Mischkey swallowed. ‘I can tell you a thousand things about that, the transmission technology, the hardware, the software, you name it. What do you want to know?’
‘Perhaps as a lawyer I can’t formulate the questions precisely enough. I’d like to know, for example, how a smog alarm is triggered.’
Mischkey was in the process of unwrapping the hamburger for that little gap afterwards and drenching it in ketchup. ‘That’s actually quite banal. Sensors are attached at the points where the harmful substances escape from the plant, and we receive round-the-clock reports on the fallout. We record the levels and simultaneously they go into our meteorograph. The meteorograph is the result of the weather data we get from the German weather service. If emissions are too high or the weather can’t cope with them, an alarm sounds in the RCC and the smog alarm machinery chugs into motion – as it did most excellently last week.’
‘I’ve been told the factories receive the same emissions data as you. How does that work technically? Are they also linked to the sensors, like two lamps on a two-way adaptor?’
Mischkey laughed. ‘Something like that. Technically it’s a bit different. Since there’s not one, but lots of sensors in the factories, the individual lines are already brought together within any one factory. From that collection point, if you like, the data come to us via fixed cable. And the factory in question draws its data from the collection point like we do.’
‘How secure is that? I was thinking the industry might have an interest in falsifying the data.’
That got Mischkey’s attention and he let his apple pie sink down without taking a bite. ‘For a non-technician you ask some pretty good questions. And I have things I’d like to say about that. But I think that is for after this apple pie.’ He gazed tenderly at the sickly pastry, which was giving off a synthetic cinnamon smell. ‘We shouldn’t stay here, we should finish our lunch in the cafe in Akademiestrasse instead.’ I groped for a cigarette and couldn’t find my lighter. Mischkey, being a non-smoker, couldn’t help me.
The way to the cafe took us through the Horten department store; Mischkey bought the new
In the cafe Mischkey ordered a piece of Black Forest gateau, a mixed-fruit tart, and a pastry to accompany his pot of coffee. With cream. Obviously he was a good burner of food. Thin people who can shovel so much down make me envious.
‘And what about a good response to my good question?’ I asked, picking up the thread.
‘Theoretically there are two exposed flanks. First of all you could play around with the sensors, but they’re so well sealed that it wouldn’t go unnoticed. The other possible breach is the connection between the collection point and the factory’s cable. There the politicians agreed to a compromise I consider rotten through and through. For at the end of the day you can’t discount the possibility that, from this connection, emissions data may be falsified or, even worse, the programme of the smog alarm systems tampered with. Naturally we’ve built in security measures that we’re constantly fine-tuning, but you can view this as being like an arms race. Every defence system can be out-tricked by a new attack system and vice versa. A never-ending, and never-endingly expensive, spiral.’
I had a cigarette in my mouth and was going through all my pockets looking for the lighter. In vain again, naturally. Then Mischkey, from the right breast pocket of his fine nappa leather jacket, took out two disposable lighters packed in plastic and cardboard, one pink, the other black. He tore open the packet.
‘Is pink all right, Herr Selk? Compliments of the department store.’ He winked at me, pushed the pink one over the table, and offered me a light from the black one.
‘Former public prosecutor deals in stolen lighters.’ I could just picture the headlines, and fiddled a bit with the lighter before pocketing it and thanking Mischkey.
‘But what about the opposite direction? Would it be possible for someone to penetrate the factory’s computer from the RCC?’
‘If the factory’s cable leads to the computer and not to an isolated data station… But actually you should be able to work that out yourself after all I’ve said.’
‘So you really face off like the two superpowers, with offensive and defensive weapons.’
Mischkey tugged at his earlobe. ‘Be careful with your comparisons, Herr Selk. If we follow your analogy, capitalist industry can only be the Americans. That leaves us employees of the state in the role of the Russians. As a public servant,’ he straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and made a suitably stately face, ‘I must renounce this impertinent insinuation most strongly.’ He laughed, slouched down, and gobbled his pastry.
‘Something else,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I’m amused by the thought that the industry that fought for this damaging compromise has damaged itself. One competitor could naturally take advantage of our network to tamper with the system of another. Isn’t that sweet, the RCC as the turntable of industrial spying?’ He spun his pastry fork on his plate. When it stopped, the prongs were pointing at me.
I suppressed a sigh. Mischkey’s amusing, playful reflections suggested an explosion in the circle of suspects. ‘An interesting variant. Herr Mischkey, you’ve been a great help. In case I think of anything else may I give you a call? Here’s my card.’ I felt around in my wallet for the business card with my private address and telephone number on which I pose as freelance journalist Gerhard Selk.
We shared the route back to Ebert-Platz.
‘What does your meteorograph say about the coming weekend?’
‘It’ll be fine, no smog, not even rain. It looks like a weekend at the pool.’
We said goodbye. I took the Romer roundabout to Bergheimer Strasse to get petrol. Listening to it running through the hose I couldn’t help thinking of the cables between the RCW and the RCC and now God knows which factories. If my case was one of industrial espionage, I thought on the motorway, then there was something missing. The incidents in the RCW system, so far as I could recall, didn’t add up to a case of espionage. Unless the spy had used them to cover his tracks. In which case, wouldn’t his only reason have been that he feared someone was on his trail? And why should he fear that? Did one of the first incidents perhaps risk undoing him? I needed to take another look at the reports. And I needed to call Firner and get hold of a list of the firms connected to the smog alarm system.
I reached Mannheim. It was three o’clock, the blinds of Mannheim Insurance had already closed for the evening. Only the windows that showed an illuminated M at night were still on duty. M as in Mischkey, I thought.
I liked the man. I also liked him as a suspect. Here was the joker, the puzzle-lover, the gambler I’d been looking for from the beginning. He possessed the necessary imagination, the requisite talent, and was sitting in the right place. But it was no more than a hunch. And if I wanted to nail him with that he’d serenely send me packing.
I’d tail him over the weekend. Right now I had nothing but a feeling and I didn’t see how else I could follow the lead. Maybe he’d make a move that would bring me new ideas. Had it been winter I’d have stocked up at the bookshop for the weekend on computer crime. Shadowing someone is a cold and hard business in winter. But in summer it’s fine. Mischkey was going to the pool.
17 Shame on you!
Mischkey currently lived in Heidelberg at number 9, Burgweg, drove a Citroen DS cabriolet with the licence plate HD-CZ 985, was unmarried and childless, earned 55,000 marks as a senior civil servant, and had a personal loan from the Cooperative Savings Bank for 30,000 marks, which he was paying back in an orderly fashion: all this I’d been told on Friday by my colleague Hemmelskopf at the credit bureau. On Saturday at 7 a.m. I was at Burgweg.
It is a small stretch of street, closed to traffic, and the upper part of it becomes a footpath leading to the castle. The residents of the five or so houses in the lower part are allowed to park their cars there and have a key for the gate that divides Burgweg from Unteren Faulen Pelz. I was glad to see Mischkey’s car. It was a beauty, bottle-green with gleaming chrome and a cream-coloured hood. That’s where the loan money had gone. My own car I parked in the hairpin bend of Neue Schlossstrasse from which steep, straight stairs lead to Burgweg. Mischkey’s car was facing uphill; if he were to drive off I ought to have time enough to be in Unteren Faulen Pelz when he arrived. I positioned myself in such a way that I could watch the entrance without being visible from the
