2. Funeral in Barcelona (9 pgs.) – Champions Renaissance

ACT I - CHAPTER 2

FUNERAL IN BARCELONA

Sunday August 20, 2017

Mountain of Montjuic

Barcelona Spain

The coffin was black and closed. A small glass window showed the urn with his ashes. Beside it lay a gold medallion engraved A is A and a photograph of Ronald smiling wide.

Alexandre said goodbye with the family at Montjuïc cemetery. Before traveling, his parents had chosen cremation after seeing photographs of the charred body. The police had taken them to the accident site. The car had plunged thirty meters into a ravine and caught fire. His torso and head were unrecognizable. Charred bones showed where flesh once was. The gold chain and medallion still circled the vertebrae. His watch surrounded the bare bones of his wrist. His phone, wallet, and documents were also charred. His ashes and personal effects would travel to London, the city where he had been born twenty-three years earlier.

Teammates wore white shirts, black suits, and black ties. The family formed a semicircle on one side; attendees completed it on the other. A pulpit stood in the centre. The green peaks of Montjuïc looked over Barcelona.

The first to speak was Gregorio “Greg,” Díaz, their coach. “We say goodbye to Ronald Williams, friend, captain, great midfielder. We will remember his disposition and his precision of play.”

Alexandre barely listened. He focused on his mother’s sobs and on Barcelona’s horizon. He recalled Ronald’s last call, the day before the accident. If anything happens to me, keep your promise to finish the book. Then Ronald added, Be careful with what reads the same in both directions. He had no time for questions. The next day Ronald sent a coded text:

dpejhp-fo-qfoesjwf

Alexandre never imagined that message would be the last thing he heard from his friend.

He remembered when they learned hacking for fun. They competed to improve. They became skilled. They raced to find flaws in institutional systems. They sat side by side at computers and sent fixes to webmasters under the name The Angels.

They discovered they could access city infrastructure. They could cut power grids and divert trains and planes, but they never did. They never caused damage.

The last competition was Japan’s central bank. Ronald found two errors and sent solutions in half an hour. Alexandre was impressed by his speed and skill.

Is Scotland Yard training you? he remembered asking him.

The CIA, Ronald replied, continuing the joke.

They were curious minds chasing hard challenges. Hacking was difficult, but philosophy proved harder. They began to study it. They read many books and invented football metaphors to simplify complex ideas.

Understanding philosophy through football seems like a joke, but between jokes the truth emerges, Ronald said. On another occasion he had said, Besides playing well with our feet, we must learn to play well with our heads.

They fell in love with ancient Greek thought. Plato and Aristotle seemed to hold opposite, irreconcilable ideas. They valued the Law of Identity so much each made a gold medallion engraved: A is A. But the more they read, the more contradictions appeared. What began as fun turned into desperation. They felt trapped in a swamp of quicksand. Each solution surfaced two new problems. They stayed stuck for a long time.

Sometimes I feel like something wants to destroy my mind, Ronald had confessed after reading Kant.

It felt as if something wanted to keep ordinary people ignorant. They hated that.

You have to read Galt’s speech! This novel will help us escape the philosophical swamp! Ronald had said, kissing the book as if it were treasure. They did not agree with Ayn Rand on everything, but her work on objective epistemology helped them the most.

They read classical philosophers and modern thinkers: Edward B. Tylor, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins. When Ronald returned from a month in London to recover from an injury, he had a new urgency. He grew angry when Alexandre was late to their philosophy meetings, just the two of them. They usually met weekly in Alexandre’s kitchen. After London, Ronald took the meetings very seriously.

Alexandre remembered a dialogue he would never forget. Ronald spoke with a voice both calm and sharp. His eyes held a fury that seemed to scare hell itself. The conversation had been short, but decisive.

Alexandre, are you going to help me or not? This is not a game! It is dangerous!

Why dangerous?

Because it will destroy the hidden brain of the world.

Alexandre remembered Ronald saying it very seriously and adding: I can’t tell you what I found in London. I will only tell you that rulers who deceive the ruled will not get away with it. I am real because I love reality. I will destroy false premises, and they will not see me coming. We must write a book of philosophy to liberate people’s minds from any kind of propaganda. It needs to be a tool for millennia.

At his funeral, those words brought tears. Ronald’s voice was calm, but the fury in his eyes would have made the devil himself flee from hell. The dialogue had continued.

Will you help me write the book?

Yes.

Can you do it in secret?

Yes.

Don’t even think about telling Victoria; you would put her in danger!

I won’t tell anyone.

Do you promise you’ll finish it if something happens to me?

But what are you saying!

I’m serious. Do you promise me?

Yes, I promise.

Will you write it at any price?

Yes. At whatever price.

They had shaken hands as a sign of commitment. That conversation had happened only four months earlier. Neither imagined the price would include his life.

Greg returned to Ronald’s qualities: joy for life, positive attitude, great self-confidence. In the locker room Greg had confessed his secret to success: fake an emotion of triumph until the emotion creates reality.

Reality obeys your emotions. Quantum physics demonstrates it, Alexandre remembered Greg saying. He didn’t mind contradictions. He demanded the team “tune in” to his emotion. Only then, he claimed, would they be invincible. He tried to act friendly, but everyone knew he was a dictator with no real empathy. No one respected him, yet they feared him.

Greg once lost his temper after telling them to play with their hearts.
I disagree, Greg. I’ll play with my head, Ronald had said calmly. That day they won 4–1 because teammates ignored Greg and followed Ronald.

Greg hated independent minds. He could not handle Alexandre or Ronald. How are we going to be one team if each of you thinks for yourself? he had shouted in the dressing room. Alexandre shook his head, remembering. And his harangues? Pathetic. Greg used to say, You leave your mind off the court. I am the brain; you are my body. Each of you need to die to become the team. You must obey blindly. Is it clear? I put on the music, you dance without making questions. If you want to be an individual, play tennis.

Once Greg lifted a thin assistant by the lapel, a foot off the ground. The man sued, and Greg paid a fortune.

The locker room split over ideas. Greg benched those who disagreed, except Ronald and Alexandre, irreplaceable talents.

We are not followers, we are thinkers, Ronald used to say, Alexandre recalled. Greg hated hearing that.

Alexandre’s attention returned to the funeral. Greg descended the pulpit, another man climbed up.

“Dear family and friends. We are deeply saddened by Ronald’s early departure. His joy is safe in heaven,” Franco Gambino said. He owned Club de Los Reyes, Barcelona’s top football club, where Alexandre and Ronald had gotten their start.

Franco, in his seventies, appeared fifteen years younger. Political contacts, press influence, company ties. Everyone knew his reach. In public, he was an exemplary Catholic: collar, tie, Sunday mass, confession, communion. He donated generously, earning access to the Vatican Library. He used to meet with the Pope regularly to discuss religion. On his nightstand: a Bible and a Quran. Photos showed a large man, five foot seven, 80 kilos, thick gray hair, square face. One showed him training with the team.

His fortune began with a hotel chain in Europe and Asia, later sold. He promoted globalization, claiming it would prevent wars. His saying: To make omelettes, you have to break eggs.

A gold chain with a large medallion, a family relic, hung around his neck. ‘I inherited it from my father, and he from his,’ read a magazine. There were rumours of dark businesses. ‘I’ve been to court many times, they never proved anything.’ Photos showed him in a white limousine with armed bodyguard, and with his fourth wife, a young Polish model, and children from four marriages. Villa Gambino near Milan: his home, but most of his time was in Barcelona and Paris. Some called him the “Corleone of football.”

When Gambino finished, Alexandre checked his phone, deleting unknown messages. One remained: RONALD: PENDRIVE BEHIND CASA MILÀ SOCKET. Arrived three hours earlier. He erased it without thinking. His gaze drifted across the Barcelona skyline.

The terrace held beautiful women. He recalled a letter sent to Ronald: What I like most are your big green eyes and white teeth when you laugh framed by red lips your brown hair crowning your stylized figure as tall as the trunk of the tree under which I want to be. No periods. No commas. They laughed reading it. Written by a fan admiring Ronald’s slim, athletic six-foot figure.

Journalists praised Ronald’s skill and precision, comparing him to legends who followed passion from youth. Alexandre remembered his own early passion, gifted a football at age five. Hours shooting in the Arc de Triomphe with his father. Joy with family support, until his parents died in a car accident when he was eleven. They collided head-on with a truck returning from Lyon. Alexandre moved to Paris with uncles who despised football and loved rugby.

A local match revealed him to a recruiter from Club de Los Reyes de Barcelona. He attended a trial and soon signed a contract with his uncles’ reluctant permission. In Barcelona, he met Ronald, a recruit from London, and their friendship began instantly.

Victoria Reynolds observed Alexandre from afar. His face reflected the same intelligence she had seen the first time they met. She recalled their last night of lust and her body shivered. Oh, my love. I, Aphrodite, was fascinated by your naked body. My beloved Apollo, I remain yours. I love your thin, muscular silhouette, your Greek face, broad forehead, and long angular eyebrows. Your eyes, blue as the sky. Your fair but tanned skin. Your ash‑blond hair. Your angular face and wide mouth. Your white teeth. Your red lips that melt me when you kiss me. Your strong hands when you hold me naked and… I am yours. She felt the words move across her body and thought, I would love your mind even if your body was like Socrates.

Alexandre’s eyes found Victoria. She thought, I love you, looking at him mischievously from the far end of the terrace. I love you too, he thought in return. Her long, curly hair fell to her waist like golden threads. Her tall figure, wrapped in a tight black dress, revealed elegant curves eager to move toward him.

He winked. She responded immediately. Alexandre remembered meeting her at a university party in London. That same night, their romance had begun. She studied aeronautical engineering at Cambridge, where a tribute had been held for her father, a prominent physicist. Her Danish mother, also a physicist at the same university, had joined him in receiving medals of honor for their careers. They had married in Copenhagen and moved to Cambridge when Victoria was three.

The engineer in jeans is going to assault you, thought Victoria, still covered with goosebumps from the previous night. She began walking toward him.

Alexandre smiled. She was an army ready to win an easy battle. Her long legs and firm thighs advanced with the rhythm of wild Africa. She was a lioness searching for her male, simple, sweet, determined. Her light‑green eyes, rimmed in dark green, never left him. Nothing else existed. Her long eyelashes flirted from a distance like careless butterflies under elegant dark eyebrows. Her face mixed tenderness and mischief, revealing a happy, confident soul, passionate yet serene. She desired him from afar. Her moist lips, charged with eroticism and joy, opened slightly, showing teeth as white as her naked body had been the night before.

When her army of curves reached him, she took his hand, both as support and to mark territory. He squeezed her hand, grateful for her presence. Alexandre would not rest until he solved the mystery of Ronald’s death and the coded message sent the day of the accident.

“I’m so sorry,” said a renowned sports journalist as she approached. Alexandre nodded. “The media promised discretion,” she said. “But the police are asking questions. Tomorrow I’ll publish his story. The title is ‘The Story of a Hero’.”

“Thank you,” Alexandre said, eyes wet.

“Thank you,” Victoria added.

“Thank you for being who you are. We will miss Ronald. Goodbye.”

“I’m very sorry,” Franco Gambino said, appearing suddenly and hugging Alexandre. “I knew you were called ‘the philosophers.’ Recovering from this will be hard for everyone.”

“Thank you,” Alexandre said, uneasy.

“Did Ronald know something?” Gambino asked.

“About what?”

“Nothing in particular,” Gambino said. “But if you ever want to talk about a book, call me. I have access to the Vatican Library.” He handed Alexandre his card and left.

A chill ran down Alexandre’s spine. His eyes fixed on the horizon. Victoria sensed the tension.

“What did he mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“How strange.”

“Yes. Strange,” he said, thinking Gambino’s words carried a warning.

He slipped the card into his jacket pocket. As he withdrew his hand, a woman stumbled beside him. He caught her before she fell, holding her curvaceous waist. A delicate perfume rose from her wavy red hair. She was beautiful.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, regaining balance. “You trip everywhere in these heels.” She walked five steps, stopped, and returned. “I’m very sorry for Ronald’s death,” she said softly. “But he’s alive. His spirit lives among us.”

“Thank you,” Alexandre said.

Her thin, freckled face had a Greek profile. Thick lips framed calypso‑blue eyes that rivalled Victoria’s green ones.

“Thank you,” Victoria said, trying to read her expression. The woman turned and left.

As her statuesque figure disappeared, Alexandre’s gaze met Gambino’s. He was leaving the cemetery with another man, slipping something yellow into the man’s palm.

Light fell over Barcelona. After saying goodbye to Ronald’s parents and teammates, they went to Alexandre’s apartment. It occupied the eighteenth floor of a modern building with a panoramic view of the city and sea. Victoria admired the wooden floors, high walls, and white ceilings. The black‑granite kitchen bar was where Alexandre and Ronald had held their philosophy talks. Victoria cooked, then they went to bed.

The next morning, after taking Victoria to the airport, Alexandre returned home. He grabbed his jacket from the couch and reached into the pocket. Beside Gambino’s card, he found a paper with a red lipstick mark and a note in a woman’s handwriting:

I’ll wait for you tomorrow, Monday. Come incognito, alone, on foot, and without a phone.

He frowned, wondering how it got there. He turned the paper over.

Important: Look for the yellow envelope in the first trash can on the left, leaving Casa Milà at 10 p.m. Be punctual.

The redhead at the funeral put this in my pocket, he thought. Who is she? Why the kiss? What’s so important? Why incognito? A yellow envelope in a trash can?

He left quickly to arrive early for training. He practiced long‑distance shots, as he always did. The team was struggling with Ronald’s absence. Greg tried to lift morale, promising they would win the championship in his honor.

That night, Alexandre decided to go to the meeting, but armed. Is this a trap? Will they kill me like Ronald? he thought. Will I meet the redhead? The image of her figure stirred a mix of fear and desire.

He drove to Casa Milà and parked several blocks away. He left his phone in the car, pulled his hood up, and put on sunglasses. He walked to the trash can and saw a large yellow envelope inside but didn’t stop. He kept walking, scanning the street. Be careful, he thought, lighting a cigarette. After a minute of watching, he retrieved the envelope. Then he moved to a corner of Casa Milà and leaned against the wall. Here I’m a bit safer, he thought.

The envelope read: OPEN AND READ NOW.

He opened it. It was written in capital letters:

I CANNOT REVEAL MY IDENTITY, BUT YOU CAN CALL ME RICARDO. I’M RISKING MY LIFE AND MY FAMILY’S. THIS MUST REMAIN SECRET. I HAVE NO CONCLUSIVE PROOF, BUT EVERYTHING INDICATES RONALD WAS MURDERED. HE WANTED TO WRITE A BOOK OF PHILOSOPHY TO FREE PEOPLE’S MINDS FROM PROPAGANDA. WE WANTED TO HELP HIM. BUT DARK FORCES KILLED HIM. THEY DON’T WANT FREE THINKERS. IF YOU DECIDE TO WRITE IT, WE WILL HELP YOU. COME BACK NEXT MONDAY AT THE SAME TIME. LEAVE YOUR RESPONSE IN THE SAME PLACE. MARK A BIG YES ON THE ENVELOPE. YOU’RE PROBABLY BEING FOLLOWED. LEAVE NO TRACE. BURN THIS NOTE AND GO.

Alexandre took out his gold lighter, burned the note, and crushed the ashes under his sneakers.