The Carducci Convergence

by Nicolas Olano

  As Dupree approached the small town of Tiana in a van provided for his transport from Barcelona to the monastery, his mind was far away from God, Church, or prayer. He was thinking of Enrico Testa locked up in some Godforsaken jail from where escape was impossible. He did not worry about Enrico testifying against him. There was no chance of that. Jean Dupree knew the heart of that man and not one word would leave his mouth until he was in front of his leash, Cardinal Jean Dupree. When they arrived at the door of the monastery the driver got out and with a club that was standing against the frame he knocked three times. In a while, a long while, the door opened and a young friar stood there silently. The driver took Dupree’s bag as far as the door, went back to his van and took off without a word, leaving a cloud of dust and smoke behind him. Dupree watched him go and followed the shrinking van until all he could see was the dust it left along the unpaved road. Dupree turned toward the door and the friar indicated for him to follow. The Cardinal was expecting the friar to carry his bag but it was left where the driver put it. Jean picked it up and followed the man down a long corridor and across an ancient courtyard where a couple of fig trees were beginning to show new sprouts. In a dark and damp corridor the friar stopped in front of the door, opened it and indicated for Dupree to enter. There was a small bed, a wash basin, a bedpan, a few boards held up by bricks and two hooks on one wall. From one hook hung a tunic of coarse material with a scapula attached by rudimentary wood buttons. On the bed was a nightgown of sorts made of raw cloth. There were no sheets, just a thick raw wool blanket. On a small table there was a clay jar and a corresponding mug for water.

  The friar gave Dupree a piece of paper and left without having said one word. On the paper was written, “The world is behind you. Whoever perseveres without defiance in the cell and lets himself be taught by it tends to make his entire existence a single and continual prayer. But he may not enter into this rest without going through the test of a difficult battle. It is the austerities to which he applies himself as someone close to the Cross, or the visits of God, coming to test him like gold in the fire. Thus purified by patience, fed and strengthened by studied meditation of Scripture, introduced by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the recesses of his heart, he will thus be able to not only serve God, but adhere to him.”

  The words of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian order, did not pull strings of piety, repentance, or love of God in the stone cold heart of Jean Dupree. He was fond of meditation as an exercise in mental strength and clarity of ideas, but constant prayer? Give me a break, he thought. The paper also indicated that at vespers he would meet with Friar Domenici, the prior who would be his master for the foreseeable future until Dupree found his place in the monastery.

  “You are a cardinal of the Holy Roman Catholic Church; you are a priest, ordained to be a messenger of God, those things will always be, but only between you and God. Here you are simply Father Jean and your daily mass will be said in private in the donate’s chapel. Food will be brought to your cell twice a day except in days of fast for the first weeks, later you will eat with the rest of us in the refectory. Water is available at several spouts throughout the cloister. Your bed pan is to be emptied in the cloaca behind the wood shop and washed with the spout there available. You may walk around the grounds when you need air and exercise and you may choose an occupation, which may be one that fulfills our needs, woodwork, pottery, or gardening, but most of your day must be spent in the solitude of your cell seeking God’s word to you. You will suffer while you incessantly talk to Him in prayer, but immeasurable joy will fill you when He answers. We will speak again in one week or before only if sickness overcomes you. Go with God and be silent.”

  M&M listened intently while Marco explained to him what the plans of the Carducci were for the immediate future; Ian Carlo’s withdrawal from the crime families of the NY/NJ area, the IPO of the Carducci Enterprises, and the dedication to bring about the social redirection that Marco had laid out in his dissertation at Kellogg and how The Board had embraced this led by Francisco Lujan. M&M knew a lot about The Board, but not everything that Marco and Patricia were telling him. There was more to these people, much, much more than he ever imagined.

  M&M also understood the nature of this organization that, like him, had a different set of moral and social rules that allowed them to exploit the corruption of the system without corrupting themselves. There was little regard for the fate of individuals but great regard for the fate of humanity. They considered the present social structure of most countries as a degeneration of democracy in which the rules had been reversed. Laws, regulations, geographical voting areas, and spin allowed the politicians and the puppet-masters that pulled their strings to choose their voters and repress anyone that would vote against them. He listened closely to Marco’s thesis.

  “The United States, which is supposed to be the most successful democracy in the world, has been hobbled by gerrymandering to such a degree that congressmen who are generally detested by most people are assured re-election by having manipulated voting districts to choose only the voters that are inclined in their favor. Politicians with approval of twenty percent or less are elected and re-elected time and time again. These individuals rob the country blind and what’s left is misspent and squandered. And, to make sure that people are distracted by everything other than what matters they invent wars – unnecessary invasions of countries where we are not going to achieve change no matter what, gender wars to appease zealots, war on drugs to make sure there are plenty available to generate billions, war on terror so we can sell arms to anyone who wants them. Today the USA gives weapons to rebels in Syria who will use them tomorrow to kill kids we sent to another war that the dark powers invent. We use the profits from laundering their money and selling them the drugs they so desperately want, to defeat them.”

  “You are telling me, Marco, that what The Board wants to do is a mega judo move,” replied M&M. “Use the strength of the enemy to defeat him or it as may be the case.”

  “Strangely put, but yes, something like that. Political corruption is not going to disappear, so why not use it to make enough money to start a social change that gives society a fair chance? People are going to use drugs no matter what, so why not make the whole process easier and avoid the carnage that the current process claims, and make a huge amount of money while we’re at it?”

  “And the money; does it matter?”

  “How much money is needed? For some people a hundred dollars is a windfall; for others a billion is just another billion. We consider this part in very human terms. We, you, all of us like a limitless way of life, but that does not take the kind of money we are talking about. We are human and even absurd luxury has a limit. You can eat, sleep, dress, travel, see, drink, enjoy art…anything you want, but it’s all tempered by what we cannot buy: time. All of the people on The Board have limitless lifestyles. It’s just that their approach to that limitless lifestyle includes improving the opportunities of mankind by re-cycling the money that is salvaged and putting it to work, creating a middle class that is free of the conditions imposed by the politicians that stole their countries.”

  “But wouldn’t that just go back to the realm of politicians via taxes, etc.?”

  “Sure, but if a strong middle class emerges, higher political reasoning also emerges and the election of governments may improve, and I say may improve, which is a far lot better than what they have today which is a spiral of deterioration.”

  “You are talking of changing the massive inertia of social structures at levels never achieved before.”

  “Not true. President Truman cajoled politicians into making decisions to save the United States from falling back into depression; Eisenhower continued the work and helped construct the greatest society historically known to man. Then came all the rest and screwed it up. We as a nation abandoned our principals and plunged into living the life of others as a consolation prize for giving up our own lives. We have gone from the Ameri
can Dream to the American Nightmare in fifty years. On one side you have a tiny minority that owns or controls most of the wealth and then another minority who lives off the government and causes huge costs, fueling the waste of public funds on social programs that are not needed and help no one but sate the ego of the liberal forces. Both of these extremes are terrible for this country and many others that espouse these policies…ask Greece if you don’t believe me, look at Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and so many more…the world needs a strong middle-class that generates employment. Governments, ours in particular, give the middle class a lot of lip service and then turn around and give it a royal screwing.”

  “So what, if anything, can you do about it?”

  “We, M&M, we can do a lot. We have the resources to manipulate the greater financial institutions. We manage more money than ten Goldman Sachs so we can force banks away from credit card lending and back into supporting small business, in start-up funding, and in third world micro-loans to head of household women that are entrepreneurial and need the seed money. The results are much faster than in any monetary loop and the risks are lower. Kiva lends about three million a week to hundreds if not thousands of tiny entrepreneurs with an astonishing default of less than one percent. Tell me of a credit card in the US that can offer such results. Sometimes the line between abject poverty and tax-paying middle class requires very little money to cross. We want to use the profits from the illegal money laundering and drug use to salvage a big hunk of humanity that then can turn around and save us from ourselves.”

  “OK, so what now. You’ve told me more than I think I wanted to hear…why?”

  “Because Patricia, Francisco, and I want you to be our permanent advisor; you don’t have to change a thing in your life. Communications are far too easy and ours are safer than most. All I need from you is loyalty and that extraordinary brain of yours.”

  “And my connections…you need my connections, no?”

  “Yes, your ability to fix anything.”

  “My loyalty has been yours ever since you called me ‘family’. The only question I have is who will know? You understand that part of my ability depends on neutrality?”

  “Patricia, Francisco, Ernie, Ian Carlo, Samuel, and myself. Tommy Liguria might need you once in a while but that will come through Ian Carlo de la Rosa.”

  “I say yes. And I ask what’s in it for me?”

  “Anything you want.”

  Back in NYC, Ian Carlo and Tommy Liguria were hammering out how to handle the transition.

  “I don’t give a damn about the other families. They need us more than we need them and that is the only thing that counts. What does present some concern to me is how the capos of your organization might react. Some of them have met me, most of them know about me; but will they work for me? How much can I count on them if they do?”

  “There has to be a transition period like with everything else. You have to spend time here working closely with me, then little by little the orders come from you and then I disappear for short periods, then longer ones and then we do the pass. That’s when the families will know you’re the man. Before that they’ll think I brought you in as a consigliore. In this period we can see how the crews accommodate, if there are ruffled feathers we’ll un-ruffle them or get rid of the chicken.”

  “How long for this transition?” asked Tommy.

  “My kid is due in seven months, so call it six. I wanna be outta here in six months. How about Vegas, can you pull a fast one there?”

  “No problems, since we started working together they kind of feel part of your outfit and since most are Mexicans, Tellez will be a perfect fit.”

  “We need Vegas working like clockwork, Tommy, no fuck-ups.”

  “No fuck-ups, Gucci, they have been doing this with their eyes closed for the last few months.”

  By the time they met with Samuel everything was agreed and the three of them sat down to do the details of the transition, including a place to live for the Liguria, seed money, and induction into every line of business and stream of income. Of particular importance were businesses or geographical areas that touched or overlapped with other families, these were critical. But Tommy was no greenhorn; he had dealt with lots of goombah in Vegas. The first step had been taken. Ian Carlo de la Rosa was on his way out.

  On a sandy inlet just outside of the city of Bergen in Norway a couple of sanitation workers made a grisly discovery; two human bodies – skeletons, actually, in tracksuits – were still attached to an airplane bench seat by their safety belts. The headless, handless and footless bodies were tentatively identified by documents carried in the belly bag of one of the victims of what appeared to be an airplane crash. Further DNA analysis confirmed that they were two young men who, with their wives, had left for an adventure of two weeks in the Caribbean and had been reported missing for over twelve months. The serial number of the seat corresponded to NCZ 995, a Lear 35 that had disappeared off the Carolina coast more than a year ago. This gave closure to four families in New Jersey who had never known what happened to their sons and daughters. The mystery of the other four passengers on the last flight of the Lear was now solved. Confident that his boss Marco Carducci wouldn’t have minded, Joe Strasso had done a favor to some friends of a friend and it had cost them their lives. Obviously there would be lawsuits, but who gave a damn.

  Edward Meredith couldn’t believe his good luck. No sooner had the cardinal disappeared from the radar than Lord Humphrey had appeared with Sheik Faruk Al-Enezi and business was as sweet as always. The banks changed but the story was the same. He would miss the cardinal; he had been of incredible assistance in getting back the reins of the company. Ana Meredith was a distant memory and an oil painting in the boardroom. He was king and he planned to keep it that way with or without the cardinal. He had treated the Brit and the sheik with respect but had remained somewhat distant and it had worked for him. The terms of the business were good and they parted friends. The result of the first shipments of money was immaculate and his accounts and those of his clients had been credited punctually. It looked like this was going to work. His businesses grew to unexpected heights and money kept rolling in. Meredith was now one of the top five companies in the world; if they only knew…hmmm.

  Way south in the central mountain range of the Colombian Andes where Bogotá is perched at almost 7,000 feet, the hackers that worked for Francisco Lujan’s “call center” followed the faintest traces, tendrils really, of coded communications that spelled the journey of billions of dollars across the globe. Little by little a map was appearing and some sense was seen among the trillions of ones and zeros that flew by every second. Colombia was taking up bandwidth faster than any of its neighbors and much of that was being used by Francisco’s operation. Banks of computers sucked away at the hard points in Barranquilla’s Puerto Colombia cable entry, megawatts of power were used in the search, but it was well worth the effort. It had been almost a year since Francisco had seen a fray in the textile of the Meredith organization and with that single thread his people had cracked the safe. Francisco was having lunch with Guillermo de los Rios, a local entrepreneur with whom he had made friends because of his love for wine and his extensive knowledge of South American vintners. The conversation was long on a particular region in Patagonia, in the Neuquen fruit region that produced an exceptional pinot noir that this year was going to exceed all expectations. The restaurant, Ermigna Romana, had a good wine list for most patrons, but a very private and monstrously expensive one for people like Francisco and Guillermo. The choice of the day was a cabernet from high in the eastern region of the Chilean Andes – a Casa Vergara, Gran Reserva of 2007.

  It was then that Francisco got the call from his office that the code had been cracked and a map of the money routes and access codes was in hand. He finished his chat with Guillermo and they walked back to their offices in Avenida Chile flanked by the ever present security that both men used and needed. When Francisco was back in h
is office, he immediately sat down with his little Indian hacker, who was neither little nor poor any more. The results were unequivocal. He called Ernie, Marco, and M&M. They agreed on an action date to coincide with estimated gross movement peeks and set up to wait.

  Jean Dupree, failing at being penitent, felt neither generous nor repentant in the solitude of his cell within the Carthusian cloister. He was a player without a game and the lack of intellectual challenge was driving him crazy. The nocturnal babble of Gregorian chants favored by these deranged monks was equivalent to hell on earth for the cardinal. Pope or no pope he had to get out of here, he just didn’t know how. The only edifice or sign of human habitat in the small valley was the monastery and the winding dirt road that snaked away into the hills. He had no way out. He was a prisoner just as Testa and maybe even Testa was better off as he was probably getting fed and had use of a proper toilette. Cleaning up his own mess was not Dupree’s idea of penance, retreat, or basic hygiene.

  If he had been capable of prayer his only request would have been a way out…now! As he despaired of his situation he heard the familiar rumble of the van that had bought him to this Hades. He took a small belly bag that he had managed to contraband into his cell, for all other possessions had been taken from him including his watch, clothes, shoes, ring, and gold crucifix. In the bag he kept ten gold Kruger Rand, a valid EU passport, a small bag of white diamonds, an American Express card, and a roll of ten Є500 bills. Madame Dupree had not raised an idiot. He tied the belly bag under his tunic and grabbed his walking stick; the one luxury he was allowed. He walked out behind the woodshed as if heading to the woods for his exercise and followed a path that intersected the road about half a mile into the hills. There he waited until he heard an old van struggling with the rising road. When it was a hundred feet away Dupree sprang to the middle of the road and held up his hand and the walking stick with authority enough to make the van come to a halt. He approached the driver and said, “Is this enough to get me to Girona?” showing him one of the Є500 notes.