The Budapest Protocol (39 page)

The screen showed faces of well known Euro-sceptic MPs in France, Germany and Britain.

She stopped for a moment and drank from a glass of water. A new map highlighted eastern Europe. “Let me return to the area where we have recently concentrated most efforts: the post-communist countries. There we have enjoyed remarkable success. Both governments and private owners have queued up to sell historic newspapers and publishing houses for a pittance. Where the staff have proved resistant to the new European reality, the publication has been closed. Governments have placed no restrictions in our setting up private television stations. We believe we have found the perfect environment for the synergy of our business and political interests.”

Alex watched discreetly from the bar, trying to memorise as much as he could. Krieghaufner touched the screen again. “And finally a picture of our holdings.” The regional map returned. “White are newspapers, blue, radio stations, red, television.” A sea of multi-coloured lights pulsed. There was barely a centimetre of free space. “The Volkstern Corporation owns over eighty per cent of newspapers, local and national television stations, in these countries,” she continued as the lights pulsed. Flushed and excited, Krieghaufner sat down to handshakes and congratulations.

The quiet was broken by the steady tapping of a pen on a wine glass. The lady in the tweed suit looked down at her notes. “Frau Krieghaufner, it does not demand much imagination to purchase some ramshackle newspapers and television stations. Especially when the funds are provided for you. We in Zurich were promised far more than this for our investment.”

Klindern quickly interjected, his voice emollient. “And you will have it, Frau Schmidt. The Directorate will soon wield economic power that until now was beyond all our imaginations.”

“Explain, please,” demanded Schmidt.

“We are going to take over the internet,” Klindern said, as casually as he might order a second cup of coffee.

* * *

Bandi watched intently from the roof as the crowd poured down the main roads and the side streets towards the Hotel Savoy. Elegant housewives from the Buda hills and their lawyer husbands marched alongside factory workers from the grim industrial districts at the end of the metro-lines; pierced and tattooed trendies from the bars of District VII linked arms with noisy football fans, while stout farmers from the countryside handed out apples and pears. An elderly lady in a bedraggled fur coat held a framed sepia photograph of a young man, inscribed ‘David: 1930–1944.’ Two blind sisters in their Sunday best tapped out a path with white sticks, proudly rejecting offers of help. A trio of Gypsy musicians played marching tunes on their trumpets. Stallholders were selling hot coffee, sandwiches, beer and Hungarian flags. The numbers were looking good, Bandi thought. If it carried on like this in another half an hour or so, they should reach critical mass.

The floor show artists from Sotto Voce triggered loud cheers. Three six foot tall transvestites, dressed in leather basques and lederhosen, waved rainbow flags and pouted. “Come out of the closet, Frank,” shouted one, to a chorus of hoots and whistles. “And let’s have some fun!” Bandi laughed out loud when his mobile telephone buzzed. The message said: “Bikers heading towards Savoy.” The bikers’ aim, he guessed, was to pass through the fences across Magyar Street, and roar up and down in the open area in the middle between the two cordons, taunting the protestors while protected by the Gendarmes.

“
You’re
not going anywhere,” he muttered to himself, as he rapidly tapped out his instructions.

* * *

Schmidt raised her eyebrows. “The whole internet? How?”

Klindern smiled. “Initially, only in our current areas of operation. Firstly, some brief context. Internet search engines are the most comprehensive information resource the world has ever known, and are becoming ever faster and more efficient. They catalogue people’s needs and desires, hopes and fears. In one month last year, the five leading search engines recorded almost ten billion searches. The best part is that these searches are carried out voluntarily. They record what people really want. Once collated and analysed, they will provide an unprecedented source of economic, medical, social and financial information.”

Schmidt nodded. “And how do we get this information?”

Klindern stood up and tapped the plasma screen. A web browser appeared in Hungary’s national colours of red, white and green. The top left column said: “kzxsearch.hu.” He continued: “Stage one: the kzxsearch web browser, with a built in search engine. This is kzxsearch.hu. Each country will have its own native language browser, kzxsearch.ro for Romania, kzxsearch.de for Germany and so on. Every user of the kzxsearch browser has his own identifying number and tiny programme, called a ‘cookie’, built into the browser. The browser records and categorises every web search, every website and every page visited.”

A picture flashed up of a good-looking, well dressed young man. “Meet Janos Horvath. A salesman, in his mid-twenties, with typical interests: girls, travel, partying, clothes and cars. The cookie records his internet habits. It co-ordinates that information with our internet service providers and kzxcompanies to provide personally targeted advertising. Kzxsearch also allows us to monitor his political activities, should he regularly visit, for example, so-called human rights or civil liberties organisations.”

Klindern tapped the screen. Hungarian language advertisements, for singles holidays, cars, glamour magazines and designer clothes, each personally addressed to Janos Horvath, appeared down the right hand column. “Our initial trials have shown that personalised advertising is surprisingly effective. The mere use of someone’s name breaks through the angst and loneliness of modern life. The user feels wanted, if only by advertisers.”

“So now we are in the social work business. Very touching,” said Schmidt sardonically. “And why will anyone use kzxsearch, rather than Yahoo or Google?”

Klindern smirked. “Because we will offer free, high-speed internet accounts on our internet service providers to anyone carrying out a minimum number of searches a month through kzxsearch. As well as recording every web site visited, the ISPs will store every email sent. The cost of this offer will comfortably be covered by the profits the Directorate’s subsidiary companies will make from additional sales from the targeted advertising. We predict that in two years sixty-five per cent of internet users will sign up for a kzxsearch account. That is stage two.”

A faint glimmer of a smile formed on Schmidt’s mouth. “Impressive, Herr Klindern. You are thinking ahead. We appreciate that. What is stage three?”

Klindern inclined his head. “Thank you. You may be aware that computing is increasingly moving away from personal machines to the ‘cloud’. Cloud computing means two things: data banks and programmes that can be operated remotely. It’s the same principle as web-based email, but with word processing and spreadsheets and so on. Soon you will be able to do all your work from any computer. Actual machines are physically vulnerable. They can be stolen or break down. Even a spilt cup of coffee can be disastrous. Without back-up data is lost forever. The cloud has no such vulnerabilities. It can be accessed from anywhere, by personal computers, of course, but also by mobile telephones, PDAs, even internet-enabled watches. The physical personal computer will soon be redundant.”

Schmidt scribbled rapidly in her notebook, before looking up. “And how will you take control of the this ‘cloud’?”

Klindern sipped his cognac. “We will build our own. It follows automatically from stage two and kzxsearch: all data on internet users will be held centrally on our servers. We are writing new software programmes for email, word-processing, spreadsheets and so on that our subscribers will be obliged to use, which will give us full access to all their data. Memory storage technology is racing ahead. Our software developers are also working on new data mining programmes. Control of the cloud will give us a full social, political, medical and financial profile of every European Union citizen. We will know what they are writing to their boss, to their lover, how they are making money, what they are eating and drinking, what they are
thinking
.” His voice rose with excitement: “We will not only know what they want, we will be able to decide it for them.
This
is the Directorate’s vision: cyberspace – the ultimate
lebensraum.
”

Klindern opened his mouth to continue when the sound of screeching tyres and crunching metal sounded through the room.

* * *

Natasha was interviewing an elderly male protestor in a shabby suit when she heard the low rumble of motorbike engines sounding louder and louder. She quickly thanked the man, ran down Kossuth Lajos Street and sprinted up a side alley, holding her notebook. She was right. The bikers were a hundred metres away, roaring down the narrow road. Their leader, a fat man in black leather, with a long, greasy beard, was riding a low-rider vintage Harley Davidson, with chopper handle bars. A large Arrow Cross banner trailed from the bike’s makeshift flagpole.

The Gendarmes were moving the fence at the top of the side street aside, to let the bikers through, when a plastic bag burst fifty yards in front of them. A puddle of treacly motor oil rapidly spread across the road, spattering the pavement and the bottom of Natasha’s jeans. She looked up. A teenage Romany boy was grinning from the top floor window of the apartment block behind her. He gestured for her to move into the doorway. She stepped back. Oil bombs rained down, covering the street and pavements with a thick, greasy slick.

Motor oil, again. A memory flashed into her mind: she and Alex tipping a barrel of oil down the staircase at Kosice station. A sharp pang of longing twisted inside her. The Harley Davidson juddered as its rider tried to stop, breaking her reverie. The back wheel slid sideways. The front wheel hit the slick, instantly slaloming from left to right. The rider swore furiously as he fought for control. The oil won. The machine toppled sideways with a thunderous crunch. It scraped along the ground, its rider trapped underneath, screaming and cursing, the Arrow Cross flag entangling itself in the bike’s rear wheel.

The biker behind him was riding a sports BMW. He braked hard but it was too late. His wheel touched the slick and he went down flailing. The BMW flew out in front of him and smashed through the gap in the Gendarmes’ fence, it wheels spinning as it skidded across Kossuth Lajos Street. A second wave of oil bombs burst along the street, carefully spaced every few metres. One after another the bikers crashed into each other, all losing control as they hit the oil. In less than a minute half the column was down, at least twelve riders dazed or unconscious, their machines careering across the road. The riders at the rear turned round and roared off. A tough looking man on the other side of Kossuth Lajos Street picked up the BMW. He sat on the bike, revved the engine and ripped off the tattered Arrow Cross banners. The crowd cheered.

Natasha stared at the chaos, scribbling in her notebook: the toppled motorbikes, their engines screaming and whining; the shredded Arrow Cross flag; the oil-shiny street; the dazed bikers staggering back and forth, their leathers ripped and filthy; the Romany boys taunting them from the windows. She thought it was one of the finest sights she had ever seen. She took out her mobile telephone and began taking pictures of the chaos. She didn’t see the man walk up behind her. She only struggled briefly as he forced the pad against her mouth.

* * *

Klindern walked over to the window that overlooked the narrow alley where the bikers were crashing into each other. He stared at the pandemonium five floors down and turned to Hunkalffy, his voice tight with anger. “Prime Minister, please explain what is happening in your capital?”

“A group of provocateurs, the so-called Hungarian Freedom Movement, called a demonstration for this evening,” Hunkalffy explained, looking around the table for support. Hrkna swirled the wine around his glass, examining its light and colour, Malinanescu studied his fingernails. Sanzlermann seemed transfixed by the display on the plasma screen.

Klindern beckoned Hunkalffy to the window and pointed at the crashed and broken motorbikes below. “What, exactly, is this?”

Hunkalffy paled. “You instructed me to ease the restrictions that we put in place following the bombing. I did as you said.”

“I did not expect an outbreak of
anarchy
,” Klindern shouted. “Get out, and take control.”

The room was silent as Hunkalffy left. Klindern returned to his seat. He paused and took a sip from his cognac. “My apologies. We have talked of the future. But let me take you back to our first meeting here at the Hotel Savoy,” he said, acknowledging the man in the wheelchair, who smiled in return. “The founders of the Directorate draw up a four-track strategy: the takeover of political parties and governments; the manipulation of the media; the control of national economies; and, crucially, the police and security services.”

Klindern touched the plasma screen with the light-stick. The map of Europe reappeared. Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania glowed gently. “We have concentrated on these four countries, as our historical allies. Tragically, Dragomir Zorvajk cannot be here with us tonight,” he continued, giving Sanzlermann a barbed look. “The Czech Republic and Poland have so far proved less eager to welcome our investments than their neighbours. But we plan a steady expansion once we have consolidated our hold on the centre. I will not now review all of our holdings, as it would take us well into tomorrow, if not the day after. Suffice to say that in each of our four key countries, in terms of controlling economic assets, political parties, and security services, we have made similar progress.”

Reinhard Daintner entered, holding a pile of DVDs. He passed one to Klindern. A tiny camera was taped to each box. “Daintner has compiled the full extent of the Directorate’s holdings on this disc,” said Klindern, opening a box and holding the DVD between his thumb and forefinger. “It can only be used with the camera supplied. Once the disc is loaded into your computer and the camera is attached, it launches a retinal recognition programme. Each disc is numbered and specially programmed. Nobody else will be able to access your information. For your eyes only, as James Bond might say,” he said, triggering polite laughs around the table.