The Clayton Account Read Free Page B

with fear: treason meant death, for the traitor and his entire family, if need be. But even that no longer guaranteed protection, so he had thought long and hard for a better tactic – and now he had a new idea.
    Morales heard the car before he could see it. He knew it would have been stopped at the main gate and then observed from the woods as the walkie-talkies relayed its progress. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see two of his bodyguards come out of the house and walk up to meet the vehicle. It pulled up in front of the veranda and its sole occupant emerged.
    ‘Good afternoon, Don Carlos,’ said the new arrival. Tall and fair and, as always, immaculately dressed in a linen summer suit, he walked with the deadly assured stalk of a mountain wild-cat. ‘I came over as quickly as I could.’
    ‘Come up, Enrique. Have a cool drink.’ Morales pointed for the visitor to sit next to him.
    They sat side by side in silence, Morales still gently swinging them to and fro. The drinks arrived, fruit juices in crystal goblets on a silver tray.
    Morales dismissed the servant.
    ‘This land,’ he said, waving his right arm at the hills and forests beyond the estate, ‘has been very good to me, you know, Enrique?’
    ‘I expect it has, Don Carlos,’ the visitor replied non-committally. ‘More as a result of your own efforts than its own generosity, I would say.’
    Morales nodded appreciatively. ‘Perhaps. But it troubles me that it seems to do very little for the rest of the people around here.’
    Enrique Speer remained silent. He recognized the tone. Morales was leading up to something.
    ‘I was in Medellín the other day. You know what I saw? I saw dirty streets and hovels they call homes. It made me think. Why do people have to live like that, eh, Enrique? Why in this noble and prosperous land of ours?’ His brows rose inquisitively.
    ‘It seems to be the way of things in Colombia, Don Carlos.’
    ‘Sadly, I cannot do much for Colombia. But I could do something close to home. Did you know that half the children in this province do not even go to school?’
    Speer shook his head.
    ‘What is it like to be sick and poor? I walked into a charity hospital, just to have a look, and … ugh! I would not wish to send my dog there!’
    ‘There are of course plans to regenerate the area. US Aid is particularly channelled in this direction –’
    ‘Plans, plans,’ Morales interrupted. ‘The gringos are so stupid. By the time the politicians and their friends in Bogotá have taken their cut, there will be barely ten cents in the dollar left over.’
    ‘Quite.’
    ‘When you have a problem, Enrique, you
hit
the problem.’ He slammed his left fist into his open right palm. ‘That’s how
I
deal with things.’
    ‘How can I be of help, Don Carlos?’
    ‘I am going to share my good fortune with the people of Medellín. I am going to build a hospital. A modern hospital with good, well-paid Colombian doctors. And two schools. Large schools, well equipped, to educate the children of the poor.’ He spoke emphatically now. ‘And housing. Lots of housing. Low-cost, but decent.’
    ‘That is amazingly generous!’ Speer was truly impressed.
    ‘Of course. But how generous? I mean, how much will it cost me?’
    ‘Well, there is the cost of building, inevitably, but also the continuing expense of running things.’
    ‘Don’t worry about running costs. The business community will contribute,’ he smiled. ‘The Church can give us teachers. They always talk of social justice. So, let them send their priests and nuns as teachers. No, I mean: how much to
build
?’
    ‘I’ll work on it.’
    ‘How much roughly?’
    ‘Fifty million, give or take … should go a long way.’
    ‘What am I worth, Enrique?’
    ‘One twenty, one twenty-five.’
    ‘We do it, then!’
    ‘I am speechless. You will give away almost half your fortune to the people of Medellín?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Such a gesture will make you the most loved man in the