Free The Tenth Witness (Henri Poincare Mystery) by Leonard Rosen Page B

now,” said Kraus. “You two go along—upstairs. Get cleaned up for dinner.”
    Schmidt raised his arm and said, “Hupt.” The children ran and the dogs followed.
    We stood by the tables with the computers. Kraus picked up his magnifying glass once more and inspected the connectors on the circuit board. “Viktor, I was just explaining our plans for salvaging computers.”
    “Well, I suffered enough for those damned things in Hong Kong. What do you think, Henri? It’s a good plan, don’t you think? The success of this project turns as much on an understanding of human nature as on the salvaging process. People will throw away their old computers for new ones. If they do, we’ll have an inexhaustible supply of valuable junk. Brilliant. Anselm is brilliant.”
    I hadn’t known about the gold and platinum connectors. If it was true and the computers could be salvaged at scale, tons per month, the plan was indeed shrewd. I said so, and Anselm looked pleased.
    “Good,” he said, “because I want you to develop a process for reclaiming value off the circuit boards. I’ll give you a workspace here in Munich and an open checkbook. Order whatever equipment you need. I’ll pay you well for your time, and at the end of this enterprise I want a report telling me exactly what steps are needed to deliver gold, platinum, palladium, and the rest. Whatever will sell on the secondary markets.”
    Kraus opened a drawer and removed four glass vials. “This one’s gold,” he said, placing the first vial on the desk. “This one is platinum. Here’s silver, and finally palladium.” He gave me that same appraising look. “I bought these last week, two troy ounces apiece. In five years there will be hills of computer junk; in ten, small mountains; in fifteen, Himalayas. I need a process for extracting value at scale. You built a damned fine dive platform. I’m confident you can do this.”
    I wasn’t. “I’m no chemist,” I said.
    He had invited me to a job interview I’d never sought. In fact, it felt more like an anointment than an interview because Anselm had made up his mind. Something, I realized, had been decided about my fate while I was away in Paris and Hong Kong.
    “I don’t really care about the particulars of what you studied, Henri. I bet on people. You’ve got a technical background, and your platform is all the proof I need that you can see a project through. I’m confident you can deliver.”
    “A process,” I said. “You need a chemical process for isolating precious metals.”
    “I’ll pay you well. The job will keep you in the neighborhood for the summer, at least. Then, who knows?”
    I wanted to make sure he understood. “I took exactly one seminar in chemistry.”
    “We know,” said Schmidt. “We checked your course roster at Écoles des Mines. If chemistry isn’t your core competency, you can learn it. Look, you made it into that university, so you’ve got brains. We know you’re ambitious. And your great-grandfather was Jules Henri Poincaré. You’ve got excellent bloodlines. We know all this and have made our decision. Do you realize who’s making the offer and what is being offered—what this could become, young man?”
    Kraus gave me no room to consider.
    “This plan will work if you can make the process regular, knowable, and manageable. That’s the thing. Discover a process that gives me measurable yields, that gives me thousands of these vials a year, and I will create a new subsidiary of Kraus Steel. Things lead to things, Henri. Small assignments become large ones. I’m in the business of placing bets on people, not on resumes.” He found the magnifying glass and bent over a circuit board. “And I’ve placed my bets. What do you say?”
    We heard a crash. On looking up I saw one of the men I met on Terschelling, Franz Hofmann, the old stringy one, standing beside a marble pedestal in pieces on the stone terrace. Schmidt and I followed Anselm outside.
    “Uncle