Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Because something got in the way,’ Jennifer reflected.

Jericho smiled. ‘Because something got in someone’s way. Because someone was prevented from setting the thing off, one way or another. That means we should stop wondering about the where and the when, and concentrate on that person who possibly , in fact probably isn’t called Carl Hanna. So who was on the Moon or on the way to the Moon last year who could have detonated the bomb? What happened to make sure that it didn’t go off?’

And meanwhile he was thinking: who am I telling all this to? Jennifer had mentioned the possibility of a mole, a traitor who drew his information from the inner security circle. Who was the mole? Edda Hoff, opaque and brittle? One of the divisional directors? Tom Merrick, that bundle of nerves responsible for communication security – could he have been responsible for the block that he was pretending to investigate? And apart from Andrew Norrington, was there someone listening to his hypotheses who shouldn’t have known about them? Always allowing that Jennifer hadn’t mentioned moles to distract attention from herself.

How safe were they really in the Big O?

The chronological recording was swiftly reconstructed. True to its name, the Grave-digger burrowed its way into the depths of the system and drew up a complete list, but because this encompassed activities carried out over several days, it looked like something that would keep you occupied for three rainy weekends.

‘Shit,’ whispered Sophie.

But if you cut down the periods of time in question, the work went faster than you might have expected. And the faker’s trail ran like a pattern through the recordings, because after every action he erased his traces. The video of Hanna’s night-time trip, for example, had been recut while the Canadian had been exploring Gaia’s surroundings with Julian, or more precisely between a quarter past six and half past on the morning in question. Unambiguous proof that Hanna himself hadn’t set about erasing his traces.

Where had she been at that point? In bed. Hadn’t got up till seven. Until then the lobby and the control centre had been populated only by machines. In a simultaneous projection, she screened all the recordings of the period during which the phantom had done his work, but no one left his room, no one crouched in a hidden corner operating the system from somewhere else.

Impossible!

Someone must surely have been wandering about the hotel at that time.

Had these videos been manipulated too?

She studied the recordings more precisely, and had the computer examine all the films for subsequently introduced cuts.

Sure enough.

Sophie stared at the monitor wall. This thing was getting increasingly weird. Everything she saw here, or rather didn’t see, was evidence of unsettling professionalism and strength of nerve. If it went on like this, in the end she would have to go through every single order in the vague hope that the faker might give himself away by some tiny blunder. Just as it had soared a moment before, her mood now plummeted. It was pointless. The stranger had used his time and opportunities to the full, he was ahead of her.

Maybe she should approach the business the other way round, she thought. Start with the last significant event, the satellite failure. Perhaps the phantom hadn’t had time to clean up after himself when that happened.

She isolated the passage from the conference call until it suddenly broke off, and had the computer play through the whole sequence again. Her own actions were visible in the reconstruction: her taking the call, informing Dana and Lynn in the Selene and putting it through to Julian Orley. After that—

A shadow settled over her. She gave a start, threw her head back and sat bolt upright.

‘Erm – thought you might be hungry.’

‘Axel!’

Kokoschka’s monolithic appearance darkened her desktop. He held a plate in his right hand. The bony claw of a rack of lamb protruded from it, a nutty smell of courgettes wafted towards her.

‘God, Axel!’ she panted. ‘You frightened the life out of me!’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Don’t worry. Phew! Shouldn’t you be tearing up walls and floors?’

‘Cerberus took us off the job,’ he grinned. ‘Hungry? East Friesian saltmarsh lamb.’

He looked at her, to the side, at the floor, then dared to make eye contact again. Christ, no. She’d guessed it. German boy loves German girl. Kokoschka had fallen for her.

‘That’s really sweet of you,’ she said, glancing at the plate.

His grin widened and he set the dish down on a free corner of the desktop, next to her, along with a napkin and cutlery. Suddenly she realised that over the course of the past hour hunger had crept up on her and was devouring her from within. She greedily inhaled the aromas. Kokoschka had separated out the cutlets for her. She took one of the fragile ribs between her fingers and gnawed the butter-soft flesh from the bone, as she turned once again to the screens.

‘Whatcha doin’?’ asked Kokoschka.

‘Checking the recordings from the afternoon,’ she said with her mouth full. ‘To see if I can find something out about the satellite failure.’

‘Do you think we’ve really got a bomb?’

‘Not the faintest, Axel.’

‘Hmm. Weird. Doesn’t really bother me, to be honest.’ His forehead was covered with sweat. In visible contradiction to his words, he seemed nervous and twitchy, stepped from one leg to the other, sniffed. ‘So you’re trying to find out where the bomb is?’

‘No, I want to know who Hanna’s accomplice—’

She stared at him.

Kokoschka held her eye for a few seconds, then his eyes drifted down to the video wall. He was perspiring more heavily now. His bald head was drenched, a vein throbbed in his temple. Sophie stopped chewing, and paused with her chin thrust out and her cheek bulging.

‘Okay, you’ve probably known for ages,’ Kokoschka said wearily into the room.

She gulped, and recoiled. ‘What?’

He looked at her.

‘Could we have a quick chat?’ Dana nodded to Lynn to follow her to the stairs that led from the Mama Quilla Club to the Luna Bar below it, and from there to the Selene and Chang’e. At that moment everyone’s attention was focused on Chuck, who stood there with a sly grin on his face, holding both hands, palms up and all ten fingers pointing upwards, stretched out in front of him.

‘What does the Pope mean when he does this?’

‘No idea,’ said Olympiada gloomily. Winter, unfamiliar with the habits of the Pontifex and clerical matters in general, shook her head in hopeful expectation that she might possibly get the punchline, while a chill gust of outrage blew all the benevolence from Aileen’s features. Rebecca Hsu sat next to her like a circus lion on a bar stool, and spoke into her hand computer in a hushed voice. Walo Ögi had absconded to his suite to read.

‘Chuck, please don’t.’

‘Oh, come on, Aileen.’

‘Don’t tell this one!’

‘What does the Pope mean?’ Winter giggled.

‘Chuck, no!’

‘Very simple.’ Donoghue snapped nine fingers closed, so that only the middle finger of his right hand was still pointing upwards. ‘The same as this , but in ten languages.’

Winter went on giggling, Hsu laughed, Olympiada pulled a face. Aileen looked around at everyone, hoping for forgiveness, with a tortured, powerless smile on her face. Lynn processed none of this as she would usually have done. Whatever she saw and heard looked like a sequence of rattling, stroboscopic flashes. Aileen accused Chuck of violating a joke-free zone called the Church, about which everyone had agreed , mercilessly wielding her falsetto scalpel, while Winter tee-heed inanely, a source of relentless torment.