Excerpt

The smell of pine trees mingled with the sultry city air of Cologne. It drifted over from the vertical forest two street corners away. Emma set foot on the grass pavement outside the courthouse. It was the first step into a better world––one of those days after which nothing was ever the same again. One of those days when it was a luxury to just close your eyes for five seconds, breathe and simply exist.

The voices grew louder, someone shouted, TV drones buzzed in. The media interest was enormous. No wonder. The screen of the first drone lit up and a video image of a black man in his mid-forties, Kahin Elmi from EuroNews, appeared.
“Emma, how nice to see you!”
The red light on the camera drone was on. She was live on air.
“Can you tell us something about the court order?”
Emma had rehearsed her little speech in her head umpteen times, since she had agreed to be the spokesperson for the Citizens‘ Council. No mistakes now, she told herself. “Kahin, I am pleased to see you and to report that the court has confirmed the Citizens‘ Council’s proposal. It has decided: the private assets of the super-rich will be socialised, effective immediately.”
The crowd fell silent. Camera drones from various media organisations hung at chest height in the air. Their buzzing was the only noise for some five seconds, in which the world seemed to stand still. Emma caught sight of a movement though, an elderly woman at the edge of the crowd pushing a clunky old e-bike and grinning at Emma.
Emma nodded, letting the news sink in for a few seconds. “As we speak, all accounts with private assets over ten million euros have already been frozen. You can find a list online with the organisations that are to be entrusted with the funds. The same applies to the joint research by our Citizens‘ Council, the white-collar crime department of the BKA in Wiesbaden and the investigative journalists of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. This work has enabled us to compile a detailed list of the assets, which will now help us implement the measures.”
If a suspicious number of super-rich people suddenly hurried to move assets to Korea or Mongolia, the number of possible traitors was small: 18 people in total. Eleven of them belonged to the Citizens‘ Council, which had submitted the proposal four weeks ago. The others belonged to the BKA or the editorial team of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. And they all had signed a non-disclosure agreement. Emma was curious to see how much money would actually flow into the treasury within a week. A few billions for sure.
“But the people whose assets are being frozen weren’t all criminals!” shouted someone from the crowd.
“I didn’t say that. The Federal Criminal Police Office’s white-collar crime department is involved only because they already have the best information on the relevant accounts and cash flow.”
This didn’t seem to satisfy the questioner. “And that’s why all the rich are now being criminalised?”
“They are not being criminalised. Their assets are being socialised. We are only talking about the super-rich who have over ten million euros in their private accounts. We are not talking about well-off citizens. Only those funds that exceed ten million euros will be frozen. If you have ten million and one euro, then the measure only affects only the one euro which exceeds the threshold. The one euro would now go into the pot that will be divided among various organisations. These include hospitals, social organisations and state educational institutions such as hospitals, kindergartens and also some state universities without rich patrons. As I said, you can already find the full list online.”
A murmur went through the crowd. Kahin Elmi spoke up: “That … is a big step.”
Even though Emma only saw and heard him via the small monitor and the video drone’s squawking loudspeaker, she felt how moved he was.
“You’ve made history today, Emma Johannsen.”