The Rocket Man (14 page)

Nihal looked at his watch. ‘How will I recognise you?'

‘Oh, don't worry about that - I will recognise you. You must come alone; I'll see you there.' Then the phone abruptly went dead.

Nihal remained sitting on the edge of the bed. He thought, someone has followed me all the way here. I didn't mention this to anyone. What was going on? He would go; he had to.

On the way to the hotel, on the metro, Nihal kept looking around him to see if anyone was still following him. He tried to do this without it seeming obvious; but it was impossible to tell. He tried to memorise the people in his carriage and watch who got off with him at Concorde. It was much more difficult to spot someone than he would have imagined. He began to wonder if it had been a good idea to come alone. Perhaps this was a set-up, and they intended to get rid of him - but this was absurd; nonetheless, he began to regret his remark to Weiland about the Mennonites.

As soon as Nihal spotted the woman in the Crillon Bar he knew it had to be her. She was sitting at the bar facing the door and had long, black hair, long legs, the most exquisite fine features, and wore dark glasses. As he walked in she gave him a little wave. She looked like something out of a 1960s spy movie. Everything about her was expensive; she wore model clothes and clutched a crocodile-skin bag. Nihal went over and sat on one of the barstools next to her. She swivelled round to face him, sweeping the hair back behind her ear with a haughty movement of her hand. Then she said, dropping her voice to a soft, seductive tone, ‘You must help us. You must give us this information.'

‘What information?' Nihal supposed he would have to buy her a drink; he dreaded to think what it would cost. ‘What would you like to drink?'

‘Oh, it doesn't matter. I have a drink here.' It was bright pink with a twist of lemon in it and the glass was frosted; she held it by the narrow stem. She merely touched the glass to her lips as if to cool them, then put it down gently on the bar. ‘Come, you must tell us, about this sabotage plan.' She moved closer to him; the crocodile-skin bag pressed against his leg. He tried not to reveal his distaste for it. The scent of expensive perfume, not too strong, but subtle, emanated from her as if it was in her very breath. ‘Lives could depend on it,' she said.

A bowl of peanuts stood on the bar; Nihal dipped into them; he never missed the opportunity of some free food. ‘But I don't know your name,' he said. ‘Or where you're from.'

She hesitated and looked away, took another sip of her drink. She said, ‘Sylvia Mellors.'

Nihal thought at once something was phony about her name; whatever else she was, she was not English. Her voice, at the very least, was foreign, perhaps French, a hint of Spanish. She laid her hand delicately on his arm. ‘Please, tell me what you know. It could be dangerous for you. There are certain people who want to know very badly. If they want to get this information from you I don't suppose you would be able to keep it to yourself – do you understand me?'

Nihal did understand her. He felt completely out of his depth; in fact, he felt frightened. He had no idea who this woman was; whether she was working for some intelligence service or for RASAG. Nihal thought he'd have to play this very carefully. He was alone, and no-one even knew he was here; he should not have allowed himself to be so vulnerable. ‘It's only a matter of rumour. I could tell you who my source was; but anyway, why should I reveal anything if there's nothing in it for me?'

‘Perhaps there could be something in it for you,' she said, turning away slightly, tossing back her hair, and picking up her drink. ‘You want to meet Wolf Richter, don't you?' She spoke the name almost with awe.

‘Yes, I do. In fact, it might be better if I could talk to him directly.'

‘I see,' she said. She removed her glasses and looked at him; he wondered for a moment whether she had not been, or was now, a call-girl, because of the professional way she seemed by her look to make him feel attractive, important, while her eyes gave nothing of herself away. ‘And you can tell me nothing now?' she asked him, softly.

‘No.'

She looked away. She seemed suddenly to have lost interest in the conversation; she ran her finger lazily round the rim of her glass. Then she touched the slice of lemon with the tip of her finger and put it to her tongue. She said, ‘Herr Richter will ring you tomorrow, then, at your hotel.' She did not look at him as she spoke.

‘That's fine.' He got down from the stool; there was no way he could do so with dignity. ‘Good-night then, Miss Mellors.' He tried to put a note of irony into his voice; she glanced up at him with a little smile as if she had recognised it. Then he turned round and, feeling somewhat foolish, left the hotel.

Nihal waited all morning in the hotel for the call from Richter, but it didn't come. In the late afternoon he went to the Place des Vosges and stood across the square. The lights were on in the upstairs windows but it was impossible to see anything through the pale blinds. He crossed the road to go and ring the bell and passed a grey Peugeot in the square in which two men were sitting; one of them was talking into a car phone. It seemed to have an unusually long aerial. Of course it was very likely that someone would be keeping a watch on Richter's apartment. This reminded him that he, too, might easily still be being followed.

He went into the entrance and rang the bell, but no-one replied. He thought of standing there and waiting in case Richter came back, but decided that if he was being followed they might be alarmed at this behaviour, so he gave up and went back down to the metro, returning to his hotel to collect his bags.

The receptionist produced his key and a note written on a used envelope. She said someone had phoned on behalf of a Monsieur Richter. If he rang the office in Stuttgart they would make him an appointment.

Nihal beamed at her and gave her an unusually generous tip.

Weak afternoon sunshine filtered into the DDG's office. Dmitry sat, his back to the window, frowning, staring at the papers in front of him. He had made a contribution earlier on; long ago the meeting had lost his attention. He was wondering why Müller had made changes to the report on that Friday, the last day before he died. He knew there was no reason why he should not have done; the report had not been finalised yet. It could take months before the reports were completed and passed back to the governments concerned; results had to come back from the laboratories, everything had to be checked. He wondered if anyone who did not have access to the file could make changes to it. Passwords could be stolen; there were other ways to get round computer security systems.

This opened up a new train of thought. There had been a great deal of concern recently about whether hackers could get into the IAEA's data base and extract or tamper with information. Safeguards data were held on both of the IAEA's mainframe computers, on which other data -– including library and public information data - were stored. The Safeguards Division had been asking for some time to have one computer solely for their use to try to make it more secure. So far at least this request had not been granted.

But if there were no hard copies of earlier drafts of the report, how could he check whether Müller – or indeed anyone else – had altered something? There must be some back-up tapes. He had no idea how long these were kept for; but every night the data would be copied from the discs to large reels of magnetic tape in case of a power cut or other disaster which might otherwise wipe out the database. He thought he would check with Panini, the computer systems manager. Maybe it would be possible to check that nothing had been changed by seeing what was on the back-up tapes.

He became aware that it was very quiet in the room. He looked up suddenly; everyone was staring at him. Somebody must have asked him a question. He had no idea what it was about. He had not the slightest idea where on the agenda they were. He could feel himself flushing with embarrassment and didn't know what to say.

He stood up. ‘I'm sorry, can you excuse me for a moment. I've just remembered something very urgent.' He picked up his papers and then, in confusion, put them down again. He stepped sideways, nearly knocking his chair over as he did so, and left the room, aware of the astonished glances of his colleagues.

He took the lift down to the computer system's manager's office. Dmitry had met Panini before and knew that he was always harassed. He had a dishevelled look and his face bore the habitual expression of a man who maintained great patience in the presence of idiots. His office was chaotic; the phone was constantly ringing; every problem concerned with the Agency's computer systems landed on his desk. He made the point over and over that it was never the computer or the systems which were at fault, only ever the operators, but of course nobody believed him; it was always easier to blame the machines.

He looked up when Dmitry walked in, waving him into a chair as he conducted a conversation in French on the phone. He was clearly not pleased to see him; he knew at once it meant more work. Finally he hung up. ‘What can I do for you?' he asked.

‘We were just considering a hypothetical situation,' said Dmitry, plunging right in. ‘How far back do the back-up tapes go, if for any reason data was lost and we wanted to reconstruct the database?'

‘Up to six months.'

‘But you don't keep them daily up to that time, surely?'

‘Oh, no. We keep them daily for a week. Then we keep a weekly tape, so within any month you can go back to the previous week. Then after that, we keep a monthly tape, but the maximum is six months.'

‘So if some data was changed, for example, and remained on the file for a certain period, perhaps only a few days, it would be a matter of luck if we could find it?'

Panini frowned. ‘Yes, well, it would depend on whether the back-up tape we kept happened to fall within that period.'

‘So if I'm talking about something that goes back about two months…

‘You might be lucky. You might not.'

‘I see.' Dmitry paused for a moment. ‘Well, I'd like to look at what is on the back-up tapes for a particular file.'

‘I thought you said this was hypothetical.' The phone rang; Panini picked up the receiver, listened for a moment, said ‘I'll call you back,' replaced it and then, on impulse, took it off the hook. He looked at Dmitry with raised eyebrows.

‘Well… it may be. I wanted to check something.' Why did this make him feel so uncomfortable? It was a perfectly reasonable request to make; no-one could challenge his right to do this.

‘It's just one file, is it? You're authorised to see it, I suppose? I'll have to check.'

‘Of course.'

‘You realise once I pull it off the back-up tape there won't be any password protection. Do you want it as hard copy or on disc? Have you done this before? There are certain procedures we have to go through. You'll need an authorisation… Fill all this out and I'll see to it for you.' He put the receiver back on the hook and instantly the phone rang again. ‘You're not in a hurry for this, are you?'

Dmitry shook his head.