Local time – 10:10pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
On the laptop screen, she saw the President patting the air down in front of him, asking the crowd for quiet. Eventually they gave it to him and he continued.
‘We of course don’t expect this to be a popular decision at first. But when you hear the reasons for this unprecedented cooperation, you may better understand why it has come about. Simply, if no one has nuclear weapons, we are all safer. It is very hard to negotiate with someone when they are holding a gun in your face. With fanatical terrorist groups threatening to use weapons of mass destruction for their own evil purposes, we are all better off without weapons which can be catastrophic if they fall into the wrong hands. If we are all to get along, and find peace, we need to commit to nuclear disarmament. And that is what we have done. With the help of the UN, there is not a country on earth that now has the power to wreck a peaceful relationship with the use of such an abominable technology as that of the nuclear weapon.’
This time cheering predominated; in fact Alex could see that for many of those present, this was the best news they had heard in years.
Santos seemed to be drawing vitality from the crowd. ‘This moves me to my second announcement,’ he went on. ‘One of the reasons for hostility between neighbours is the strain that homeless refugees put on countries ill-equipped for an influx of poverty stricken populations. With democratic revolutions sweeping the Middle East and natural disasters, whose frequency and severity from the effects of climate change have caused havoc for millions of lives across the earth, we now find ourselves facing humanitarian disasters on a scale unmanageable by traditional aid efforts. With many governments already struggling to cope with the effects of overpopulation within their own nations, it is not viable to expect these countries to stand alone and face the burden of caring for millions of homeless people. Rich nations like the United States cannot turn a blind eye to these issues any longer. Every child who dies in poverty is a loss to this world. I am here today to announce that the United States of America, along with every rich country in the Western World, will be starting a program of settlement for refugees from some of the poorest places on earth, in order to benefit all of our lives.
‘It is time to stop treating refugees like they are ill deserving of opportunity to live like us. This is why I have granted American working visas to 1.5 million refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Haiti, Rwanda and many small island states in the Pacific Ocean. Every other Western nation has also committed to take in their share of the world’s refugee population so that no child will be forced to grow up in a refugee camp, in a life of poverty and disadvantage.’
Alex expected the crowd’s reaction to be worse than the announcement of disarmament, but it appeared that, whether people were for or against this drastic policy action, they were too shocked to respond. Almost as if they couldn’t believe what the President was saying. Alex could scarcely believe it herself. The camp in Estonia. The camp in France. The UNHCR logo. She suddenly realised what was really going on. Since the President hadn’t been interrupted, as he expected to be, he went on.
‘These refugees will not be treated like second-class citizens. Nor will they be welfare dependent poor. We have a plan for these people, which we hope will give them the chance eventually to move back to their homelands, if that is possible and what they choose. You see, what all the countries on earth need right now is an army. Not an army of soldiers who travel to far away places to secure limitless energy resources, to keep the economies back home from grinding to a halt. We need armies at home, full of workers ready to launch the biggest working bee the world has ever seen.
‘Green energy is the only way we can possibly expect the human race to survive into the next millennium. For over ten years, the world’s scientists, the world’s experts, the world’s brightest minds, have been telling us that we are on the fast track to destruction. With CO2 levels constantly growing, the earth’s temperature is already increasing at an alarming rate. We cannot continue to rely on the coal in the ground, and the ever reducing oil in the earth, to power the lives that we have got so comfortable in. Apart from the knowledge that these resources are not limitless, the earth’s life is equally not limitless, if we don’t do something now to fix the mistakes of our past. Our refugee armies are going to build communities for themselves. Then, once they are trained and skilled to go to work, they will be the workforce that America, and every other nation on earth desperately needs.’
Alex remembered the email from Laura, with the notes on Patria and Winton. Bernie was writing an article about refugees. He must have known at least something of what Santos and the Bilderbergers were planning.
‘They will be building the wind farms, the solar panel fields and the water recycling plants that every city needs. Every American citizen will also have the chance to be involved in these new industries, and re-skill from traditional energy fields in order to help the new industries to set up and thrive. No one will be left behind. No one will rely on the state to pay their way. And with every country sharing their technology with their neighbours, we will find a way to maintain the lifestyles we all promised our children, without destroying the planet in the process.’
To show you how serious we are about this plan, and just how far we have already come, I have invited some special people onto the stage with me. These men are from the island of Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean. They have watched their nation’s landmass steadily reduce, and their home is one of the first islands to disappear due to rising sea levels caused by global warming. Six hundred displaced members of the Tuvalu nation are now living in a small town that they are helping build on the outskirts of this very city. They are going to help build wind farms in every suburb of this state.’
The President stopped again, and this time he looked visibly exhausted. He turned to the side of the stage, and all heads in the crowd did too. A row of men were walking towards the President, up the steps and across the stage, and as each filed past him, they shook his hand, before taking their place in rows across the stage behind him. They wore the same outfits Alex had seen the men wearing at the camp in France, in Henry’s photos. And the camp in Estonia. When the President had shaken the hands of over fifty men, he turned to the crowd and said, ‘Please join me in welcoming them’.
Just for a moment, Alex thought she detected hesitation in his face, as if a severe disappointment was creeping into his features. But then she realised he was just waiting for a reaction. And it quickly came. Like a wave, clapping started to ripple through the crowd. First there was cheering. Soon the crowd erupted in a jumping, screaming mass of hysterical congratulations. There were no doubt people slinking away who weren’t reacting like this, but those who were, filled the space with a contagious cry of joyous celebration.
Alex was so focused on the screen, she didn’t hear whatever it was that made the two agents in the car look back over their shoulders and then slide out of the vehicle. When she looked to see where they were going, she heard what they had, and saw a white van driving fast towards them. The Mossad agent on the transporter had jumped down, and now stood to the side of the vehicle with the other two. They had their guns drawn. Alex shrank down in her seat a little. She realised that the driver of the van would see only the truck, and not the men or the car behind it.
The van pulled up about 50 meters short of the transporter, and before the dust had settled around it, a man had got out and was running towards them. As soon as his features came into view, she recognised him. It was Henry’s backup. He had piloted their plane that morning. And it suddenly dawned on her why he had been familiar then; wasn’t he also the passenger who sat next to me from London to Prague? Was he the one who killed Bernie? Her stomach wrenched and the rest of the action played out in front of her like a slow motion movie.
One of the agents stepped out into the man’s path and yelled, ‘Hold it right there’. The man stopped dead and, seeing the guns, looked like he was about to put his hands up. He then glanced left and right, as if searching for Henry or someone to help him. When he saw no one, one of his arms dropped behind his back. She could tell he was reaching for a weapon.
An agent yelled, ‘Stop there and put your hands back up.’
The fair haired man took no notice and when his hands came out from behind his back, he too was holding a gun. Within a split second, two of the agents let off a round, and the man flew backwards, landing hard on the ground. Alex slumped back in her seat and sobbed. With so many regrets to work through, she only had energy to concentrate on one. Bernie. Bernie missed out on seeing Santos’ speech. After a few moments, one of the agents came back to the car. The laptop still showed the crowds at the Washington Monument cheering. Alex asked the agent if she could use his phone. He handed it to her and she dialled Laura’s number.