The second memory

The second memory is a novel by Ken Follett . The original title is Code to Zero and was published in 2000 in the original and 2001 in German. In 2001 it was number 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list for a week .

content

The agent thriller takes place in the last three days of January 1958. The US Air Force is trying to catch up with the United States' lagging behind the space activities of the Soviet Union , which in 1957 succeeded in sending the first satellite into orbit with the Sputnik . All hopes are on the new Explorer rocket. The main character, Dr. Claude “Luke” Lucas, wakes up in the men's room at Union Station in Washington DC He's lost his memory. Bit by bit he has to reconstruct his biography and fathom his role and that of his (supposed) friends in connection with the US space program.

construction

The novel consists of 6 parts, which are again divided into individual chapters, and an epilogue set in 1969. The chapters are in chronological order. The time is given at the beginning of each chapter. The chapters also begin with brief basic information on the Explorer rocket. There are also 6 inserted flashbacks to the years 1941, 1943, 1945, 1954.

Plot (detail)

First part (5.00 a.m. - 8.30 a.m.)

Luke wakes up as a homeless man with no memory in a Union Station men's room in Washington DC. His supposed homeless friend Pete tells him his name and says he just drank too much. Luke finds out that he can solve crosswords, for example, without any problems. He no longer believes Pete's story and breaks up with him with the intention of finding out more about himself. Luke notices that he is being followed and approaches one of the men to find out something about himself. He fails, but he can outrun the tailors. Billie Josephson - a friend from Luke's student days - is called by Bern Rothsten, her ex-husband and father of their son, who tells her that Luke has disappeared. Pete, who is actually Luke's tailor, comes to Anthony - the head of technical services at the CIA who ordered the observation - and tells him that they have lost sight of Luke. In a flashback to 1941, the novel's central characters - Anthony, Luke, Elspeth, Billie and Bern - are introduced as Harvard students. Luke has to drive Billie - Anthony's girlfriend - to an acquaintance so that she is not noticed by the dormitory attendant. They come closer.

Second part (9.00 a.m. - 3.45 p.m.)

After Luke realizes that he can disarm and neutralize a cop, he is sure that he is not a normal bum. A prostitute advises him to get decent clothes. He decides to steal a suitcase in Union Station and breaks into a nearby car that he wants to use to escape. This and the ability to speak French amazes him. Luke breaks into a house with the stolen suitcase and changes his clothes. To find out what specialty he has, Luke goes to the library and finds out he's a rocket scientist. When he goes to Georgetown University to find other rocket scientists, he learns of an expert meeting at the Smithsonian Museum . There Luke meets a scientist who knows him. Meanwhile, Anthony takes part in the investigation into Luke's break-in and learns the license plate number of his stolen car. Dr. Billie Josephson, who is a doctor at Georgetown Mental Hospital, doesn't understand why a colleague Len Ross has been elected director of research at the Mental Hospital instead, and asks Anthony, who sits on the decision-making committee. She learns from Joseph Bellow, a schizophrenic patient who was admitted to the clinic the previous evening, treated and already discharged. In 1941 Luke falls in love with Billie, which he tries to confess to Elspeth, his girlfriend at the time. Since Billie was seen in the male student dormitory, she and Luke, Elspeth, and Anthony are cited as student dean on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack . Because Luke is in love with her, he signs up for military service to prevent her de-registration process. Elspeth then slaps him because she is jealous of Billie.

Third part (4.15 p.m. - midnight)

Luke learns from a young scientist that he is Dr. Claude Lucas is called and is a missile specialist. His team wants to launch an American satellite for the first time. When he calls Cape Canaveral , he learns details about his life from Elspeth, his wife. He also finds out that he had an appointment with General Sherwood at the Pentagon on the day he lost his memory. However, he did not appear there. Luke meets with Billie and learns he has incurable global amnesia . She also finds out that the amnesia was not caused naturally. Billie concludes that Len was promised the post of research director and therefore approved treatment. The data of the patient admitted the previous day agree with Luke, so that Billie suspects that Luke was this patient. Anthony later tells Billie on the phone that Luke is a spy for Moscow and that he has therefore allowed Moscow to be brainwashed to protect him. Since Luke has lost his memory, he is not sure if this is true, but Bern is sure it is wrong. He himself was once a communist and it was Luke who stopped him from becoming a Soviet spy. When Luke goes to his hotel room at the Carlton to find out more about himself, he realizes that he is being followed by Anthony and that Anthony is carrying a gun. Luke overwhelms him and is able to escape. Anthony fires three shots at him but does not hit Luke. Then Luke drives to Billie and tells her about it. The two try to convince Colonel Lopez of Anthony's conspiracy. In the meantime, Anthony has removed all evidence from the mental hospital and persuaded the head of security for the army in Cape Canaveral that Luke was insane.

Fourth part (1.00 a.m. - 8.00 a.m.)

Luke and Billie go to Luke's hotel room again and learn from Luke's secretary Marigold on the phone that he had wanted to go to DC unnoticed. When Luke and Billie are eating at a diner, Billie tells him he hasn't spoken to her for five years because she aborted his child. Luke plans to fly to Huntsville , where he made a stop on the way to Washington. Bern approaches the two with a flight plan and says that he has been followed. In order to outrun the pursuers who are after Luke, Bern and Luke swap clothes and get rid of Anthony. However, this kidnaps Billie's son Larry and orders Billie to the Jefferson Memorial to find out Luke's whereabouts. She takes a gun with her. When he arrives at the memorial, Billie goes into Anthony's blackmail and says that Luke wants to go to Huntsville. When Anthony doesn't stick to the deal, she knocks him down and threatens him with a gun. She travels after Luke to warn him after she has put Larry up near Bern.

Fifth part (10.45 a.m. - 1.30 a.m.)

Luke, who is back in Huntsville, learns from Marigold that he had a folder the last time he went there, and believes that this folder is the secret that Anthony wanted him to forget. Anthony waits for him at Luke's home in Huntsville to kill him after learning from Marigold that he would appear there to look for something. Pete discovers Billie at the airport and is supposed to get her away. He decides to lure her with a fake phone call from a phone booth far away from Huntsville. Elspeth calls Anthony and tells him about the folder, whereupon he decides to keep Luke alive until he has led him to the folder. He then leaves the house when Luke arrives. Luke searches his house for the folder, whereupon he finds the letter from a doctor, which says that Elspeth has undergone a tube ligation . He, who has always wanted children, realizes that their entire marriage is based on a lie. Then he drives to the computing laboratory where he cannot find anything and then to the construction building, where he finds the folder he is looking for. He opens it and finds blueprints showing the missile's self-destruct mechanism. When he tries to call Cape Canaveral, Anthony stops him from doing his job by threatening him with a gun. He wants to shoot Luke, but Billie stops him when she appears with Marigold and also threatens him with a gun. Finally, Anthony takes flight and Luke manages to prevent the rocket launch at the last second. He speaks to Colonel Hide and tells him the whole story. He says he is warning the secret service about Anthony and alerting the police to Theo Packman. Luke thinks that Elspeth addressed the folder to the same Theo. Anthony, however, warns Elspeth, whereupon she can save Theo from the police. Then Anthony shoots Pete, who is tasked with bringing him back to Washington. Luke and Billie take the train to Cape Canaveral, talk about their relationship, and sleep together.

Sixth part (8.30 a.m. - 10.48 p.m.)

After the first failed attempt, Anthony and Elspeth only have one option to sabotage the rocket. To do this, they have to get to the new connectors for the missile's self-destruct signal. Elspeth finds out that the plugs are in the safe in Colonel Hide's office and gets the combination. At the moment when she tries to sneak into his office to get the plug, she meets Luke. The latter confronts her with her tubal ligature, which he correctly suspects that the KGB forced her to do so, and Elspeth confesses to him that she works for the Soviet Union. Luke agrees not to report her on the condition that she leave the country immediately and go to Moscow . Using the pretext to go to the bathroom, Elspeth sneaks into Colonel Hides' office and steals the plugs. Luke learns from Billie that Elspeth did not go to the motel as agreed with Luke, but went to the beach. Luke realizes the betrayal and they drive to the beach with Billie. There they succeed in rendering Anthony and Theo harmless and preventing the rocket from exploding at the last second. Elspeth commits suicide by swimming out to sea.

Epilogue (1969)

Luke and Billie now live together and have three children together. On the evening of July 20, they followed the moon landing together on television.

particularities

Each part begins with a picture in which, on the one hand, a photo of a man is gradually completed and objects that occur in this part are shown. The picture that introduces the second part shows a snippet of map of Washington, DC in which several buildings ( United States Holocaust Memorial Museum , Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , National Air and Space Museum , National Museum of African Art , Arthur M. Sackler Gallery ), which did not exist at the time of the action.

literature

Ken Follett, The Second Memory , 2003, ISBN 3-404-14911-4 .