old-fashioned typed or handwritten data?'
Faces turned to Henssen. He shrugged. 'It's a problem. We can input some data by hand if only a few hundred records or so are involved, and in Wiesbaden we have scanning equipment that can covert typed records directly to computer format. But for all that, if data aren't computerized, we can only nibble at them.'
'So how much of the data isn't computerized?' asked the Chief.
Henssen brightened. 'Not a lot. Orwell's 1984 wasn't so far out.'
'What about Babel?' said the Chief.
Henssen looked confused. He looked at the Bear, who shrugged.
'The Tower of Babel,' explained the Chief. 'How do you cope with records in different languages – English, French, German, Italian, whatever?'
'Ah,' said Henssen. 'Actually the Babel factor – as such – is not as much of a problem as you'd think. We do have computerized translation facilities that are over ninety percent accurate. On the other hand, that ten percent error factor leaves room for some elegant confusion that can be compounded by multiple meanings within any one language. Consider the word screw for example. That can mean ‘to rotate,’ as in inserting a wood screw; it can mean ‘to cheat or swindle,’ as in I was screwed on the deal’; it can mean the act of sex as in…' He went silent, embarrassed.
'Go on,' said Kersdorf irritably. 'We can perhaps work out some of the details ourselves.'
'Well,' continued Henssen, 'fortunately most police information is held in a structured way, and so is the majority of commercial data. For example, an airline passenger list doesn’t take much translation, nor do airline schedules, or subscription lists, or lists of phone calls, and so on.'
'Okay,' said the Chief, 'structured data are held on the computer version of what we old-fashioned bureaucrats would call a form – so translate the headings and the meaning of the contents is clear.'
'Much simplified, that's about it,' said Henssen. 'And unstructured data, to give an example, might be a statement by a witness consisting of several pages of free-form text.'
'And it's with the unstructured data that you have most of the problems,' said the Chief.
'Precisely. But with some human involvement linked to our expert system there is nothing we can't resolve.'
'But it takes time,' said the Chief, 'and that's my problem.'
There was silence in the room. Henssen shrugged.
'I'm surprised people don't use carbon monoxide more often,' said Santine. 'It's a beautifully lethal substance. It works through inhalation. It's not quite as exciting as some of the nerve gases that can be absorbed through the skin. Carbon monoxide is breathed in as normal, is absorbed by the blood to form carboxyhemoglobin, and all of a sudden you haven’t got enough oxygenated blood – oxyhemoglobin – and you're history. There is no smell and no color, and a couple of lungfuls will do you in. Most city dwellers have some carbon monoxide in the blood from exhaust fumes – say, one to three percent – and smokers build up to around five percent. These levels don't produce any noticeable symptoms in the short term, but at around thirty percent you start to feel drowsy, at fifty percent you're coordination goes, and by between sixty and seventy percent, you're talking to Saint Peter.'
'So if you're a heavy smoker and someone used carbon monoxide on you, you'll die faster,' said Sylvie.
'Absolutely,' said Santine, 'especially if you’ve been smoking in a confined space.'
'Interesting,' said Sylvie. 'But all it has to do is buy us a little time if a casual visitor comes along, thought I doubt a security check would be fooled.'
Santine grimaced. 'Come on, Sylvie, I'm not an amateur. Why do you think I suggested monoxide? The corpses will stand up to cursory examination. There will be no blood. Nothing's perfect, but with a little sponge work, they won't look too bad – and it'll be dark. You’ve got to remember that monoxide poisoning is a kind of internal strangulation, so you get some of the same symptoms. The face gets suffused, you get froth in the air passages, and the general effect isn't exactly pretty.'
'I take it you brought along a sponge.'
Santine puffed out his chest. He tapped the bulky black attache case in front of him. 'Madame, I am fully equipped.'
Pompous prick, thought Sylvie. She looked at the sky and then at her watch. They'd do it in about an hour, just after Sangster had checked in and when it was completely dark.
The team from Vaybon Security wore white coats and the blank expressions of people who are paid well not to care about reasons. One of their board of directors opening his wife's apartment without her knowledge or permission wasn't the most unusual assignment they'd had, and besides, Beat von Graffenlaub's signature was on the check that had paid for the original installation – even if he hadn't known exactly what he was buying. But then, thought the technician in charge, who knows what a wife is really up to?
'Can you open it without leaving any sign?'
The senior technician consulted the blueprint he was carrying and had a brief, whispered conversation with his colleagues. He turned back to von Graffenlaub. 'There will be minute marks, Herr Direktor, but they would not be noticed unless the door was being examined by an expert.'
Equipment was wheeled into the foyer outside the door. Von Graffenlaub had the feeling the technicians were going to scrub up before commencing. 'Will it take long?'
'Fifteen minutes, no longer,' said the senior technician.
'You are aware that the door is electrified,' said von Graffenlaub.
The senior technician shot him what started off as a pitying glance but changed in mid-expression to obsequiousness when he remembered to whom he was speaking. 'Thank you, Herr Direktor,' he said.
He withdrew a sealed security envelope and opened it with scissors. Von Graffenlaub noticed that the other instruments were laid out on a tiered cart close at hand. The senior technician removed a sheet of heavy paper from the envelope, read it, and punched a ten-digit number into a keyboard. He hit the return key. A junior technician checked the door with a long-handled instrument.
'Phase one completed,' said the senior technician. From his bearing one could believe that he had just successfully completed a series of complex open-heart procedures. 'The electrical power source attached to the door can be deactivated by radio if the correct code is used. Your wife provided us with such a code, which was kept in this envelope in a safe until required. The same system can also be used for the lock, but in this case, unfortunately, she has not deposited the necessary information. We shall have to activate the manufacturer's override. That requires drilling a minute hole in a specific location and connecting an optical fiber link thought which a special code can be transmitted to override the locking mechanism. The optical fiber link is used to avoid the possibility of the door's being opened by anyone other than the manufacturer. The location of the link is different with each installation and-'
'Get on with it,' said von Graffenlaub impatiently.
Eleven minutes later the door swung open. He waited until the Vaybon team had departed before he walked into the apartment and shut the door behind him. He found the electrification controls and reactivated the system, following the instructions given to him by the technician. Reassured by the sophisticated perimeter security of electrification, steel door, and hermetically sealed armor-plated windows – installed originally with the excuse that the construction of Erika's little apartment was an ideal opportunity to put in some really good security – Erika had made little serious attempt to conceal things inside the apartment.
Twenty minutes later Beat von Graffenlaub had completed a thorough search of the apartment. What he had found, detailed in photographs but with other quite specific evidence, was worse than anything he had – or could have – imagined. Nauseated, white-faced, and almost numb with shock, he waited for Erika to return. He was unaware of time. He was conscious only that his life, as he had known it, was over.
