June 1st, 2032.
Luanda, Angola.
Presidential Palace of the Democratic Republic of Angola.
17:27 The president’s office was not what visitors expected.
There was no ostentation.
None of the decoration authoritarian heads of state used to communicate power, the statues, the portraits, the golden surfaces that screamed I have arrived with all the subtlety of thunder.
It was a functional space, with tall walls of dark wood, shelves filled with books that had been read rather than displayed, and a wide window overlooking the palace gardens where the late afternoon light entered as though it had politely asked permission first.
At the center, a mahogany desk.
And behind it, Robert Elis De Brás.
Sixty-four years his face refused to confirm.
His skin carried the firmness of a man twenty years younger, without the artificial touch of cosmetic intervention.
It was something else.
Something deeper.
As though time itself had reached a different agreement with this man than it had with everyone else.
His white hair was perfectly aligned, every strand exactly where it belonged.
The black-and-white suit held not a single crease.
His posture was effortlessly straight in the way only people who never had to learn how to sit properly could manage, because they had never sat any other way.
He drank tea.
He read envelopes.
Handwritten.
There was not a single printed page on the desk.
No active screen.
No tablet.
Nothing that needed to be connected to any system.
The sheets were thick, high-quality paper, written in handwriting that changed from envelope to envelope, from different hands, from different parts of the world.
A man who had decided certain conversations should never exist on any server.
The knock on the door was discreet.
Two spaced taps.
“Come in,” Robert said without looking up from the envelope.
Agent Álvares entered.
Forty-two years old, presidential uniform, a Grade-B Intent Detection Gift, which made him useful in political environments and also left him permanently aware of nuances he sometimes wished he could not detect.
He had worked under three presidents.
He knew how to read a room.
And the room Robert Elis De Brás inhabited was always, without exception, the same: quiet, calculated, and carrying the specific quality of a place where decisions had already been made before conversations even began.
“Sir,” Álvares said, with the posture of someone delivering information he was unsure how it would be received.
“I came to inform you about the meeting with the CORG representatives.
They are waiting in the reception hall.” Robert folded the envelope he had been reading.
Placed it atop the pile.
Lifted his teacup with the same calmness he had done everything else with.
He looked at Álvares.
Not for long.
Only long enough for Álvares to feel, as he always did even after years, that the man’s gaze was reading something beyond the surface of the conversation.
“Tell them,” Robert said, with the tranquil voice of a man communicating a decision rather than a hesitation, “that unfortunately I will not be present.
Internal matters.” Álvares inhaled before replying.
Only slightly.
But Robert noticed.
“Sir,” the agent said carefully, in the manner of someone who knew what he was about to say would not be welcome but still needed to be said, “if you do not attend, it may create problems for our state.
CORG is already under pressure from the United States.
Two incidents in eight days.
They want answers, and Angola is…” “I know what they want,” Robert said.
He did not cut him off abruptly.
He said it with the patience of someone who had heard enough to anticipate the rest.
“They want information about their bases.” He set the cup down.
“Tell them that if they want answers, they should speak to those responsible.
Not me.” Álvares briefly closed his eyes.
A small gesture.
The gesture of someone organizing what he was about to say next.
“And if the United States decides to respond, sir?” Robert smiled.
It was a small smile.
Not one of contempt, something more complex than contempt.
The expression of someone who had held an answer long enough that he no longer needed to search for it.
“Respond.” He repeated the word calmly, as though examining it.
“Angola does not possess the military or economic capability to compete with the United States of America.
That is a fact no honest strategic analysis would contest.” Pause.
“But there are limits.” His voice did not change.
The cadence did not change.
And yet something entered the sentence that had not existed in the previous ones.
Not a threat.
Not arrogance.
But the specific quality of a truth that does not need defending because it is simply true.
“If they choose to react, they will discover that every action has a reaction.” Álvares remained silent for a moment.
Robert returned to the pile of envelopes.
“Was there anything else?” Álvares hesitated.
Five seconds.
Robert did not pressure him.
He allowed the silence to exist, which was the most efficient way to give space to a question someone was still deciding whether to ask.
“It would not be an inconvenience, sir,” Álvares finally said, his voice slightly lower, as though the question was more personal than professional.
“I wanted to know…
why you are on their side.
Katta Beshlik’s side.” Robert did not immediately look up from the envelope.
When he did, he looked at Álvares with an expression that was, for the first time that afternoon, something different from calm calculation.
Not emotion.
But consideration.
The expression of someone evaluating how much of a truthful answer was safe to give.
“Unfortunately for you,” he said, “I will not tell you the reason.” Álvares nodded.
He expected that.
“But one thing,” Robert said, and this time there was no calculated pause, no rhetorical build-up.
It was simply the sentence itself, “one thing is certain.” He looked toward the window.
Toward the late afternoon light over the gardens.
“If no one takes care of them,” he said, “the world will enter the stage of its collapse.” The silence that followed was not the silence of a conversation that had ended.
It was the silence of a sentence left hanging in the air because it was too large to be immediately absorbed.
Álvares left without replying.
Robert returned to his tea.
To the next envelope.
To the handwriting of a hand he recognized.