Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

She stared at the telephone. The Irishman represented her only hope. His visit had affected her deeply, and as the days passed, its impact in her mind grew ever greater. He was undaunted by this morass of corruption into which she had fallen. Perhaps she could, should talk to him. Her hand touched the gray plastic of the phone, then froze. What if they were listening and got to her first?

She keeled over onto her side and moaned.

The facade of Erika von Graffenlaub's apartment suggested nothing more than a conventional wooden door equipped with a good-quality security lock. The locksmith had little trouble with it but immediately was faced with a significantly more formidable barrier: the second door was of steel set into a matching steel frame embedded in the structure of the building. The door was secured by a code-activated electronic lock.

The locksmith looked at the discreetly engraved manufacturer's logo and shook his head. "Too rich for my blood," he said. "The only people who can help you are the manufacturers, Vaybon Security, and they are not too forthcoming unless they know you."

Beat von Graffenlaub smiled thinly. "You’ve done enough," he said to the locksmith, who had turned to admire the steel door.

The man whistled in admiration. "Great bit of work this," he said, "rarely seen in a private home. It's the kind of thing normally only banks can afford." He stretched out his hand to touch the flawless satin steel finish. There was a loud crack and a flash and a smell of burning, and the locksmith was flung across the hallway to collapse on the floor in a motionless heap.

Beat von Graffenlaub stared at the steel door. What terrible secrets was Erika concealing behind it? He knelt beside the fallen locksmith. His hand and arm were burned, but he was alive. Von Graffenlaub removed a mobile phone from his briefcase and phoned for medical assistance.

His second call was to the managing director of the Vaybon Corporation. His manner was peremptory; his instructions were specific. Yes, such a door could be opened by a special team. There were plans in the Vaybon Security plant in a suburb of Bern. Action would be taken immediately. Herr von Graffenlaub could expect the door to be opened within two hours. This would be exceptional service, of course, but in view of Herr von Graffenlaub's special position on the board of Vaybon…

"Quite so," said von Graffenlaub dryly. He terminated the call, made the locksmith comfortable, and sat down to wait. The elusive Erika might return first. He took the unconscious locksmith's pulse. It was strong. He, at least, would live to see the summer.

The Chief Kripo had been playing devil's advocate for more than five hours, and he wasn't scoring many points. The project team's approach was different in many ways from conventional police work, but to someone not used to working in an integrated way with an expert system, it was impressively comprehensive. Once instructed, the computer didn't forget things. It was hard to find a facet the team hadn't covered or at least considered. But there were some potential flaws.

"How do you people deal with data that aren't already computerized?" he asked. "How do you handle good old-fashioned typed or handwritten data?"

Faces turned to Henssen. He shrugged. "It's a problem. We can input some data by hand if only a few hundred records or so are involved, and in Wiesbaden we have scanning equipment that can covert typed records directly to computer format. But for all that, if data aren't computerized, we can only nibble at them."

"So how much of the data isn't computerized?" asked the Chief.

Henssen brightened. "Not a lot. Orwell's 1984 wasn't so far out."

"What about Babel?" said the Chief.

Henssen looked confused. He looked at the Bear, who shrugged.

"The Tower of Babel," explained the Chief. "How do you cope with records in different languages – English, French, German, Italian, whatever?"

"Ah," said Henssen. "Actually the Babel factor – as such – is not as much of a problem as you'd think. We do have computerized translation facilities that are over ninety percent accurate. On the other hand, that ten percent error factor leaves room for some elegant confusion that can be compounded by multiple meanings within any one language. Consider the word screw for example. That can mean ‘to rotate,’ as in inserting a wood screw; it can mean ‘to cheat or swindle,’ as in I was screwed on the deal’; it can mean the act of sex as in…" He went silent, embarrassed.

"Go on," said Kersdorf irritably. "We can perhaps work out some of the details ourselves."

"Well," continued Henssen, "fortunately most police information is held in a structured way, and so is the majority of commercial data. For example, an airline passenger list doesn’t take much translation, nor do airline schedules, or subscription lists, or lists of phone calls, and so on."

"Okay," said the Chief, "structured data are held on the computer version of what we old-fashioned bureaucrats would call a form – so translate the headings and the meaning of the contents is clear."

"Much simplified, that's about it," said Henssen. "And unstructured data, to give an example, might be a statement by a witness consisting of several pages of free-form text."

"And it's with the unstructured data that you have most of the problems," said the Chief.

"Precisely. But with some human involvement linked to our expert system there is nothing we can't resolve."

"But it takes time," said the Chief, "and that's my problem."

There was silence in the room. Henssen shrugged.

"I'm surprised people don't use carbon monoxide more often," said Santine. "It's a beautifully lethal substance. It works through inhalation. It's not quite as exciting as some of the nerve gases that can be absorbed through the skin. Carbon monoxide is breathed in as normal, is absorbed by the blood to form carboxyhemoglobin, and all of a sudden you haven’t got enough oxygenated blood – oxyhemoglobin – and you're history. There is no smell and no color, and a couple of lungfuls will do you in. Most city dwellers have some carbon monoxide in the blood from exhaust fumes – say, one to three percent – and smokers build up to around five percent. These levels don't produce any noticeable symptoms in the short term, but at around thirty percent you start to feel drowsy, at fifty percent you're coordination goes, and by between sixty and seventy percent, you're talking to Saint Peter."

"So if you're a heavy smoker and someone used carbon monoxide on you, you'll die faster," said Sylvie.

"Absolutely," said Santine, "especially if you’ve been smoking in a confined space."

"Interesting," said Sylvie. "But all it has to do is buy us a little time if a casual visitor comes along, thought I doubt a security check would be fooled."

Santine grimaced. "Come on, Sylvie, I'm not an amateur. Why do you think I suggested monoxide? The corpses will stand up to cursory examination. There will be no blood. Nothing's perfect, but with a little sponge work, they won't look too bad – and it'll be dark. You’ve got to remember that monoxide poisoning is a kind of internal strangulation, so you get some of the same symptoms. The face gets suffused, you get froth in the air passages, and the general effect isn't exactly pretty."

"I take it you brought along a sponge."

Santine puffed out his chest. He tapped the bulky black attache case in front of him. "Madame, I am fully equipped."

Pompous prick, thought Sylvie. She looked at the sky and then at her watch. They'd do it in about an hour, just after Sangster had checked in and when it was completely dark.

The team from Vaybon Security wore white coats and the blank expressions of people who are paid well not to care about reasons. One of their board of directors opening his wife's apartment without her knowledge or permission wasn't the most unusual assignment they'd had, and besides, Beat von Graffenlaub's signature was on the check that had paid for the original installation – even if he hadn't known exactly what he was buying. But then, thought the technician in charge, who knows what a wife is really up to?