Herr Vogel looked overwhelmed by that mouthful. He thought a moment, then uttered the most dreaded words in Germany: “Do you have an appointment?”
“No,” replied Brodie. “We do not make appointments. We make visits.” He added, “This is an urgent matter.”
Vogel nodded. “One moment.” He picked up his phone and dialed someone. He had a brief conversation in German, then set the phone down. “Can I see your identifications please?”
All three passed their cred cases to Vogel, who read the names to whoever was on the other end of the line. Then he waited in silence with the phone to his ear.
Brodie noticed that the other two security guards, a woman in herthirties and a man in his fifties, were watching their colleague. The older man, whose badge identified him as “Weber,” asked them, “Why are you not accompanied by German law enforcement?”
Kim replied, “The FBI is the chief American law enforcement liaison to the Bundeskriminalamt. Our agents regularly conduct interviews and other inquiries without the accompaniment of German law enforcement, particularly when gathering information from cooperative individuals who are neither suspects nor persons of interest in our investigations.”
Was that bullshit? Probably. But it sounded good.
Herr Weber did not seem completely satisfied with that answer but seemed disinclined to press it further.
Vogel finished his phone conversation, hung up, and said, “Mr. Granger is not in his office today. However, one of the executive assistants is coming down to speak with you.” He gestured to a seating area. “Please sit.”
Brodie said, “We would also like to speak with Dr. Reinhard Dorn.”
“You may relay this request to the individual from the executive office.” Vogel gestured again to the armchairs.
They walked over and sat on leather armchairs beneath a flowering cherry blossom tree, which was apparently genetically engineered to thrive in the German winter. Or it was made of plastic.
Brodie said, “They may be lying about Granger not being in. We will insist that the executive assistant take us to his office. Also, we will insist on seeing Dorn.”
Kim said, “We’re not getting past this lobby.”
“Visualize success, David.”
“They’re going to call whoever they know at the BKA, and then they will call bullshit on us. In fact”—he pointed to the front entrance—“there’s a better chance of armed federal agents coming through that door than anyone from Dorn’s office coming down to see us.”
“We are going up to the executive suites. One way or the other.”
Taylor agreed, “I’ve never been given the boot by an executive assistant.”
Kim had no response but was probably thinking that the Army CID was more Army than CID.
Brodie focused on a large flat-screen TV hanging in the lobby, which wasshowing a PR video about Titan Genetics. A montage of various microorganisms under high magnification was intercut with lab technicians at work, and the English closed captioning read:“Titan Genetics is an industry-leading pioneer in the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing protocol. With this groundbreaking technology, individual segments of the genome can be altered, augmented, or excised with unprecedented precision and scalability. The applications for this technology are as infinite as the human imagination, and have allowed Titan Genetics to produce safe, affordable, and resilient agricultural products to serve our growing and interconnected world.”
The video continued, talking about fighting world hunger with disease-resistant crops, and lauding the environmental sustainability of their methods.
Brodie tried not to be too judgmental of things he didn’t understand—and he definitely didn’t understand this shit—but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t give him the creeps. He’d seen enough of what his fellow human beings were capable of to feel uneasy about them holding the keys to Creation.
David Kim, who was also watching the video and must have been thinking along the same lines, said, “This technology feels both inevitable and terrifying.”
“Nothing is inevitable,” said Brodie. “It just feels that way after we all let it happen.”
Kim shook his head. “The only thing that stops human progress is human catastrophe.” He gestured to the TV. “So, it’s either this creepy shit, or blight, famine, and another dark age.”
Well, that was a bummer. Brodie thought back to the bizarre machine he had observed at Hyperion Lab, and the kind of power it represented. Almost a century ago scientists split the atom, and it changed the world, with mixed results. Now they were splitting and rebuilding genes. He had a feeling the effects of that would be at least as profound.
Brodie’s thoughts were interrupted as a fifty-something blond woman in a tan business suit approached them. She smiled and said, “Hello. I am Ida Zimmermann, executive assistant to Dr. Reinhard Dorn. I was told you wished to speak with one of our board members.”
Frau Zimmermann was well put-together and had icy blue eyes and akind of husky voice. Brodie, Taylor, and Kim stood, and Brodie said to her, “Thank you for coming down. We were hoping to speak with our compatriot Charles Granger about a case we are investigating.”
Zimmermann nodded. “Unfortunately, he is not in the building. Our board members rarely are when there is not official business.”
“In that case, we would like to speak with your boss, Dr. Dorn.”
