Anton Müller

By Patrick Faure

The rewards of nanotechnology looked so promising! Yet Max Foremanthe CEO of Pessinus Industries, the corporation that created nanotechnologyis on the run. Unwittingly, he has unleashed a technological Armageddon that is being orchestrated by his largest client, US General Buzz Hamilton. The threats that he had himself identified have become the reality of an attempt to revive Hitlerian ideology. Now caught between Interpol; the banking authorities; a business partner who is no other than Nazi fugitive, SS General Anton Mller; and remorseless killers who are determined to see the Buzz Hamilton project to fruition, Max is desperately trying to make sense of it all. He must navigate the parallel worlds of a defunct dictatorship that aimed to purify the human race, a world of pathologic supremacists, and the nightmares he has created. During that time, people die. By the tens of millions. The predictions written in the past have become the hellish reality of the present.

Confronted with the darkest side of the human mind and its greed for money and power, Max has no choice but to compromise his ethics and his own invention and to reach an alliance with the agents of a foreign power that will help him regain his reputation. The price of redemption is the loss of freedom and the sinking into yet another genocide.

Despite it all, Max meets Nicole, the woman who will energize him to rectify the errors of the past. She uncovers the only possible solution to stem the planetary extermination his technology will eventually generate. Entangled in a web of destructive relationships, the mystery of a French village decimated by the SS, and fights with a team of determined psychopaths while attempting to solve the riddle of a Nazi war criminals past, Max is faced with the eventuality that, whatever action he selects, his nanotechnology will destroy the human race.

In Anton Mller, Max confronts the frightening ghosts of the past and an even more terrifying vision of the future. In a world where human greed and passion prime over the fundamental need to defeat the implacable logic of technology gone wrong, will Max be able to stop the annihilation of the better part of the human race?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Nov 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524595739

Patrick Faure

Patrick Faure was born in Monaco and has spent most of his life in France, the United States, and more recently, the United Kingdom. A polymath and an avid reader, Patrick has published three previous novels: two autobiographies (A Summer in Limousin and Born in Monaco) and The Datura Solution, which is the first book of the Max Foreman Series. Patrick has a comprehensive academic background in philosophy, foreign languages, and information systems and is also an accomplished painter (www.patrickfaure.com). A retired US Army officer, Patrick has extensive military and diplomatic experience and is passionate about ancient history. Patrick has three grown children who reside in the United States, and he currently lives in London with Didar Arslan, his Turkish partner.

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Copyright © 2016 by Patrick Faure.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016917942

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5245-9575-3

             Softcover     978-1-5245-9574-6

             eBook           978-1-5245-9573-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 11/02/2016

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 On the Run

Chapter 2 Meeting with Joop

Chapter 3 The Early Life

Chapter 4 Arkady’s Rescue

Chapter 5 A Promotion

Chapter 6 Technology of Death

Chapter 7 Apollonia

Chapter 8 Escape to Japan

Chapter 9 Sachsenhausen

Chapter 10 Nano Risks

Chapter 11 Planning the Gold Transfer

Chapter 12 Arkady’s Fate

Chapter 13 The Mendelssohn Clinic

Chapter 14 African Pilot

Chapter 15 Danjuma Amir

Chapter 16 Meeting at Maison Rouge

Chapter 17 Annuna

Chapter 18 Lausanne

Chapter 19 Operation Scamander

Chapter 20 A convoy disappears

Chapter 21 Operation Pathenos

Chapter 22 A Lesbian Love Affair

Chapter 23 Oradour

Chapter 24 Escape to Holland

Chapter 25 A Visit to Ireland

Chapter 26 The Nurmsalu Mine

Chapter 27 A Child Is Born

Chapter 28 The Attack

Chapter 29 Operation Praxidike

Chapter 30 Jan Sorensen

Chapter 31 Post Sao Paulo

Chapter 32 Mossad Mole

Chapter 33 Leaving the Domaine de Vaintelle

Chapter 34 Alessandro

Chapter 35 Out Finally

Chapter 36 Return to Monaco

Chapter 37 Death warrant

PROLOGUE

22 July 1941, Yampil, Ukraine

T HE MESSERSCHMIDT BF-109 was his personal one. It was hangared in Balti, Romania, and was maintained in operational readiness for those times when his many other duties allowed him sufficient time to fly from Berlin to Romania, fly a few combat missions, and return to his office duties within a lapse of a few days. The plane used the standard camouflage of the Luftwaffe on the Russian front, a splinter pattern of grey and dark green, almost black, while the under carriage was painted a light blue that merged into the colour of the fuselage on the side of the plane. There was a sparse use of yellow identification paint under the nose, wingtips, and band around the rear fuselage. The plane bore the insignia of the red heart inside a white diamond with black borders. This was the striking symbol of Jagdgeschwader (fighter wing) 77, known as the Ace of Hearts. The only notable difference with the other aircraft in the unit was the presence of the ‘S’ runic symbol in front of the Balkenkreuz. This symbol mimicked that of the SS, and stood for ‘Sieg’ (victory). While the pilot of the S plane was proficient enough to accomplish advanced manoeuvres, the Commander of Jagdgeschwader 77 Major Gotthard Handrick was quite unhappy to have to host what he considered to be an amateur pilot within his unit. But because of the rank and position of his famous pilot, he could do nothing except support the man’s obsession with being a fighter pilot, provide him an escort of veteran pilots in case he got in trouble, and give him credit what whichever kill the pilots accompanying him would score.

For the pilot of the ‘S’ Bf-109 was none other than the supremely powerful Reinhardt Heydrich, the head of the Reich Main Security Office (RHSA), which encompassed both the Gestapo and the Criminal Police, and without doubt the most dangerous man in the Third Reich. He had personally supervised the writing and application of the infamous ‘Nacht und Nebel’ (Night and Fog) decree. In accordance with Heydrich’s orders, any person who was deemed to endanger German security was arrested in the most secretive way, ‘under the cover of night and fog’. Thanks to this decree, people disappeared without a trace and none of their relatives were told of their whereabouts or fate. For each prisoner, the Sicherheit Dienst (secret service) had to fill in a questionnaire that listed personal information, country of origin, and the details of their crimes against the Reich. These questionnaires were then placed in an envelope stamped with ‘Nacht und Nebel’ and submitted to the RHSA. Once approved, the person was arrested and never heard of again. There was no hearing, no opportunity to prove one’s innocence, no trial, and no reprieve. While overlooking this dreadful operation, Heydrich had also imagined the Einsatzgruppen (special groups). These units followed the German armies during the invasion of Russia and their job was to eliminate all persons their commanders would judge non-Aryan, or unworthy of living. They were nothing more than an assembly of mass murderers who shot or gassed undesirables. Knowing this, Major Handrick made sure that the Obergruppenführer’s plane was always in pristine condition and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Major Handrick did not need to be reminded what would happen to him in case that ‘S’ plane failed to be operational.

On the morning of July 22, 1941, Heydrich had the plane readied and joined Captain Dudeck on a routine mission over the Soviet line to hunt down any possible Yak that may be available for an easy kill. The most important thing was to keep right on the edge of the battle lines to be able to stay out of range of the enemy anti-aircraft guns, and if hit, to bail out on the German side. They had been flying for about forty minutes, when Dudeck spotted two Mig-3s. But they were way over the Soviet side, and Captain Dudeck decided to skip chasing them. They were looking for easier pray. Heydrich did not see things that way. Despite the captain’s instruction, he obliqued to the east, crossed the front lines into Soviet territory, and gave chase. As soon as he did that, a battery of 76 mm air defence guns opened fire. This modernised version of the previous model, which was now ten years old, was highly effective. The MiG-3s had been a decoy to pull the German fighters into an ambush. Captain Dudeck did not follow Heydrich into the suicidal fire: his duty was to first preserve his aircraft, and second live to fight another day. As he arced back to have a view of the developments, he could only observe the MiGs flying away and distinctly see the 76-mm shells puncture the right wing of the Messerschmidt and tear off a portion of it. Instantly, the plane became unstable, rocking from side to side as Heydrich tried to control it, and Dudeck estimated that the Obergruppenführer was a goner. He stayed on site observing until he lost track of the aircraft which was engulfed by the smoke of the anti-aircraft shells exploding near the Messerschmidt as well as by the smoke bellowing from the stricken aircraft. But Captain Dudeck never saw the tell-tale ground explosion that indicated the plane and the pilot had impacted the ground. Wary of running out of fuel, he turned back towards the airfield in Balti.

In his ‘S’ plane, Heydrich knew immediately that he had no chance of making it back to Balti. He could not even turn around toward the German lines. He decided to look for a proper place to land, notwithstanding that his engine had been hit as well, and the plane now had very limited lifespan. While the propeller was still going, Heydrich obliqued north and saw a small forest to at eleven o’clock. If he could manage to land the plane close to the woods, they would offer him an excellent hiding spot to evade the Soviet patrols that were sure to follow. Nursing his damaged Bf-109, he proceeded to descend. He was now about 10 km north of where he had been shot up. He reasoned that parachute jumping and crashing the plane would only give his position away, while landing it, even if there was residual smoke, would require the Soviets actually looking for it. The second option may well give him a crucial five to ten minutes during which he could hide, which in turn could mean the difference between life and death. The wheat in the fields near the woods had recently been cut and they offered as good a landing strip as possible. Carefully—he knew well the tendency of the Bf-109 to want to flip over on landing—he lined up for the difficult manoeuvre. With the engine now completely cut off, he tipped the plane to the back, ensuring the rear wheel hit first, and let it glide to the landing. For someone who lacked experience, as he knew the entire Jagdgeschwader thought about him despite his sixty-two combat missions before this one, he managed the landing perfectly. As soon as the plane stopped, he pushed the cockpit back, booby trapped the aircraft, jumped out, and ran to the woods. Once under the trees, he looked for a place where he could bury down until the Soviet search was over. However, not hearing any activity in his direction, he ran as far as possible from the plane. He hesitated between hiding in the ground or in the canopy of the large oak trees that formed the forest. He opted for the second solution. He picked the biggest tree he could find and expertly climbed it almost to the very top. From there, he could not see the ground, and he figured that the people on the ground could not see him either. He tied himself up to the branch, made himself comfortable, ensured his 9-mm Browning was readily accessible and waited. He had clocked exactly twenty-six minutes when he heard the explosion. They had found the plane, and whoever had stepped into it was dead. He waited another thirty seconds, and the second trigger went off generating a much larger explosion that engulfed the plane in flames and killed any Bolshevik who had been too curious. It took more than an hour for the search party to reach the place where he was. Not once did they think of looking up. They were looking for him on the forest floor. Once they had passed and night had arrived, he climbed down from his hiding place and started walking west towards the German lines. It was not a long walk, at most 20 km. He managed it in record time and reached the German outpost just before dawn without running into a single enemy soldier. Now he faced the really tricky part: being recognised and not being shot at. He remembered from military history how the Confederate General Stonewall Jackson had been shot and eventually killed by his own troops in a similar situation. He hid behind a natural berm and yelled in German to the soldiers in the observation post. Rather quickly, they understood the situation—clearly it had happened before—and agreed to hold their fire. Within fifteen minutes, he was in the regimental headquarters and soon was back on his way aboard a Bf-110 to the Balti airfield. The Deutsche Wochenschau news crew was already waiting for him, and their report that week made an Aryan hero out of the impudent Heydrich who had refused to obey orders—but this was never mentioned. For his efforts, the Führer awarded Heydrich the Frontflugspange (Front Pilot Badge) in silver but made him swear that he would never again fly a combat mission. As for Captain Dudeck, he was reprimanded for not accompanying the careless pilot over enemy lines, and it delayed him receiving the Gold Iron Cross by eighteen months. This was a light price to pay compared to what could have happened.

CHAPTER 1

On the Run

I AM A former army officer, the CEO of a technology and real estate conglomerate, and I am on the run. My fate was sealed the day I met Joop Harde. Of course, at that time, I could not know how it would turn out. He was an elderly gentleman, a Dutchman living in Monaco, in one of the most exclusive villas in the Principality. He was also a powerful businessman, with interests in multiple global corporations. You could never have guessed he was one of the wealthiest persons in the world. He organised many parties I attended. There, I met congressmen, senators, Peers, other CEOs, and even the Prince of Monaco. It was at one of these events, about two years after I had met him that he mentioned the idea of entering into a bilateral contract. One of our subsidiaries located in Ventimiglia, in Italy, was developing a means to recognise employees at classified sites through an advanced nanobot DNA analysis. Joop was shockingly well informed on what was going on in my company and had suggested he could help reduce the seconds to a more manageable timeframe.

As a result of this meeting, I am currently in a country I do not like, a country I would never choose on my own accord. Brazil. They tell me women are beautiful there, and that the sun is always shining, and that the sea is unequalled. Everywhere I go, the only thing I see is poverty, people without hope, and people who don’t care. I cannot find any beauty in this purgatory. Not a single person cares about his neighbours. And I am not close to the sea. I entered the country on a fake passport. I am now an English citizen. I changed my name to Andrew Brown, born in London—not that anyone gives a fuck. My assets have been seized—or at least this is what the French criminal police think. I had always planned for the possibility of disaster—the going from riches to rags cliché. When you have the Russian government as your nemesis, you tend to plan like Trotsky. Over the years, I had spread a significant part of my fortune in multiple banks from Macao to Antigua via Guernsey and Panama. It was a wise move. I had also purchased multiple identities, including everything one needs to travel with: passports, credit cards, driver’s licences, and several membership cards to airline frequent flyer programmes or rental car companies. If I were another man, any other man, I would be happy to disappear in one of these fiscal paradises and take it easy for the rest of my life. I have money, I have real estate in several countries, and I would hide there. Unfortunately, I am wanted for genocide, and there is an international arrest warrant issued by The Hague Tribunal. This warrant has my real name on it: Max Foreman. So, I cannot even come close to one of these fiscal paradises. I cannot go near one of my houses, and I certainly cannot find refuge amongst the jet set. The moment I made the headlines, my jet set friends all jettisoned me in horror. And fiscal paradises are the first places where Interpol would look for me. As it is, I am renting a place on the fourth floor of a shitty building—by my standards—in Penha, a popular district of Sao Paulo on a nondescript street. I no longer wear Armani or Saville Row tailored suits. These days, my clothes are a pair of used blue jeans, a questionable polo shirt, and a set of worn no-brand running shoes. I have not shaved or combed my hair in days, and anyone looking for the glamorous Max Foreman, the owner of the super yachts Princess of Russia, and Alabaster, would never be able to identify him in the anonymous crowd of Sao Paulo. I try to fit in. It is not easy. Even under these nasty clothes, I have a hard time hiding who I am, a highly educated businessman with the manners and the tastes of a wealthy aristocrat.

Interpol will never look for me here. It is simply out of character for me and especially for them. They are not in a hurry. Sooner or later, I will have to surface. I will not resist going to the opera, or to a good restaurant, and they will be waiting for me. Or one day, I will get sick, and will have to visit a doctor, or a hospital. If I could stay buried in the dreadfulness of my current life, they would never catch me, but I can’t do that. I used to look down on people who owned Ferraris—they are so common. Now, I ride the crowded municipal buses of Sao Paulo filled with the sweaty masses of the city. This is how I travelled to the Formula One Grand Prix. This is the only event I decided to attend, and I watched my back during the entire race. I used to own one of the teams. Now, I don’t even own a car. I used the exclusive American Express Centurion credit card, now the only credit cards I use are prepaid credit cards I buy for cash in some sordid store run by an Indian crime family. I am relying on my bank account at Banco Sul America in Sao Paulo. This is where Andrew Brown had opened his account several years before. A smart man he was. I cannot move money around from any of my secret accounts without taking the chance of revealing where I am, but at the rate I am spending money, the amount in Banco Sul America will last me a lifetime and more. A million dollars can last over eighty-three years when you spend only $1,000 per month. This is what I used to spend on an hourly basis. . .

I am not sure why I am being hunted down for genocide. Joop Harde is now dead, and all of his main associates have scattered, have been apprehended, and in many cases jailed, from what the papers reported. If you know how slowly The Hague Court works, you know I have been on the run for a long time. They must figure that since I knew Joop, I am guilty by association. The fact is that I provided him the technology that led to the ‘catastrophe’, as they call it. It is also true that nanobots are invisible and that they can go rogue, and that I could not be responsible for that. There is no way to stop them if they are infected by a virus and if we lose control of them. The Hague tribunal conveniently disregarded any such explanations and judged all Joop Harde’s associates without considering we exist in the world of technology and of killer robots. The judges could not understand that. And they were too happy to send people to jail. If you had contact with the nanobots—the experts had to spend two days to explain the judges what they are and what they can do—then you were guilty. Aristotle had already demonstrated that you cannot prove your innocence if you are accused of a crime you did not commit. The Hague tribunal had demonstrated that again, seventeen times over. All seventeen of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to between ten years and life in prison—of course in Holland, life in prison meant a maximum of twenty some years.

I have never been to a Dutch jail, but even a rundown flat in Sao Paulo has to be better than a Dutch jail. So, I will keep running. As far as I know, Interpol has lost track of me. They know I am somewhere between the Southern border of the United States and Tierra del Fuego. But this is a rather large territory, and when one uses prepaid credit cards and disposable cell phones, one is pretty safe. I never go places where Interpol may be waiting for me, or where I could be recognised. The Ocean Club is out of the question. I am banned for life. So is Restaurant Fasano, here in Sao Paulo. I do not have a girlfriend. First, I only speak necessary Portuguese, and second, I cannot see myself with one of the women around here, most of whom have less than a high school education. Chantal, the woman who had been my girlfriend when the genocide scandal came out, stayed in Monaco. Because I had to disappear and life could never be what it used to be, I left her behind. Plus, I was bored by her being horrified at the thought that the allegations might be true. It came to a split-second decision. I have not seen her or heard from her or of her in six years. I have not heard of the other woman in my life either. Zarita is in jail at The Hague—she was heavily involved in nanobot research. She wanted to come with me, but I thought that a fugitive is more likely to succeed without company. I wrote her a short letter, with the promise I would find her again when I could. I fantasise about our moments of intimacy on the beaches of Crimea, or about our trips around the world. I also think of my former wife, Lena, murdered by the Russian mafia, and some days, I get depressed. If she had lived, I would never have ended up with Joop Harde. On the other hand, if one believes in destiny, there would have been Joop Harde in my life regardless. And yes, the one I miss most is Zarita.

Joop somehow managed to sail through all of it. His legacy was to turn me into a fugitive. One day, as we were celebrating our successful business, he had stated that if he had had a son, he would have liked him to be just like me. Well, he has had his wish: I am just like Joop. Yet, he was able to be unbothered, to continue having a very public life, and run several multinationals. His crimes have been far worse than mine. He clearly meant to commit genocide. I did not even know about it. For me, the immediate effect of the charge was that I had lost my most prized possession, the Princess of Russia. The super yacht had been Lena’s gift, a magnificent floating palace worth over $60 million. In the main salon, after her death, I had installed the skeleton of a velociraptor I had purchased from Christie’s on the Boulevard du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. It has probably been auctioned off again. But what I could never replace was Lena’s ashes. They were in an antique yellow and white Meissen China urn I had acquired for that purpose. The urn had been on display on the fireplace mantel. Now, they were lost to me forever, and I dared hope that whoever owned the boat now had realised they were ashes and that they had not unceremoniously emptied the urn in some toilet. It would have been better if I had had the courage to throw it overboard the evening everything unravelled when it became obvious I had to flee. At least Lena would have had a sea burial. But all this shit had happened much too quickly for rational thinking.

CHAPTER 2

Meeting with Joop

T HE MEETING HAD been set weeks in advance. It had not been an easy matter to get the two men together in the same room, as their busy schedules reflected their respective power and stature. The price of that power was that they had no personal time. It had been decided that they would meet in neutral territory. To this end, the meeting had been arranged at the most exclusive Salon Privé of the Louis XV Restaurant. In the Salon, the waiters entered only if summoned by the occupants—it was a salon where couples could have sex while having lunch if they so wished. There was perfect privacy, especially since an electronics countermeasures team of the Pessinus Corporation had swept the room for bugs the morning of the meeting and had left behind two bodyguards to ensure new bugs could not be implanted. Every object that had entered the room after the initial sweep had been swept as well. The Hotel de Paris management had protested our actions, but a well-placed cash contribution had put an end to their lack of enthusiasm. The lunch menu had been left to the discretion of Alain Ducasse, the well-known chef who presided over the Louis XV. This was done to avoid the awkward moments needed to select and order from the menu. It was paramount that the two men be unencumbered by trivial issues. Max Foreman, an industry magnate through his marriage with Lena, the legendary Russian beauty who had been tragically murdered, was the chairman of the board and CEO of the Pessinus Corporation. This was a massive and private multinational that had holdings in every region of the world. It was unknown from the public and did not market any products under the Pessinus name bar one which was the topic of the agenda. Thus, although the highly successful RMC Formula One team was owned and sponsored by Pessinus under the name of one of its subsidiaries, there was no obvious link between it and Pessinus. It had been agreed through their PR offices that Joop would arrive first, as he was the instigator of the meeting, and that Max would join him five minutes later. Their luxury cars were negligently left to the hotel valets to be parked, while tourists watched and took pictures and wondered who the people were.

‘I have been wanting to meet you for a long time, Mr Foreman,’ Joop started. ‘However, our schedules and activities are not always kind to us.’

The meeting certainly was starting on a cordial note. They made small talk, learning how to deal with each other, and Joop congratulated Max on the recent success of his Formula 1 team that had won the last five races.

‘Oh, yes,’ replied Max, ‘this is one of my passions. I wish I could go to the track more often as well. But, as the French say, on ne peut pas être à la foire et au moulin.’

While enjoying the San Remo gamberoni with a bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet, Joop approached the subject of their meeting: ‘There are technological advances that are being made in nanotechnology that I should wish to discuss with you. Not only because of the technology but because of the human impact they can have. I have always preferred technologies that are refined, technologies that truly separate us from cavemen, and set us apart from the vulgarity of the brutal masses. This is why I am interested in a venture with a company that does work at the atomic level. In a sense, nanotechnology is eminently human, since our bodies actually use a similar technology to build our own organisms. The ribosomes build us one cell at the time. If I understand it correctly, the fundamental rule of nanotechnology is self-replication. Of course, it is a self-replication that must be controlled, because if it were not, in fact we could trigger the consumption of all organic matter and end life on earth.’

‘You are absolutely correct on all counts, Mr Harde’—it would be a few days later that the two men would switch to calling each other by their first names.

‘While we currently have a line of solar cells that build themselves,’ continued Joop, ‘we also have devices that are used to assist internal medicine. But lately, we have been working on the idea to develop a different type of nanobots, nanobots that could control human behaviour. This is why I wanted to have this meeting. I know you are far more advanced in this field than we are, and I believe we could greatly benefit from your knowledge. What is your view, Mr Foreman?’

‘Yes, as engineers, we know that the human factor to be most unreliable component in any system. Actually, I should rephrase this: they are highly reliable in the sense that whatever human we entrust a task to, he or she will fail us at some point in time. Without prying into your successful endeavours, if I refer to your recent setbacks in Congo, you have faced such challenges and you are familiar with the situations I refer to.’

‘I agree with you’, replied Joop. ‘We have subsequently abandoned all of our central African operations because the situation had become so explosive that we preferred to have an orderly withdrawal that a chaotic disaster.’

‘Now, continuing on your idea, let’s imagine for a moment that our nanobots can build machines to control this. Let’s assume they can modify the violent elements in a society and basically allow business to run in an orderly and profitable manner. Would you say this is the idea you are pursuing?’

‘Mr Foreman, this would be exactly it. This is precisely why I wanted to have this meeting. What are the measures you are taking to do that? We are struggling to come to an acceptable solution that would allow us to re-establish a semblance of civility in the entire region, and in other places as well.’

‘Well, Mr Harde, this is not exactly what we do, but what we do can be adapted to your purpose. Have you been to Ventimiglia lately? If you have, you might have seen our brand new nanotechnology facility on top of San Giacomo. It develops some of our most classified products that I believe the armed forces would pay dearly for. Secrecy is strictly enforced and no information is ever allowed out. Yet, if you go there, you will not find a single sign to keep people out. We have no guards patrolling the area, and there is no obvious physical security system. The reason is that the place is under the protection of our nanobots. The facial recognition software we use to identify and grant access to our employees can detect any intruder. If an intruder is attempting to enter, this event triggers a nanobot intervention. We have billions of these things floating around the premises. It is called a fog in technical terms. They are programmed to go after the intruder. How do they control that person? They immediately build an opaque layer over his eyes, and in less time than it takes to say it, the intruder’s eyesight is greatly degraded—the opacity of the film can be made to basically deprive the person of eyesight, and this would be extremely useful in military operations. If this is not enough to discourage them, we have another team of nanobots that enters the inner ear and disrupts their balance. So in a matter of seconds, you have an intruder that is both sight-impaired and who is incapable of maintaining his balance. In fact, the discomfort is so extreme that they can only lie down and pray for their torment to stop. You achieve total disablement in seconds.’

‘That is excellent! I am sure that the intruder must be completely panicked!’

‘Indeed, panicked and begging for mercy. They have no idea what is going on at all. This has happened a few times already: we had a team of industrial spies who tried to break in about three months ago. Our plant security guys simply picked them up, put them in the back of a car, and drove them off to our interrogation facility. A year ago, we had a disgruntled employee who tried to break in with a friend. Since he was aware of the protection, he put on underwater-diving goggles, and earmuffs to prevent the nanobots from entering. Well, he forgot one thing: nano means a billionth of a metre. Of course, when you dive, the water molecules are much bigger, and the water pressure creates a perfect seal. But when you are talking about a single atom and a seal at atmospheric pressure. . . There was no protection. It was rather entertaining in fact. The beauty of it is that the nanobots are dormant. They can be dormant for years. Yet, when they are triggered, they respond and build the device they were programmed to build very quickly. My proposal is that if we can build this, we can build anything that will control any human behaviour that requires negative rewards.’

Max stopped so that he could eat as well.

‘Our security systems branch has also developed a means to recognise employees at classified sites through an advanced nanobot DNA analysis. This removes the need to issue RFID cards and ensures a much higher level of security, since only authorised and recognised personnel can enter the facility. RFID cards can be faked, DNA cannot. It is rather simple. The person enters an airlock. Nanobots penetrate the person’s nose and within seconds are able to sample the DNA of the person to a computer that verifies the identity against the database. If there is a match the inner door of the airlock opens, and the persons is allowed in the facility. If there is no match, the outer door reopens, and the person is asked to step out via a pre-recorded message. The computers never make a mistake. After hundreds of thousands of tests, there has not been a single system error. The problem is that it takes ‘seconds’ to identify the person. Actually, our biggest challenge is that it takes seconds to trigger the nanobots’ results. My understanding is that your firm had developed algorithms that could help reduce the seconds to a more manageable timeframe.’

‘Indeed, we could accelerate the results of your technology, Mr Foreman. We could also use your technology to actually disable individuals either temporarily or permanently. Because we could just as easily clog somebody’s arteries, or have the nanobots disintegrate his heart since nanobots consume carbon. Your nanobots are a perfect murder weapon. In fact, they are such a perfect weapon