Frank Schätzing - Limit

The boy turned pale.

He would come back, that much was certain, but for that night at least they were reconciled. The world became more tangible, more colourful. Towards morning, when Yoyo lay snoring quietly on his belly, he still hadn’t slept a wink, and yet he wasn’t tired in the slightest. He carefully lifted her shoulders, slipped from the sofa and let her drop back. She murmured, turned on her side and rolled into a ball. Jericho looked at her. He wondered excitedly who would appear once she had shed the foolish costume of the eternal teenager. Someone very thrilling, he suspected. And she would be happy and adult. She just didn’t know it yet. She would be able to feel everything, not what she was supposed to feel, not what she wanted to feel, but just what she actually felt.

Just before nine. He picked up his phone, went into the kitchen area and put on a strong pot of coffee. He knew what he had to do, and how they could nail those bastards.

Time to make a call.

‘I’ve been thinking about your offer,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Patrice Ho seemed surprised. ‘I hadn’t expected to hear from you so soon.’

‘Some decisions are quick to make.’

‘Owen, before you say something—’ Ho hemmed and hawed. ‘I’m sorry if I behaved badly in any way. I didn’t mean to put any pressure on you – you must think I’m never satisfied.’

‘I hope you aren’t,’ said Jericho. ‘Not in terms of the results, anyway. So I will go on supporting you in this paedophile case.’

‘You will?’ Short pause. ‘You’re a friend! A true friend. I’m more obliged to you than ever.’

‘Good. Then I’d like to call in some of my credit.’

‘And I’ll be happy to help you!’

‘Just wait. It’s possible that you’re not going to like it.’

‘That’s what I’m assuming,’ Ho said drily.

‘Right, listen. In the last week of August 2022, in Beijing, or more precisely in the Sinopec Congress Centre in the district of Chaoyang, there was a meeting of international oil companies. I’ll send you the list of participants. On the last day of the summit, on the evening of 1 September, some of these people met up unofficially in the district of Shunyi. I don’t know who took part in that meeting, but it seems to have been an illustrious circle. And I don’t know where the meeting took place.’

‘And that’s what I’m to find out. I get it.’ Ho paused. ‘This sounds like a routine investigation. What wouldn’t I like about it?’

‘The second part of my request.’

‘Which would be?’

‘I can only tell you once I’ve got the answer to part one.’

‘Fine. I’ll sort it out.’

Jericho felt the life flowing back into his veins. The prey had become the hunter! In tense expectation he viewed his emails and saw that the Repsol man had sent the whole schedule of the summit, and sure enough, everybody had met in Beijing, representatives of almost every company that was involved or ever had been involved in the oil and gas business, strategists almost to a man.

He went through the list and gave a start.

Of course! That was only to be expected. And yet—

He quickly passed on the details to Ho, looked in on Yoyo, who was fast asleep, sat back down at the kitchen counter and started coming up with theories.

And all of a sudden everything fell into place.

Late that afternoon – Yoyo had groggily gone on her way, not without asking to be updated on the latest developments – Patrice Ho called him back.

‘Three years is a long time,’ he said, trying to make it sound exciting, ‘but I may have found something. I can’t tell you exactly who took part in the meeting, but I can tell you with some certainty where it took place and who the host was.’

‘A private house?’

‘Correct. There are no Sinopec facilities in Shunyi, but the strategy manager of the company lives there. Big property. We looked into him just for a laugh, and found out that he lives notoriously beyond his means, but yes, lots of people do that. His name is Joe Song. He represented Sinopec during the summit. Can you do anything with that?’

‘I think so, yeah.’ A name, another name! Now it would all depend on whether he was right. ‘Thanks! That’s all fine.’

‘I get it. Now comes the bit I’m not going to like.’

‘Yes. You have to hack into Song’s computer.’

‘Hmm.’

‘It could be that I’m mistaken and the guy has nothing to hide. But if—’

‘Owen, listen. A promise is a promise, okay? But before I do that, I need more information. I’ve got to know where your investigations are leading.’

Jericho hesitated. ‘Possibly to the retrieval of the Chinese government’s honour.’

‘Aha.’

‘You promise to help me anyway?’

‘As I said—’

‘Okay, listen up. I’ll give you the background. Then I’ll tell you what you need to look for.’

Twenty minutes later, when he could be certain that the Repsol man had drunk his first café con leche, he called Madrid again.

‘Can I bother you again?’

‘Of course.’

‘You mentioned that the joint venture planned between Sinopec, Repsol and EMCO was based on an initiative. Can you remember who the initiator was?’

‘Sure.’ The man told him the name. ‘By the way, he was the one who blew the whole thing up into a summit and suggested holding it in Beijing. Sinopec liked that. The Chinese like the world being negotiated on their territory.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been a great help.’

The initiator—

Jericho smiled grimly. He saw the Hydra stretching its necks, darting its heads forwards, baring its fangs. It hissed at him, but its mighty serpentine body bent and started slowly retreating.

That night he slept a deep and dreamless sleep.

The next day, radio silence till lunchtime. Then Ho rang, and he sounded just as excited as he had two and a half weeks previously, when Jericho had passed on the news of the capture of Animal Ma Liping.

‘Incredible,’ he said. ‘You were right.’

Jericho’s heartbeat did a drumroll.

‘What exactly did you find?’

‘The icon. That snaky thing, what’s the creature called again?’

‘Hydra.’

‘On Song’s company computer! Hidden among other programs. To make his deleted emails visible again. However, we’ll have to get at his hard disk.’

‘No problem. You have sufficient grounds to arrest him officially.’

‘Owen, that could—’ Ho caught his breath. ‘That could make my promotion to Beijing—’

‘I know.’ Jericho smiled. ‘Bust the guy. You’ll find data that look like white noise, but using that icon you’ll be able to get a message out of it without too much difficulty.’

‘I’ll call you. I’ll call you!’

‘Wait!’ Jericho started to pace back and forth, kept in motion by adrenalin. ‘We need the other participants in the meeting. It only looks like a plot by a business sector, it’s really a conspiracy by a small number of people. We’ve got to get to them. Focused and fast, so that none of them has a chance to get away. Perhaps you’ll manage to wring a confession from our friend by pointing out the mitigating circumstances.’

‘Like him being able to keep his head attached to his neck,’ sniffed Ho.

‘Oh, come on. I thought the death penalty was abolished in 2021.’

‘So it was. But I can always threaten to bring it back specially for him. Soon we’ll know who the other participants were, you can be sure of that!’

‘Fine. If he doesn’t talk, we’ll have to check out every single alibi. I know that’s going to be a big job.’