Games of State

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Paul Hood's party left the restaurant at 1:20. They dropped Bob Herbert at the hotel so he could continue making calls about the attack on the movie set. Then the group went on to Martin Lang's Hauptschlssel facility, which was located a scenic thirty-minute drive northwest from Hamburg, in Gluckstadt.

Like Hamburg, the town was situated on the Elbe.

Unlike Hamburg, it was quaint and Old World, the last place Hood would have expected to find a modern microchip factory. Not that the building looked like a factory. It resembled a truncated pyramid covered from top to bottom with dark mirrors.

"A stealth gumdrop," Stoll quipped as they approached.

"Not a bad description," Lang said. "It was designed to reflect the surroundings rather than intrude on them." Hausen said, "After having a good look at how the Communists polluted the air, war, and beauty of East Germany, we began working harder to create buildings which not only complement the environment, but are also pleasing to the employees." Hood had to admit that unlike American politicians, Hausen wasn't talking in neatly manicured sound bites.

Inside the three-story structure was a bright and uncluttered working environment. The main floor was divided into three sections. Just inside the door was a large, open space with cubicles in which people were working at computers. To the right were rows of offices. And in the far section, behind the cubicles, was a clean room. There, behind a glass partition, men and women in lab whites, masks, and caps were working on the complex photo-reduction process that turned full-size blueprints into micro-sized chips and printed circuits.

Still personable but subdued by the news of the attack on the film set, Lang said, "Employees work from eight to five with two half hour and one full hour breaks. We have a gymnasium and a pool in the basement, as well as small rooms with cots and showers for anyone who wants to rest or freshen up." Stoll said, "I could just see cots and showers at the workplace in Washington. Nobody would ever get any work done." After showing his guests around the smallish first floor, Lang took them to the more spacious second level. No sooner had they arrived than Hausen's cellular phone beeped.

"It may be news about the attack," Hansen said, walking toward a corner.

After Hausen left, Lang showed the Americans how the chips were mass-produced by quiet, automated machines.

Stoll lingered behind the group, studying control panels and watching as cameras and stamping machines did work that used to be done by steady hands, soldering irons, and jigsaws. He set his backpack on a table and chatted with one of the technicians, an English-speaking woman who was using a microscope to spot-check finished chips. When Stoll asked if he could take a peek through the eyepieces, she looked at Lang, who nodded. Stoll had a quick look, and complimented the woman on her very fine-looking sounddigitizing processor chip.

After the second floor tour was finished, the group went to the elevator to wait for Hansen. He was hunched over his telephone, a finger in his ear, listening more than he was talking.

Meanwhile, Stoll peeked into his backpack. Then he scooped it up and rejoined the group. He smiled at Hood, who winked back.

"Alas," said Lang, "I won't be able to take you to the third-floor laboratories where research and development is being conducted. It's nothing personal, I assure you," he said, looking at Stoll. "But I fear our stockholders would revolt. You see, we're working on a new technology which will revolutionize the industry." "I see," said Stoll. "And this new technology— it wouldn't happen to have anything to do with quantum bits and the superposition principle of quantum mechanics.

Would it?" For the second time that day, Lang paled. He seemed to want to speak but couldn't.

Stoll beamed. "Remember that rotten bread slicethrower- outer I was telling you about?" Lang nodded, still speechless.

Stoll patted the backpack he held in his tight fist. "Well, Herr Lang, I just gave you a little taste of what it can do." In the corner of the laboratory, the world seemed to disappear for Richard Hausen. Even as he listened to a voice from the past, a nightmarish past, he couldn't believe it was real.

"Hello, Haussier," the voice greeted him in a thick French accent. It had used the nickname Hausen had had as an economics student at the Sorbonne is Paris— Haussier, the financial bull. Very few people knew that.

"Hello," Hausen replied warily. "Who is this?" The speaker said softly, "It's your friend and classmate.

Gerard Dupre." Hansen's face melted into pasty blankness. The voice was less angry, less animated than he remembered. But it could be Dupre, he thought. For a moment Hausen wasn't able to say anything else. His head filled with a nightmare collage of faces and images.

The caller intruded on the vision. "Yes, it's Dupre. The man you threatened. The man you warned not to come back. But now I have come back. As Gerard Dominique, revolutionary." "I don't believe it's you," Hausen finally said.

"Shall I give you the name of the caf‚? The name of the street?" The voice hardened. "The names of the girls?" "No!" Hansen snapped. "That was your doing, not mine!" "So you say." "No! That's how it was." The voice repeated slowly, "So you say." Hausen said, "How did you get this number?" "There's nothing I cannot get," the caller said, "no one I cannot reach." Hausen shook his head. "Why now?" he asked. "It's been fifteen years—" "Only a moment of time in the eyes of the gods." The caller laughed. "The gods, by the way, who now want to judge you." "Judge me?" Hausen said. "For what? Telling the truth about your crime? What I did was right—" "Right?" the caller cut him off. "You ass. Loyalty, Haussier. That's the key to everything. Loyalty in bad times as well as in good. Loyalty in life and loyalty at the moment of death. That is one thing which separates the human from the subhuman. And in my desire to eliminate subhumans, I plan, Haussier, to begin with you." "You are as monstrous now as you were then," Hausen declared. His hands were sweating. He had to grip the phone tightly to keep from dropping it.

"No," the caller said. "I am more monstrous. Very much more. Because not only do I have the desire to execute my will, but now I have established the means." "You?" Hausen said. "Your father established those means—" "I did!" the caller snapped. "Me. All me. Everything I have, I earned. Papa was lucky after the war. Anyone with a factory became rich then. No, he was as foolish as you are, Haussier. Though at least he had the good grace to die." This is madness, Hausen thought. "Dupre," he said, "Or should I say Dominique. I don't know where you are or what you've become. But I, too, am more than I was. Very much more. I'm not the college boy you remember." "Oh, I know." The caller laughed. "I've followed your moves. Every one of them. Your rise in the government, your campaign against hate groups, your marriage, the birth of your daughter, your divorce. A lovely girl, by the way, your daughter. How is she enjoying ballet?" Hausen squeezed the phone tighter. "Harm her and I'll find you and kill you." "Such rough words from so careful a politician," the caller said. "But that's the beauty of parenthood, isn't it?

When a child is threatened, nothing else matters. Not fortune nor health." Hausen said, "If you have a fight, it's with me." "I know that, Haussier," the caller said. "Alors, the truth is I've tried to stay clear of teenage girls. Such trouble.

You understand." Hausen was looking at the tile floor but was seeing the young Gerard Dupre. Angry, lashing out, hissing his hate. He couldn't succumb to fury himself. Not even in response to calculated threats against his girl.

"So you plan to judge me," Hausen said, forcing himself to calm down. "However far I fall, you'll fall farther." "Oh, I don't think so," said the caller. "You see, unlike you, I've put layers upon layers of willing employees between myself and my activities. I've actually built an empire of constituents who feel the way I do. I even hired one who helped me follow the life and works of Richard Hausen. He is gone now, but he provided me with a great deal of information about you." "There are still laws," Hansen said. "There are many ways in which one can be an accomplice." "You would know, wouldn't you?" the caller pointed out.

"In any case, on that Parisian matter time has run out. The law can't touch me or you. But think of what it would do to your image when people find out. When photographs from that night begin appearing." Photographs? Hansen thought. The camera— could it have captured them?

"I just wanted you to know that I plan to bring you down," the voice said. "I wanted you to think about it. Wait for it." "No," said Hausen. "I'll find a way to fight you." "Perhaps," said the caller. "But then, there is that beautiful thirteen-year-old dancer to consider. Because while I have sworn off teenagers, there are members of my group who—" Hausen punched the "talk" button to disconnect the caller. He shoved the phone back in his pocket, then turned.

He put on a shaky smile and asked the nearest employee where the lavatory was. Then he motioned for Lang to take the others down without him. He was going to have to get away, think about what to do.

When he reached the bathroom, Hausen leaned over the sink. He cupped his hands, filled them with water, and put his face in it. He let the water dribble out slowly. When his hands were empty, he continued to hold them to his face.

Gerard Dupre.

It was a name he'd hoped he never hear again, a face he never wanted to see again, even in his mind's eye.

But he was back, and so was Hausen— back in Paris, back on the darkest night of his life, back in the shroud of fear and guilt it had taken him years to shake.

And with his face still in his hands he cried, tears of fear… and shame.