Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  ‘What kind of guide?’

  ‘A virtual city guide,’ said Yoyo, who had got a grip of herself again and, her eyes sparkling, picked up on Jericho’s idea. ‘People could get a three-dimensional experience of your restaurant in it by putting on hologlasses. Are you familiar with holographics?’

  Nyela shook her head, visibly amused. ‘My speciality is the law, my child. I studied law in Jaunde.’

  ‘Picture it like this. We produce a walk-in image of the restaurant as a computer program. With the necessary equipment, people can even take a peek into the cooking pots. But there is also a simpler version, just an entry online.’

  ‘I can’t say I fully understand, but it sounds good.’

  ‘Are you in?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then we just need to take care of the formalities,’ said Jericho. ‘If I’ve been correctly informed, you’re not the owner?’

  ‘Muntu belongs to my husband.’

  ‘Andre Donner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Mrs Donner?’ He raised his eyebrows, feigning sudden realisation. ‘May I ask – your husband – I mean, Donner isn’t an African name—’

  ‘Boer. Andre is from South Africa.’

  ‘No, what a love story!’ cried Yoyo in delight. ‘South Africa and Cameroon.’

  ‘And you two?’ grinned Nyela. ‘What’s your story?’

  Jericho was just about to reply when Yoyo’s fingers flew nimbly across like a squirrel and covered his.

  ‘Shanghai and London,’ she whispered happily.

  ‘Not bad either,’ said Nyela cheerfully. ‘I’ll tell you what, my girl. Love is a language that everyone can understand. It’s the only one you’ll ever need.’

  ‘We—’ said Jericho.

  ‘—are in love, and we work together,’ smiled Yoyo. ‘Just like you and your husband. It’s so wonderful!’

  Jericho could almost hear the string section warming up. He didn’t know how to pull his hand back without making it look suspicious. Nyela looked at them both, visibly moved.

  ‘And where did you meet?’

  ‘In Shanghai.’ Yoyo giggled. ‘I was his tour guide. To be more specific, he had the glasses on, the holo things. Owen fell in love with my hologram, isn’t that sweet? After that he did everything he could to get to know me. I didn’t want to at first, but—’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Yes, and you? Where did you meet your husband? South Africa? Or was it in Equatoria—’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ interjected Jericho. ‘But we still have a lot of things to do. So, Nyela, in order to prepare the entry we need to speak to your husband. We need his signature. Perhaps he’s here now?’

  Nyela looked at him thoughtfully with her shining white eyes. Then she pointed at the tapioca pudding.

  ‘Have you tried it yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then you’re not going anywhere, not for the time being at least.’ Her grin lit up the room. ‘Not until you’ve eaten everything up.’

  ‘No problem,’ purred Yoyo. ‘Owen loves African food. Don’t you, poppet?’

  Jericho thought he must be hearing things.

  ‘I sometimes call him poppet,’ Yoyo confided in Nyela, who seemed interested and not at all embarrassed. ‘When we’re by ourselves.’

  ‘Like now?’

  ‘Yes, like now. What do you think, poppet, shall we stay a little longer?’

  Jericho stared at her. ‘Of course, you old bag. Whatever you say.’

  Yoyo’s smile frosted over. Her fingers made their retreat. Jericho felt a mixture of regret and relief.

  ‘Andre isn’t here right now, by the way,’ said Nyela. ‘How long will you be in Berlin?’

  ‘Not long. We’ve got an early flight.’ Jericho scratched the back of his head. ‘There isn’t any chance that we could meet him at short notice, is there? This evening perhaps?’

  ‘We’re actually shut this evening. Although—’ Nyela put a finger to her lips. ‘Okay, wait a moment. I’ll be back shortly.’

  She disappeared through the swing doors.

  ‘Did you really call me an old bag?’ asked Yoyo under her breath.

  ‘I did. And I meant it.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome, poppet.’

  ‘But why?’ she protested. ‘What I said was nice! I said something nice, and you—’

  ‘Consider yourself lucky I didn’t say something worse.’

  ‘Owen, what’s all this about?’ A steep fold was building up between Yoyo’s brows. ‘I thought you knew how to joke around.’

  ‘You nearly let the cat out of the bag, you twit! You were about to say Equatorial Guinea.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘I heard it!’

  ‘But she didn’t.’ Yoyo rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, I’m sorry, calm down. At the very most she would have thought I said the equator. And that makes sense, right? Cameroon is on the equator.’

  ‘Gabon is on the equator.’

  ‘Daft know-all.’

  ‘Toad.’

  ‘Jerk!’

  ‘Are we having a relationship crisis?’ mocked Jericho. ‘We shouldn’t push it, darling, or we might as well leave right now.’

  ‘So I’m the one that’s pushed it too far? Because I was nice to you?’

  ‘No, not because of that. Because you weren’t being careful.’ He knew he was reacting too harshly, but he was boiling over with rage.

  Yoyo looked away morosely. They were still silent when Nyela came back to the table.

  ‘What a shame,’ she said. ‘Andre is obviously on the move. And can’t be reached. But he should be giving me a call sometime in the next few hours. Can you give me your mobile number? I’ll call you.’

  ‘Of course.’ Jericho wrote his number on a paper serviette. ‘I’ll make sure my phone’s turned on.’

  ‘We’d like to be in this guide of yours.’ Nyela laughed her throaty, African laugh. ‘Even though I don’t have a clue what hologoggles are.’

  ‘We’ll put you in,’ smiled Jericho. ‘With or without the goggles.’

  * * *

  ‘Wow, a restaurant guide. What a great idea!’

  Yoyo fidgeted along behind him resentfully as they left Muntu. The midday light was crystal clear, a hot early summer Berlin day, the sky an upside-down, sparkling blue swimming-pool. But Jericho didn’t stop to take it all in. He crossed the street, marched into the shade of the row of buildings opposite and halted so suddenly that Yoyo almost ran into him. He turned round and stared at the restaurant.

  ‘She didn’t notice anything,’ Yoyo assured him. ‘I’m sure she didn’t.’

  Jericho didn’t answer. He gazed thoughtfully over at Muntu. Yoyo paced on the spot, planted herself in front of him and then waved her hand around in front of his eyes.

  ‘Everything okay, Owen? Is there anyone at home?’

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Then he looked at his watch.

  ‘Fine, you don’t have to speak to me,’ she warbled. ‘We can write to each other. Yes, that’s a good idea! You can write everything down on a little piece of paper and give it to someone to give to me. And I—’

  ‘You can make yourself useful.’

  ‘Oh, you do have a voice!’ Yoyo bowed in front of an imaginary audience. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The man has spoken. It is with great pride that we present to you—’

  ‘You can shadow Nyela.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’ve no idea whether she noticed your slip or not, but there’s one thing I don’t buy: her claim that Donner couldn’t be reached.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was in the kitchen too long.’

  ‘You mean that Donner would be suspicious if someone wanted to include his restaurant in a guide?’

  ‘You said it yourself – a great idea,’ Jericho flashed back at her. ‘Your irony was clear enough.’

>   ‘Could you stop being mad at me for just a minute?’

  ‘There are two possibilities. Either she bought it. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that he did. But it doesn’t really matter what story we dished up. Donner will be suspicious by nature, towards everyone and everything. The second possibility is that she didn’t believe a word we said. Either way, he needs to find out who we are, what we want from him and what we have to tell him. He needs to make quite certain. I’d hazard a guess that they’ve already spoken on the phone. If Nyela leaves the restaurant it could be that she’s going to meet him. Either that or he’ll turn up here.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To get here before someone can surprise him on his own premises. Or maybe just because he has garlic to chop. Things to do, whatever.’

  ‘Which means you’ll watch the restaurant?’

  Jericho nodded. ‘Did you notice the camera?’ he asked, trying to make the tone of his voice more gentle now.

  ‘What camera?’

  ‘There was one installed above the bar. It didn’t look like one, but I’m familiar with them. Muntu is under surveillance. Perhaps Donner will want to look at the recording before he agrees to a meeting.’

  ‘And what if none of that’s right? What if you’re wrong?’

  ‘Then we wait until Nyela calls us. Or until she leads you to Donner’s private residence.’

  ‘I mean, if he’s not suspicious at all. If he really does want to meet us about the food guide, just not until this evening. Aren’t we frittering away the chance to warn him in time? Shouldn’t we tell Nyela the truth?’

  ‘And have him take off? We didn’t come here to save his life, but to find something out from him. And to do that we need to meet him!’

  ‘I know that,’ retorted Yoyo irritably. ‘But if he’s already dead he can’t tell us anything anyway.’

  ‘Yoyo, for God’s sake, I know that! But what are we supposed to do? We have to take a risk. And, believe me, he is mistrustful! He may even mistrust Nyela.’

  ‘His own wife?’

  ‘Yes, his wife. Do you trust her?’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ murmured Yoyo. ‘So I’ll shadow Nyela then.’

  ‘Do that. Call me if you notice anything.’

  ‘I might need the car.’

  Jericho looked around and spotted a Starbucks. They had parked the Audi a few metres further down, in full sight of Muntu.

  ‘No problem. We’ll sit over there, have a coffee and keep our eyes on the restaurant. If she goes anywhere, you follow her. On foot, by car, whatever’s necessary. I’ll hold the fort here.’

  ‘We don’t even know what Donner looks like.’

  ‘White, I guess. It’s a Boer name, South African—’

  ‘Great,’ said Yoyo. ‘That narrows it down considerably.’

  ‘I could easily widen it again. Donner might be from a mixed marriage. He wouldn’t be the first black person on the Cape to have a white surname.’

  ‘You sure know how to look on the bright side, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m renowned for it.’

  * * *

  Jericho had committed the faces of the other guests in the restaurant to memory. After he and Yoyo left, three more couples had gone in, as well as a lone old man accompanied by his incessantly yapping alter ego. In the time that followed, they watched as Muntu emptied person by person. The man and dog were the last to leave, and after that Jericho was convinced there were no guests left inside. More time passed. Yoyo drank tea by the bucketful. Shortly after three, a dark-skinned man came out onto the street, unchained a bicycle and pedalled off. Clearly one of the kitchen staff, perhaps Nyela’s sous-chef.

  ‘So this is what you do?’ Yoyo asked, somehow managing not to sound scornful. ‘Spy on people for hours on end?’

  ‘Most of the time I’m online.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And what do you do there?’

  ‘Spy on people.’

  ‘It’s so dull.’ She pulled a dripping teabag from her cup. ‘One big, long, boring wait.’

  ‘I don’t entirely agree with you. There are a lot of fun aspects and it’s certainly lively. From time to time someone sets a steelworks on fire. There are lovely little chases, you get to save people and fly halfway across the world at the drop of a hat. Is your life so much more exciting?’

  Expecting her to protest, he stared back out of the window, but Yoyo seemed to be giving it serious thought.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not. But it is more social.’

  ‘But society can do your head in,’ said Jericho, then brought up his hand to silence her. Nyela was just leaving Muntu. She had swapped the colourful folklore of her dress for jeans and a T-shirt.

  ‘Time for your mission,’ he said.

  Yoyo dropped her teabag, gathered up the car keys and her mobile and ran outside. Jericho watched as she started the car. Nyela paced away in lengthy strides and disappeared around the corner of a house. The car followed her slowly. Jericho hoped Yoyo wouldn’t be too obvious. He had tried to give her a brief overview of the basic rules of a subtle observation, which included not ramming your bumper right into the behind of the person you were observing.

  She phoned just ten minutes later.

  ‘There’s a parking lot two streets down. Nyela just left it.’

  ‘What’s she driving?’

  ‘A Nissan OneOne. SolarHybrid.’

  A small, nimble town car, designed for heavy traffic, which could reduce its floor space by shortening the wheel base. Against that, the Audi was a cumbersome monstrosity, only superior on highways.

  ‘Stay close to her,’ he said. ‘Let me know if anything happens.’

  After that he rang Tu and brought him up to date.

  ‘And how’s it going there?’

  ‘I’m having fun with Diane,’ said Tu. ‘A lovely program. Not top of the range any more, mind, but we’re having a good time nonetheless.’

  ‘The program is completely new,’ protested Jericho.

  ‘New is something that hasn’t been built yet,’ Tu advised him.

  ‘Get to the point.’

  ‘So, with regard to Ndongo: he seems to be striving for more balance than during his first time in office, and is resisting influence from the Chinese, but this time without snubbing Beijing. His sympathies clearly lie with Washington and the EU. On the other hand, he made it known at the beginning of the year that he wants to consider the interests of all countries equally, as long as they don’t show tendencies towards economic annexation. He also pushed a few scraps over to Sinopec. Other than that, he’s trying to clean up the pigsty that Mayé left behind.’

  ‘He sounds like less of a puppet than before.’

  ‘That’s right. And do you know why? We all know! They’ve got oil and gas down there. And by the tonne. The answer to questions that no one’s asking any more. That’s where the problem lies, and it seems it became Mayé’s problem too. Do you see?’

  ‘Helium-3?’

  ‘What else?’

  Of course! Everyone knew it. It was just that they also quickly forgot who was affected by the shift in circumstances brought about by the Moon business.

  ‘At the start of 2020 it was clear that helium-3 would supersede fossil fuels,’ said Tu. ‘The United States put all their eggs in one basket. Into the development of the space elevator, the extension of the infrastructure on the Moon, the commercial backing of helium-3, Julian Orley. He, in turn, worked feverishly on his fusion reactors. Orley and the USA created an immense bubble back then. It could have all gone horribly wrong if it had burst. The biggest company of all time would have exploded like a cluster bomb, the USA would have suffered painful losses in fossil poker with their unilateral arrangement on the Moon, millions and millions of people would have lost their money. Africa would have been able to continue swimming in wealth, financing the never-ending civil wars from oil income and dictating conditions to the rich nations. Think back to the barrel price in 2019.’

  ‘It
was still up then.’

  ‘For the last time. Because we know it worked! Orley and the USA built their elevator, and the first one ever at that! I’ve researched it in detail, Owen. On 1 August 2022 the moon base was put into operation, and a few days later, so was the American mining station. Two weeks later the mining of helium-3 officially began. A month and a half later, on 5 October, the first Orley reactor went onto the network and fulfilled all expectations. The fusion age had begun; helium-3 became the energy source of the future. In December, the barrel price of oil was a hundred and twenty dollars, the following February it sank to seventy-six dollars, and in March China followed suit and sent its first helium-3 deliveries to Earth, albeit with conventional rocket technology and in minute quantities. Nonetheless, the two most commodity-hungry nations were on the Moon. Others panted along behind them: India, Japan, the Europeans, all obsessed with staking their claim. It’s not that oil didn’t play a part any more, but the dependence on it was dwindling. The summer of 2023, fifty-five dollars a barrel. Autumn, forty-two dollars. Even that was fairly high, but it kept going down. People expected brisk trade, that it would never be that cheap again, but they were wrong. The important consumer nations had stocked up their supplies in good time. No one sees the need for more depots, and in the car sector electricity becomes a serious option. The countries that export fossil fuels, which have relied exclusively on their income from the oil and gas trade and therefore neglected their native economy, feel the full impact of the resource curse, particularly in Africa. Potentates like Obiang or Mayé see the end dawning. Now they have to pay the price for milking their countries to death. They don’t make the rules any more. Their pals from overseas, who they played off so wonderfully against each other for decades on end, have had enough of being messed around and having very little to show for it, and now, to top it all off, they aren’t interested in oil any more either! That, my friend, is the reason why Washington’s indignation over Mayé sounded more and more scripted as time went on. For China it’s a done deal, catching up with America and freeing itself from the fossil fetters. So what does the crazed man go and do?’

  ‘You’re not seriously suggesting that Mayé started his idiotic space programme in order to land on the Moon and develop helium-3?’