A fear of dark water

Chapter Thirty-Five

‘I trust you slept well?’ asked Fabel, taking his seat opposite Wiegand. The truth was that the billionaire looked as fresh as if he had spent the night in the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. A complete change of clothes had been brought in for him by Korn-Pharos staff. Amelie Harmsen looked similarly composed and fresh.

‘The accommodation was tolerable,’ said Wiegand. ‘But let’s put it this way, I intend checking out today. Within the hour, in fact. And my stay is going to prove an expensive one. For the Polizei Hamburg, that is.’

Fabel smiled. ‘I wouldn’t count on it, if I were you.’

Werner Meyer and Nicola Bruggemann came in and sat on either side of Fabel. Werner had a pile of newspapers, which he laid on the floor next to his chair.

‘I see you’re coming mob-handed today, Principal Chief Commissar,’ said Harmsen.

‘Oh? Not really. It’s just that this is the main event, Frau Harmsen.’ Fabel pointed to the wall-mounted camera in the corner of the room. ‘I have to tell you that the rest of my team are all next door, watching us on the monitors. No one wants to miss this.’

Wiegand remained impossible to read. But Fabel knew that, even though she swept the expression from her face almost as soon as it had appeared, Harmsen was concerned.

‘If you’re suggesting that you found evidence of wrongdoing at the Pharos,’ said Wiegand, ‘then I know you are bluffing.’

Fabel smiled. ‘You’re very sure of that, aren’t you, Wiegand? My mistake was to forget that today we live in a world where everything we do, every communication we make, sends out ripples across this ocean of electronic noise. Just preparing for yesterday’s raid on the Pharos, for example. Or the raid on the Guardians of Gaia safe house. Yes, I’m sure we made enough ripples for you to have had sufficient warning to clear out the odd piece of hardware.’

‘If what you say is true, then you have no evidence. Not that there ever was any. But, let’s say there was: it sounds to me that the only way to access it would be to travel back in time…’ Wiegand smiled. A self-satisfied smile that made Fabel feel the impulse to smack it off his face. Instead, he smiled back.

‘I find the whole premise of your cult-’ he began.

‘The Pharos Project is not a cult, Herr Fabel. I resent the use of the word,’ said Wiegand.

‘I find the whole premise of your organisation intriguing,’ said Fabel. ‘And at the head of it is the mysterious Dominik Korn. I placed a call to him yesterday, by the way.’

Wiegand snorted. ‘And what did he say to you, Herr Fabel?’

‘Nothing. He wouldn’t speak to me. But, there again, you already knew that. I just thought that, given all of this trouble you’re having here in Germany, Mister Korn would maybe be interested in discussing it with me. But…’ Fabel shrugged.

‘What particularly interests me about the Pharos Project is its central belief system,’ continued Fabel. ‘This concept of the Singularity, or the Consolidation as you call it, providing the salvation of the environment. I didn’t realise that there were so many similar theories in the world of science. I mean, that some quantum physicists believe that this could all be a simulation — that reality lies somewhere distant on the edge of the universe. If you ask me, it’s all tosh. All of this Singularity, or Omega Point, or Consolidation, or whatever you want to call it. But there are people out there, vulnerable people, some even with mental illnesses, who desperately want to believe in it. It’s no different from the promise of the afterlife that religion has touted for millennia. People want some justification for believing that the lives they lead and hate aren’t all there is. That there’s some great transformational truth awaiting them. In your case, one that is based on pseudoscience and cod philosophy. Too much science fiction and not enough common sense.’

‘Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,’ said Wiegand. ‘But I’ll tell you this — and it’s the truth: I happen to believe that we are entering the next great stage in human evolution, and we ourselves will be the drivers of that evolution. Not Nature. Have you ever thought about how fast things are changing, Fabel? I mean, do you remember when you were a teenager, for example? Think about all of the massive leaps forward we have made in that time — more than in the rest of human history put together. This is the Great Acceleration, Fabel. Think about the differences in technology and population growth between, say, 1200 and 1500. So little advance in three hundred years. Then think of the massive changes between 1800 and 1900, when the industrial revolution changed everything about the way we lived. But when you look at the twentieth century, at the incredible advances in technology and the explosion in human population, then think about the period between 1975 and today — unbelievable change. It’s getting faster and faster. Cybernetic technologies, genetics, genomics, nanotechnology, femtotechnology, even our basic understanding of how the universe around us works — we are now squeezing into a decade what used to take us a century to achieve. Soon it will be compressed into five years, a year… The Great Acceleration, as I said.’

‘Let me guess, only the Pharos Project understands the implications of this,’ said Fabel. ‘Only you can be trusted to steer mankind in the right direction. If that means carrying out vendettas against anyone who criticises or leaves your cult, infiltrating government bodies, even committing cold-blooded murder… then all of that is justified, is that it?’

‘We don’t commit murder. We are a peaceful group.’ Wiegand’s tone was controlled, even. ‘But yes, sometimes it’s almost as if everyone else is blind to what’s happening. As a species we are moving towards something. Our destiny. But there is a very good chance that before we reach that point the damage we are doing to the environment will kill us.’

‘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 forward, 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.’