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100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Like all such border regions Tres Fronteras had been a bone of contention, fought over in an armed conflict known as the Colombia-Peru War, which was resolved in 1934 by the League of Nations. It was now the gateway to the Amazon, from where they were set to leave for Iquitos, a 24 hour journey upriver, a city founded by Jesuit Missionaries in 1730, which went unnoticed by the world outside until the rubber boom when it became the focal point of attention as the source of raw rubber, where fortunes were made and lost between 1879 and 1912. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Amongst the city's more remarkable monumentswas the Casa de Fierro, which stands opposite the Cathedral San Juan Bautista. The large pre-fabricated iron building was imported from France by the rubber baron Anselmo del Aguila, who bought it at the International Exposition of Paris in 1889, shipped it aross the Atlantic and then up the Amazon to Iquitos. Iquitos was also made famous by Nobel Prize winning author, Mario Vargas Llosa, in his novel published in 1973, entitled Pantaleon y las visitadoras, a comedy in which a Peruvian Army officer, Captain Pantaleon Pantoja, was sent on a mission to satisfy the sex drive of soldiers stationed in the Amazon. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Soon the team spotted Las Indias, and anchored a few cables away was the Sundaland II, the second and relatively smaller of the expedition's two vessels, a 1,900 ton research and recovery vessel, 65 metres long, captained by Robert Guiglion, to provide logistics and back-up. Sundaland II could accommodate up to 30 personnel, including Zyborg's film crews for Indians, backed by archaeologists who would undertake a survey of the geoglyphs, ethnologists and environmentalists. The whole programme was planned to last six weeks at different navigable points along the Amazon. The Sundaland II was a modified patrol boat, built in Singapore, under licence from a Dutch shipbuilder, Damen Shipyards Group, recently fitted now registered in Panama. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The two ships had arrived from Manaus two days earlier after a stopover to take on those who had flown in from Europe and take on provisions. Amongst them was Henrique da Roza and an anthropologist accompanied by a film crew to shoot scenes in the city, which would serve to illustrate the explosive growth in the Amazonian city, its population growing from 300,000 to 2,500,000 in a couple of decades. Once they were all aboard, Captain Bogart gave the signal and yacht weighed anchor and set sail in the direction of Iquitos. Camille and the girls set about refreshing themselves after their first taste of adventure and were soon looking civilised watching the scenery slip past, the endless rainforest, the occasional villages and even a pink dolphin or two. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Iquitos was to be their base over the next month after Las Indias and Sundaland II dropped anchors, a floating film studio and research station from where Matt and his team could undertake and pre-edit Indians with the help of numerous specialists from the three South American countries where most uncontacted populations were centred. With their boats, helicopter, drones and a Cessna Turbo Stationair float plane they could rapidly reach across a vast region ferrying passengers and fragile material to distant sites over a radius of 500 kilometres, and in the case of serious illness or accident reach Manaus in a couple of hours. * * * |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It was the dry season, though that term was relative, and temperatures varied not more than ten degrees between day and night, with a maximum of 33oC, and relatively clear skies. Their plans were to start filming the second sequence in the Resguardo Predio Putumayo, an Indian territory along the Putumayo River, the nearest point of which was just 200 kilometres to the north in the Cessna, a 40 minute flight to the nearest riverside settlement where they could set up a temporary base camp. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Being a shade south of the equator there were 12 hours daylight time, which meant keeping a tight programme for filming and travelling. There were other considerations such as river levels which were lower in the dry season, making it more difficult for boats and especially the float plane. Two semi-rigid boats equipped with 300HP outboards waited at the base camp for the expedition further up river to the Cahuinari National Park. The boats had made their way up the Caqueta River from its junction with the Amazon near the Brazilian town Tefe--a long hard journey, after they had been launched onto the river from the Sundaland II with drums of fuel and other supplies. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Pat Kennedy was accompanied by Sean Cinnsealaigh who had led a Maynooth University programme focused on the way of life of hunter-gatherers in Caqueta. Their plan was to meet with the surviving clans of the Muinane tribe and visit Matanzas, the Hill of the Wild Cacao Tree, the place where their ancestors were massacred by the agents of Arana, the rubber baron who had enslaved, tortured and killed the ancestors of the Putumayo Indians. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The Cahuinari National Park, which lay between the Caqueta and Putumayo rivers, was the home to the Putumayo Indians to whom the Colombian government granted the legal property in 1980, of a vast forest area covering six million hectares, the Resguardo Predio Putumayo, the home of the descendants of the Witoto, Bora, Muinane, Miraña, Ocaina, Nonuya and Andoque Indians tribes. A region that had been ravaged by Julio Cesar Arana's rubber territories. his new Indian. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The Miraña, for example, were settled in the middle and lower Caqueta River and numbered approximately 200 people. They were linguistically related to the Bora and the Muinane. They Miraña were the survivors of a group that had inhabited the basins of the Cahuinari and Pama Rivers, who during the rubber boom with other groups from the area between the Caqueta and Putumayo Rivers, were left decimated after epidemics and exploitation by the infamous Peruvian Amazon Company of Casa Arana. Today they were governed by the Muinane Council of Elders--formed by the chiefs of the four main clans--The People of the Centre, as they called themselves, who exercised political autonomy and continued to rebuild their way of life on the banks of the Caqueta River. | | ---|---|--- # 19 |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | # THE PRIVILEGED HONGKONGERS LIKE PAT KENNEDY had mixed views on the ongoing demonstrations, which were obviously not good for business and relations with Beijing. Pat, better known as Sir Patrick Kennedy in elevated circles, enjoyed the good life in Hong Kong, a member of the Hong Kong Jockey Club, one of the oldest institutions in the city, as a race horse owner he mixed with his wealthy peers, passing celebrities and members of British royalty. He had been a guest at royal weddings, where other guests included the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and members of European royalty, which did not however mean he sought their company. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | In fact it was the other way around, he could do more for them with his relations in China than they could do for him. As for the City of London and Europe he had more relations than he cared to count. Pat's Hong Kong based banking empire straddled the globe, a fact that had undeniably contributed to his own knighthood. He liked to explain to outsiders business in China was all about trust and his position as CEO of the INI Hong Kong Banking Corporation, a patron of the arts and a philanthropist, made Sir Patrick a very honourable man. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The same could not be said for certain royals, whose relations with Hong Hong businessmen had more to do with personal business than flying the flag. One of them was the Duchess of York, the ex-wife of the now banished Prince Andrew, whose link to Johnny Hon, a local businessman, was not a reference for British royalty. Pat kept his distance from names, like Zara Tindall and her husband Mark Phillips, Zara was the daughter of Princess Anne and eldest granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth. Thanks to Pat's inside knowledge as a banker, he knew they pocketed substantial directors fees from Hon's companies via an offshore bank in St Vincent and the Grenadines. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The trouble with royalty was it attracted media attention, especially tabloids like the Daily Mail that thrived on scandal, something Pat tried to avoid, and did, thanks to his tee-totalling habit and his avoidance of other women, a vestige of his Irish upbringing. Zara Tindall's brother, Peter Phillips, a former RBS banker in Hong Kong, was a horse racing enthusiast, like his grandmother, the Queen. He had launched a horse-racing private members' club for investors in Hong Kong with Johnny Hon, a business which Pat had carefully side stepped. Johnny Hon had been involved in a Supercar GB rally, reserved for high net worth individuals in the Pyrenees that summer, where the participants paid £10,000 for five days of fine dining and fantastic company. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | That was not Pat's thing, business was business, he learnt to avoid fooling around with cheap stunts which he knew often backfired. He preferred art, history and archaeology, investing in museum projects and more recently in scientific research. That said, Pat was a little weary of business, pissed-off was perhaps a better description, for no matter how hard he tried, he had discovered there was not much he could do to influence the global economy, even from his position as a powerful international banker. It was perhaps why he had resigned himself to letting the bank run itself, and it did, thousand of small cogs turning in that huge machine, based on Hong Kong island, where banks were particularly profitable in spite of the recent volatility of its population. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | He had learned to sit back, observe, from time to time nudging the great ship, of which he was captain, through the turbulence caused by Brexit, Trump, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un and the other ayatollahs of the planet, whose combined efforts, according to the IMF, had slowed the growth of the global economy to its lowest rate since the global financial crisis. At the core of that slowdown were US-China trade tensions, which together with other factors, such as low growth in productivity and ageing demographics in advanced economies, would cumulatively drag down global GDP by hundreds of trillions of dollars in 2020. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It explained why he was sitting in a somewhat rickety outboard chugging up one of the countless branches of the Amazon River in the southernmost province of Colombia aptly named Amazonas. Watching over him was Florence Daguerre, one of the team dispatched by George Pyke to watch over the small expedition's safety. Not only was she an expert in weapons and martial arts, she, in addition to her native French, spoke Spanish, and was an organiser, good at giving orders. South Americans, who ogled the attractive forty something blond, soon, whilst admiring her shapely figure, learned to respect her thick skinned no-nonsense attitude. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | A Glock at the ready in the holster on her right hip and a bush machete slung on the other, she reassured Pat, not that he needed reassuring, his somewhat disconcerting disdain for risk had been reinforced by the experience of adventures he preferred not to talk about. Pat Kennedy seemed to be drawn by a natural curiosity to danger and George Pike knew only to well such brushes with danger did not always end well. It was why Florence had been assigned to the expedition, a decision that went down with the other women who felt more at ease in her presence than certain of George's more blunt men. | | ---|---|--- # 20 # THE MALOCA OF THE JAGUAR THE INDIANS SPOKE NO SPANISH making communication difficult as they inspected the newcomers like strange beasts. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Pat looked at Felix who issued instructions to the porters who placed one of the large bundles on the ground, which he proceeded to open. It contained machetes, axes, knives and metal cooking vessels which he distributed to the Indians. He felt a tinge of guilt as he thought of Cornelius Vanderbilt's men who had hacked his way through the Nicaraguan jungle to open his overland route to the West Coast in the 19th century, exchanging beads and trinkets with the Indians to ensure a safe passage for rafts and canoes down the San Carlos and San Juan rivers But they were the only kinds of goods that interested the Indians, valuable additions to their possessions, as metals tools were precious objects in their world. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The discussions lasted a long moment during which Pat and his friends understood nothing. Without Felix they would have been lost. But even he had difficulties moving amongst the different tribes, as in South America, forgetting Spanish and Portuguese, there were more than one hundred language families and half as much again were isolates, spoken by very few people. Apart from the isolates, many of the families were small, composed of six or fewer languages. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The other problem was that of perception. The indigenous languages contrasted with Indo-European languages--where verb tenses and numbers counted, whilst local languages focused on other grammatical markers which determined whether the speaker witnessed an event himself, heard about it from someone else, or considered it to be an unchanging truth. Which meant their vision of the world was very very different to that of say Spanish, Portuguese or English speakers. That meant little to Pat and his team of adventurers who were more concerned about the jungle that had now totally enveloped them, starting with Camille. 'What kind of animals live in this forest?' she asked. 'Peccaries--that's a kind of wild pig, tapirs, monkeys, snakes, caimans - that's a kind of crocodile.' 'Oh, are they dangerous?' |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'Yes, not as dangerous as anacondas, they're snakes, a kind of python.' She said nothing. 'Which are less dangerous than jaguars.' 'Jaguars?' 'Yes, jaguars.' 'Here?' 'Yes, in this region about 2,000 jaguars roam the jungle in this region of Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and the adjoining border area of Brazil.' Camille looked around startled. 'Unfortunately logging, coffee, cacao, palm oil and bananas are eating into their habitat, all around us.' Camille looked relieved. 'Don't worry, they eat rodents, sometimes dogs, though they'll even eat caimans if their hungry. 'The great tragedy is Jaguars are being poached for their teeth, skin and even bones which are used in Chinese traditional medicines.' They all looked at Lili, who shrugged. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'For us,' said Felix translating the words of the headman, 'the original people, the jaguar represents wisdom and protects the spirits, to whom we owe all our knowledge. Our shamans, the keepers of our traditions and knowledge, are in communication with the spirits, who they invoke to keep poachers, gold prospectors, loggers and drug traffickers out of our ancestral home.' Over the years the Indians had resisted the loggers, missionaries and bandits, but it was becoming difficult as armed gold miners appeared on the edge of their territory with their mining equipment polluting the rivers and poisoning the fish. * * * 'It's called the doomsday plan,' said Pat Kennedy dramatically. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | They were back on Las Indias eating diner after several days of filming the malocas in what was for them an inhospitable forest. They all stopped eating and looked at him. 'It's 100 seconds to midnight, humanity is in danger...and I've decided to accelerate my plans....' They sat staring at him, there was a long silence. Maybe he's had too much sun, Camille thought. 'The Elders, have decided the world needs to wake up.' She wondered who The Elders were. 'The way I see it, it's too late. All this thing about climate change, nuclear weapons, epidemics, economic collapse and wars, I've seen it coming ... for a long time now. The next economic crisis will unleash forces we haven't even imagined,' he explained with great seriousness, 'I've spoken to John about it.' John lowered his head. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | That morning, at a press conference, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced the doomsday clock had moved forward to 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it had ever been to catastrophe The doomsday clock was an idea born in 1947, two years after Hiroshima, when a group of scientists, the Chicago Atomic Scientists, who had participated in the Manhattan Project, came to the conclusion the world was on the verge of nuclear destruction. To alert politicians of the danger facing humanity, they invented a symbolic clock which was set at seven minutes before the midnight, the time we were on a 12 hour day from destruction. 'So what are you proposing Pat,' Liam asked slowly. | | ---|---|--- # 21 # IMPACT |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | LIDAR HAD CREATED A REVOLUTION in pre-Columbian archaeology, as researchers like Ken Hisakawa applied the technique at sites across the Americas, using either satellite imagery, aircraft or drones to explore the terrain. Each had its own specific advantages. NASA's satellites had provided for example large scale surveys in Mexico, along the Usumacinta River that formed part of the border between Mexico and Guatemala, helping identify many ancient settlements. At the other end of the scale local drone-based Lidar surveys provided more detailed images of sites. Such methods transformed research, providing vast new quantities of information and new discoveries, upending many long held theories thanks to its highly detailed imagery of structures, roads, waterways and agricultural terraces, providing a broader picture of entire societies, their history and development. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | * * * The Xingu River wound its way north from the Xingu National Park to the Amazon, over a distance of 1,640 kilometres. Its source lay in the Mato Grosso, the home of the Xingu indigenous peoples, where the British explorer, Colonel Percy Fawcett, disappeared with his entire expedition in search of the Lost City of Z, in 1925, possibly killed by isolated tribesmen. That was the legend, savages with spears and poison darts. Today it was the turn of modern civilisation, slowly killing the tribespeople with the rejects of its society, in the form of plastic debris in all shapes and sizes carried through the watershed, washed into its countless rivers and streams. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | A study of plastic consumed by freshwater fish in the Xingu River, concluded, after examining the stomachs contents of various species, plastic pollution in some of the most isolated regions on earth was already impacting 80% of aquatic fauna and entering the natural food chain. Micro and nano particles of polyamide, polyester and polyethylene terephthalate, commonly used materials for the production of plastic bags, bottles, fibres and other products, were impacting the aquatic biota, a health hazard not only to the human population, but also the flora and fauna of the entire biosphere of the Amazon Basin |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Scientific reports described how many different species of fish consumed plastics, and regardless of whether they were herbivorous, carnivorous or omnivorous, all fed, directly or indirectly, on the entire food chain--plants, fish and insects of the forests, confounding plastic with seeds, fruits and leaves. Plastics were not the only hazards to life in the Amazon, where contact with isolated tribes was strictly controlled, as even accidental contact could lead to deaths through diseases, like flu and measles, to which they had no immunity, threatening the extinction of vulnerable forest peoples. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | More than 100 isolated groups lived in the Amazon, certain with many related family groups, living in remote areas of Acre, or in protected territories like Vale do Javari, on the border with Peru. Others were the scattered survivors of tribes decimated during the rubber boom during the latter part of the 19th century and by encroaching agriculture. Amongst these were nomadic groups like the Kawahiva, that numbered just a few families, who had fled deeper into the forest to escape invading loggers and ranchers, certain of whom did not hesitate to use violence to force the Indians off their lands, destroying their forests, source of their livelihoods, where they and their ancestors had hunted with blowpipes, fished in the many rivers and gathered fruit and plants in the forests. | | ---|---|--- # 22 |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | # HONG KONG BATTLE ZONE IT HAD BEEN A MUGGY SATURDAY morning when Henrique da Roza, a young Forex trader at INI in Hong Kong, and his girl friend Wangshu finished their breakfast of instant noodles and vegetables. They then turned to the preparations for another long long day in the streets, packing yellow helmets, goggles, gas masks and eyewash into their rucksacks. Henrique came from an old Portuguese family whose ancestors had arrived in Macau in the early 18th century. Macau had been a Portuguese Colony, established on the west bank of the Pearl River, for nearly 500 years before it was returned to China in 1999, two years after Hong Kong. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | After completing his studies in Lisbon and London, Henrique had joined INI--thanks to an introduction by an uncle, a senior lawyer at the bank in Hong Kong. Henrique had the advantage of speaking Portuguese, English, Cantonese and Mandarin. However, the Portuguese were part of a dwindling community and of those registered in Macau only 10% could speak the language. By coincidence, Portuguese was back in vogue as China developed its business ties with Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, and Macau had become an asset, a key link through its cultural ties and history. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Even Xi Jinping deigned to visit Macau, participating in the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of its return to Beijing's control, which came against the background of Hong Kong's political conflict and China's growing debt crisis, marked by a 100 billion yuan bailout of Shandong's Hengfeng Bank, which like other Chinese banks was experiencing increasing stress as the country's growth and economy slowed. Beijing saw Macau as a model that a rebellious Hong Kong would be wise to follow, of course the former Portuguese colony was smaller and less, much less, important financially and economically speaking, in reality Macau was something of an anachronism better known for gambling and other vices. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Chinese state-owned companies had long been an economic burden and now this burden accentuated as the slowdown grew with more and more private sector businesses struggling under the weight of excessive debt, visible as the number of defaults increased. Just one of the tasks on Xi Jinping's agenda was to halt the rapidly worsening relations with US and find an answer to the hi-tech war. The all time stock market highs in the US did nothing to alleviate Pat's fears of the possibility of a financial war between China and the US, with Xi firmly established as effective life president, the shadow of authoritarianism hung over the country, making China more brittle and vulnerable to the unforeseeable. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Henrique's girlfriend, Wangshu, hailed from Hankou, an ancient city that lay on the Yangtze River in the Province of Hubei. She too worked at INI where she was a financial analyst specialised in Mainland debt issues. The couple had met in London at an LSE Forex seminar a year earlier, where Wangshu, quite by coincidence was attending a postgraduate course on the more arcane aspects of shadow banking. A brilliant student, she had already spent three years in London where she obtained an MSc in economics. INI was concerned about the risks of shadow banking in China, much of which escaped the control of regulators, and like the Chinese Central Bank, feared it would inevitable lead to instability and another debt crisis. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | That day in Hong Kong, the students' march was announced as peaceful, but Henrique was preparing for the worst. Like many other Hongkongers, he had been present at every major demonstration from the very start of the protest movement against the laws promulgated by Carrie Lam. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Henrique was one of those more privileged young men who enjoyed the comfort of an agreeable apartment in the North Point area, which he shared with Wangshu, who was afraid of what might happen that day. Firstly, the clashes between protesters and police had escalated dramatically with several injuries, secondly, hundreds of people had been arrested--many charged with rioting, a crime that carried a severe prison sentence; thirdly, they could both could lose their jobs; and fourthly, when it all ended, as it inevitably would, they could end up being catalogued as dissenters and trouble makers by the Mainland Chinese authorities, not a good thing for their future and respective careers. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It was almost midday when Henrique and Wangshu left for the assembly point at Victoria Park. They took the MTR at North Point station, where it already crowded with young people, many in black T-shirts and holding umbrellas, chanting their familiar slogan in Cantonese, others in Mandarin, 'Xianggang jiayou', meaning 'Come on Hong Kong'--'Vive Hong Kong'. Wild rumours circulated, the most frightening was that of troops being readied across the border as Beijing prepared to put-down the revolt with force. Strangely many quoted the words of Chris Patten, the last British Governor, who cited Jack London at the opening session of the Legislative Council on October 2, 1996 'Hong Kong, it seems to me, has always lived by the author, Jack London's credo: I would rather be ashes than dust, |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze, Than it should be stifled in dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, With every atom of me in magnificent grow, Than a sleepy and permanent planet. 'Whatever the challenges ahead, nothing should bring this meteor crashing to earth, nothing should snuff out its glow. I hope that Hong Kong will take tomorrow by storm. And when it does, History will stand and cheer.' They were brave words, but would they bend the iron will of Beijing? |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Like others, Henrique and Wangshu had been on the streets, demonstrating in the hope of forcing the government to give in. The more activist demonstrators had engaged in hand to hand fighting, throwing Molotov cocktails, bricks, stones and anything they could lay their hands on, they had even tried blocking the airport, the MTR, and government facilities. To no avail. Henrique, though he was a child when Hong Kong and Macau were handed over, told Wangshu, 'When I think about Patten's words, 22 years ago, they tell me to keep faith.' It was strange and exciting talk to Wangshu coming from the Mainland, where participating in demonstrations of any form was strictly reprimanded and those involved could quickly find themselves in a re-education centre or worse. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Victoria Park, was the largest park in Hong Kong, it could be seen from the Kennedy's residence high above in the Happy Valley district, it was an island of greenery surrounded by concrete--office towers, shopping centres and a tangle of roads. The park was a couple of stops from Admiralty, the MTR station on the line that they took daily to and from their offices at the INI headquarters. As they exited from the mouth of Causeway Bay station they heard the chanting of the demonstrators: 'Five demands, not one less!' The sky clouded over and heavy drops of ran started to fall, the crowd undeterred opened their umbrellas, some shouting their war cry 'Hongkongers! Go, go, go!' |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Slowly the throng made its way to Admiralty, watched by riot-police in body armour, holding their shields, battons at the ready, waiting for the signal to charge. Henrique and Wangshu were soaked through as the column of demonstrators slowly wound its way towards Central, a sea of umbrellas, undaunted by the humidity and rain. It was a route they and others had walked many times before--starting with the first Umbrella Movement in 2013, without much success, the government not budging one iota. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | In 2019, more than two decades had passed since the British handed over the colony with an agreement that included a transition period of 50 years. Now, Beijing was tightening its grip on the former colony, striking fear into the hearts of many Hongkongers who enjoyed a degree of freedom unknown to their neighbours on the Mainland. By early evening the protesters occupied Hennessey Road, which was in fact a broad avenue that led to the government headquarters in Admiralty. There, they were joined by Henrique's friends, some of whom donned goggles, face masks and hard hats, several of them unfurled a banner across a tramway footbridge with slogans demanding democracy |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Many of the demonstrators pointed lasers at the government buildings and the Chinese People's Liberation Army Forces headquarters next door, a 28 storey tower situated in what was the former British naval base. It was getting late when a number of demonstrators ignoring the organisers' advice to leave were caught up in violent clashes with heavily armed riot-police blocking the way to the government buildings. Henrique decided it was time for them to leave and head back towards Wanchai with their friends for a beer before calling it a day. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | As they were about to cross Hennessey Road, a convoy of police reinforcements appeared, the doors flew open and squads of riot-police poured out onto the street wielding batons and riot guns. Getting caught meant they could end up in serious trouble, which was not part of their plan, surprised by the sudden arrival of fearsome looking police in Robo-Cop style gear, the crowd pulled back, packed densely together leaving no possibility of escape as the police waded in wielding their batons. In the panic many fell over, including Henrique, who in a flash had his hands secured behind his back in tight plastic handcuffs and was bundled into one of the waiting police trucks. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Wangshu, separated from Henrique, narrowly escaped and made her way back to the apartment where she switched on the TV news covering the demonstrations and anxiously waited. He was one of the unlucky ones in a rally that gathered an estimated 1.7 million demonstrators, including young, old and families, at Victoria Park on Causeway Bay, along the route to Central, Admiralty and finally at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's government complex. Henrique was released later that evening, ordered to appear in court the next morning. It was late when he returned to the apartment where Wangshu fell into his arms, relieved he was unhurt and had not been detained. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Early next morning he called his uncle and a chain of events was set in motion, first, one of the bank's lawyers was alerted to assist Henrique in court. Then Lili, Pat's wife, a friend of the da Roza family, alerted Pat. Henrique was lucky as later that night the government in a reconciliatory statement said it was 'most important' to restore social order and 'the government will begin sincere dialogue with the public, mend social rifts and rebuild social harmony when everything has calmed down'. Henrique was released with a warning. Nevertheless, it was not good, before he had been an anonymous citizen, now he had come to the notice of the authorities as a dissident, not in a good thing in China. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Normally it was not the kind of business Pat dealt with, but besides not wanting his employees in trouble with authorities, he had noted Henrique's otherwise good references and more especially the fact he spoke Portuguese, as was spoken in Brazil. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Tensions had reached a new level and more violent clashes with police could be expected. Pat's decision was made. A couple of days later Henrique told a tearful Wangshu at Hong Kong International Airport that they would be together again soon, then waved goodbye as the doors to immigration closed behind him. He was now en-route for Belem, Brazil, a journey of 17,000 kilometres, where he was to join the crew of Las Indias. If it worked out, Pat figured, Henrique would be a good addition to the team, he spoke Portuguese, was a banker, and somewhere he wasn't afraid of confronting danger. | | ---|---|--- # 23 # BELEM |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | HENRIQUE LOOKED OUT OVER the wide mud coloured river as the taxi pulled into Porto Belem docks to the north of the city of Belem, the Gateway to the Amazon. According to his map it was Baia do Guajara to the west side of the city centre where he had spent three nights waiting for the arrival of Las Indias. That morning after receiving a message informing him the yacht would be docking about midday, he had checked out of his hotel and headed for the port. The weather was hot and humid, it was nothing unusual for him who had lived most of his life in Macau and Hong Kong. In fact the river facing him resembled the Pearl River and the skyline of Belem was not unlike those at home. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The Amazon Basin had been historically dominated by two cities--Belem and Manaus. Belem, one of the first Portuguese settlements on the Amazon River, founded in 1616, had prospered by exporting cacao, indigo extracted from brazilwood, and animal skins. Then came the rubber boom between 1875 and 1900, which transformed Belem with the introduction of electricity, telephones, street cars and fine buildings--such as the Teatro da Paz, justifying its reputation as a tropical Paris. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The rubber boom came to a sudden end when Henry Alexander Wickham smuggled the seeds of rubber trees--taken from commercial Hevea brasiliensis groves in Brazil, to start plantations in Ceylon and Malaya, then parts of the British Empire. This brought about the collapse of the Brazilian rubber industry, and Belem, like Manaus, declined, becoming tropical backwaters. In recent times with the export of timber, soy beans, aluminium and iron ore, fish, Brazil nuts and black pepper the city sprang back to life with spectacular economic and demographic growth. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Both Macau and Belem were cities that had been founded by the Portuguese almost a half a millennium earlier. There the similarities ended, as Henrique discovered, Belem was much more exotic, the people different from Macau, which today was an essentially Chinese city. The streets and market places of Belem bustled with an astonishing mixture of people, Europeans, Africans, Indians and even Japanese, the latter migrating to Brazil decades earlier, after WWII. What was even more surprising was the mixture of races--peoples of every colour and indefinable origins. They all spoke Portuguese, different from that which he spoke, but perfectly understandable. The lusophone world was impregnated by Brazilian Portuguese, Brazilian music, cinema, television and culture in general. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Brazil was certainly the most mixed country on the entire American continents, which led its government to classifying the population into five categories--white, brown, black, yellow and indigenous, which was reflected in the country's social order and wealth. Brazilian scholars on the other hand divided the population into different categories, starting with Europeans--including Portuguese and Spanish, British, Italian and Germans; African; Amerindian; Asian--primarily Japanese; and mixed-races or pardos, which was divided into a number of subcategories, including loura, branca, morena, mulata and preta. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Then there is the question of class: wealthy, middle class and poor, where it was difficult to advance regardless of colour, mainly because of Brazil's education system that worked for those with money. The most privileged being the Whites and Asians. The legend of Brazil as an example of racial harmony overlooks the fact that non-white Brazilians remain at a considerable disadvantage, where in practice preferential treatment tends to be given to whites, in areas such as the labour market, land distribution, housing and access to public services. Statistics show that around 97% of executives and 83% of managers were white. And while the favelas were home to black and white Brazilians alike, in Rio's richer neighbourhoods just 7% of residents were black. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Brazil's six richest men possessed as much wealth as the poorest 50 % of the population; around 100 million people. The country's richest 5% as much income as the remaining 95%. Henrique himself was of mixed descent, an old Portuguese family whose sons somewhere along the line had married locally. Looking at Henrique he was neither European or Chinese, a blend of the better parts of his ancestors, in short he was a good-looking somewhat serious thirty year old of medium build with a Mediterranean complexion who fitted easily into the Belem crowds. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | He was driven to the dock, indicated by the message on his iPhone, where he recognised the lines of Las Indias. She was the only ship in that area of the docks which mostly handled bulk carriers for agricultural products. He took his bags and made his way to the gangway where there was little activity and presented himself to one of the officers. He was expected and was shown to the bridge where the captain was going over a large map. 'Ah, I suppose you are Henrique,' he said holding out his hand. 'Yes Sir.' 'Welcome on board, you've come at just the right moment, this is our pilot, Vasco Cintra, I understand you speak Portuguese.' 'Yes Sir.' 'Good, I'm your captain Steve Bogart, they call me Humph,' he said with a grin. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Henrique smiled, good thought Bogart, at least he's got a sense of humour. 'Right Henrique, let's get down to business, you can start by helping me with some questions, because Vasco here is going to be with us during all of our stay in Brazil.' Steve Bogart, an Englishman from the West Country man had been captain of Las Indias since Pat Kennedy had acquired her two years earlier. Their call at Belem was to take on Matt Halders' film crew and different supplies they would be needing for the two months they would be spending on the Amazon. 'We'll be out of here as soon as everybody in on-board and we've loaded our cargo, 48 hours at the latest.' Henrique smiled, he knew nothing about boats and even less about the Amazon. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'I'll have someone take your bags and show you to your cabin. Sir Patrick has told me to look after you,' he concluded with a smile. The cabin was small, but there was a porthole from which Henrique could saw a couple of people carriers pull on the dock. Four men got out and the drivers started to unload a ton of aluminium cases and other baggage. There was a knock at the cabin door and Henrique was informed lunch was ready. He made his way to a huge stylish dining room where the captain was seated with the new arrivals. The introductions were made and he was invited to take a seat opposite the captain and next to Dr Sean Cinnsealaigh who announced he was from the Department of Anthropology at Maynooth University in County Kildare, Ireland. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'So Henrique, Captain Bogart informs me you speak Portuguese,' said Cinnsealaigh. He nodded. 'How would you like to join us for a trip to the Serra da Capivara National Park?' Henrique didn't know what to say. 'Let me explain,' said Bogart. 'It seems like we'll be staying here for a couple of days longer. Sean here tells me the team here want to do some filming at a site not far from here and they'll need your help.' He nodded. Things were happening fast. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'Brazil is a big country,' said Sean, 'and Iquitos is far to the west. So we've decided to shoot some film here at a place called the Toca da Bastiana shelter in the Serra da Capivara National Park, that's to the south-east of here. It'll avoid a lot of complications and according to Matt Halder, he's the producer of Indians, it will be an important sequence for the film, and I agree with him.' What could Henrique say, he'd barely had time to understand the brief Pat Kennedy had given him. 'We've a flight tomorrow to Petrolina,' announced Sean, 'there we'll pick up a car and a drive to Sao Raimundo Nonato where we'll meet a guide from the Museu da Natureza to visit the sites.' * * * |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The next morning they arrived at Petrolina on an early flight, hired a car and headed for Sao Raimundo about 250 kilometres distance where they made their way to the museum situated to the north of the town. Waiting for them was Nieda Guidon, an archaeologist, a stocky elderly woman, director of the recently built museum, a stylish modern helicoidal structure. Sean who had set up the visit was informed they would spend the next couple of nights at a nearby pousada where they could leave their bags and freshen up before visiting the museum. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Nieda Guidon had excavated hundreds of prehistoric sites in Piaui State some of which she believed preceded those accepted dates for man's arrival in the Americas by many thousands of years, launching a controversy, after she suggested some of the early peoples may have arrived from Africa by boat, rather than over the land bridge, now the Bering Straits, between Asia and Alaska. The park had yielded more than 800 prehistoric sites confirming the occupation of the Americas by men, including Pedra Furada, a rock art site, for more than 30,000 years based on thermoluminescence and EPR dating methods. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It seemed impossible that man had lived in the forests of the Amazon so far back in time. Sean Cinnsealaigh had told Pat Kennedy the story who decided to fund the Irish university's research. Pat realised the value to his own project of understanding how man had survived so long ago in such a distant and seemingly hostile world, so far from the regions where man had evolved. The museum presented the site and the history of Nieda Guidon's work, where she had commenced her first excavations in 1970. There were graphic scenes complete with with stone tools and examples of rock art from the site--certainly one of the richest in the world. It told the story of the man's passage through the Serra da Capivara over many thousands of years. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The next day they set off early with a guide to the Toca do Boqueira de Pedra Furada site, known as Pedra Furada, where Nieda Guidon discovered a site that she believed dated back 48,700 years, which supported her theory that men had reached Brazil about 100,000 years ago by boat from Africa, carried by the Main Equatorial Current, a voyage of about four weeks from the Cape Verde Islands. The Pedra Furada rock shelter lay under a 70 metre high sandstone overhang next to a couple of waterfalls in one of the many canyons formed by cuestas--ridges, in an undulating dry tropical landscape a dozen kilometres long and two or three wide. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Henrique soon found himself making a film debut at the wooden guard rail before the paintings, covering a vast area, 60 metres long by 15 metres wide and a depth of 8 metres, as he interviewed the guide who described the extraordinary rock paintings for the camera, which depicted armadillos, emus, monkeys, and lizards, as well as an abundance of human figures, something rarely seen in prehistoric paintings in Europe--hunting, playing, dancing, fighting, making love, and giving birth. That evening as he listened to Sean and Nieda, he discovered a world he had known nothing of, far from his hectic, troubled, modern life in Hong Kong, which suddenly seemed unimportant viewed from the point of view of man's history. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The question that remained in his mind was the controversy over Nieda's theories and those who believed man had entered the American continent much later. It wasn't a question of being right or wrong, he wasn't qualified to answer, it was more the rejection of her evidence by mainstream archaeology which led to many more questions. He asked Sean on the way back. The answer seemed to be more a question of disbelief in the face of new information on the one hand, and the possibility Niede's interpretation was simply an act of blind faith on the other. Only time would tell. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Two days later he was woken up in his small cabin on Las Indias by a steward, he was wanted on the bridge. From the porthole he saw first glow of light on the horizon and the lights of Belem slipping by. Las Indias had weighed anchor and they were on their way sooner than expected. As he searched for the passage up to the bridge the last ten days flashed through his mind, his life had been turned upside down and he wondered what the next weeks would bring in the strange new world in which he now found himself. | | ---|---|--- # 24 # A BOLTHOLE |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | PAT HAD QUIETLY SET TO WORK on his project, Salvator Mundi, commencing with a research centre not far from Lola's home, Barichara, a small colonial town in the Cordillera Oriental, a couple of hours drive to the south of Bogota. To the local inhabitants the question of research into what was not very clear. The project was variously described as a centre for the study of new energy sources--solar, wind and hydrogen, but especially the development of new storage batteries given the abundance of naturally occurring sodium salts in the region. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It was concentrated around the site of an abandoned salt mine that lay in a narrow valley, cut into the flank of the mountains, 20 kilometres from Barichara, near Curiti--a somewhat smaller town. The access road was closed by a large gate and a panel marked: Sociedad de Desarrollo Minerales Andinos Construccion - Privado - Peligroso The mine and the land that surrounded it had been in Lola Barton's family as long as could be remembered, exploited by a minerals company owned by her father, Don Pedro de Heredia, until no longer profitable. Without the attraction of the salt cathedral in the Zipaquira mine to the north, it was closed down and forgotten, apart from rare visits by local students and geologists. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Since the early part of the year, the mine had been the site of new activity as construction workers moved in to build a research pilot for sodium-ion batteries, a type of rechargeable battery, similar to the better known lithium-ion type, but using other minerals extracted from the salt deposits. It was a very low profile affair, few announcements in the local press and media, the kind of short reports new investments usually attracted, and few questions were asked, the people of the surrounding region were tight lipped when it came to the affairs of Don Pedro. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | To one side of the compound was a helicopter pad and a couple of hangers and further down the valley an already existing airstrip, one than was used frequently by Tom Barton and Don Pedro, who didn't need reminding of the dangers of road transport in the Cordillera Orientale--Lola's parents had died in a tragic road accident when she was a child on the treacherous mountain road to Bucaramanga. What would have the raised eyebrows of an observant outsider were the vast iron doors situated at the main entrance to the mine, much larger and solid than were needed to protect a salt mine or even an industrial research centre. The new buildings that were springing up in the compound that led to the mine were squat concrete nondescript blocks with heavy metal shutters to protect the windows. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Another thing that would have surprised visitors were the mines galleries, in which, for the moment at least, there were no signs of any of the kind of activities associated with mineral extraction, transformation, workshops or research laboratories. However further into the mine many large galleries were being transformed into what would be storage spaces for materials and vehicles, maintenance workshops and more curiously, large cold storage areas. A closer investigation would have revealed power generation sets connected to ventilation shafts and fuel storage cisterns, much larger than would have been needed for a normal research establishment. * * * |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The real purpose behind Sociedad de Desarrollo Minerales Andinos was the construction of the sanctuary, a shelter, or more prosaically a bolt hole for the Clan and their selected friends. To many the idea would have seemed absurd, far fetched, but Pat Kennedy's vision of the future was clouded by his knowledge of how fragile the world had become, from many points of view, and he reasoned if the Indians had survived by fleeing into the safety of the jungle, why shouldn't civilisation seek survival in the shelter of distant mountains. 'Why not on a Caribbean island?' he had asked John Francis. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'Well,' John explained, 'most islands would have difficulties in fending off intruders, unless they were extremely isolated, whereas the Cordillera Orientale,' as Tom Barton had suggested, 'was far from the sea, and at an altitude of 1,800 metres, where it could be fortified like a medieval castle with access to the surrounding land where food could be grown. Then once the danger passed, it would be easier to recommence life.' It seemed logical, besides, it was not as if Colombia would be the target of a nuclear power or any other power, with perhaps the exception of Venezuela, un perro sin dientes, according to Don Pedro. In any case threats came from many other sources, economic, political or environmental collapse, pandemic or natural disaster. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Pat wasn't the only one, the world elite was looking to survive, the mega-rich, royals, politicians, bankers, hedge fund managers, showbiz and sporting personalities along with their families, personnel and medical teams. * * * The Centro de Desarrollo would require food and medical reserves, capable of providing for the needs of each individual for a minimum of one year, stored underground in refrigerated vaults. In addition to those essential needs were generators, vehicles, telecommunications systems, spare parts, enough of everything to survive an apocalyptic event and restart life. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The plans covered fresh and waste water systems, a hospital and operating theatre, a well equipped medical laboratory, a library, food production and preparation, and even an ark with essential domestic animals--cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, plants and seeds. There was of course a paramilitary security force--former army personnel selected and trained by George Pyke, the Clan's security specialist, with state of the art weapons capable of defending the city from marauders and the desperate fleeing Bogota or other nearby cities when the need came. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Deep in the ground would be reserves of fuel, oil and gas, diesel generators, plus radios, IT equipment, vehicles, drones, helicopters, light aircraft, boats, solar panels, wind generators, pumps, tools, tractors, fertilizers, medical and pharmaceutical supplies, a library of books and maps, workshops and spare parts, in short everything needed to ensure survival, at least 12 months, during which time they would have to become autonomous, autarkic. Daily activities would be conducted in the research centre, the base around which the sanctuary would be built, linked by an underground railway to the mine and its galleries, where last resort shelters would be cut deep into the bedrock, providing temporary living quarters and the storage of reserves, sufficient to assure the survival of up to 2,000 individuals. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Columbia, like its neighbours, was blessed with some of the most favourable conditions on Earth for renewable energy in the form of wind, solar and geothermal power. Already nearby Costa Rica was a model, the only country supplied with 100% renewable electricity. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | It was a vital factor in Pat Kennedy's investment plan, cheap and abundant energy. Colombia, with its 1.14 million square kilometres, four times great than the British Isles, was unburdened by an ageing population like the UK with its long litany of social problems. Colombia was still a new world, one of vast opportunities and resources, even five centuries after Alonso de Ojeda, a companion of Columbus, had set his eyes on its coast. Cartagena was its first city, founded in 1533 by Pedro de Heredia, an ancestor of Lola Barton's, a city that became Spain's most powerful military base for the exploration and conquest of the New World. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Pat Kennedy's Clan now included three Spanish speaking families, first there was that of Lola Barton's, whose grandfather, Don Pedro, was a Colombian grandee and a wealthy well-connected figure. Then came Liam and Camille Clancy, followed by Dee O'Connelly and his partner Anna Basurko, they together with Pat would be the founding fathers of Ciudad Salvator Mundi. * * * Pat was not alone in his plans, in fact it was a growing business with similar such bunkers being built in New Zealand, in the US and Europe, often in Cold War bunkers, fallout shelters, rocket silos, in the Swiss Alps, in the Rockies and in former Soviet East Block countries, wherever adequate protection was possible. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Survivalists planned to build compact fully autonomous, defensible shelters, part of which were deep in abandoned mines and bunkers, which would act as last resort citadels, inner baileys, keeps, as in European medieval castles. And as in such a castle there were spaces for services, defence, communication, utilities, accommodation, dining halls, shops, schools and meeting halls. Unknown to all but a few, the Centro de Desarrollo had a twin, situated in Ireland, not far from Dublin, in the Wicklow Mountains, built on the same model, around an old lead and silver mine. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Pat, as any careful planner, had no intention of putting all his eggs in one basket, or in one mine. Colombia had the advantage of being far from war zones and was almost an inconsequential player in big power geopolitics, of little strategic value, though at the same time distance could be a disadvantage. It was why Pat chose Ireland as a second site, it was an island, a fairly big one, nearer to Europe, but separated by two seas, and was an equally inconsequential geopolitical player of little strategic value. In a moment of danger with his intercontinental jet, he and his friends could cross continents and oceans, from Hong Kong to Dublin, or from London to Bogota, where they could ride out the storm or in a worse case scenario start again. * * * |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Across the planet survivalist movements were taking form, the phenomena was nothing new, during the course of the Cold War, the adversaries had aligned their silos loaded with missiles of mass destruction, ready to annihilate civilisation at the press of a button. At the same time governments had built bunkers, shelters, not only to survive, but to pursue their folly. Somehow the planet had avoided nuclear destruction, the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union had distanced the doomsday spectre. The deterrent seemed to have worked, the end of the world was too frightening to imagine, even for authoritarian tyrants. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | More than three decades passed before the world woke up to a new danger. The rich had been too busy making more money, the superpowers too busy arming their surrogates to fight proxy wars, the masses too busy consuming to worry about tomorrow, and the poor for the first time worrying about other problems than hunger as food became more abundant thanks to advances in science and agriculture. Suddenly, towards the end of the second decade of the third millennium, the world was shaken out of its torpor by forest fires, hurricanes, melting glaciers, coastal erosion, the destruction of natural habitats and the massive pollution of every biosphere. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Scientists alerted the world to climate change and the urgent need to act, intellectuals, journalists, media personalities, joined them, in a flash everybody was clambering onto the bandwagon. Voices cried out, words flowed, but little happened. The inertia of the Anthropocene was too great. Just one last straw was needed and the tipping point would be passed. Two or three years earlier, men like Pat Kennedy, who reigned as masters of their universes, had rarely paused to think about such questions. They had spent their lives building and defending their empires. Dangers came from competitors, politics, legislation and consumer groups, not forgetting economic crises. Never had they thought their very existence could be threatened. The awakening was rude. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | As the doomsday clock ticked on, the realisation that they could end up like the Romanovs galvanised the more farseeing into action. Their extravagant homes in London or New York would be no protection against the mob, their easily reached luxury islands in blue waters offered no safe haven. They would be like the wealth classes of St Petersbourg who woke up to find themselves dispossessed of their wealth by Lenin, relegated to the role of caretakers of their own palaces and mansions, like Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, rich art collectors, in 1918. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The first time Pat Kennedy visited Tom Barton at his home on the Altiplano in Cordillera Orientale, the widest of the three branches of the Colombian Andes, he'd marvelled at the eternal spring, the mountain landscapes, the old Spanish colonial cities, the quiet and peace, it was totally unlike the other Colombia he had once known, one of war, when the government was locked in a deadly battle against the Farc and the drug cartels. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The government had won part of that war, life in Colombia had improved, though not for all. Those fortunate enough to live in the Cordillera Orientale were the lucky ones, they had escaped many of the tribulations of that battle, thanks to a natural environment that offered less cover than the jungles of the south, those controlled by the Farc, where coca was cultivated to finance the long-drawn-out war in association with criminal cartels, successors to the infamous drug baron Pablo Escobar. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | During their archaeological expedition off the coast of the Alta Guajira Peninsula, the previous year, Tom had spoken of building a new city, one that was ecologically viable, in the mild and friendly environment of the Altiplano. They had spent many evening on Pat's yacht talking and dreaming of a better world, a society the existed in harmony with nature. Nearly a year later, their ideas took form as the news of forest fires in Colombia's Amazon, Brazil, California and Australia, brought the realisation that climate change had arrived and politicians were either helpless to do anything about it, or worse still continued to dismiss it as fake news. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | A special planning unit was quietly set up at the Dublin branch of the Fitzwilliams Foundation to monitor the variables of what they called 'imminence', their role was to measure the time left before society entered into irreversible systemic breakdown. The principal was built around a mathematical equation that had proved its value by forecasting the growth of world population, formulated in the 1960s by scientists and mathematicians. The equation was like a doomsday clock, fed daily with a matrix of information based on real-time events and statistics. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Some years earlier, John Francis had been charged with setting up a think-tank by Pat Kennedy's predecessor, the late Michael Fitzwilliams, to monitor and interpret international developments so as to enable the bank to anticipate major international events and pre-empt their consequences, enhance profits and avoid damaging fallout that often hit unprepared fund managers and traders. When Michael Fitzwilliams was tragically killed in the mysterious explosion of his yacht in the Irish Sea, the think-tank was transformed into the Fitzwilliams Foundation, established at Queen Anne's Gate in London, and its role expanded to geopolitical analysis. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Soon after scientists predicted the tipping point--the point of no return--would be reached in 2026, when a systemic breakdown would provoke an irreversible decline in the functioning of society, when the gains that had been made over the last three centuries would be reversed, with the return of hunger, disease and war. How quickly chaos took hold was not predicted, but what seemed certain was once the process commenced there would be no stopping it. At first Pat Kennedy brushed it off as alarmist, now all he needed to be convinced was to look at the evening news on any TV channel, read any newspaper, watch any talk show, or listen to any debate, which he did with increasing concern. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | The news was increasingly pessimistic, endless wars, political crises, forest fires in Brazil, Australia, California and Borneo, mass extinctions, climate change, refugee crises, nuclear proliferation, the next financial crisis, political and electoral manipulation, all that was missing was a good old fashioned biblical plague. Anyone politician who didn't believe it, had only to talk to any serious scientist or geopolitical analyst and they'd convince them otherwise. The man in the street could be forgiven for not having one of those experts in his circle of friends and acquaintances. Pat did, and that was why he'd set his doomsday plan in motion. | | ---|---|--- # 25 # MANAUS |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | LAS INDIAS DROPPED ANCHOR IN MIDSTREAM near where the Amazon and the Rio Negro met at Manaus. Bogart announced Dee O'Connelly, John Ennis, and two of Pat Kennedy's security team George Pyke and Florence Daguerre would join them. There they would wait for the production team, and the Sundaland which was still a day down river. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Dee and John had flown in from Bogota and took a taxi directly to the port where they were picked up by the yacht's tender and arrived onboard Las Indias for lunchtime. Their plan was to visit National Institute of Amazonian Research--INPA as well as visit the city, taking advantage of Henrique's presence to help them with the language, and discover a city that had grown to opulence at the time of the rubber boom with its magnificent opera house and grand avenues. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Reputed for being at the meeting of the waters where the dark stream of the Rio Negro converged with the brown, muddy, Solimoes--as the upper Amazon was known in Brazil, Manaus was located in the centre of the world's largest rainforest, and was naturally home to the National Institute of Amazonian Research--INPA, the most important centre for scientific studies in the region. INPA was situated in a large scientific research centre next to the UFAM the University of the Amazon and other institutes. They were given a tour of the centre with its gardens, tree walks and exhibitions, by Carlos Flausino who would accompany them up river to the indigenous Vale do Javari region where the largest concentration of uncontacted indigenous peoples in the world lived. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | Isolation according to Carlos was often a survival strategy, since many groups during the rubber boom had suffered the theft of their women, rape, child abduction and enslavement, which led to certain groups deciding to isolate themselves deep in the rainforest. 'A century before Manaus was known as the Heart of the Amazon,' Carlos told them, 'today it's a different world with industrial parks, a free port and an international airport.' He was proud to tell them about the new industries--electronics, chemicals and ship building industries. They spent the day visiting the zoological and botanical gardens, ecoparks and native peoples museums, before finishing up at the cathedral and magnificent opera house. * * * |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | That evening as they sat watching the sun go down from the upper afterdeck of Las Indias, John Ennis recounted the story of the Jari River project in Amazonia, a story of how men destroy nature without the slightest consideration for future generations. 'I think I've heard of Jari,' Dee said vaguely. 'It wasn't Ludwig was it?' 'No, it wasn't really Ludwig who started it all, sure it had been his baby, but above all Jari was backed by General Golbery.' 'Golbery?' 'A general who controlled the Extraordinary Ministry for Regional Agencies in Brazil. Later he became the Chief of State security. It was unusual because he had some very strange ideas about geopolitics.' 'What do you mean by strange?' asked Dee. |
100-seconds-to-midnight.epub.txt | 'Well, he controlled and influenced Brazil's development of its natural resources for several decades. He was a man who stuck to his policies...even when it should have been obvious that he was on the wrong track. 'How exactly was he involved with Jari?' 'Jari was what I suppose you could call a joint-venture between government and capitalism. One of the most well known because of the publicity of Daniel K.Ludwig's involvement. 'I see,' Dee nodded. 'It was seen at the start as a frontier project, you know the kind that the media likes to talk about, that is before the ecologist movement even existed,' he chuckled. 'When did it start?' |