Please stay on this frequency. We haven’t been able to contact anyone else yet. You need to send help. The road’s out, there is no way…
We knew it was coming, so we hid in the mountains. We knew it was coming, but nothing prepared us for the earth opening up. When the lights came in the sky, I watched, terrified, and the tremors started so I ran outside into the flat ground. All the buildings collapsed, so many dead…the roads torn apart. I watched the Matterhorn crumble like chalk. Send help. Please. The ash and snow, waist deep…not many of us left.
Transmission ended in sign-off. Freq. 4644 kHz/NSB.
OCTOBER 22nd
26
VACA, ITALY
MOORED SAILBOATS BOBBED on gentle swells inside stone breakwaters just off the gravel-and-seashell beach. Jess watched them, her mind exhausted. How nice it would be to stretch out on the deck of one of those boats, feel the sun on her skin, drop off to sleep.
Giovanni sat next to her on the pizzeria terrace, his face impassive behind dark sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low. Jess’s wide-brimmed hat fluttered in the breeze, and she glanced around the cobblestone piazza in front of them. A decorative anchor was set in poured concrete at the center. Wind-swept juniper trees faced the ocean to the west, and European Union and Italian flags snapped in the breeze to each side of a plaque proudly emblazoned with the town’s name: VACA.
Scooters parked shoulder to shoulder, just off the terrace, bordered a long line of people waiting to get inside the restaurant. It was one of the few still open. When Jess and Giovanni, with the two security men, drove in at dawn, it had the feeling of a ghost town, but the hot sun drew what few people remained from their homes, to herd together and eat.
“Anything?” Jess asked Giovanni, flicking her chin at the walkie-talkie on the table between them.
“Nothing yet.”
Mounting a manhunt wasn’t like stepping outside for a walk. Once they committed to the idea, they had to plan it out. They started by bringing in the security guards Nico had hired, explained the situation to them. Giovanni told them that Nomad might be arriving sooner than expected, but the sum he offered both men sealed the deal—gold, and lots of it. Giovanni had a safe filled with bars of it in the basement of the castle.
Giovanni turned up the volume on a battery-powered satellite radio he brought with them. “…riots continue in America, with a bomb this morning in a Washington mall and an explosion reported at government buildings in Sacramento, claimed responsibility by a cult saying Nomad is Nibiru returning…” They had it tuned to the BBC. “…global stock markets and currency exchanges have crashed, sending gold prices skyrocketing…”
After a series of terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv, Israel took control of the Gaza strip, prompting a wave of attacks by the PLO from neighboring Lebanon. Continued fighting in Kashmir had pushed the United States to send armed air support to Indian troops. In America, a renewed explosion of riots from LA to Detroit, at least from what they could tell from the radio. The situation in Europe seemed calmer, more resigned.
The night before, Giovanni arranged for delivery trucks to bring supplies to the castle. On the ramparts, Jess had improvised human-sized wooden dolls, their heads covered with large hats. Good enough to fool someone watching the castle from a distance, at least for a few hours.
In the small hours of the morning, under cover of night, Jess and Giovanni and the two security guards had smuggled themselves out in one of the delivery trucks, just in case someone was watching. Nico seemed to try to dissuade Giovanni from bringing Jess, a heated argument behind a closed door, but in the end they left Nico and Celeste to arrange collecting as much gold as they could in case they needed to produce the ransom.
The yeasty warmth of fresh bread wafted out of the door next to Jess, mixing with the salty freshness of the sea air and ever-present hint of coconut oil that seemed to permeate every seaside vacation town Jess had ever visited. She glanced inside, at an old couple happily serving customers. They looked like they were doing what they wanted to do—like the brothers from Giovanni’s story—and were where they wanted to be. She watched the old man take a twenty Euro bill as payment. Twenty Euros. It wasn't even worth the paper it was printed on. If death came today, Jess sensed the man would be freed by angels, not torn by demons.
What she would give to be him.
A woman in short shorts and flip-flops, with a pink bikini top, stopped in the doorway. “Veni,” she urged, waving her hand.
Glancing inside, Jess saw a small boy, with a Sponge Bob-printed beach towel around his neck, standing and staring at the gelati freezer. He wanted ice cream. The mother urged him forward again, but he stamped his foot and pouted. The mother glanced at Jess, shaking her head, but shrugged and went back in.