*
Pat Kennedy drove from Managua to San Carlos, where a fast launch was waiting for him at the point where the lake emptied into the Rio San Juan. He had planned an expedition, more like an excursion, to explore one of the proposed routes for the canal as part of his ad hoc fact finding mission, which he deemed necessary before investing time, effort and money in Wang’s canal project.
San Carlos was not like he expected, it was a muddy shanty town with tumbledown shacks and shabby wooden buildings perched on stilts over the river banks. There he changed boats for the journey would take him nearly two hundred kilometres, through what was a vast nature reserve; an uninhabited pristine tropical jungle, to Greytown, where the river, which some called el Desaguadero, drained the lake into the Caribbean.
The first leg led to El Castillo seventy kilometres downstream, a couple of hours from San Carlos. The once powerful Spanish colonial fort with its thirty two canons, the bane of river pirates, was perched on a grassy knoll overlooking a cluster of gaily coloured houses that lined the banks of the river. The Castillo de la Inmacula was a sombre, moss-covered mass, built to dominate the strategic junction on the river where the crocodile infested rapids formed a natural barrier, making it easy for the Spaniards to intercept enemy ships, where only experienced boatmen could navigate the treacherous stretch of the river.
From then on any remaining vestige of civilisation was left behind as the river wound its way deep into the jungle. On either side of the muddy green waters of the river lay a dense rain forest, silent except for the cries of birds and the whooping of howler monkeys.
Mark Twain, one of Vanderbilt’s passengers on his Rio San Juan riverboat steamer, wrote a description of the area in 1886:
Dark grottos, fairy festoons, tunnels, temples, columns, pillars, towers, pilasters, terraces, pyramids, mounds, domes, walls, in endless confusion of vine-work‒no shape known to architecture unimitated‒and all so webbed together that short distances within are only gained by glimpses. Monkeys here and there; birds warbling; gorgeous plumaged birds on the wing, Paradise itself, the imperial realm of beauty‒nothing to wish for to make it perfect.
Concepción – the volcano on Isla de Ometepe
Travelling from West to East in the middle of the nineteenth century was the Russian revolutionary, Mikhail Bakunin, who crossed Nicaragua on his way to New York and Europe, from Siberia via Japan and San Francisco to spread his ideas: that revolution was instinct and not thought; destruction so long as there was anything to destroy; and rebellion when there was nothing to rebel against. All of which was to Karl Marx’s orderly mind midsummer madness.
Bakunin could have never imagined teams of Chinese engineers, geologists and environmental specialists from Communist China, working on plans, mapping topography, in preparation for an invasion of giant earth movers, for what would be one of the largest engineering projects the world had ever seen, comparable to China’s gigantic Three Gorges Dam. The future canal would be capable of handling supertankers and giant container ships of much greater tonnage than the Panama Canal, even after its multi-billion dollar expansion.
As Pat Kennedy poured over the technical, financial, environmental and commercial feasibility studies, he recalled all such mega projects such as the Aswan Dam and the Three Gorges Dam had been derided by experts of every ilk, who predicted doom and disaster. That did not deter Pat, to his mind it was a noble cause that would pull millions of Nicaraguans out of their misery.
Even the existence of two volcanoes rising above Ometepe Island on Lake Nicaragua did not deter the investors, though the volcanoes were a permanent reminder that Nicaragua straddled an active geological hot spot with all its inherent risks.
BRICs
It was a strange feeling, from where he stood in Nicaragua, the rest of the world seemed far away, indeed so far away that Kennedy had almost forgotten it. What Pat could read in the newspaper headlines, or the text than ran by under news reports on local television, concerned exclusively the Latino world. It was logical when he thought about it, after all it was vast: a continent running from the Grande Canyon to the Antarctic and englobing most of the Caribbean, sharing the same civilisation, greater than that of Anglo-Saxon North America, vaster in geographical terms than China, Europe, Australia and the Middle East combined, and with immense mineral resources, agricultural lands and human wealth.
News of Ukraine, Syria and other flashpoints was eclipsed by events such as the inauguration of the newly elected president of Uruguay; the capture of Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, capo of the Knights Templar drug cartel; food shortages in Venezuela; and the growing economic problems of Brazil.
What brought him back to the problems that more directly concerned him, was a report that Russia had offered to supply arms to Argentina on a lease-lend agreement, including a squadron of Sukhoi Su-24 supersonic, all-weather attack aircraft, which could only reinforce Buenos Aires’ claims to the Falklands.
Perhaps Putin was grabbing at straws, but it was nonetheless worrying given the sabre rattling of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a distraction in the imbroglio surrounding the mysterious circumstances of Alberto Nisman’s death, a crusading prosecutor who had dared accuse Kirchner of attempting to cover up Iran’s suspected role in a deadly attack on the Argentina-Israel Mutual Association in Buenos Aires in 1994, one of the deadliest terrorist bombings in the country’s history.
It seemed Argentina was as desperate for allies as was Russia. Both were in dire economic difficulties. Argentina’s a long running story compared to Russia’s, the latter until recently one of the booming Brics. With the commodities crash the once glorious Brics had become one of what the financial press was calling the Fragile Five
Pat savoured the sobriquet, coined by a research analyst at Morgan Stanley. He loved buzz words especially those with technical connotations. Brics was out. Fragile Five was in. Or was it six he wondered mentally listing the countries: Turkey, Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia and Russia. In any case all fading stars, their currencies on the slippery slope after the collapse of commodity demand.
BASQUE COUNTRY
After a few days of wet Atlantic weather the sky brightened and the temperature shot up into the mid-twenties. Spring had finally arrived in the Basque Country and as Marie-Claire set her sights on the local tennis tournament, Jack Reagan took Robert Moreau up on his offer: a run down to Getaria on his new toy, a high powered Italian rigid-hulled inflatable.
The green landscape offered a very pleasant change from London where Reagan had been setting up an offshore company with his accountants to reduce the growing burden of taxes as Labour seemed set to win the coming elections. Polls and forecasters were undecided and the possibility of a hung parliament did not bode well as Nigel Farage’s UKIP and the Scottish National Party threatened to upset the traditional left-right balance. In France things were not much better as the country vacillated under François Hollande; Mr Nice had promised a lot, especially a clean government, which now seemed to be anything but that.
The boat’s rigid hull sliced smoothly through the waves with remarkable stability even at seventy or eighty kilometres an hour. Reagan hung onto a handgrip beside Moreau, who stood at the wheel grinning as they plunged through the foam. The boat was equipped more like a go-fast than a pleasure boat and Reagan soon found himself hanging on for life as Moreau accelerated and swerved to avoid swells and waves putting the boat through its paces.
It was thirty kilometres to Getaria, half an hour of sport, past the sloping slab-like, mille-feuille cliffs and small creeks, past the natural channel between the mountains that led to the ports of Pasajes, past the islands and peninsula that protected Bay of San Sebastian and finally into the small fishing port of Getaria.
Moreau was delighted by the performance of his boat. Almost addicted to speed and danger he carefully measured risk; as a diver his life could depend on his finely honed judgement.
After securing the boat, they made their way alo
ng the quay and wandered up the slope and through the arched gate set in the ramparts of the old town. There Moreau chose a restaurant terrace from where he could survey his toy. Times were still hard in Spain with unemployment standing at twenty six percent, fifty for the under twenty fives, and any one of the boat’s numerous hi-tech accessories could fetch enough cash to see a hard-up Moroccan or Latino immigrant through the summer.
The continuing crisis hit many small property developers who had seen Hendaye as an Eldorado, many of whom went bust. Others were in hock to the banks with huge debts as the value of the land they had bought or the properties they had built plunged by more than thirty percent in value.
For a brave investor, with money to spare, it was the moment to make a killing. But Jack Reagan was not tempted, things were looking up for him in London, where the value of his central London properties had shot up. The prospects in the UK were not looking bright as Labour seemed poised to win the election, but whatever happened London and the South East would, as usual, be relatively unaffected.
Nevertheless, Reagan had the impression that the Spanish economy had turned a corner. One of his friends from San Sebastian had recently picked up a handsome flat in Benidorm, which in spite of its reputation was packed to overflowing as tourists deserted North Africa and Greece: high rise condos were appreciated by certain Spaniards in the same way Miami was by Americans.
Property buyers from Northern Europe were also making a timid appearance, especially those from the UK where the strong pound made prices fifty or more percent less than in 2008.
As Reagan looked around things were definitely more buoyant, perhaps it was the warm weather, but people seemed to have money to spend, the restaurants were busy, more than he had seen for the past three or four years, in addition prices were low, almost ridiculously so compared to London, certain restaurants and bars proposed lunch at twelve euros: starter, main dish, desert and wine. Robert assured him not only were they inexpensive, but the food was good.
Getaria – Basque Country – Spain
They chose a sea food restaurant that enjoyed a good reputation for its quality. Every morning fresh fish was bought directly in the port just fifty or sixty metres beyond the ramparts when the fishing boats returned each morning after a night at sea.
Moreau order a bottle of Txakolí, a young, fruity, local white wine and poured two glasses. His own was symbolic, as a diver he avoided alcohol and excesses. After tasting the wine they then inspected the display of fresh fish: a sar for Moreau and a merluza for Reagan, and watched as the restaurant owner prepared them, then placed them on the grille over a bed of glowing charcoal embers.
The crowd was the same that Reagan had seen on his previous visit to Getaria in September, the difference this time was visitors, after stopping to inspect the menus displayed outside the restaurants, went in. Spain, a proud country had been forced to swallow the harsh medicine imposed by the ECB and Germany, and now their efforts appeared to be bearing fruit.
The two friends exchanged stories of pre-crisis Spain, when money was as abundant as the Iberian sunshine, when Spaniards thought they had made it, believing the bad old days of the more distant past had gone forever, it was a time when their economy boomed, with jobs for everyone and more. The return to reality was brutal and the diet draconian.
“So how’s the diving?” asked Reagan as the waiter prepared his merluza.
“There’s not many fish, too many divers. That’s why we’ve decided to go to Panama with Johanna, you know, the vet from Toulouse.”
“Yes, of course.”
“She’s found a couple of good places … Santa Catalina and Bocas del Toro.”
“Panama,” Reagan said pensively.
Have you ever been there?
“No, but I’ve heard it’s a great place to open a bank account.”
“Well, Pat Kennedy’s there at the moment.”
“I thought he was in Hong Kong.”
It’s his new thing.
Knowing Pat they both laughed.
“What about Tom Barton?”
“Well he’s not with Sophie Emerson now.”
“No, it seems they’ve gone there own way. Still friends it seems.”
“Pity.”
Reagan had become friendly with Tom Barton after being introduced to him a couple of years earlier by Moreau. The two had much in common, they had both had grown up in London and both had French partners … at least at the time. That was nothing really very extraordinary, but sufficient for most people to feel connected by their common experience. In addition to that and by a much more unusual coincidence the two men had, in quite different circumstances, links with the small Caribbean island of Dominica.
“Tom invested quite a bit in Miami I heard.”
“That’s right, when property prices collapsed he picked up several nice appartments for next to nothing, now they’re worth ten times more.”
Moreau had survived the crisis for the simple reason his money spinning pharmaceutical firm would survive any crisis given the France’s penchant for medicine, which almost verged on hypochondria. He had speculated on property, a little further to the north, in Biarritz where many Russians had invested heavily the luxury property residential market.
A lot of things had happened in the previous five years, events that made Jack Reagan think twice when it came to parking his money. There was the lesson of Cyprus, where Russians were taken to the cleaners after its banking system collapsed. Many Russians had used Cypriot banks as a convenient conduit to the EU.
“I heard Jameson is somewhere in the Caribbean enjoying his ill gotten gains.”
“What about Halfon?”
“They say he’s in Senegal promoting holiday homes. Seems to be doing well with people avoiding North African tourist spots.”
“Personally, I’ll stick to France and Spain,” said Moreau, “at least as far as property is concerned.”
The impression that things were picking up again was marred by a nagging question, which left Jack Reagan wondering whether he would be needing a new passport? Perhapd Irish. The House of Commons had voted a new law with a referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the EU. The law passed with three hundred and four votes to zero and opinion polls showed the outcome as very much an open questions.
BORDEAUX
Pat Kennedy had taken Wu’s advice by investing in the French wine growing region around Bordeaux. Chinese buyers had become enamoured by wine, as China became one of the world’s largest markets, which had encouraged their rich investors to buy a hundred or so vineyards in France, some of which were renowned. The figure could have seemed high, but considering there were over seven thousand wine producers in the Bordeaux region alone, it was neglible.
Pat had bought a gracious eighteenth century house set in a domain overlooking the Garonne. It had been built by a Portuguese banker, whose family had occupied it for almost a century. However, it was not just the house that mattered, which was described as a château as were many such houses, what mattered was its vineyards, part of a large vast domain that backed onto those of Château d’Yquem.
During the nineteenth century a Spanish-Argentinian family of negotiants bought the house and lived there the Nazi occupation, when the last remaining members of the family in France, two brothers, were forced to flee.
The Wu family celebrated the acquisition of the domain in grand style inviting the mayor of the small town. Not only their own wines were served, but also those of surrounding châteaux: Lupiac, Cadillac and Sauternes. Fois gras and pheasant from the Landes was served. The event was market by the christening of their daughter Lily Rose at the tenth century Romanesque church at nearby Rions, where Kennedy and the Wu’s were made welcome by the mayor and the curé, though certain locals saw the presence of a Chinese family and their friends as a sign that France was being sold off to foreigners. Pat reassured the mayor and his neighbours that the domain was not about to be shipped off to China.
&nb
sp; The arrival of an Irish catholic pleased the curé, since the previous owners had always maintained their links with the Church. It was a region where Christianity was in the soil, where wine was the blood of Christ, where traditions were engraved deep in the minds of families.
Château – Rions – France
Pat delighted in explaining the first owner, the Portuguese banker, was not unlike himself, at least his profession, business that is, because strangely enough the original owner was a Jew, who had not sought to change those around him, and Pat promised he would do the same. The banker had lived in harmony with the country he had chosen, extending the house with a classical Romanesque style wing, as opposed to the rough hewn stone of the original building, and a finely sculpted architrave bearing the family arms, adding stone fireplaces surmounted with genteel motives carved in plaster, and an elegant stone stairway to the first floor.
Below, beyond the gardens, the Garonne flowed past to the port of Bordeaux, from where the previous owners had no doubt exported their wines, a city through which had transited African slaves, coffee from South America, chocolate from West Africa and rubber from Vietnam.
The locals had not changed their way of living during the two centuries that had passed since the château was built: they were cabinetmakers, masons, gardeners, vineyard owners and workers, boatmen, haulers, farmers, merchants, inn keepers, and for the gentry there were even piano tuners. Nothing changes like changes, because nothing changes but the changes, noted Pat.
BOGOTA
Whilst Kennedy thought about his coming meeting with Wang Jing, O’Connelly was in Columbia once again, but this time to attend a book fair in Bogota.
At the other end of the world, from O’Connelly’s immediate concerns, François Hollande was being fêted in like an oriental potentate by the Emir of Qatar, where he had flown in to sign a contract for the supply of two dozen Rafale fighter jets for the emirate’s air force.
A couple of hour flight to the north-west of Qatar, civilians in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, were suffering unimaginable atrocities, as Bashar Assad’s forces stepped up their bombardments on the rebel held city with barrel bombs: oil barrels, fuel tanks or gas cylinders packed with explosives, fuel, and metal fragments. Their targets included: markets, bus and taxi stations, mosques, hospitals, medical centres and schools.
The vast majority of fatalities were civilians including many children, as Aleppo, Syria’s industrial and financial centre, was systematically destroyed. The world, and notably the Arabo-Islamic world, had turned its back on the tragedy in a cold-hearted display of indifference, preferring to spend its billions on deadly weapons.
Even in Bogota O’Connelly felt the pain of such barbarity, but Colombia had had its own problems, a vicious war that had taken decades to resolve. For the moment his attention was concentrated on the International Book Fair at the Corferias Exhibition Centre in Bogota. It was one the most important literary events in Latin America, during which he planned to carry out some search his new novel as well as getting together Tom Barton.
The book fair got off to an inauspicious start when a signed first edition of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by the Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez was stolen. A pity since the fair, was dedicated to the memory of Garcia Marquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, who died the year before at the age of eighty seven.
O’Connelly was a fan of South American writers, including another Nobel Prize winner: Mario Vargas Llosa, whose concerns about the world appealed to him:
Si el mundo sigue el proceso en el que la palabra escrita es reemplazada por la imagen y lo audiovisual, se corre el riesgo de que desaparezca la libertad, la capacidad de reflexionar e imaginar y otras instituciones como la democracia.
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