“Were based on a different scenario. Pina2bo only,” Cornelia said. “Not factoring in Vadan or Papua.”
“And what do the simulations say when those are factored in?”
Cornelia, never a great one for diplomacy, broke eye contact in a way that showed impatience, even irritation. Michiel, in his role as smoother-over, glided in like a soccer player moving to intercept a pass. “That is a little like asking, ‘What is the result of acupuncture?’ There is no one answer.”
“You lost me there.”
“I used to have sinus headaches,” Michiel said. “Nothing helped. Miserable. I went to see an acupuncturist. She put needles in my face, as you might expect. But also in my hands and feet! How can this possibly work!? How can a needle between my toes make my sinuses feel better?” He shrugged. “It all has to do with the flow of energy around the system.”
“Which is never obvious,” Marco added.
“But acupuncturists have that all mapped out, you’re saying,” Daia said. “We can trust them.”
“In this case,” Michiel continued, “maybe there are three points where we have the needles: Pina2bo, Vadan, Papua. Maybe more later. What does that mean for the Punjab? There is no one answer. It depends on how they are used. How they are tweaked.”
“This is why we got involved with Vadan,” Marco said. “Maybe we find out that if Pina2bo shuts down for two months in the winter and Papua runs heavy for six weeks in the spring, the monsoons in the Breadbasket come out perfect.”
“But people starve in China,” Daia said.
“China might have something to say about that,” Cornelia said, in a tone of dry witticism.
Daia exchanged a look with Saskia, the import of which was Do you understand what she’s on about? I don’t.
“What do you mean, Cornelia?” Saskia asked.
“You could just as well point out that the United States could drop a bomb on Beijing, and hurt China! Why don’t they? Because China doesn’t like to get bombed and would retaliate.”
“Also,” Chiara put in, with a nervous glance at her aunt, “because it’s just stupid to hurt people for no reason!”
“That too. Now, imagine if it took six months to transport the bomb from America to Beijing, and you had to do it in the open.”
Daia nodded. “There can be no sneak attacks. No climate Pearl Harbors.”
“The Alastairs and the Eshmas of the world know their business too well.”
“But they are just voices crying in the wilderness,” Saskia said, “if they’re not backed up by some kind of muscle. China and India both have the big stick. What about, I don’t know, Iceland? Myanmar? Chad?”
“Venice?” Marco added.
“Catalunya!” said Pau.
“All that boils down to,” Cornelia said, “is that strong countries are strong and weak countries are weak. Which was true before.” She picked up her phone and began shuffling through pictures. “You know, on the boat trip I took last year, we passed through the Suez Canal. The Bab el Mandeb. The Malacca Strait. All famous
choke points to the navigation of the seas. People have been fighting wars over those places for hundreds of years. And when they are not fighting wars they are playing geopolitical chess games around who will control those ‘acupuncture points.’ This is the same. It’s just that some places that most people have never heard of are going to become the Suez Canals of the future. And the great and small powers of the world will have to mark them out on their chessboards and maybe even prepare for conflict. But if you suppose any of that is new, you don’t know history.”
VADAN
Though he was not a licensed pilot, Michiel belonged to that class of people who spent a lot of time messing about in boats and planes and had some knowledge of how they worked. Saskia was old enough to remember when a man of that description might have been called a playboy. Among European royalty there was no lack of such. But no self-respecting man wanted to be called that anymore. Anyway, the Venetian didn’t have a job per se, or any fixed slate of obligations relating to work or family. When it came time for Saskia to head for Vadan, Michiel asked if he might join her in the co-pilot’s seat, and she said yes without hesitation. He was good company to be sure. And though she wouldn’t have trusted him to take the Beaver off or land it, he could manage it in level flight when she needed the occasional break.
The journey lent itself to an easygoing, short-hop style of travel. They were essentially flying down the whole length of the Adriatic. They chose to follow its Italian, as opposed to its Balkan, coast. They could put the plane down almost anywhere, and it would usually turn out to be someplace charming. Michiel, who had roamed up and down this coast in pleasure craft his whole life, knew of good places to get coffee or a delicious meal while the Beaver was being refueled. They stopped once about halfway along in a little old Roman town, unspoiled by tourism and yet still well supplied with cafés and restaurants because of a local art scene. Then they flew a leg to near Brindisi, on the heel of Italy, at the narrowest part of the Adriatic. Here there was more modern hustle and bustle because of its maritime connections to Albania and Greece, but Michiel knew of a fantastic little waterfront bar, just colorful enough to feel like a real place, patronized by a hilarious mix of locals and old salts passing through. It was tucked in beside a fishermen’s wharf across a cove from the fuel dock. The