Self's punishment (6 page)

13

Are you interested in the details?

It’s not often I stay home in the mornings. Not only because I’m out and about a lot, but because I can barely keep away from the office even if there’s nothing for me to do there. It’s a relic from my time as an attorney. Perhaps it also stems from the fact that as a child I don’t remember my father ever spending a workday at home, and back then you worked six days a week.

On Thursday I was the leopard that changed its spots. The previous day my video recorder had come back from the repair shop. I’d rented a couple of Westerns. Even though they are scarcely shown any more I’ve remained true to them.

It was ten o’clock. I’d put on
Heaven’s Gate
: I’d missed it at the cinema and it was unlikely to be shown there again, and I was watching Harvard graduates at the graduation party in their tails. Kris Kristofferson stood a decent chance. Then the telephone rang.

‘I’m glad to reach you, Herr Self.’

‘Did you think I would be at the blue Adriatic in this weather, Frau Buchendorff?’ Outside the rain was pouring down.

‘Ever the old charmer. I’ll put you through to Herr Firner.’

‘Greetings, Herr Self. We believed the case was over, but now Herr Oelmüller tells me that something has happened in the system again. I’d be happy if you could come over, today if possible. What’s your schedule like?’

We agreed on 4 p.m.
Heaven’s Gate
was about four hours long, and you shouldn’t sell yourself too cheaply.

On the drive to the Works I pondered why Kris Kristofferson had cried at the end. Because early wounds never heal? Or because they heal and, one day, are nothing more than a bleached-out memory?

The security guard at the main gates greeted me like an old friend, hand on the brim of his cap. Oelmüller was distanced. The other member of the party was Thomas.

‘Remember I told you about the trap that we’d planned and instigated?’ said Thomas. ‘Well, today it snapped shut . . .’

‘But the mouse ran away with the cheese?’

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Oelmüller said sourly. ‘Here is exactly what occurred: yesterday morning the central computer reported that our bait data file had been opened via terminal PKR 137 by a user with the number 23045 ZBH. The user, Herr Knoblauch, is employed in the main accounting department. He was, however, at the time the file was accessed, in a meeting with three gentlemen from the tax authority. And the said terminal is at the other end of the Works at the purification plant and was being serviced by our own technician off-line.’

‘Herr Oelmüller means to say that the machine wasn’t workable during its inspection,’ added Thomas.

‘Which means that another user and another terminal are hidden behind Herr Knoblauch and his number. Didn’t you figure the culprit would disguise himself?’

Oelmüller took up my question eagerly. ‘Oh yes, Herr Self. I’ve spent the whole of last weekend thinking through how we can catch the culprit regardless. Are you interested in the details?’

‘Try me. If it gets too difficult I’ll let you know.’

‘Good, I’ll attempt to keep it comprehensible. We’ve seen to it that when a special control command is issued by the system, the terminals that are logged on will set a special switch in their working memory. It’s not noticeable to the user. The safety precaution was sent to the terminals at the moment the bait data file was accessed. Our intention was that all terminals in dialogue with the system at that second could later be identified by the state of the switch, and this even independent of the terminal number the culprit could have used to disguise himself.’

‘Could I imagine it being like a stolen car being identified not by its false licence plate, but by the engine number?’

‘Well, yes, somewhat along those lines.’ Oelmüller nodded at me encouragingly.

‘And how do you explain that, in spite of all this, there was no mouse in the trap?’

Thomas responded. ‘At the moment we have no explanation. Something you may be considering – outside intervention – we still discount. The wiring the telecom people installed to trace things is still in place and signalled nothing.’

No explanation. And that from the specialists. My dependence on their expertise bothered me. I could follow what Oelmüller had described. But I couldn’t check his premises. Possibly the pair of them weren’t particularly bright and it wasn’t a big deal to outwit their trap. But what was I supposed to do? Immerse myself in computers? Follow up the other leads? What other leads were there? I was at a loss.

‘The whole thing is very embarrassing for Herr Oelmüller and myself,’ said Thomas. ‘We were sure we’d trap the culprit and stupidly we said so. Time is ticking by and nonetheless the only possibility I see is to go through all our assumptions and conclusions with a fine-toothed comb. Perhaps we should also speak to the man who set up the system, don’t you think, Herr Oelmüller? Can you tell us, Herr Self, how you are going to proceed?’

‘I’ve got to sift through everything in my head first.’

‘I’d like us to stay in touch. Shall we get together again on Monday morning?’

We were standing and had said our goodbyes, when my thoughts returned to the accident. ‘What, incidentally, came out of the investigation of the causes of the explosion? And did the smog alarm function properly?’

‘According to the RCC it was right that the smog alarm went off. So far as the cause of the accident is concerned, we have at least arrived at the point where we know it had nothing to do with our computer. I don’t have to tell you how relieved I was. A broken valve – the engineers will have to answer for that.’

14

A lot of static

With good music playing I can always think well. I’d switched the stereo on but hadn’t started playing
The Well-Tempered
Clavier
as I wanted to fetch a beer from the kitchen first. When I returned, the neighbour on the floor below had turned her radio up loud, making me listen to her current favourite: ‘We are living in a material world and I am a material girl . . .’

I trampled on the floor, to no avail. So it was off with the dressing gown, on with the shoes and jacket, and down the stairs I went and rang the doorbell. I intended to ask the ‘material girl’ if there was no consideration left in her ‘material world’. No one answered, nor was any music coming from the flat. Obviously no one was home. The other neighbours were away on holiday and there’s nothing but the attic above my flat.

Then I realized that the music was coming from my own loudspeaker. I don’t have a radio attached to the system. I fiddled with the amplifier and couldn’t get rid of the music. I put on the record. Bach in the
forti
sections easily managed to drown out the sinister other channel, but the
piani
he had to share with the newscaster of South-West Radio. My stereo was apparently screwed up.

Perhaps it was due to the lack of good music that I didn’t get much more thinking done that evening. I played through a scenario in which Oelmüller was the culprit. Apart from the psychology it all fitted. He certainly wasn’t the rascal or prankster – could he be the blackmailer? According to everything I’d ever gathered about computer criminality, people who worked with a computer could also use it for criminal purposes, but not make a mockery of it.

The next morning I went to a radio repair shop before breakfast. I’d tried out the stereo again and the interference had gone. That really did annoy me. I can’t abide unpredictable machinery. A car may be roadworthy and a washing machine still wash, but if the last, most insignificant indicator light doesn’t work with Prussian precision, my mind will know no rest.

I got a competent young man. He had compassion for my lack of technical know-how, almost called me ‘Grandpa’ in friendly condescension. Of course, I know that radio waves aren’t brought to life by the radio – they’re always there. The radio merely makes them audible, and the young man explained to me that practically the same circuit that achieves this in the receiver is also present in the amplifier and that, under certain atmospheric conditions, the amplifier may act as a receiver. There was nothing you could do about it, just had to accept it.

On the way from Seckenheimer Strasse to my café in the arcades by the Wasserturm I bought a newspaper. At my kiosk, lying next to Süddeutsche is always the Rhine Neckar
Chronicle
and for some reason the abbreviation RNC stuck fast in my head.

When I was sitting in Café Gmeiner, coffee in front of me, awaiting my ham and eggs, I got that feeling of wanting to say something to someone but not remembering what. Was it related to the RNC? It struck me that Tietzke’s interview with Firner hadn’t appeared in the paper yet. But that wasn’t what I was looking for. Hadn’t someone spoken to me yesterday about the RNC? No, Oelmüller had said the RCC had had reason to trigger the smoke alarm. That was apparently the office responsible for the smog alarm and analysis of emission data. But there was something else I wasn’t getting. It had something to do with the amplifier functioning as a receiver.

When the ham and eggs arrived I ordered another coffee. The waitress didn’t bring it until I’d asked for a third time. ‘Sorry, Herr Self, there’s a lot of static in the air today. I’m miles away. I was taking care of my daughter’s boy last night because the young folk have a subscription for the opera and got back late yesterday. Wagner’s
Götterdämmerung
went on and on.’

A lot of static, miles away, long-distance. Of course, that was it, the long-distance reception at the RCC. Herzog had told me about the direct emission model. The same emission data are also recorded in the RCW system, Oelmüller had said. And Ostenteich had spoken of the online connection with the state monitoring system. Somehow the computer centre of the RCW and the RCC had to be connected. Was it possible to penetrate the MBI system via the RCC? And was it possible that the people at RCW had simply forgotten this? I cast my thoughts back and remembered clearly that there had been talk of the terminals in the plant and of telephone lines to the outside when we’d been discussing possible breaches in the system. A cable running between RCC and RCW, as I was now picturing it, had never been mentioned. It belonged neither to the telephone lines nor to the terminal connections. It differed from those by not being a mode of direct communication. Rather a silent flow of data migrated from the various sensors onto tape. Data that interested no one at the plant and could be immediately forgotten unless there happened to be an alarm or an accident. I understood why the musical confusion on my stereo had preoccupied me for so long: the interference came from inside.

I played around with my ham and eggs and the multitude of questions going through my mind. Above all I needed additional information. I didn’t want to speak with Thomas, Ostenteich, or Oelmüller now. If they had forgotten an RCW–RCC connection, that would ultimately cause them more concern than the connection itself. I needed to take a look at the RCC and find someone there who could explain system connections to me.

From the phone booth next to the restroom I gave Tietzke a call. The RCC, it transpired, was the Regional Computer Centre in Heidelberg. ‘To a certain degree even trans-regional,’ said Tietzke, ‘as Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate are hooked up to it. What do you have in mind, Herr Self?’

‘Do you ever let up, Herr Tietzke?’ I retorted, and promised him the rights to my memoirs.

15

Bam bam, ba bam bam

I drove straight to Heidelberg. In front of the law school I found a parking space. I walked the few steps to Ebert-Platz, the former Wrede-Platz, and found the Regional Computer Centre in the old building with the two entrance pillars where the Deutsche Bank used to be. The doorman sat in the former banking hall.

‘Selk from Springer Publishing,’ I introduced myself. ‘I’d like to talk to one of the gentlemen from emission supervision, the publishing house called ahead.’

He picked up the telephone. ‘Herr Mischkey, there’s someone here from Springer Publishing, he says he wants to talk to you and has an appointment. Should I send him up?’

I interjected. ‘Can I talk to Herr Mischkey myself?’ And as the doorman was sitting at a table not screened by glass and since I was already reaching for it, he handed the receiver to me, nonplussed.

‘Hello, Herr Mischkey, Selk from Springer Publishing here, you know? We’d like to include a report on the direct emission model in our computer journal, and after talking with the industry I’d like to hear the other side. Will you see me?’

He didn’t have much time but invited me up. His room was on the second floor, the door was open, the view opened onto the square. Mischkey was sitting with his back to the door at a computer that had his full concentration and on which he was typing with two fingers at great speed. He called over his shoulder, ‘Come on in, I’ll be finished in a second.’

I looked around. The table and chairs were awash with computer printouts and magazines from
Computer Weekly
to the American edition of
Penthouse
. On the wall was a blackboard with ‘Happy Birthday, Peter’ scrawled on it in smudged chalk. Next to that Einstein was sticking his tongue out at me. On the other wall were film posters and a still that I couldn’t assign to a particular film. ‘Madonna,’ he said without looking up.

‘Madonna?’

Now he did look up. A distinctive, bony face with deep furrows in the brow, a small moustache, an obstinate chin, all topped with a wild mop of greying hair. His eyes twinkled at me in delight through a pair of intentionally ugly spectacles. Were the national health glasses of the fifties back in fashion? He was wearing jeans and a dark-blue sweater, no shirt. ‘I’ll call her up on screen for you from my film file.’ He beckoned me over, typed in a couple of commands, and the screen filled in a flash. ‘You know how it is when you’re fishing for a tune that you can’t quite remember? Problem of all music and movie buffs? I’ve solved that with my file, too. Do you want to hear music from your favourite film?’

‘
Barry Lyndon
,’ I said, and in the space of seconds came the squeaky but unmistakable start of the Sarabande by Handel, bam bam, ba bam bam. ‘That’s fantastic,’ I said.

‘What brings you here, Herr Selk? As you can see, I’m very busy at the moment and haven’t much time to spare. It’s to do with emissions?’

‘Exactly, or rather, with a report on them for our computer journal.’

A colleague entered the room. ‘Are you messing around with your files again? Do you expect me to deal with the registration data for the church? I must say I find you extremely uncooperative.’

‘May I introduce my colleague Grimm? That’s really his name, but with two “m’s” – Jörg, this is Herr Selk from the computer journal. He wants to write about the office culture in RCC. Keep going, you’re being most authentic.’

‘Oh, Peter, really . . .’ Grimm puffed out his cheeks. I placed them both in their mid-thirties, but one came across like a mature 25-year-old and the other like a man in his fifties who’s aged badly. Grimm’s grimness was only accentuated by his safari suit and his long, thinning hair. I kept what was left of my hair trimmed short. I wondered whether my hair situation might still get worse at my age, or whether the balding was over, just as getting pregnant is over for post-menopausal women.

‘You could have called up the church report on your computer ages ago, by the way. I’m in the middle of the traffic census. It has to go out today. Yes, Herr Selk, it doesn’t look good for the two of us. Unless you want to buy me lunch? At McDonald’s?’

We arranged to meet at twelve-thirty.

I strolled up the main street, impressive evidence of the city council’s will towards destruction in the seventies. It wasn’t drizzling at the moment. Yet the weather couldn’t make up its mind what to offer for the weekend. I decided to ask Mischkey about the meteorograph. In the Darmstadt shopping centre I came across a record shop. Sometimes I like to sample the zeitgeist, buy the representative record or the representative book, go to see
Rambo II
or watch an election debate between the chancellor and his challenger. There was a special offer on for Madonna. The girl at the till took a look at me and asked if she should gift-wrap it. ‘No. Is that the impression I give?’

I walked out of the Darmstadt shopping centre and saw Bismarck-Platz ahead of me. I’d have liked to visit the old man on his pedestal. But the traffic didn’t allow it. On the corner I bought a packet of Sweet Afton, and then time was up.