The Last Enemy - Parts 1,2 & 3 - 1934-2054

by Luca Luchesini

  Chapter 4

  Helena walked outside of the room, on the balcony of the Paris Ritz Hotel overlooking Place Vendome. The late spring evening was lovely mild. She wore her smartglasses and moved her eyes to the menu on the right lens.

  First, she checked Aurora’s location. She was enjoying a night ride of Paris, the blinking dot showed she was on one of the many boats on the Seine, escorted by her bodyguards. She then activated the zoom on the balcony opposite hers, on the other side of the square. The people there belonged to the French secret service surveillance, and they were pretending to have a cocktail but almost all of them were wearing similar smartglasses. She waved a polite hello.

  Before going back into the room, she read the tourist information feed. The column which was located in the center had been built with the melted guns conquered by Napoleon in his victory at Austerlitz in 1805, where he had defeated the Austrians and the Russians. How ironic, she thought. She was now waiting for the Russian emissary to negotiate the new drug distribution agreement in Latin America.

  She heard Guillermo open the door of the suite, so she hurried in, closing the balcony doors behind her. The bodyguards in the room made sure to close the curtains and to activate all the electronic screens.

  The Russian delegation was made of a red-haired woman and an extremely fit, almost seven feet tall, grey haired man. As agreed with Guillermo, Helena started the conversation, addressing the woman in Arabic.

  "Merhaba, if our information is correct and our request to have an experienced counterpart has been granted, you should be Irina."

  "I am," Irina responded calmly and smiled, still speaking in Arabic "Congratulations on your pronunciation. It took me several years of practice in the Gulf to reach your level of proficiency."

  "I am a fast learner." Helena smiled back, while she was making sure Guillermo and the other Russian were wearing their headphones and starting the instant translation app of their smartphones.

  "I beg your pardon, Helena, but I have to warn you not to use your husband's smartphone. Ours are secure, but I cannot say the same about yours. In my previous role, I used them to steal information from my customers."

  "How did Irina know that Guillermo was her husband?" Helena thought. She had made sure the information did not go beyond a restricted circle. Or was Irina just bluffing? She switched back to English.

  "Alright, let's get to the point. We have recently intercepted a load of Telomerax pills in Caracas, which were bound for Miami. This is nothing strange. What’s strange is that they were a mix of the Indian and Russian strains. So the question is, who of you guys is trying to invade our market? Is Eurasia not big enough for you?"

  "Even if there were Russian pills, it was not from us," this time the answer came from the man, who spoke a raucous English, "you can call me Vanja, I am coordinating the distribution of the pills. Given the nasty side effects of our version, about one year ago we decided to switch to the Indian version. That's what we have been shipping to Europe and Africa. The Indians are competing with us in Africa, along with the Chinese in South East Asia. We never thought about entering North or South America, and..."

  The speech was interrupted by a series of remote explosions and the sound of police sirens. It was coming from the nearby Place de la Concorde.

  "I think it is the anti-prohibition protest that is going sour," Guillermo commented, "it is not easy to manage an enraged crowd of tens of thousands of people."

  "That's why in Moscow we just don't allow protests to take place." Vanja noted, slightly amused. Irina whiffed and then added. "And we turn our heads on Telomerax diffusion."

  The sirens were getting closer, to the point that they felt compelled to switch on the television. They connected to one of the many live newsfeeds. The police had attacked the crowd, who had dispersed in the nearby streets. Some groups were starting to set cars ablaze here and there, and some of them were rushing down Rue St. Honoré. Protesters might have reached Place Vendome in a matter of minutes.

  They left the suite and went to the balconies. Four police vans crossed the square, blocking the south access. The first group of rioters tried to enter, but was stopped by a salvo of tear gas. The group of policemen herded the crowd back to Place de la Concorde. The police was trying to draw them to the east, toward place de la Bastille, to keep it away from the Presidential palace. Guillermo watched the scene next to Vanja. In the distance, they could even hear some gunshots.

  "We are going to see more and more of this, as prohibition tightens in Europe, following the US example,” Guillermo commented. “It is not easy to tell people they have to give up the possibility of becoming immortal, no matter how much of a risk it brings. But it is good business for you guys in the security community."

  Vanja did not reply. On the other balcony, Helena and Irina stayed silent, until Irina turned her glance away from the police and addressed Helena.

  "Tarek told me a bit of the story of your team, of how he opposed the decision to go public, fearing uncontrollable destabilization, and how he was always part of the minority. I guess you were in the majority, together with your late husband, George. Could you have ever imagined things would go this way?"

  Helena waited for the sirens and the shots to subside. As Guillermo and Vanja were re-entering the room, she hinted to her husband that she needed a few minutes more, alone with Irina. As the French counterintelligence in front of them was recording the conversation, she wanted to make sure everybody knew her answer and also made a point to double check with Tarek all he had told Irina about their team.

  "The way I grew up, I learned that regret does not lead you anywhere. If things go wrong by your mistake, it's much better to learn the lesson for the next time. If you can blame someone else, it is more productive to think about retaliation and revenge. So yes, in retrospect there are a few things I would have done differently, and I think George would agree with me. But someone killed George, and whoever is guilty made a big mistake, so I hope you are not involved with that. I am starting to appreciate your way of working."

  Irina contemplated her options. Remaining silent would have been an half-admission to responsibility, so she had better say something. But what? She felt Helena had, like herself, a sense for spotting well-crafted lies, and whatever she said would be known also by the French secret service. She eventually made up her mind and stared straight into Helena’s eyes. She couldn't help notice that, at almost six-feet-tall, she was looking down to Helena from a good four inches.

  "Helena, you know, I am not the boss of any of the Russian secret agencies. So I cannot rule out that somebody in Moscow might have made that decision. Nor is it my duty to find out, for that matter. One thing I can tell you though is I grew up without a father, and I did not like it at all. I knew you and George had a daughter. I would not allow the attack, if it was up to me."

  "Alright Irina," Helena whispered, "you just made my search more difficult. We better go back in, we have a few more subjects to go through."