The Last Enemy - Parts 1,2 & 3 - 1934-2054

by Luca Luchesini

  Chapter 14

  Dora entered the room where Louis was trying to communicate with Helena. She was holding a tablet, as she had been doing for the past six weeks.

  "Dora, isn't it time to stop watching that?" Louis said, without even looking at her, "We are all trying to move forward. If only I could get this damn conference started..."

  Dora did not answer, she sat next to Louis and swiped her finger across the screen. A video of Valerio appeared. It was shot from his smartwatch. Valerio spoke with a soft voice, and in the blurred background behind him one could hardly recognize the columns of St.Peter's Square.

  "Louis, Tarek....and Dora, Helena....I have been hit. I do not know by whom..." Valerio tried to smile, but his face could only express pain. "I do not have much time left...I just wanted to let you know that my desire has been fulfilled.....to see history unfolding...and to see...."

  The camera turned up to the sky. Valerio's voice was drowned out by the noise of the helicopters, the shots, and the screams.

  "Dora, you have been watching that video repeatedly. What's the use of it? It won't bring Valerio back." Louis sighed. He had not yet come to terms with the loss. He had watched the video several times too, but he had now made a point to move forward. Dora instead kept watching it, as if she was in search of something.

  "He was trying to tell us something," Dora rebuffed, "you have not caught it and now you refuse to listen. I just keep my ears open."

  "I thought a long time about it....he is referring to the conversations we had back in the Nineties, at "Le Jardin" in Passoy...he had always hoped to find the hidden track that shapes history. He got right in the middle of it, and it was not a healthy idea at all."

  "We all know this. It's the missing piece after that we have to guess, Louis!"

  "The missing piece...the missing piece....he was dying, perhaps he wanted to repeat the first piece of the sentence, and...hang on! We got the communication with London up!"

  Helena appeared on the screen. The international lines were congested for weeks, so the system had scaled down from the holographic display to an old-style high-definition videoconference.

  "Hi Louis, I wish I were with you all down there in Brazil, but I have to be here. Markets have been going crazy for a while now, and Guillermo's friends are getting more and more nervous. They have more than two hundred billion dollars in legal assets that they do not know how to protect from the financial storm triggered by Rome."

  "Unlike Dora, Helena has overcome the loss of Valerio," Louis thought, "it was just two months ago, but it seemed like eternity." He briefly recapped the events in his mind.

  The Netherlands had fully legalized Telomerax, pushed by the emotion of the death of Kees Ortega, the anti-prohibition leader, in the Rome massacre. Many other European nations followed, opening a vast rift in the prohibition front led by the US.

  In the aftermath of the disaster, the center-right Italian government had resigned, and a new national unity coalition led by a revived Matteo Renzi had stepped in. Under strong pressure from both the far right and the far left, Mr. Renzi had suspended Italy's participation to all NATO activities until the US handed over all the military to the Italian justice, from the fleet commander to the crews of the Marines helicopters. The US had obviously refused, and the stalemate that followed put a big question mark on the stability of the Alliance.

  President Paul Moreno had then decided to put pressure on Italy from the financial side, using the Federal Reserve to persuade all major US funds and banks to stop buying Italian treasury bonds and securities.

  In a matter of days, the interest rates on Italian debt had skyrocketed and the risk of an Italian default had cast a shadow on all the Euro-denominated bond markets, putting Europe in the middle of a financial storm.

  "Helena, what’s the mood up there in London? Do you think the Italians will give up eventually?”

  “I don’t think so. Tomorrow the Italian government will try to raise at least ten billion dollars by selling bonds, if they fail they won’t be able to service their debt nor pay salaries to public employees. This will mean death to the euro, with trillions flying away from European markets. The problem is, no one really knows where they will end up.”

  “What do you mean?” Louis asked, “money cannot just disappear.”

  “Actually, yes it can,” Helena interrupted, “if you ditch Italian bonds, you are getting euros back, and a lot less than you paid for by the way. Then, you want to buy something else. But what? Dollars might be just as risky as euros, given the great performance of the US leadership. All other currencies and assets are one way or another linked to the dollar and the euro. It’s just like in 2008. Everybody believed in the value of real estate, until all of the sudden people realized the trust was misplaced.”

  “It’s a bit worse than 2008, Helena,” Dora burst, “this time it is not about the trust in the banks or in the real estate market. It’s about the trust in just about anything.”

  Helena paused then sighed.

  “You are right. If rumors from the trading floors here in the City are correct, there is going to be a big rush to buy assets linked to all kind of commodities, from oil to soybeans. This will automatically translate into huge inflation and further social and political commotion. We all better go live on a desert island for the next few years because it’s going to be horrible beyond imagination.”

  “It’s not easy to tell your teenager boy that he has to leave the life of Rio to relocate to some cast away spot,” Louis commented, “I think you have the same problem with Aurora, Helena, don’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but I thought about it and found a good solution. We are going to follow the example of Francis II, the new Pope, and move to Sardinia.”

  “Sardinia?” repeated Dora, glancing at Louis in disbelief.

  “Think about it,” Louis explained, “after the massacre of Rome, the Italian government could no longer guarantee the security of the Vatican. Soon, it will be the case of every major city on this planet. So the Church chose Sardinia as a temporary seat for the newly elected Pope - an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. It is big enough to be self-sufficient, yet small enough to control access to it, and within easy reach of all major European cities. I think it is worth looking into this idea of Helena.”

  “Indeed,” Helena was now smiling into the camera, “Believe me, the Italian government will be more than happy to host the owners of major agricultural and energy assets of Brazil. The move will also reduce our dependency on Yaakov and his Mossad friends.”

  After hearing this, Louis’ face turned pale.

  “Helena,” he said briskly, “Thanks for reminding me of the other reason for my call, beyond the financial situation update. We need to talk quite urgently to those guys, but in a safe place. I have the biogenetic simulations results to share with them. It’s quite serious.” Louis noticed that Helena’s attention had been caught by something on a screen close to her. He cleared his throat, and then asked “Helena, what are you looking at?”

  Helena glanced back from the lower left corner of the screen, and pointed at Dora and Louis again.

  “A safe place, you said? I do not know how many we are going to find.” Helena replied, “I am just reading the last piece of news from Reuters. Russia has pledged to fully underwrite Italy’s bond offer tomorrow, in exchange for access to some of Italy’s military bases in Sicily. You know what that means? NATO, game over.”

  “This makes me wonder if Italy is a good choice. Maybe we should hold on and think about leaving Brazil more carefully,” Dora said, trying to enter the conversation but she was met by the indifference of Helena and the embarrassment of Louis.

  “Well, we certainly don’t have to leave tomorrow,” Louis finally responded. He proceeded to try and make up a compromise. “I think we can wait for the kids to end their year in school…but the situation is changing rapidly, and we have to be ready..”

  In London, Helena cut the conversa
tion short, her face got closer to the camera and she lowered her voice,

  “Louis, Dora, I have to leave for a meeting now. I think it is a matter of when, not if. I will send you a detailed proposal by mail. Cheers,”

  The screen went black. Dora set her tablet aside on the desk and kept staring at the blank screen, then she whispered,

  “I know Helena and you have already made the decision to leave.”

  “Guillermo and Helena have been seriously thinking about it for a while, you know. They need to be in Europe. Liberalization is opening up enormous possibilities and it is still a relatively safe place to be. Now they are asking us to join.” Louis tried to contain his irritation.

  “Louis, I am fed up with this. Thirty years ago, we were planning to change the world for good. Then we had to flee and the world has started to change us instead. Now that I am achieving something here, in the favela, I have to flee again. I did not sign up for this.”

  “Look at the bright side, Dora.” Louis tried to be as calm and mild as possible, “Telomerax is becoming more and more accepted. True, very difficult times lie ahead for all of us, but we can weather the storm. The work you did for the hundreds of young favelados won’t be in vain. And we will be back here when it’s over.”

  “Will it ever be over, Louis? Will we see that day?”

  “I do not know, but we must hope so.”