for America’s efforts to free itself from dependence on Eastern oil supplies. In 2006, representatives from Saudi Arabia travelled to Beijing to sign a number of treaties. Even Kuwait was wooing China, because it was afraid of losing ground to Russia. China knew how to exploit all of that. Although I wouldn’t want to encourage any hate-filled stereotypes, one might picture the energy-hungry China of the first decade of our millennium as an octopus whose arms were silently unfurling, largely unnoticed, in the traditional mining regions of the Western oil multinationals. In the White House, they developed scenarios in which radical forces toppled the Saudi ruling dynasties, all based on the expectation that China would be involved and would ultimately station Chinese nuclear missiles in the Saudi desert. This fear was, as we now know, not completely unfounded. The fall of the house of Saud most definitely took place with concealed Chinese participation. And it’s certain that if the recent conflict between Islamist and monarchist forces had grown to epic proportions and caused a public clash between China and America, then the dawning potential of helium-3 would not have led Washington’s interest in another direction.’

  Palstein dabbed sweat from his brow. It was hot in the lecture theatre. He wished he were on board a ship on a lake somewhere or, even better, out on the open sea with invigorating winds all around him.

  ‘We can assume the following: if gas and oil had continued to play the dominant role, the world would look a little different today. China might have overtaken the USA instead of just catching up with them. The Chinese, Russian and Gulf states would have made an energy pact. Iran, relatively recently in possession of nuclear devices, would have more power internally than is the case today, despite its nuclear armament, and would probably have exerted more pressure on New Delhi, who, back in 2006, already had its sights on a pipeline project in partnership with Tehran, through which Caspian oil would flow to India. This pipeline was supposed to end at the Red Sea, but then the oil wouldn’t have been able to flow to Israel, so for that reason the US was against it. Not an easy situation for India. A collaboration with Iran ran the risk of angering America, while concessions to Washington would have aggravated Iran. In order to escape this Catch-22, the Indians looked to a third power, to help integrate the existing two, having good contacts with both China and Iran. And so the Russians came back into play in the form of Gazprom, taking every opportunity they had to strengthen their nation, for example by turning off the gas taps to their neighbouring states and blackmailing them. Do you recognise the formation of blocs that this heralded? Russia, China, India, OPEC – that couldn’t have been in Washington’s interest. Faced with this situation, George W. Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, turned to diplomacy. He tried to improve relations with Russia and to take the wind out of Iran’s sails, a clever strategy that worked in part. But of course even Obama would have secured the USA’s energy requirements by force if he had to, if the technological advancement which Washington achieved through its collaboration with Orley Enterprises hadn’t opened up co
mpletely new possibilities to the Americans—’

  A staff member of the UTD office came into the lecture hall, paced briskly towards him and pressed a note into his hand. Palstein smiled out into the auditorium.

  ‘Please excuse me for a moment. What is it?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Someone wants to speak to you on the telephone, a Miss—’

  ‘Can’t it wait twenty minutes? I’m in the middle of a lecture.’

  ‘She said it was urgent. Very urgent!’

  ‘What was her name again?’

  ‘Keowa. Loreena Keowa, a journalist. I wanted to put her off until later, but …’ Palstein thought for a moment. ‘No, it’s fine. Thank you.’

  He excused himself once again, left the auditorium, walked out into the hallway and dialled Loreena’s number.

  ‘Shax’ saani Keek,’ he said, as her face appeared on the display of his mobile. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I know I’m interrupting—’

  ‘To be honest, yes. I’ve got one minute, then I’ve got to get back to educating the future elite. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m hoping it’s me that can do something for you, Gerald. But for that I need a few more minutes of your time.’

  ‘It’s a bit awkward right now.’

  ‘It’s in your interest.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He looked out through the window across the sunlit campus. ‘Okay, fine. Give me a quarter of an hour to finish my talk. I’ll call you immediately afterwards.’

  ‘Make sure no one’s listening in.’

  Twenty minutes later, he called her from an isolated bench in the shadow of a chestnut tree, with a view out over the university grounds. Two of his security people were patrolling within sight. All around, students were hurrying towards unknown futures.

  ‘You sure know how to worry a man,’ he said.

  ‘Do we have an agreement on reciprocity?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We help one another,’ said Loreena. ‘I get information, you get protection.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Are we in agreement?’