The door clicked and they stepped into a brightly lit reception area. A young woman in her twenties with rings in her ears, lips, and nose looked up at them and smiled. “Welcome to Personal Customer. May I help you?”
“I’m Mrs. Brewster and this is Mr. Corrigan. We’re technical consultants here to see the computer. I do believe Mr. Reichhardt knows we’re coming today.”
“Yes. Of course.” The young woman handed Mrs. Brewster a sealed envelope. “You go to the-”
“I know, dear. I’ve been here before.”
They walked over to an elevator next to a conference room with glass walls. A group of company employees-most of them in their thirties-were sitting around a large table eating lunch and talking.
Mrs. Brewster ripped open the envelope, took out a plastic card, and waved it at the elevator’s sensor. The door glided open, they stepped into the elevator, and she waved the card a second time. “We’re going down to the basement. That’s the only entrance to the tower.”
“Is it okay to ask a question?”
“Yes. We’re out of the public area.”
“What do the employees think they’re doing?”
“Oh, it’s all perfectly legitimate. They’re told that Personal Customer is a cutting-edge marketing firm that is collecting demographic data. Of course, advertising to groups of people has become completely old-fashioned. In the future, all advertising will be directed toward each individual consumer. When you see a billboard in the street, it will sense the RFID chip on your key chain and flash your name. The energetic young people you just saw are busy finding every possible source of data about Berliners and feeding it into the computer.”
The elevator door opened and they stepped into a large basement without interior walls. Michael thought that the massive room looked like a factory without workers. It was filled with machinery and communication equipment. “That’s the backup power generator,” Mrs. Brewster said, pointing to the left. “That’s the air conditioner and filtration system because, apparently, our computer doesn’t favor polluted air.”
A white pathway had been painted on the floor, and they followed it to the other end of the room. Although the machinery was impressive, Michael was still curious about the people he had seen in the conference room. “So the employees don’t know that they’re helping establish the Shadow Program?”
“Of course not. When the time comes, Lars will tell them that their marketing data is going to help defeat terrorism. We’ll pass out bonuses and promotions. I’m sure they’ll be quite pleased.”
The white pathway ended at a second reception desk-this one manned by a burly security guard wearing a coat and tie. The guard had been watching their progress on a small monitor. He looked up when they approached the desk.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Brewster. They are expecting you.”
A door without knobs and handles was directly behind the reception desk, but the guard didn’t buzz it open. Instead Mrs. Brewster approached a small steel box with an opening at one end. It was mounted on a ledge a few feet from the door.
“What’s that?” Michael asked.
“A palm vein scanner. You place your hand inside and a camera takes a photograph with infrared light. The hemoglobin in your blood absorbs the light so your veins appear black in a digital photograph. My pattern is matched against a template stored in the computer.”
She inserted her hand in the slot, a light flashed, and the lock clicked. Mrs. Brewster pushed open the door and Michael followed her into the second wing of the building. He was surprised to see that the interior had been completely gutted, exposing the rafters and the brick walls. Inside this windowless shell was a large glass tower held within a steel frame. The tower contained three stories of interconnected storage devices, mainframe computers, and servers racked up on cabinets. The entire system was accessible by a steel staircase and elevated catwalks.
Two men sat at a control panel in one corner of the room. They were separate from the closed environment of the tower-like acolytes not permitted to enter a chapel. A large flat-screen monitor hung above them, showing four computer-generated figures in a shadow car, rolling down a tree-lined boulevard.
Lars Reichhardt stood up and spoke in a loud voice. “Welcome to Berlin! As you can see, the Shadow Program has been tracking you ever since you arrived in Germany.”
Michael looked up at the screen and saw that yes, the car on the screen was a Mercedes and it contained computer-generated images that resembled himself and Mrs. Brewster as well as the guard and chauffeur.
“Keep watching,” Reichhardt said, “and you’ll see yourself about ten minutes ago, driving down Unter den Linden.”
“It’s all very impressive,” Mrs. Brewster said. “But the executive board would like to know when the system will be completely operational.”
Reichhardt glanced at the technician sitting at the control panel. The young man touched his keyboard and the shadow images instantly disappeared from the screen.
“We’ll be ready to go in ten days.”
“Is that a promise, Herr Reichhardt?”
“You know my dedication to our work,” Reichhardt said pleasantly. “I’ll do everything possible to achieve this goal.”
“The Shadow Program has to work perfectly before we can contact our friends in the German government,” Mrs. Brewster said. “As we discussed on Dark Island, we’re also going to need suggestions for a national advertising campaign similar to what we’ve been doing in Great Britain. The German people need to be convinced that the Shadow Program is necessary for their protection.”
“Of course. We’ve already done some work on that.” Reichhardt turned to his young assistant. “Erik, show them the ad prototype.”
Erik typed some commands and a television ad appeared on the screen. A knight with a black cross on his white surcoat stood guard as cheerful young Germans traveled on a bus, worked in office cubicles, and kicked a soccer ball in a park. “We thought we’d bring back the legend of the Teutonic Order of Knights. Everywhere you go, the Shadow Program will be protecting you from danger.”
Mrs. Brewster didn’t look impressed with the television ad. “I see where you’re going with this, Lars. But perhaps-”
“It doesn’t work,” Michael said. “You’ve got to present an image that’s more emotional.”
“This isn’t about emotions,” Reichhardt said. “It’s about security.”
“Can you create some images?” Michael asked the technician. “Show me a mother and father looking at their two sleeping children.”
Slightly confused about who was in charge, Erik glanced up at his boss. Reichhardt nodded and the young man continued typing. At first only faceless computer figures appeared on the screen, but then they began to morph into recognizable images of a father holding a newspaper and a mother holding his hand. They were standing in a bedroom filled with toys as two little girls slept in matching beds.
“So you start with this picture-an emotional picture-and you say something like ‘Protect the Children.’”
Erik kept typing and the words Beschuetzen Sie die Kinder floated across the screen.
“They’re protecting their children and-”
Mrs. Brewster interrupted. “And we’re protecting them. Yes, it’s all rather warm and comforting. What do you think, Herr Reichhardt?”
The head of the computer center watched the screen as little details appeared. The mother’s kind face filled with love. A night-light and a storybook. One of the sleeping girls hugged her toy lamb.
Reichhardt smiled thinly. “Mr. Corrigan understands our vision.”
16
The Prince William of Orange was a cargo ship owned by a group of Chinese investors who lived in Canada, sent their children to British schools, and kept their money in Switzerland. The crew was from Suriname, but all three officers were Dutchmen who had trained with the Netherlands merchant navy.