The Cyber War Conspiracy, Thomas Biehlig [i can read book club .TXT] 📗

recommendations and his office was by international standards rather small. Rolf’s disappointment was clear to see. He had obviously imagined Victor’s office as something completely different. His sales targets burst like soap bubbles. Independent of the volume of sales to be expected Jansen found the South American likeable. He was pleased with the easygoing atmosphere that Victor radiated. When Victor suggested a common lunch it could be seen that Rolf was on edge. Victor had not yet signed the contract. The sales volume expected had disappeared over the horizon. To their surprise Victor then chose a very high-class restaurant and invited them to a meal. Afterwards they drove back to Victor’s office. He signed the framework contract with a smile on his face. Rolf was happy about that and claimed the success for himself. Two days later came the call from Victor they had agreed on. The first common project could start. Marc was appointed as the project director and key account manager. That was the beginning. Today, almost two years later, he had developed the eighth or ninth assignment. Without anything particular happening. Even the current assignment was really routine work.

Jansen was abruptly snatched out of his thoughts. Sebastian was standing at the door and asking; “Are you coming to lunch with us? We intend to go over to the Italian”

Jansen looked at the clock. 12.30. “Unfortunately I’ve got no time. Apart from that, I’ve been to the baker.”

Then he finished typing the report for Victor without mentioning the Yoo story. What was the point of stirring up dust unnecessarily? There were always rumours flying about. Most of them turned out in the end to be fully innocuous or simply false, he thought. At about 4 p.m. he could at last send the report to Rolf. Since Rolf had obviously been waiting for just that, Marc was promptly summoned to his office, and together they went through the report again. At about 6 p.m. Rolf was more than satisfied and sent Marc home. He decided to take a quick shower and change his clothing. It had been rather hot all day and he felt sweaty.

At about 7.30 he entered the hotel bar. The bar was empty but for a few guests, and he caught sight of Victor immediately. No wonder, thought Jansen, who would sit in here in this weather and get drunk? That would be enough to cause depression.

Victor beckoned Jansen over to himself and greeted him in a friendly way. “Hello, Marc, it’s good you could come. Sit down, or do we want to go somewhere else? Have you got an idea? I’m hungry. As you know, I’m not familiar with Hamburg. You’re a local, aren’t you?”

Jansen thought about it quickly and replied: „Hi, Victor, it’s nice to see you again. Let’s go to the restaurant Elbblick. There you can sit on a glazed roof terrace and admire the Elbe with its ships passing by. Apart from that, the kitchen has an excellent reputation for its fish dishes.”

Victor grinned got up, and instructed the waitress to add the tab to his room bill and to call a taxi. When they were outside Victor said: “Marc, it’s not for nothing that I wanted to meet you. It’s not just about the assignment you’re working on for me now. Is there in your opinion anything in particular happening on the whole computer chip market?”

Jansen thought briefly and answered: „No, if I’d learned anything that was relevant for the assignment I would of course have immediately let you know it.” „The situation has changed in the meantime. I’ve received information that something is happening on the market right now. However, nobody knows what’s up. I was given the job of finding out the truth about the rumour. For that I need you.”

Jansen swallowed and thought about it. What did Victor really know? Who was behind this man? Curious, Jansen asked: “Then why did you say this meeting is for nobody but us? After all, I have to report everything to Rolf. I think, if you want to give me the assignment to deepen the research.”

„I want to submit an offer to you. Have you ever been independent? You can right now work only for yourself and I’ll be your first client. You can apply your abilities with more purpose and more lucratively. With your market expertise in the field of semiconductor technology, your network, and your personality you are just the right man for my project.”

Now Jansen did not know what he should say, and finally he stuttered: “That sounds very interesting. And how would that function?”

“I’ve prepared a few papers. In this suitcase there are a laptop and a few documents. Have a close look at the documents and the files named in them. Basically everything is all worked out there. Your first assignment, as I’ve already mentioned, will be to find out the truth behind the rumour. My client is ready to spend a lot of money. For that he expects absolute discretion and accurate research. The assignment is not without danger. You have to know who and what you’re letting yourself in for. There are people about who don’t shrink from murder. The stakes being played for are very high. But I assume we’ll get the information without their noticing it. The rest will be done by other people. We need only the correct information. I’ve already got some tips. We can start with them.”

The taxi came. During the trip they kept silence. After Victor had paid for the taxi Marc showed him the way. „On the left, up the stairs, goes straight to the roof terrace.”

They were lucky and found a free table. In silence they studied the menu, till Victor looked at his watch and said, “Marc, you are of course my guest. Will you order for me number 23 as an appetiser and as the main dish number 221? Choose something you like and order a bottle of white wine as well. I have to make an urgent phone call.”

Meanwhile in Marc’s head confusion reigned. When the waiter came and asked for the order, he absentmindedly ordered only a bottle of “house wine, white and dry”, then chattered Victor’s chosen numbers and ordered for himself in a down-to-earth way the “original Hanseatic lobscouse menu”.

He had as yet not a clue that the information he had till then kept secret could have anything to do with the assignment. He was curious about the offer and the information Victor had. But he hoped he would not have to decide immediately. He decided that in any case he would negotiate an appropriate time to think it over. His glances wandered over the Elbe. A gigantic freighter loaded up with containers was travelling past the restaurant toward the open sea. Jansen seemed to be small compared with the ship. He contemplated where the ship would berth next. Africa, Asia, or Holland? Suddenly he was overcome by a desire to see distant places. The offer could satisfy that need, he thought. A little later he heard waves washing against the bank reinforcement. Then a small tugboat and a pleasure boat filled with tourists doing the customary harbour tour, went past. Music could be heard. Clearly the mood on board was boisterous. At the same moment Victor came back. His face was serious and he looked somewhat agitated.

„Marc, I’ve just got an important tip. You absolutely have to join with me. We need you. Later you’ll take the suitcase home, think it all over in tranquility, and give me tomorrow by midday your decision together with the report. If your answer is positive, we’ll have to start off by going as soon as possible to Thailand.”

At the same moment the waiter came with the appetizers and Jansen noted how hungry he was. After the excellent meal they drove back to the hotel and Victor asked Jansen to come for a moment into his room. When they were sitting in his room Victor said, “Tomorrow morning you’ll send your report as usual to my e-mail address. I’ll acknowledge receiving it. Then there’s nothing in the way of your resignation. You’ll tell Rolf you’ve accepted an offer from another firm and so you’re asking to be dismissed at once. If you say ‘no’ to the offer, then our ways will part at that point. Then the offer was never made. Destroy the documents in the suitcase, the rest you can keep.”

Jansen said goodbye and went home. His thoughts were circling around the suitcase and Victor’s words. He could hardly wait to get home to look at the contents of the suitcase.

In his flat he quickly fetched a beer and sat down with the suitcase at his desk. Then he lit a cigarette and opened the suitcase. In it were a laptop and a standard business light brown A3 envelope. The envelope was bulging with papers and cash. On top of that there was a further sealed envelope with the inscription “Jansen offer” among the papers. Jansen opened that first and began to read the contents. He could hardly believe what he was reading. It seemed that Victor had been preparing this all well in advance and had left nothing to chance. He would receive half a million dollars if he accepted the assignment and finished it successfully. $150,000 as a down payment were ready for him in Berlin. There he would also get further instructions. If he should decide not to accept the assignment the enclosed $10,000 and the laptop were his. Of course he had a duty to keep silence and to destroy the documents, since the other added documents and files described the current state of research and the assignment. The thought of all that money made his decision easy. What would he in fact lose? Actually it would be a pity to lose his good job as an employee at the medium level of a small but well-known firm. Against that however was the fact that in financial matters he was constantly in an emergency. Half a million dollars would allow him to do some things he had only ever dreamed. Maybe he could get away from Hamburg? Maybe with Julia? Till now there had been no reason for him to turn down the offer. With great interest he read the other documents and noticed that Yoo was correct. Unfortunately Victor too had only a few concrete tips except those he himself already knew from Yoo. The scientist Orlando Lopez of MIT had disappeared about four weeks ago and then shown up again as a corpse in a canal in Bangkok. As well, it was apparent that the whole business had relatively little to do with standard chips for networks. It concerned an alleged discovery that the murdered scientist was supposed to have made. Officially he had been trying to develop a quantum computer. The information squared with that from Yoo. In Victor’s documents too there was a resume that stated that that science was still at the beginning stages. There were many problems which for the present seemed to be beyond technology’s powers to solve. Then an article in the envelope photocopied from Science caught his eye. Excitedly he began to read it. It described how a quantum computer works and as well dealt with the work of the dead scientist. In the article it was written that quantum mechanics plays a major role in everyday life in the field of semiconductor physics. Using quantum mechanics the attempt is being made to explain the behavior of atoms.

As an example the border limit in miniaturization of transistors on to conductor boards or in computer chips was cited. For those highly integrated circuits the “Law of Moore” was then applied, named for the founder of the semiconductor firm Intel, Gordon Moore. It states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every eighteen months. If at the end of the 1960’s the smallest integrated circuits were still about 5