Dr André Klopstock, PhD
Among the hundreds of pages and articles on the net, Mats picked the Wikipedia entry for the infamous doctor. The internet connection up here in the clouds was stable enough but clearly slower than on the ground, which might have had something to do with Mats using the browser on the monitor and not his phone to go online. His eyes were watering from his lingering headache and he had barely been able to make out the little screen on his phone.
Klopstock is a German oncologist and psychiatrist, read the first sentence of the article. Mats only scanned it from there.
He used the arrows on the remote to scroll from paragraph to paragraph. Keywords like married, several clinics in Berlin, socially engaged, Rotarian and laboratory caught his eye.
It wasn’t anything he didn’t already know about his shady colleague. They’d both been students at the Free University of Berlin in Dahlem and Mats had even stood next to him at the dissecting table in a group taking their exams. André’s cockiness had rubbed him the wrong way even then, as did his need for recognition (including the profile he’d written of himself for the med school magazine). His ‘business savvy’ was nothing more than flagrant greed as far as Mats could tell. In just one example, Klopstock had maintained a lucrative and possibly copyright-infringing trade in old exam papers.
The man was conceited, arrogant and most certainly corruptible.
But a criminal?
Mats shook his head. Even if he did think André Klopstock capable of plenty, it didn’t include kidnapping and certainly not mass murder.
Or maybe it could?
Klopstock Home Testing
A new phrase caught his attention. It was blue and underlined, a hyperlink, but it still didn’t get him where he needed to be.
Fine, so Klopstock didn’t just make a mint from HIV – or from cancer patients, by using his expensive lab procedures before treating patients. He’d also tapped into the lucrative self-diagnosis market and held patents for sinfully expensive HIV tests sent to patients worried about going through a regular doctor, mostly out of shame.
If you followed Klopstock’s career, it was all very consistent.
Mats scrolled on and then, finally, the three letters he was looking for jumped off the screen at him.
He stood up. He stepped closer to the monitor, electrified.
PPT
I knew it!
Pre-psych test
Mats felt an urgent need to sit back down. He was swaying, only his lack of equilibrium wasn’t from the plane moving. He was swaying inside and, since he knew his internal unease wasn’t about to subside just by dropping into a chair, he remained standing and propped himself on the table.
Under a news photo of Klopstock, the editor of the PPT entry had quoted part of a marketing brochure:
Klopstock Medical (KM) is already known as a leader in urine and hair analysis for pilots, drivers and soldiers – individuals carrying great responsibility. Hundreds of human lives often depend on the reliable performance of their duties, for which we regularly carry out drug and alcohol tests with the consent of all parties involved and according to current legal guidelines. In addition to these tests, which are designed to assess physical well-being, KM has also been working on the early detection of psychological abnormalities for some years now. Depression, suicidal thoughts, delusions, psychoses. All these disorders are no less dangerous than physical illness and intoxication. Only they haven’t yet been identified in tests. KM, however, has achieved a breakthrough in this regard with the first pre-psych test procedure.
The PPT procedure will make it possible to detect suicidal intentions among pilots of passenger aircraft at an early and timely stage. This is a highly sophisticated test questionnaire that allows crew members and even passengers to be assessed for abnormalities while waiting for departure. The psychological quizzes are accompanied by blood tests of the on-board crew. PPT is still in the trial stage, but there is already a legislative initiative to standardise psychological screening once clinical studies prove positive.
Mats looked out the left-side window into the darkness, which seemed even denser to him than before. Not even the ocean floor could be this black.
It gave him the feeling of possessing a mirror that was inscribed with the truth and the answer to all his questions, only it now lay shattered on the carpet before him and he had to piece all the shards back together into a whole that made sense.
– Feli believes that Klopstock’s driver has something to do with Nele’s kidnapping.
– Klopstock himself is active in PPT research.
– The pilot talked about PPT.
The connection was practically shouting at him.
Yet what did Nele’s disappearance have to do with psychological screening tests?
*
The motive! That had been his very first question, still unresolved. Who profits from my making this aeroplane crash?
Mats grabbed at his temples, massaging them. He felt he was getting closer to the big picture. More precisely, he sensed that the question of motive was too limited.
‘PPT!’ he blurted. ‘That’s the connection. The blackmailer doesn’t care that I make the aeroplane crash.’ For that he could’ve planted a bomb or provided me with a weapon.
Instead, the blackmailer was taking the trouble to spy on him, to match his flight to Kaja’s, and to slip the secret video into in-flight viewing.
‘The question is more a case of why I’m supposed to cause an aeroplane to crash in exactly this way?’
For me to manipulate an individual.
For me to ignite a psychological bomb.
Mats trembled from the buzz of excitement. Again the answer led to Klopstock: PPT.
Klopstock wants PPT to be licensed.
The law doesn’t have the votes.
He needs a precedent.
All at once, everything made sense.
Klopstock wants to cause the aeroplane to crash in order to prove there’s a need for psychological checks. Not only for pilots. Rather for the crew. And for passengers like me. To amass millions once his tests suddenly need to be deployed in dozens of airports across Europe.
Mats felt a chill, deeply frightened from his conclusions. He turned off the monitor and stared at his hand, still holding the remote, not wanting to stop trembling.
He was so worked up, so excited, that it seemed he could feel every single hair on the skin of his scalp.
Yes, it does make sense, he thought again, and yet – something didn’t quite fit.
And that was a certain six foot one vain peacock by the name of Klopstock.
Would he really sell out so many lives all to simply pile up more money in bank accounts already threatening to overflow?
To find out, Mats made his way down to seat 7A.