‘And if we do make it, what does this brave new world of yours hold for us?’ asked Fabel.
‘The time will come — and it will come soon — when we will be building self-aware, intelligent machines capable of accelerating the Acceleration. Technology you’re incapable of imagining. Nanotechnology and femtotechnology will allow us to build inconceivably powerful computers on a microscopic scale: computers built molecule by molecule. And the new science of synthetic genomics has already resulted in the creation of the first purely artificial life… the computers of the future may be as organic as we are. It’s the only hope we have: to disengage from the environment and use technology to offer a higher level of existence, of consciousness. You seem to think that I don’t believe in what the Pharos Project stands for. Well, you’re wrong. I believe it all. I believe it’s the future of mankind.’
Fabel looked at Harmsen, who kept her gaze fixed on the tabletop.
‘But you don’t want to save mankind, Wiegand. You want to save the chosen few. You’re just one more rich guy with a messiah complex,’ said Fabel. ‘People as wealthy as you become so removed from the way everyone else lives their lives that you become totally detached from reality. God knows I can understand how that would affect poor Mister Korn, stuck there in international waters on his luxury yacht, plugged into all kinds of technology just to keep him alive. But what you’re talking about isn’t enhanced humanity. It isn’t even humanity. It’s something less. A diminishment.’
‘You are a man of limited intellect, Fabel. And less imagination. I have no interest in continuing this conversation further.’ Wiegand started to stand up but Werner placed a persuasive hand on his shoulder.
‘You’re not going anywhere, Wiegand,’ said Fabel.
‘Then I think you need to make some specific charges,’ said Harmsen. Fabel could sense that she wished she had stuck to representing TV actresses with botched cosmetic surgery.
‘Do you believe in the afterlife?’ Fabel asked Wiegand, conversationally. ‘You know that Nikolai Fyodorov, way back in the nineteenth century, predicted that we would develop such computational power that we could bring almost anyone back to life?’
‘I do, yes.’
Fabel placed a grey USB memory stick on the table.
‘Do you know, I believe that there is someone alive in there. In that piece of plastic and silicon.’ He paused. Neither Wiegand nor Harmsen said anything, but Wiegand’s cold, hard little eyes remained fixed on the USB stick.
‘The person alive in here was a big man in our world. Literally. According to the pathologist, he weighed one hundred and eighty kilos. He was called Roman Kraxner and he was a deeply flawed individual. Like someone else I met — Niels Freese. But Roman’s main flaw was that he was a genius. And his particular talent was with computer technology. Do you know the name, Herr Wiegand?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘That’s strange, because I believe you ordered his death. Or maybe you didn’t know his name, just that he was the person with Meliha Yazar’s cellphone. And whoever had that had to die, didn’t they? Anyway, Roman Kraxner lived more in the virtual world than in this. I have to admit that, had he lived, we would have wanted to talk to him about certain transactions of his, as well as the Klabautermann Virus, which, we believe, was Herr Kraxner’s creation.’
Fabel leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. ‘You were right, Wiegand. I can’t go back in time to retrieve the sensitive files you had stored on certain computers and in your secret data-vault. All that noise and drama… the police raid, I mean… I admit that it’s all very crude. Now Roman was different. Roman was a lumbering mountain of a man in our world, but he could move gracefully and silently through networks and systems and firewalls. He paid the Pharos a visit, you know. You’re so proud of your technology and knowledge, but, compared to Roman, you’re a pedestrian. He passed through your security and copied file after file, incriminating document after incriminating document.’
Wiegand’s smile was more of a sneer. ‘Incriminating who?’ he asked. ‘If anyone at the Pharos Project has broken the law, then I condemn it wholeheartedly. But I wish you luck, a lot of luck, if you think you can pin anything on me personally.’
‘Yes, I admit that might be difficult. But we could have a pretty good try, and I’ve got enough evidence here to bring charges. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention: Roman has sent copies of this to all the major national newspapers, television and, of course, to a dozen websites. My guess is that, as we speak, the word is spreading around the world. The Pharos Project is finished.’
‘I doubt that very much,’ said Wiegand. ‘And, like I say, you and I will be old men before you can get enough out of that…’ he pointed to the data stick, ‘… to get me anywhere near a prison.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Fabel. He opened the folder again and placed a paperback book on the table next to the memory stick. It was the copy of The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Durrenmatt that they had found beside Meliha Yazar’s bed.
‘Have you ever read this?’ asked Fabel. Wiegand ignored him.
‘It’s a favourite of mine,’ said Fabel. ‘Philosophy for a policeman. The question being that if you can’t bring a criminal to justice for a crime they have committed, is it moral that they should be punished for a crime they did not commit?’
‘Again, Herr Fabel,’ said Harmsen, ‘if you have a point…’
‘I got it all wrong, yesterday, didn’t I? I was so sure I knew what it was that Meliha Yazar had found out,’ Fabel continued. ‘But I got it completely wrong. Well, not completely… I was right about the fact that she uncovered that Fottinger was the Network Killer. But, bad as that was — and it was potentially devastating to the Project — it still wasn’t the big secret Meliha had found out. Was it, Wiegand?’
Wiegand sat with his arms folded, his face set hard.
‘It wasn’t because of Fottinger she was killed, or at least that wasn’t the main reason. You did order that Daniel Fottinger should die because his activities would, sooner or later, lead back to the Project. You did arrange that Meliha Yazar and Muller-Voigt were murdered because you thought they might know about it. But that wasn’t the secret that they really had to die for. That was a much bigger secret, one that you had to make sure never saw the light of day. You were so paranoid about it that you bugged my communications and tried to compromise me out of the investigation, and when that didn’t work you arranged for me to take a dip in the Elbe. You probably realised that Muller-Voigt didn’t know anything specific but might have passed something on to me that could have led to the truth, maybe without either of us realising it.’
‘What secret?’ asked Harmsen. Wiegand remained silent, his face stone.
‘All this crap you spout, it actually did get me thinking… wondering if it is possible already for someone to exist purely as data… cybernetically, rather than physically. I don’t mean for them to have any real consciousness, or to be in any way real, but to seem to exist to the rest of us, when in fact they don’t exist at all.’ Fabel picked up the memory stick and turned it over and over in his fingers as he examined it contemplatively.
‘The funny thing about cults is that, no matter how different the central beliefs or where they operate in the world, they all share common features. And the thing that’s number one on the list is that they always have some kind of charismatic leader. An inspirational figurehead. And nothing fits the cockeyed philosophies of the Pharos Project more than Dominik Korn. After all, he’s halfway there to consolidation… someone totally dependent on technology to sustain his existence. Add to that his heroic survival of a tragic accident, from the depths of the ocean…’
‘Trust me, Fabel,’ said Wiegand, ‘Dominik Korn is an intellect and a force of will that someone like you can’t begin to understand.’
‘Is that so?’ Fabel placed the memory stick back down. He half stood and planted his hands flat on the interview-room table and leaned forwar
d, bringing his face close to Wiegand’s. ‘I know what the secret is, Wiegand. I know the real reason all those people had to die.’
‘What?’ asked Harmsen, her voice quiet. Wiegand said nothing.
‘Do you know, Frau Harmsen, that Meliha Yazar discovered that Dominik Korn really was, after all, her “Ataturk for the Environment”; that he hadn’t converted to these bizarre ideas about the “Consolidation”, and that his will and instructions for the future of both the Korn-Pharos Corporation and the Pharos Project have been subverted by Herr Wiegand here?’
‘So what are you saying?’ asked Harmsen. ‘That Herr Wiegand is holding Dominik Korn against his will and is forcing him to comply with his wishes?’
‘Oh no. You see, that’s the big secret, the Big Lie, at the heart of the Pharos Project. There is no invalid in a wheelchair out there on his luxury yacht. There are no bedside summits with Korn-Pharos vice-presidents. There is no font of Pharos philosophy.’ Fabel fixed his gaze on Wiegand. ‘There is no Dominik Korn.’
‘You’re talking nonsense, Fabel,’ said Wiegand, but without anger.
‘Dominik Korn is dead and my guess is that he’s been dead for nearly fifteen years. I believe he survived the accident, but not for long. And he died before Herr Wiegand had the opportunity to alter all of the documents left behind. You see, Korn recognised Wiegand’s megalomania and greed. He suspected that he had been siphoning off funds from the Project. After the accident, he became convinced that Wiegand had sabotaged the Pharos One in an attempt to gain sole control of the Corporation. In the months following the accident, for as long as he survived, Korn made sure that Wiegand was shut out. Of course, Herr Wiegand could have launched a legal challenge, but, at the end of the day, the Korn-Pharos Corporation was all about one man: Dominik Korn. So when Korn eventually succumbed to his injuries, he was reinvented as a virtual person. A phoney leader of a cult with phoney philosophies. As he seemed to become more reclusive and his pronouncements, generated by you, became more bizarre, it fitted that he became a remote figure, a recluse seen only by a close inner-circle entourage. And — surprise, surprise — he invested Wiegand with almost total power of attorney.’
Wiegand laughed. ‘You know something, Fabel? You’re going to have a hell of a time proving any of this in a court of law. Whatever you have on that thing…’ he pointed derisively at the data stick ‘… you have no original documents or testimony. And as for these other murders, I’m saddened to find that Badorf, a trusted employee, has turned out to be a psychopath and has used the Office of Consolidation and Compliance for his own ends. You’ll never prove that I had any connection at all with any of this. And as for Dominik’s accident? That is something that’s well outside your jurisdiction. As is Dominik, for that matter.’ Wiegand stood up, his posture and gaze defiant. ‘And trust me, you will never, ever be able to prove that Dominik does not exist.’
‘True,’ said Fabel. ‘That’s why you’re free to go. But there are some people waiting for you downstairs. They’ve travelled overnight from the US Embassy in Berlin. I believe one is from the State Department and the other is a young lady from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After all, Dominik Korn is, or was, a US citizen. They’re really keen to discuss Mister Korn’s whereabouts with you. In fact, I believe they have a writ of habeas corpus with them.’
Wiegand stared at Fabel, lost for words.
‘You see,’ said Fabel, drumming his fingers on the copy of The Judge and His Hangman, ‘maybe I can’t prove that Dominik Korn doesn’t exist. But, for your sake, I hope you can prove that he does.’
Epilogue
In the months that followed, Fabel watched with interest as Peter Wiegand made the headlines. He actually found himself using the internet to follow events on American news channels. Wiegand fought extradition vigorously but lost, and when the Korn luxury yacht finally docked in Portland, Maine, the American authorities established that there was no Dominik Korn on board.
As Fabel had guessed would happen, the FBI charged Wiegand with the murder of an American citizen outside the US. Fabel did not believe that Wiegand had caused Korn’s death and he also knew that the US authorities would also struggle to put a murder case together. But, as the investigation progressed, more and more revelations about Wiegand’s dealings came to light. Corporate crime, Fabel realised, made bigger headlines in the US than murder, and he knew that Wiegand was unlikely to see the light of day again.
The German press also had a lot to report: Frank Badorf, Wiegand’s head of the Consolidation and Compliance Office, made a full confession about organising the murders of Berthold Muller-Voigt, Daniel Fottinger and Jens Markull. He would not, however, make any statement incriminating his boss, nor about Meliha Kebir — or Yazar, as she had called herself. Which was a pity, because the night before his trial Badorf committed suicide by suffocating himself with a smuggled-in plastic bag.
There were three more things that happened almost coincidentally, about a week after Wiegand’s arrest. The first was that the familial DNA test proved that the torso found washed up at the Fischmarkt was not related to Mustafa Kebir. The second was that the Polizei Niedersachsen found the bodies of two men in a remote disused farmhouse near Cuxhaven. Both men had had their necks broken. Very professionally.
The third occurrence was the strangest. A butcher from Wilhelmsburg walked into the local police station and, in floods of remorseful tears, admitted the murder and dismemberment of his nagging wife, whose neatly cut-up remains he had dumped in the middle of the river.
The GlobalConcern Hamburg summit launched with the minimum of protest. At the opening plenary session, a minute’s silence was held for Berthold Muller-Voigt. No mention was made of Daniel Fottinger.
Fabel attended Berthold Muller-Voigt’s funeral, on a sunny day under a cloudless sky, along with a host of Hamburg’s great and good. Fabel was unsure why he had felt so compelled to attend; he had just been aware that there had been some connection between him and the politician that he needed to acknowledge. While he was at the graveside in Osdorf, he was surprised to see Tim Flemming there, hanging well back from the crowd, accompanied by a young woman whose face was hidden by her hat as she bowed her head, her shaking shoulder revealing that she was weeping. But what Fabel could see of her face reminded him of a photograph that he had once been shown.
He watched them leave before everyone else and thought of intercepting them with questions about two consolidators found with broken necks.
Instead Fabel decided to ignore them. As if they didn’t exist.
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