THE FRESHLY polished linoleum floor shone under the fluorescent lights.
“We need to walk a bit farther down the tunnel,” Doctor Fischer said, marching quickly ahead of him through the windowless passageway toward a junction.
“Where are we going?” Daniel asked, bewildered.
“To my room.”
“But weren’t we in your room just now? Up in the doctors’ corridor?”
The doctor seemed to be in a great hurry all of a sudden, and Daniel almost had to run to keep up with him. Beneath them their reflections flitted along like hazy ghosts in the shiny floor.
“I have another room. We’re taking a shortcut. We’re under the park now. If you turn right here”—Fischer pointed at the passageway leading off from the junction—“you reach the library. You can get to all the buildings in the clinic through these tunnels. If you know the codes for the doors, that is. It’s very practical in the winter. But we mainly do it for security reasons, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”
That explained why the doctors were so seldom seen outside.
They carried on along the passageway, passing other turnings every now and then. Occasionally there were staircases and metal doors marked with letters and numbers. Daniel guessed that one of these passageways connected the doctors’ residential compound with the clinic. Only once, on that sunny morning, had he ever seen the doctors walking through the park as a pack, on their way to work in the care center. It was clear that they had to have a different way of getting there.
“Well, here we are,” Doctor Fischer said suddenly, tapping a code onto a keypad beside a steel door.
Inside was a small room, with another door that the doctor opened with an ordinary key.
“Can I offer you a cup of tea?” he asked.
Several small lamps came on simultaneously around the room. They were in a fairly large, heavily furnished room with Oriental rugs on the floor. The walls were lined with bookcases and pictures, and in one corner there was a narrow bed covered by a red bedspread. The room was so cozy and so comfortably lit that you hardly noticed that it was underground and had no windows. Daniel looked around at the inlaid bureau, the neatly made bed, and the cardigan with patched elbows hanging on the back of a chair. There was no doubt about it: This was Karl Fischer’s home.
But it was also an office. A large desk with a computer on it faced out into the room, and the bookcase beside it was full of files and journals. That explained why the doctor’s office upstairs had been so bare and impersonal: He only used it on the rare occasions when he saw his patients. The bulk of his work was done in this underground lair.
The doctor went over to the desk and switched the computer on. While it started up he went into a small kitchen. Daniel heard him running some water.
“I have some Indian tea that I really do recommend,” Fischer called. “I usually have a couple of cups when I need to wind down. Do you take milk?”
“No, thanks.”
The kettle started to rattle as Doctor Fischer got out the pot of tea and some cups, whistling a little tune. It was obvious that he felt at home here.
Daniel stood in the middle of the room, letting his eyes roam over the spines of the books, mostly psychiatric and neurological textbooks, a few prints of old buildings, and a couple of framed photographs. These caught his interest and he took a step closer.
The first was a group shot of the Himmelstal research team. If they could actually be called a team. Daniel had a feeling that they were a group of very distinct individuals. But here at least they were standing shoulder to shoulder with Doctor Fischer at their center in front of the main building, smiling confidently. Gisela Obermann looked surprisingly alert and happy.
The other framed picture was also a group photograph. It was taken indoors, six men and two women, most of them young, lined up like a football team. None of them was smiling. They looked determined and focused. Except for one of them, a young blond-haired man. He wasn’t looking into the camera but had his face turned toward one of the women, with a rather tender expression. Daniel had never seen him before, but he recognized the woman. It was Corinne. He recognized some of the others as well, from the village, the bierstube, and the cafeteria. At the edge of the group, like a teacher or coach, stood Doctor Pierce.
“Here we are,” Karl Fischer said, coming out of the kitchen with two steaming cups. He passed one of them to Daniel.
“I added a splash of milk anyway. Just a touch. This sort of tea can easily taste a little bitter otherwise.” He nodded toward the photograph. “Doctor Pierce and his newly hatched crickets,” he said by way of explanation.
“Who’s that?”
Daniel pointed at the blond man who was staring at Corinne. It looked as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Or else he had just happened to turn his head to say something at the very moment the picture was taken.
“That’s Mattias Block. Handsome, wasn’t he?”
Daniel looked at the gentle, soft face and suddenly recalled the message on Corinne’s mobile phone, from “M”: I feel happy every time I see you. Be careful.
“The poor bastards had no idea what they were getting into,” Doctor Fischer said with a cold laugh. “Three months of intensive physical and mental training on the fourth floor. Never going out at all. Then they were given their instruments and implanted in the valley as newly arrived residents and told to make contact with their targets on their own. Courageous men and women, don’t you think?”
“What sort of people are they?” Daniel asked.
“A mixed bag.” Doctor Fischer pointed at them one by one: “A former spy. An advertising guru. A confidence trickster. A hypnotist. An expert in animal communication. And an actress. I don’t remember the other two.”
“What does an expert in animal communication do?” Daniel asked. Doctor Fischer had been pointing at Mattias Block.
“Talks to animals. He was supposed to be able to, anyway. Talking to people’s dogs and other pets about their problems. Doctor Pierce thought that would be a particularly useful skill in these circumstances. He handpicked these individuals with great care.” Fischer sighed and shook his head, and with that he seemed to regard the matter as concluded. “But my dear fellow, do sit down. We were going to look at your brain, weren’t we?”
Daniel sat down hesitantly on one of the wing chairs. The doctor settled down at his desk, adjusted his glasses, and began to search the computer’s database.
“Here it is,” he said happily, turning the screen so that Daniel could see it. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
A bisected brain was spinning on its axis, shimmering blue like the earth from space.
“Is that mine?” Daniel asked.
“Your very own brain,” Doctor Fischer confirmed.
He turned the screen back again and used the mouse and keyboard to mark off and enhance one part of the brain. He enlarged it, twisted it this way and that, then enlarged it even more. Fascinated, Daniel watched what the doctor was doing from behind his chair.
Karl Fischer seemed to be playing with his brain. He made it turn somersaults and rolled it like a ball to the left, then the right. He cut it into manageable sections, like slices of watermelon. He made the slices even thinner, fanned through them like a pack of cards, lifted them out one at a time and inspected them, then bundled them all back into their original shape.
Daniel’s brain disappeared from the screen and the doctor went and sat down in one of the armchairs as he stirred his cup of tea in silence.
“Did you find a chip, Doctor Fischer?” Daniel asked cautiously.
“No.” The doctor sipped the hot tea, then put the cup down on the saucer. “But then I wasn’t expecting to.”
“No? But you were so sure a little while ago. So now you realize that I can’t possibly be Max?”
The doctor nodded.
“I’ve known that all along.”