As she rang him, the elevator opened and Political and Economics Officer Martha Mackall stepped out. The handsome, forty-nine-year-old black woman was wearing her dour morning expression. It vanished when she saw the Senator.
“Senator Fox.” She beamed. “How are you?” “Ticked,” the Senator replied.
The women shook hands.
Martha looked from the Senator to the young guard.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I didn’t think that Superman needed sleep,” the Senator said.
“Superman?” Martha asked.
“General Rodgers.” “Oh.” Martha laughed. “Gotcha. He said he was going to be stopping by the Squireses this morning.” “To look after the boy, I trust,” the Senator said.
The guard looked away uncomfortably.
Martha extended her arm. “Why don’t you wait in my office, Senator Fox? I’ll have some coffee and croissants brought in.” “Croissants?” The Senator grinned. She turned to Neil and said, “Seventy-five thousand and a couple hundred.” The two men smiled; as did Martha. The Senator knew that Martha had no idea what they were talking about. She smiled just to be make herself part of the group. There was nothing wrong with that, Senator Fox had to admit, except that while her smile showed a lot of teeth, it told the Senator nothing about the person behind them. The truth was, she didn’t think Martha had a sense of humor.
As they walked down the carpeted corridor, Martha asked, “So how are things on the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee? I haven’t heard of any serious repercussions about allowing Striker’s Russian incursion.” “Considering that Striker prevented a coup, I’m not surprised,” Senator Fox replied.
“Nor am I,” said Martha.
“Last I heard, in fact,” said the Senator, “President Zhanin told his aides at the Kremlin that he wanted to erect a plaque on the bridge, when it’s rebuilt, honoring Lieutenant Colonel Squires.” “That would be wonderful,” Martha smiled.
They had reached her office door, and Martha entered her code in the keypad on the jamb. The door clicked open and she allowed the Senator and her aides to enter first.
Even before Martha had shown the Senator to a chair, Bill Abram swung in.
“Morning, all,” said the chipper, mustachioed officer.
“Just wanted to let you know that General Rodgers phoned a minute ago from the car and said he’d be a little late.” Senator Fox’s long face grew a little longer as her chin fell and her eyebrows rose. “Car trouble?” she asked.
Martha laughed.
Abram said, “He’s caught in traffic. Says he didn’t know it got so bad this late.” Senator Fox sat in a thickly cushioned armchair. Her aides stood behind her. “And did the General say why he was running late? He knew about our appointment.” “Yes, he remembered it,” Abram said. His little mustache rose on one side. “But he, uh— he said to tell you he got caught up in a war simulation with Striker personnel.” Martha glared at Abram. “He didn’t schedule any war simulations for this morning.” The glare deepened. “It wasn’t one of their chicken fights in the pool—” “No,” Abram assured her. He absently pulled at the ends of his bowtie. “This was something else. Something unplanned.” Senator Fox shook her head. “I’ll wait,” she said.
Bobby Winter still had the briefcase in his hand. When the Senator spoke he set it down, beside the chair.
“I’ll wait,” the Senator went on, “because what I have to say can’t wait. But I promise you that when General Rodgers arrives, he’s going to find an Op-Center vastly different from the one he left last night.” Her small, ski-slope nose rose as she said, “Vastly and permanently different.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Thursday, 2:10 P.M., Hamburg, Germany
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 Hauptschlssel 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.