'Have you found anything?' asked a voice.
Katherina raised her head. A man dressed in white robes stood in front of her. He wore a traditional Arabic head-dress that covered much of his face. Only the man's words revealed that he was a European.
'Mehmet,' she cried with relief as she stood up to give him a hug.
Mehmet cautiously placed his arms around her and gently patted her back.
'It looks like you've found something, huh?'
He didn't wait for a reply, nor did he ask her any more questions as he led her back to the hotel through the narrow streets.
'I hope I can figure out how to put it on again,' said Mehmet as he unwound the fabric that formed his head-dress and placed it on the armchair in Katherina's room.
It was a very sparsely furnished room with only a bed, a chair and an armchair with floral upholstery. The shutters were closed, and the room was in semi-darkness.
Katherina was sitting on the edge of the bed with her legs pressed together and her elbows propped on her knees.
Mehmet pounded on the wall to the adjoining room.
'Could you come in here, Henning?' he said loudly. The walls were so thin they could hear what was going on in nearly every room on the floor. As far as they could tell, they were the only Scandinavians in the hotel, so they didn't have to watch what they said.
A moment later Henning turned up, his face pale and with sweat trickling from his scalp.
'What's going on?' he asked as he sat down in the armchair, moving like an old man.
'I saw Jon,' said Katherina.
Mehmet sat down next to her and waited for her to go on.
'At the marketplace,' she explained. 'All of a sudden he was just standing there, giving me a really strange look as if I were a total stranger.' She took in a deep breath. 'Then he sent his bodyguards after me.'
'Bodyguards?' said Henning. 'Are you sure they weren't his prison guards?'
Katherina nodded. 'He pointed me out to them.'
Mehmet looked down at his hands. 'He must have had a good reason for doing that,' he said. 'Maybe he wanted to scare you off, so they wouldn't capture you too.'
'But you should have seen his eyes,' said Katherina. 'The look in his eyes was so different. As if he hated me with all his heart.'
'Maybe he was trying to push you away for your own protection,' Henning suggested.
Katherina shook her head vigorously. 'No, he really meant it,' she told them.
'That can only mean one thing,' said Henning solemnly. 'They've been reading to him.'
The idea of brainwashing had crossed Katherina's mind as she searched for an explanation, but it hadn't occurred to her that it might have been done through reading. Even though she'd participated in a reading, she didn't connect it with brainwashing or torture.
'But is that possible?' she asked. 'We were… are… in love. How could that be turned into hatred in such a short time?'
'It would require an extraordinarily talented transmitter,' Henning admitted. 'And an even better excuse.'
'Excuse?' said Mehmet. 'I don't get it.'
'A reading can't totally replace one attitude with another. It can't turn white to black. If you try to do that, you'll fail. On the other hand, if you try to present an alternative explanation, the subject in question, with the proper sort of influence, willchoose to change his attitude. The subject will be able to recall everything – the attitude he had previously held, and even the reading itself, but he'll think he made the choice on his own.'
'Man, that's sneaky,' exclaimed Mehmet, leaning back on the bed.
'So Jon made the choice to hate me?' asked Katherina.
Henning shifted uneasily in his chair.
'In any case he was presented with a lie that convinced him hehad to hate you.'
Katherina got up and went over to the window. Through the slats in the blinds she could look down at the street in front of the hotel. There wasn't as much traffic in this part of the city, only an occasional motorbike racing past.
Had she come all this way to Alexandria in vain?
'Is there anything we can do?' she asked without turning round from the window. She noticed that tears had begun to spill down her cheeks.
Henning sighed deeply. 'That's hard to say. If the conflict between the two choices is big enough, at some point he'll suffer a relapse. I'd think the shock alone of seeing you today would make him reconsider what has happened.'
'Unless more lies are presented to him?'
'Correct,' replied Henning. 'The more arguments they give him for keeping his distance from you, the better.'
'For them, you mean.'
Mehmet stood up and went over to her, patting her shoulder. 'If he loves you, he'll come to his senses.'
Katherina nodded, fighting to hold back the sobs.
'At least we know he's here,' said Mehmet. 'And I think I located some of the others today.'
'Where?' asked Katherina.
Until now they'd been unable to find any of the individuals the Shadow Organization had sent to Alexandria. For days they had roamed around, studying the tourists in the city, the whole time trying to determine whether those sightseers were Lectors as they read their guidebooks or scanned the menus in restaurants. They had memorized the faces from the black-and-white school photos Mehmet had found, but most of them were taken some time ago, so they didn't expect to be able to recognize the students by appearance alone.
'There's a big group staying at the Hotel Seaview, closer to the harbour,' Mehmet explained. 'One of them might be our mole.'
'Pau?'
'Or Brian Hansen, as he's really called.'
The papers from the school had revealed Pau's real name as well as his RL value. It was listed as 0.7, a very low number compared to most of the other members, who on average had a value ten times higher. It didn't make them feel any better that someone with such a low ranking had been able to fool them for months.
'Couldn't we use him?' asked Katherina, turning to face Henning.
'As a hostage?' Henning shook his head. 'I don't think so. His job is done. After the neutralizing of Luca and Jon, he's no longer of any importance to them.'
'Maybe he could tell us what's going to happen,' Katherina suggested.
'You want to force him to do that?' said Mehmet with a crooked smile.
'We'd just be playing by their rules,' Katherina pointed out. 'Henning could read to him.'
She had no idea how strong of a Lector Henning might be. So far he hadn't been much help. On the very first day he'd taken to his bed feeling sick, and he hadn't been able to take part in the search. Maybe he wouldn't even be capable of reading.
'I'm sure I could get Nessim to find out Pau's room number,' said Mehmet.
'Nessim?'
'The desk clerk downstairs,' replied Mehmet. 'I have a feeling he has a good network here in the city. When he heard that we knew Luca, there were no limits to what he wanted to do for us.'
Before leaving Denmark, Mehmet had dug up as much information as possible on Luca's trip to Egypt just before he died, and one of things he found out was that Luca had stayed at this hotel where they had now taken rooms. Otherwise Luca had left behind very few clues. He'd used his credit card at a few places in town, including at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but that was all.
'Was Nessim able to tell you anything about Luca?' asked Katherina.
'No. Nothing except that they talked about the weather, the library and various trivial matters. He described Luca as a friendly man who gave generous tips.' Mehmet went over to the door. 'I'm going to get him on the case right away.'
After he left the room, Katherina sank down onto the bed. She hadn't allowed herself to get much sleep since the night she spent at Clara's. It was only when she was about to collapse with exhaustion that she'd been forced to give in and take a nap for an hour or two. Even then she slept uneasily and usually awoke drenched in sweat without feeling rested, yet unable to go back to sleep. Her encounter with Jon hadn't made things any better. She sensed that if they didn't get to him soon, it would be too late.