Oskar had a plan.
He stood under the hot water of the shower in his apartment, and he wondered if he had the courage to do it. He was risking his job—no, not true, he was walking away from his job, and his apartment, and everyone he knew in Frankfurt. That was a given. What he was risking was his life. They’d killed Louisa, and as soon as they discovered what he’d done, they’d try to kill him, too.
They will be watching you. You’re in danger, my love.
The smart thing, the safe thing, was to do nothing at all. Keep his head down. Forget Louisa, cash his paychecks, and eventually, when enough time had passed to ease their suspicions, he could take a new job far away. Under a different name, maybe. He would help no one by getting himself killed.
But, my God, the things he’d discovered in Louisa’s account. The files, the emails, the photos, the videos, all retrieved from the stream of deleted documents. The evidence of deception. Lies. And murder, too.
The things she’d done! The things the institute had made her do.
How could he forget that?
Oskar turned off the shower and stood there until he was cold. It was early morning, barely past dawn, but he’d been unable to sleep. Finally, he got out of the shower and dressed, and made coffee in his kitchen. He turned on the television to a morning show, but uneasiness trailed after him. He remembered that they’d searched his apartment. They will be watching you. He went to the window that looked out on the Main River, and he studied the grassy riverbank to see if there were strangers watching his window.
Then he thought: That was a foolish thing for him to do.
What if they’d planted cameras inside his apartment? Were they looking at him right now? Watching everything he did? He couldn’t afford to do anything that would arouse suspicion. He couldn’t let them know that he was aware of their surveillance. That was an admission of guilt.
By the window, Oskar yawned and sipped coffee, as if he were simply admiring the sunrise. Then he turned around with feigned casualness and went back to the kitchen to pour cereal for his breakfast. He ate it, watched TV, drank more coffee, and pretended that this was an ordinary day.
Not a day that would change his whole life.
The plan!
His gaze flicked to a small paper bag on the table by the door. On an evening walk the previous day, he’d avoided being followed, and then he’d made his way to an electronics supply store on the Zeil. It was a quick stop, in and out in less than five minutes. The bag had fit in his pocket, so if the watchers had picked him up again later, they wouldn’t have seen it. He tried to remember: Had he emptied the bag when he got home? He’d been in a hurry at the store, barely noticing what he’d plucked from the shelf. Had he taken out the device, examined it, confirmed its size and shape?
If they were watching, could they have seen it in his hand?
He didn’t think so.
Oskar checked his watch and saw that it was time. He had to go to work. His heart was racing, and he’d already sweated through his clean clothes. He wanted to procrastinate, but he couldn’t. Everything had to look normal. Nothing about his behavior could attract any attention, not until the thing was done.
He got ready to go. He whistled, a normal man on a normal day. At the door, he picked up the paper bag, and he slipped its contents into his hand. One item was a packet of chewing gum he’d found at the checkout counter of the electronics store. He made a show of unwrapping a stick of gum and putting it in his mouth. Then he slipped the rest of the pack into his pocket, along with the other item he’d taken from the bag.
A two-terabyte thumb drive.
Large enough to download the entire contents of the deleted files that had been stored in Louisa’s account. Everything. But that kind of transfer would attract attention. It wouldn’t take long to be found out.
Oskar crumpled the paper bag and threw it away, and then he left the apartment to take his walk to work. He wasn’t sure when or if he’d be able to return to his apartment again. As soon as the download was done, he needed to run. They’d know about it in minutes. The alarm would sound. He didn’t even know if he’d have time to leave the building before they found out.
What would happen then?
But he couldn’t think about that. Louisa was right. They must be stopped.
Outside, he strolled by the river and crossed the Alte Brücke to the other side of town. He walked without hurry. He made a point of stopping to buy a newspaper near the Römerplatz, and then a chocolate croissant at a Bäckerei. There could be nothing suspicious in his behavior. But as he took a bite of the pastry when he was back on the street, he glanced at the people around him and spotted a woman in a red raincoat turning away to glance in a shop window. He’d already noticed that red raincoat twice before on his walk from his apartment. The watchers were definitely back.
Oskar reached the gloomy edifice where the institute was housed. He felt a twinge of worry when he handed over his ID card, wondering if this time there would be a flag on his record. They’d smile at him, but they’d nod at the security guards, who would show up on either side and usher him away.
But no. The bored attendant returned his ID card and waved him through. Oskar exhaled with relief, then headed for the elevators. There, too, his ID still worked. The light for the eighth floor went on. He traveled upstairs with one other privileged hacker like himself, a woman around forty, but they didn’t know each other’s names, and they didn’t speak or make eye contact.
On the ride to the top of the building, his mind kept going back to the plan. His boss, Heinrich Kessler, was a man of routines. Unlike so many of his hackers, he kept a rigid schedule. He arrived at the same time, left at the same time. And he went to lunch at the same time, too, every day at exactly one thirty in the afternoon. That was the moment. When Kessler was gone, Oskar would plug the thumb drive into his computer and reaccess the deleted files from Louisa’s account. In a few minutes, he’d have them copied over to the thumb drive, and then he’d immediately exit the building—hopefully before anyone realized what he’d done and alerted Heinrich Kessler.
He’d leave with Louisa’s entire account in his pocket. All the evidence. The truths to combat the lies.
And then he would go—where? He still hadn’t made up his mind. Not Frankfurt. Maybe not even Germany. The information could only be delivered by hand to people he could trust, people who would act. But who? The highest authorities, the European police, they were the ones. That meant a long journey. He had to make his way to the headquarters of Interpol in Lyon, France. And stay alive as he did so.
That was the plan.
The elevator doors opened, and Oskar got out. As he did, his heart skipped with fear, and acid rose into his mouth. His entire plan fell apart.
The security protocol for the eighth floor had completely changed overnight. A plexiglass wall now separated the bank of elevators from the cubicles where everyone worked. There were only two accesses through the wall, a way in and a way out. A guard waved Oskar and the woman through the entrance, but Oskar noticed that the way out was now being carefully monitored. They’d installed an AIT scanner, and anyone wanting to leave had to empty their pockets and put their possessions through an X-ray machine and then proceed through the body scanner as if they were entering an airport.
By instinct, he slipped a hand into his pocket, and his fingers closed around the thumb drive. There was no way he could get it out of the building now. They’d find it when he tried to leave.
Scheiße!
Oskar went to his desk in a daze. He passed Jochim’s desk, but his friend—who was not officially a friend—wasn’t in the office yet. As he sat down, he traced the outline of the thumb drive again. What to do? He couldn’t access Louisa’s account; he couldn’t download the files now, when his pockets and body would both be searched as he tried to leave. Oh, my God, he had to get rid of the thumb drive, too! Even blank, it would give him away. But how? He couldn’t carry it out, and if he threw it away somewhere on the floor, they would find it. And then what? They’d know a traitor was in their midst. They’d be watching. They might even swap out the institute server entirely to make sure there was no electronic footprint of any of their past activities. A clean slate. Louisa would be gone, and so would any hope he had of avenging her murder.
He booted up his terminal. He pretended to type; he pretended to do his work. No one could know that his mind was in chaos. He was so focused on the ruins of his plan that he barely even noticed Jochim arriving at the desk next to his. A few minutes passed before he became aware of the person next to him, and he glanced that way.
Except it was not Jochim.
It was a stranger. A skinny twentysomething man with bushy black hair, a pimply face, and a thin mustache sat in the chair. He wore a gray T-shirt and jeans, and he tapped away at the computer as if he’d been working there for months.
“Wo ist Jochim?” Oskar asked, although he knew he was breaking the rules. Never ask personal questions.
The young man glanced back at him with a shrug. “Wer? Ich kenne ihn nicht.”
Jochim, Oskar wanted to say. You don’t know him? You’re sitting at his desk! He’s been in that same place every day for the past three years!
But he said nothing.
Oskar glanced at Heinrich Kessler’s office. His boss was working, the way he always was, his head down. The man’s door was open. Oskar needed a lie, something that wouldn’t be noticed, but he had to know. Where was Jochim? He got up and strolled over to Kessler’s office, and the man greeted him in his typical perfunctory way. Oskar took five minutes to discuss the project he was working on—ordinary questions on an ordinary day—and then, as he was leaving, he threw out one last query. His body language said it was a matter of no particular importance.
“Say, where is Jochim?”
Kessler looked at him. “Who?”
Oskar nodded toward his desk. “The man who worked next to me. He’s not there anymore.”
“Why do you care?”
“He borrowed fifty euro from me the other day. Said he left his wallet at home.”
Kessler shrugged. “You’re out the money, I’m afraid.”
“Oh? He left the institute?”
“He died.”
Oskar stared at his boss and tried not to let the shock creep onto his face. He kept his voice low and casual. “Died? How terrible. What happened?”
“Heart attack. You saw him, always ate enough for four people. All that fat finally caught up with him.”
“I see,” Oskar replied. “Well, thank you for letting me know.”
Cold sweat returned to his body as he went back to his desk. He tried working again, but he found himself typing random characters, because he couldn’t concentrate on anything else now. The walls were closing in. Jochim!
Oskar didn’t believe in coincidences, not after the things Louisa had told him. There had been no heart attack. It was him! This was his fault. He’d used the man’s computer. He’d used Jochim’s account to access private areas of the server.
And now Jochim was dead.