67. Judgment Call
“It’s brilliant, Nick. It simply is!”
“I’m happy you see it this way,” I said.
“No, really, Nick it is. It’s so simple. I spent the whole night trying to drum up an army. I wanted to call Rick, Guillermo, your … our grandfather, my brothers and my parents, Kellan, our teachers at White Haven even. But whatever I came up with, it was never enough. Even if all of them managed to get here in time and before the FPA finds us or harms Jeremy, there’s no guarantee that we would be able to free Jeremy.”
“Yes,” I said. “I agree.”
“I mean, these men are trained soldiers, snipers, possibly stone-cold killers!” he went on. I knew exactly what he was going to say next.
“And we cannot call the police, neither the Italian nor any other …”
“… because they are all in on it, even if they do not know what they are aiding and abetting.” I finished his sentence.
I reached for a chocolate croissant while the others digested what they had just come to realize.
“What are we going to do after you publish?” Rachel asked.
“We’re going to get Jeremy,” I said.
“After that?” Rachel insisted.
“Yes, Nick,” Martin said. “After that?”
“It’s not up to me,” I said.
“Do you have an idea what’s going to happen right after you publish?” Rachel asked.
“It’s tricky,” I admitted. “All sorts of things can happen.”
“What do you mean ‘all sorts of things’? I don’t understand. You are a mathematician. Can’t you be more precise?” Rachel said.
“Not at the moment,” I said calmly.
“I thought once we have Jeremy, we go back to our lives,” Rachel said. “I’ll go back to Vienna and finish my course. Martin is going to come with me and then we fly back home.”
“If you want to go home to Newport, you may want to do it right away,” I said quietly.
“Don’t tell me what to do, Nick!” Rachel snapped.
“He’s not,” Martin said. “He’s saying that there might be no flights once the proof has become known.”
“What?”
“You can try and book a flight for, let’s say, in two days,” I said. “It may work. You may reach Newport without a hitch, but it is also possible that you end up stranded during a stopover in Munich or Amsterdam or Paris or that you may not even get that far.”
“Why?”
“Air traffic is going to come to a halt,” I said. “I am certain of that. I have found airport security protocols that require an immediate shutdown if their security is breached.”
“Your proof constitutes a breach of airport security protocols?” Rachel asked incredulously.
“Not directly. It endangers the encrypted traffic control computer systems.”
I ordered a cappuccino. Who knew how long we could enjoy cappuccinos and chocolate croissants.
“What about boats? Can’t we go home on a ship?” Rachel asked.
“Boats and ships depend on satellites. Satellites go crazy from the tiniest disturbance.”
“Let me guess,” Rachel said. “Your proof constitutes such a tiny disturbance.”
“Yes.”
My cappuccino arrived. I meticulously sprinkled sugar on the milk foam and scooped the sweet foam into my mouth.
“Nick, you are driving me crazy!” Rachel said.
I thought about telling Rachel about the breakdown in supply chains. That would drive her crazy. I chuckled. Slowly but steadily, almost every industry would go into chaos given how interconnected the global economy was. I looked at the sugared milk froth. What were people going to panic buy? Bread? Coffee? Wine? Toilet paper?
“I didn’t know you were a Clash fan,” Pearl said and smiled.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware,” I said. I had been humming Should I Stay or Should I Go – the 1982 Clash hit. It had become rare that I retreated so deeply into myself that I stopped noticing what I inadvertently did.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked Pearl, seizing the opportunity to divert Rachel’s attention. It was fun to tease Rachel but I didn’t want to be cruel. Her world was turning topsy turvy. She – like any of us – needed to digest the recognition that the world we had grown up in was coming to an end. Snippy had always been Rachel’s comfort zone.
“I don’t really care. I like the weather here. I liked Newport, too,” Pearl said.
“I think I want to try to go back home,” Martin said.
“Really? I thought you wanted to come with me to Vienna?” Rachel protested.
“That was before I realized that we may run out of time,” Martin said.
“You can try and book flights to Boston, Marts,” I said. “But I cannot guarantee nothing.”
“Anything,” Martin corrected me automatically. “You mean even if we leave now?”
“If you got a plane right now, I think you would make it to Boston and from there to Newport somehow,” I said.
“This means I would have to leave before we have liberated Jeremy,” Martin said slowly.
“This is exactly what it means,” I said.
“Then I can’t do it,” Martin said.
“No, you can’t,” I said. “None of us can leave before Jeremy is free.”
“What do you want to do, Nick?” Rachel asked.
“Stay with Pearl.”
“This is not an answer,” Rachel growled.
“Actually, it is, Rach,” I said. “Jeremy is the specialist in modeling. Maybe he is able to tell how long we have before travel shuts down, but I can’t. I know number theory and I know that I want to be with Pearl.”
“Let’s free Jeremy then,” Rachel said after a long silence.
Copyright by Ines Strohschein, Berlin 2023