Chapter 29 The Meeting of Millionaires
A/N Ranger is still in Colombia in meetings so once again for ease of reading please assume everything in italics is spoken in Spanish.
Monday May 24 13:50
Estaban Suarez arrived first with three guards. I allowed all the guards inside. We would eat lunch first and then all the guards would be asked to wait outside. Rodrigo Rossi arrived next with only one guard and a very large shoulder holster under his jacket. Andres Cabrera arrived next with two guards. Thiago Pereyra arrived with no guards but looking like he had multiple weapons under his jacket. Fernando Jimenez arrived last with two guards.
All of these men had good Latino looks with dark brown hair and brown eyes and dark skin. All of these men were multi-millionaires. Andres and Thiago were both billionaires. They all make millions a year in legitimate businesses but most of them have illegal businesses on the side as well.
"Please Gentlemen. Let's eat lunch and get to know each other." I offered once everyone arrived. I ushered everyone over to a long dining room table that was set for six. The leaf had been put in to make it longer and we were sat three on each side, lest any power hungry people sit at the head of the table and think they are better than anyone else here.
Estaban Suarez sat down and immediately demanded. "I want to know why I am here. I flew a long way and canceled several meetings for this."
"Here Here. I second that motion." Rodrigo Rossi said.
"Gentlemen I thank you for your time, patience and understanding. I don't mean to be mysterious but what we have to discuss is very serious and known to upset the digestion. I know you have all traveled far to be here on very short notice. Trust me it will be worth millions to you. So please let my secrets lie a little longer. All will be revealed in due time."
Once we were all seated, two waiters that had been standing in the corner came with wine, water and menus. They took additional drink orders and put bowls of soup out for us to start on. The five men made some business talk while we waited. Ten minutes later the waiters returned pushing one cart. They cleared the soup away and served salad and bread with butter. Fifteen more minutes went by and they were pushing two carts this time. They cleared the table, refilled our drinks and set our meals in front of us.
We had a nice business lunch filled with small talk and I got to learn a little about each man personally. Thiago Pereyra was married with three children. He was in his mid-forties but had no grey hair or lines on his face. He just looked a little weathered and dignified. Fernando Jimenez was single, the only one in the bunch and the youngest, only twenty-eight years old and from the sound of it quite the partier. It is one reason he liked living in Bogota, the capitol city, so he can enjoy the night life.
Andres Cabrera was married with two kids. He would not give his age but looked to be in his mid-thirties. Rodrigo Rossi was forty-five and married for twenty years with six kids. Esteban Suarez was twenty-nine years old. Newly married and had one new baby boy that with a little coaxing, he showed pictures of.
After lunch I told them that we were doing private business and explained that the guards must now wait in the hall. I led them all to the living room of the suite and invited them to sit down. There was a liquor sideboard against the wall and I offered them all native Aguardiente. All but Jimenez took me up on a glass. When everyone was settled I put in the video of the prostitute.
"This is a video that men hired by Sergio made and dropped to me. This is of a woman I once saw briefly but as you will see we are no longer together as they kidnap her out of another man's bed. But that didn't stop them. I'm going to play it on fast forward because it is long."
I turned the TV on, pressed play and sped the DVD up as fast as it would go. Then I watched the men closely. None were upset by the beatings and I reminded myself that women were sometimes loved, worshiped and adored but they were still very much second class citizens here. The group rape caused a bit more of a reaction; Thiago sitting back further in his seat like he was trying to get away from it all and Rodrigo looking a bit ill.
When Mucktar pulled out his knife all but Fernando braced themselves for what was next I hit play so they could hear Mucktar's warning. When he got to the end I backed it up just a few seconds so I could translate it.
'Instead of a team trying to get you, we are to take out your women. First your lover, next your daughter, then your mother and finally your four sisters and we can't forget Grandma Rosa, and Grandma Sanja. This next part is not what I would do. I would just kill all your women outright. But we were given specific orders and everything we do here tonight is videotaped for Sergio as well as for you. We were given the equipment and told exactly what to do and how to do it. So, we must go for a trip now and prepare your woman for her final performance.'
There were no visible reactions to the stabbing. When it showed Stephanie hanging seven stories up there were several gasps as this is not what they expected to see. I turned off the DVD and turned to address them.
"I don't know about you, but I couldn't sit around while they kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed all the women in my family. We got that woman safely down from the building and I gathered all my family up and hid them. A few days later the men found us and a firefight ensued. All but one of the men were killed and I questioned that man thoroughly. He explained that they were all killers for hire. There was a man leading the team he called Boris that hired them and was directing their moves. Later Sergio himself said that he hired Santiago "The Saint" Martinez to go after my women."
"This is the conversation I had with Sergio when I came to Colombia to talk to him." I turned the TV on and to Bluetooth, then I pressed play on my phone and the TV played the audio recording.
"Sergio, this is fun right? This is the exact kind of fun you imagined when you put hits out on all the women in my family."
"Fuck you."
"Exactly what did you think was going to happen when you did that? Was I just supposed to sit around and let your men kidnap and torture my mother, my daughter, every woman in my family and then me?"
"Did you think I was just going to lay down and take it?"
"I want to have an actual conversation with you. No fists, just words, can you do that?"
"What will you give me to go away now that I have taken all this trouble to come see you personally?"
"Nothing"
"Will you call off the hits on the women in my family?"
"No"
"Are you going to stop trying to send men to kill me?"
"I'll take that glare as a no."
"Come on Sergio you're not giving me many reasons to spare your life and the lives of your family. I think that's a fair trade. Kill your family to save mine. Since I didn't actually start or want any of this."
"Fuck you, you can't kill my family."
"Why not? You put hits out on all the women in my family. Are you willing to remove those hits? Will you call the guy right now on the phone and call the whole thing off?"
"Again I will take that 'go die' look as a No."
"I'm trying to negotiate for my life and the lives of my women. They are priceless to me. I would spend ten times what I'm worth and go into debt for the rest of my life to save theirs. I would go into debt one hundred times what I'm worth to save my own. How much debt are you willing to go into to save your life and the lives of your children?"
"Go to hell."
"So your life and the lives of your family are not worth that much to you. How much are you willing to pay me to go away? What is your life and the lives of your children worth? You're worth billions. I would take three billion eight hundred million dollars. That's billion with a B. Pack up my men right now and go home."
"Fuck you, I'm not giving you all my money."
"What would it take? You're a rich man, worth billions. One of your shipping companies and your emerald mine?"
"Hell no, I'm not giving you shit."
"What about a discounted deal. Ten percent of what you are worth. I would take three hundred eighty million dollars and you remove the death threats from my family and me and you promise to leave us alone forever."
"Nothing, I'm giving you nothing. If you kill me your life and the lives of all your women are forfeit. You do anything to me and this will never end for you."
"So you have cost me millions of dollars, you want my life and the lives of all the women in my family and you want me to just leave you alone and let you kill us? What did I ever do to deserve this?"
"You got in my way. You are a bug and I'm going to squash you and all your little buggy relatives. Now I am adding all the men in your family too."
"So that's your great offer to me. You want me to leave you alone for free and lay down and let you kill me and all my relatives. For something I did as a soldier. For following orders that I would have been court marshalled for not following. You know if you had a problem with the American President and his orders you're out of luck, he's no longer in office."
"My problem is you! You're such a smart ass. You and your men showed up and took the land away. You killed one of my best men. It's all your fault, it cost me over twenty five million dollars to buy up the land after that!"
"That was years ago. You got the land, you got the mine, you've made millions why are you coming after me now?"
"Boris"
"The Boris you sent after me? The one in the States trying to kill my women?"
"Boris Gonzalez."
"What about Boris Gonzalez?"
"We got drinking one night and he gave me twenty five million dollars to take you down. He showed me proof that you were after me and I knew I had to take you out. So I took his money and he insisted I had to torment you, make you bleed money, make you lose the things that are most important to you and then kill you."
"That's why all the video recordings for proof."
"Yes I have to have proof to show him."
"What's his number I'll have a talk with him for you, get you out of that deal."
"No there is no end. This is my life or yours and you have to die."
"Sergio how about less than half of one percent of what you are worth? Fifteen million dollars. Your businesses make more than that a month. Fifteen million dollars and I take my men and go away."
"No there's nothing you can do! Your life and the lives of all your women! You have to die! No matter what so do they! No matter what you do this will never end for you!"
I turned off the recording and put the phone back in my pocket.
"I was put between a rock and a hard place. If I did nothing my family would suffer and be killed. If I took action I risked you, his business partners, coming after me. It took me a week and a half and two more attempts on my women before I knew I had to act and take Sergio out. But before he died he signed all of his businesses over to me." I turned on the TV again and made sure it was on Bluetooth and hit play on my phone. Nothing happened for a few seconds. Suddenly the video appeared on the TV.
The video showed a fully dressed Sergio sitting on his bed with his back to the headboard. His legs fully extended, ankles crossed, with a stack of papers on them. Him looking at each paper, signing it and putting it on the bottom of the stack. The video lasts for three minutes as he stared longer at some sheets than others. Knowing what those pages said I don't know why he signed them because they clearly stated that he was selling me all of his businesses and naming me CEO. I'll have to ask Snark what he told him to get him to sign.
"Sergio is gone. I have control of all of his businesses but I don't want them, I'm not going to give up my life and move to South America to run his empire. Meanwhile all of you will be losing business if his shipping companies stop running. Senior Rossi, he ships your merchandise through all of South America on his trucks. Senior Pereyra, you ship yours overseas on his cargo ships. Senior Jimenez, he flew your products out of the country on his planes. Senior Suarez, his ships bring all the merchandise you buy into the country. Senior Cabrera, he buys yours and ships it all over the world"
"You are all good successful business men. But I don't want to be running businesses in South America. So if you are interested, I am giving away his income producing businesses, millions of dollars a year to you, if you'll run them fairly and keep most of his employees. Not the top brass as I expect you'll need to make them your own but the hundreds of lower level employees that still need a paycheck every week. In return all I ask is you give me two percent of the annual profits and treat your employees right."
"Why would you do that?" Pereyra asked.
"As stated I don't want to move to Colombia to run his businesses." I told him.
"But you could just hire some managers to run them for you and take all the profits." Cabrera said.
"I just want to move on with my life and my business. If I have managers running it they will be coming to me with questions and problems and I don't want to be dealing with it. I don't know enough about his businesses to run them. I would have to stay down here for months getting familiar with them and getting them back on track after his departure."
"So why are you giving them to us?"
"Your businesses all depend on his being successful. You know about running profitable businesses in Colombia and the laws down here. You will all be losing money if his businesses get shut down. I care about the hundreds of workers that he employs. It would be a real loss to lose all those jobs because Sergio is gone. I am trying to do the right thing for the success of his businesses, for you, for the country, for his employees."
"What exactly is it you are offering us?" Suarez asked.
"Let me explain the businesses in question. First, his cargo shipping business has twelve ships and ships products all over the US, Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. It does three hundred to five hundred million dollars of business annually. Second, his airplanes ship all over Central and South America. I don't know how much business it does. Third, his in country shipping has five hubs with warehouses and unknown number of trucks and trailers. It is currently moving about two hundred fifty million dollars annually."
"Forth he has an emerald mine that I can tell you produces about twelve million annually in raw stones, but he shuffles a good number of them through a jeweler who makes a lot of jewelry. Sergio would then buy back the jewelry at a great discount and resell it all over the world. He doesn't own the jeweler but seems to have an agreement with them. This process makes over thirty million dollars a year."
"Fifth he has a small fishing and delivery company in northern Colombia that has thirty five small fishing boats and six refrigerated delivery trucks and agreements with a list of grocers and butchers that buy fresh fish daily. This is honestly his least profitable business, only making about half a million in profit a year. I won't take any profit sharing from this one but I want a ten year commitment that you'll keep that company going. There are a lot of jobs and livelihoods and right now it basically runs itself. Just put someone in charge of running it and it's free money every year."
"Sixth and seventh are two companies that just buy and sell products for the shipping companies to haul. One is a South American shipping company doing over thirty five million dollars a year, the other is an international shipping company doing over eighty million dollars a year. I am offering you 98% of the profits for each company for the next ten years. In ten years time I sell out to you for one dollar and the companies and all their assets will be yours."
"What about his cocaine business?" Jimenez asked.
"All the fields, processing plants and warehouses have been burned to the ground and are not currently for sale. I haven't decided what to do with them."
"What about the uranium mine?" Jimenez asked again.
"For now it too is closed." I told him. "You seem to know a lot about his businesses."
"We were actually close friends and why I'm likely to accept your gift and let your women live but for doing this you ultimately have to die." Jimenez determined.
"Let me play you a recording." I tell him. I took out my phone again, found the right file, pressed play, the TV played the audio file loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Sergio, Sergio."
"What would you pay me now to end all this?"
"What would it take for you to call the hits off all my women and me?"
"How much would it cost me for you to leave me and my family alone?"
"One hundred million dollars."
"For what?"
"One hundred million dollars a year for the rest of your life and I'll remove the hits and leave you and your women alone."
"What other options did I have? What would you do?"
"I would kill him of course but I would be smart and send a named killer after him and let him take the heat." Rossi said.
"Like he has done with my women? Because killing him did not remove the threat, I still have a killer after them I have to go hunt down and remove." I told them.
"I think the price he quoted was fair." Jimenez stated matter of factly.
"It was a price he wasn't willing to pay." I explained.
"And now he is dead." Pereyra acknowledged.
"It could also hire a lot of assassins." Jimenez remarked.
"Yes but that is a threat I live with in my line of work, hence the bodyguards." I told them. "But he threatened my family, my women. I cannot allow a threat like that to exist when I can so easily remove it myself. Right now, after lunch, without weapons and without breaking a sweat."
"But alas I am not without weapons." Jimenez said pulling back his jacket.
"If you threaten me I will take everything you own and kill you. Because the price on my head is high, all of your living family too. I don't play around with my life." I insisted.
Jimenez pulled out his gun and I laugh, it is a little .38 and it reminds me of Stephanie.
"I've been shot at with much bigger guns and you have to know now if you shoot me you'll never make it past all nine of my security."
"But Senior Manoso you'll be dead, the gun will disappear, my cohorts and I take your paperwork and I buy their silence with one of these fine businesses. Your men can do nothing. Somebody has to finish Sergio's work."
I'd had it with all the threats and I stalked towards him as he lifted the gun towards me. I knew I was wearing a thin bullet proof vest under my shirt, so unless he shot me in the head I would live but I could only take one shot before it would knock me out. At the very least it would knock the air out of me and I had to disarm him before he could do that. In less than a second I had crossed the room grabbing the gun before he could fire. I cold cocked him, knocking him out.
I took his gun and aimed it at the other men. Maybe this would never be over for me, maybe there would now always be a long line of rich men sending killers after me. And how would that be different than any other day in the last six years?
"Tank" I called and he immediately opened the door. Seeing me with a gun, he nodded his head to Eagle and Bullet and the three of them entered.
"Secure him." I told them and cuffs and flexicuffs appeared and Jimenez was trussed up on the floor, mouth stuffed full like a holiday turkey.
"Who else thinks I need to die, because we have more handcuffs and flexicuffs?" Tank, Eagle and Bullet stood menacingly behind me.
I texted Hector that I needed a list of all living relatives for Fernando Jimenez.
"Senior Manoso, I understand you had no choice in what you did with Sergio and came to meet with us out of courtesy and to make us even richer than we are. I see that you are a good and honorable man who is only trying to save his life and the lives of his family. You were given no choice of action but to do what you have done. I am willing to receive your gifts and promise not to ever come after you and yours. Even more so I'm willing to extend the protection of my name to you here in Colombia. It will stop most from coming after you." Thiago said.
"Thank you Senior Pereyra. Now I must know where does everyone else stand?"
Estaban Suarez spoke up, "I am a man willing to kill my enemies." I bristled at his words and stood straighter ready to attack. "But Senior Manoso you are not my enemy. You are a soldier whose life and the lives of your loved ones were threatened. I will gladly take a business or two and wish you a long peaceful life. I am newly married with a son that means the world to me and I don't wish harm to come to either of them over some stupid man's vendetta."
"Thank you, Senior Suarez" I told him. "Senior Cabrera, your thoughts on all this?"
"Senior Manoso I personally don't wish you harm but Senior Valentino was a friend. I'm not sure how I feel about benefiting from a friend's untimely death." He told me.
"Senior Cabrera, Senior Valentino knew I was a soldier. He knew that putting a threat against the women in my family would cause a response from me. You heard me, I tried offering him options. I personally expected him to buy me off, promise to leave my family alone and send me on my way. Then take a new hit out on my life and my family. That is what I was expecting. But he gave me no options to spare his life and now I have all of his businesses. You do not need to take one if it is only going to make you feel bad when you run it."
"No I don't mind taking a business. In fact, I would like his mine and jewelry business. It will go well with my businesses as I already ship all over the world." Senior Jimenez was waking up and starting to struggle against his bonds wiggling about on the floor.
"Done. Senior Rossi your thoughts?"
"I think that Senior Valentino shipped my products all over Columbia and South America. I would like the trucking business."
"Of course." I told him. "Senior Suarez you haven't mentioned what kind of business you would be interested in."
"Well I import goods from all over the world so I would like his South American company that buys and sell products created from all over this continent and if no one else objects his fishing company too. We eat a lot of fresh fish and it would be nice to get first choice straight off the boats."
"Senior Pereyra?"
"I would gladly take his cargo shipping company. It will be the most work but it makes the most money and most of my business is shipping goods out of Columbia so that will work well for me."
"Excellent, let me get the paperwork for each of you." I got the folder and passed out the appropriate paperwork for each business and they began to read over the contracts.
"Gentlemen these contracts give you complete control of the business to run anyway you wish. Paying me two percent of the profits for the first ten years at which point in time I sell the businesses completely to you for one US dollar each. There is one main condition attached: you must treat your workers well. Everyone gets health insurance for their families, everyone gets set up with a six percent matching retirement fund, everyone gets a Christmas bonus at the end of the year and everyone receives profit sharing that is split between cash and their retirement funds. I'm giving you millions of dollars for free here and all I am really asking of you is to treat your employees right. When we pay our people well, they are better employees, and they make the whole country better. Can you each agree to that?"
I received a few Si's and head nods and everyone signed their paperwork. "These will be filed tomorrow. I will send you detailed information about each business and you can each take over starting next week."
I opened the last folder. "Now this is the last form I'm going to ask you to sign. It says you hold me blameless in Sergio's death and will not come after me, my family, my businesses or my employees in anyway at any time, now or in the future. Nor will you hire or send a third party after me, my family, my employees or my businesses in any way, at any time, now or in the future. I understand the consequences of this action will result in losing all of my wealth, my businesses and full extermination of myself and all of my family." I passed the forms out and each man read them over, signed and returned them.
"Now you all need the money. All of his accounts have been emptied. I am giving each of you fifty million dollars to keep the businesses running and pay all the open accounts that are due."
"Fifty million! How much did you take?" Suarez asked astonished.
"Sergio had his businesses running like a pyramid scheme. He had the money running through over two hundred fifty different accounts. I just consolidated them all. I'm going to be honest. I already paid more than half of what was in his business accounts to the cartels. The coffee/cocaine business he had running has been shut down. Addicts everywhere are going to be cursing me but I've seen the problems of addiction. I can't pass that business on so I had to pay them off. I am willingly giving you gentlemen what is left so that you can successfully run his businesses."
"Why are you doing that? I would think you would just take all the money and run and not worry about us running his businesses." Pereyra queried.
"I'm here to set you up to be successful. I need more friends, not enemies. It does you no good for me to give you businesses that have had all their funds stolen and can't function. Or that you have to pump millions of dollars into to make them profitable again. I will be honest. With the way he had the money spread out through all of his accounts I don't know how much came from each business. To be fair I am just dividing up what is left for each of you". I walked out of the living room and got Hector from the bedroom, telling him quietly what I needed. He handed me a list of names of the Jimenez family.
"This is one of my account managers. Please give him the account you would like the money to go into."
"I just need the name of the bank and the account number." Hector explained to them.
He took a piece of paper and passed it around the room. Each man wrote his account information on it and passed it around to the next man. When it got back to him, Hector took the piece of paper and went to sit at the dining room table with his computer.
Each man finished his drink while I told them what I knew about each business. Fifteen minutes later Hector came back over and announced that the money had been transferred. We shook hands and they each left ignoring their comrade still trussed up on the floor.
I cleared the glasses off of the coffee table to the wet bar. While there I refilled my glass, filled a glass for Fernando, and took two cigars from the box there. I set everything out on the coffee table then took the sheet of names and set it down in front of his empty chair, carefully placing his drink and a cigar on top of it. I removed his gag, undid the handcuffs, cut through the flexicuffs and hauled him back up into his chair. I sat down on the couch next to him with my drink, lit my cigar and set the lighter in front of him.
"What is this?" he asked suspiciously.
"It is a conversation." I told him and waited.
He rubbed his wrists reflexively, leaned back in his chair and glowered at me. I just sat there staring distantly at the wall, sipping my Aguardiente and smoking my cigar. If I got to the end of it without conversation from him, he was a dead man, but I wanted to reach him on a personal and professional level and limit the number of innocent deaths on my hands even if I was not the one to pull the trigger. So I sat and I smoked and finally he took a sip of his drink and looked at the paper sitting underneath it.
Seventy eight people were on that list, his entire immediate family that was alive in the country. He laid the paper down and picked up the cigar and lit it. Took a drag and blew smoke rings up to the ceiling.
"So you're going to kill my whole family?" He asked picking up the Aguardiente.
"Are you going to kill mine?"
"No, I never threatened your family."
"You said you were going to 'finish Sergio's work' and he was trying to kill my family and me. If that's not what you meant why say it?"
"I meant kill you."
"Why do you want to kill me? I am a gift horse bringing you businesses that are worth millions, that will make you millions and you want to kill me for it."
"You killed Sergio, you must die."
"Sergio not only signed his own death warrant, he pulled the trigger and blew off his own head."
"He was an honorable man, a religious devout man, he would never kill himself."
"Never the less he did and I have it all recorded. He asked for my gun, I put it in his hand and in his mouth and two and a half minutes later he blew his own head off."
"Show me." He demanded.
I pulled out my phone and played the video that lasted two minutes forty one seconds. I really watched Sergio's face and you can see the flash of excruciating pain cross his face a split second before he pulls the trigger. What I hadn't realized was that he had been slowly pulling the trigger back with every nail I had pumped into him so it was only a small amount he had to squeeze before the gun went off.
"Damn. Why would he do such a thing and condemn his soul to eternal hell?"
"He was a beaten man. He had lost everything, given me everything, but still he wouldn't remove the hits on my family. He would rather die than see me and my family live." I let him chew on that for a few moments and took another sip of my drink. Then I took a big puff on the cigar.
"I don't know why he hated me so much." I continued. "He was worth billions, yet he threw it all away to come after me and my family. When what I did to him was nothing personal. I was under orders I had to follow. He sent his men to kill us and one of them was actually stupid enough to walk up and shoot one of my men in the chest, so of course we shot him and my man was wearing a vest. Busted him up and got him a one way ticket home but didn't kill him." I paused and took a deep breath.
"Fernando, I like you. I respect you. I came here to show you respect and honor, to do the right thing. I have no beef with you or your family. Sergio made his own bed and wouldn't give it up. What would you do if someone demanded one hundred million a year for the rest of your life to let you and your loved ones live? Are you going to pay that person?"
"He would be a dead man."
"Do you see I didn't have a choice? I didn't come after Sergio except to protect my life and the lives of my family. Do you want to know the saddest thing?"
"What?"
"I think from all the final discussions I had with Sergio that he was no longer in his right mind. He was no longer in touch with reality and somebody came along knowing he was not all lucid and got him fired up to take me out. Even gave him millions of dollars to hire men to kidnap, torture and rape my women and got him twisted up in his head that somehow it was him or me and that I and my family had to be taken down for him to live."
"What?"
"He was no longer holding onto sanity with both hands on the steering wheel. He had some warped idea that for him to keep living on this earth he had to take me and my family out. I don't know why someone would do that to him or to me. He made threats years ago, at the time his man was killed, but he never followed through with any of them while I was still here in Colombia doing my government's work. A few years later he sent two different hit men after me and I took them both down and sent him a nice note to cease and desist and he seemed to let it go. I don't know why years later he would get it in his head that I mean anything to him, but this Boris guy gave him twenty five million dollars and got him convinced that it was him or me. It is why he finally killed himself, he knew he couldn't beat me and rather than die by my hand he chose to die by his own, thinking that somehow he was robbing me by killing himself."
"I don't understand. Somebody gave him twenty five million dollars to kill you before you took him out and he decided it was better to die by his own hand than let you kill him?" He questioned.
"I'm telling you he wasn't firing on all cylinders and someone knew it, got him all twisted up in his head and gave him the money and the name of a man who would do it. I think he was set up but he was starting to lose it and didn't realize that someone was messing with his head. That I wasn't after him. That I had nothing against him." I explained.
"There were some signs that he was having problems. I only know because we use to have lunch almost every week. Things were starting to slip. He would move or spend money and think someone stole it. He would make some crazy decision about his businesses. Like he decided they were going to double their cocaine production, without buying and planting more fields. That somehow if he made the people work harder they could magically produce more cocaine and he promised bigger shipments to be coming soon to the cartel. We talked candidly about our businesses. I knew all about his illegal stuff and he would ask me advice. But recently he wanted to sell off all of his businesses because it was too much hassle one week and buy more ships and expand the next. I was seeing signs of what you are saying."
"I'm saying that someone convinced him that he had to get rid of me and my family and gave him the money to do it. He was just not with it enough to see it wasn't reality. What do you know about this Boris Gonzales?" I asked.
"I know he's not from here. He had been emailing Sergio for months before he finally came. He was sending Sergio all kinds of proof that you were after him and his family. When he came it was with the money and it was more than an agreement. Sergio signed paperwork promising to remove you from the face of this earth on his life, but promising to torture you first by hurting your women. It was a weird contract. He gave ten million of the money to Santiago with the instructions. He gave the other fifteen to someone else to follow through with the contract if The Saint should fail and he got killed."
I watched the brief display of fear and panic that crossed his face and my gut told me the truth.
"You, he gave the money and contract to you." I said it as a statement but he froze in his seat as if he expected me to attack him. Instead I got up and went to the door. I called his guards back in with Tank and Bullet. I took his gun back off the sideboard and gave it to him, then I sat back down. I was excited now. This was the man that held the key to protecting the women and ending the contract on their lives. If I handled this right it would mean the end of the problem for my family.
"You are not a killer. This is a great responsibility you took on for this friend. You must have been close." I told him. He had relaxed having his men back in the room with him and especially having his gun back. He was a tall man maybe 6'2", and good looking with an average build. But it was nothing compared to my size and strength and I wanted him to feel as comfortable, as powerful and as safe as possible for the rest of this conversation.
He sat back in his chair. "He was like a second father to me. Well like my business father. When my dad died and I took over his business we met. Once I had made several million we had lunch and he promised to show me how to make more. We have been having lunch most every Thursday for about three years. When I got over extended in my business he lent me money to get out of it and didn't charge me any interest when I paid him back. He was a friend to my father but he has been so much more to me."
"I'm very sorry that I had to take him from you but he left me no choice."
"Logically I understand that. But emotionally I am hurt, even though I knew it was going to happen and I warned him of it when he told me about the contract and the money. It was one reason I volunteered to fulfill the contract for him."
"Do you have the contract with you?" He tried to look blankly but I could see in his eyes he brought it. I just held out my hand to him and he lifted up his briefcase that I hadn't paid much attention to and got it out.
"Half of it is in a language I don't speak and I don't think Sergio did either." I took the contract from him. It was in Spanish and Italian.
I scanned the three page contract. Basically, Sergio took the money and swore on his life and with all his money, if needed, to end me. But first to make me suffer by torturing and killing all my women. That was the first page that was in Spanish. The next two pages were in Italian, and my Italian is rusty and some of it was legalize but the gist was that I had mortally wounded the man known as Boris Gonzales and he was putting an endless or forever contract out on my life. To last until I 'and all my generations were defeated.'
Then it went on to list all my crimes and it was a twisted laundry list of my special forces record with a long list of authorized kills as innocent men I had killed, reporting hostages freed as people I had taken by force, listing men I helped catch who were behind bars as men I had framed, showing illegal weapons confiscated as weapons I had stolen and sold for profit. It also had a long list of innocent civilians I had knowingly killed on purpose. I recognized a group of names as the family of an African war lord who were not known to be on the property we were authorized to raid and were accidentally killed. I didn't recognize any of the other names.
"I want to tell you that these accusations in here are false." Certain that he probably had the contract translated. "May I keep this contract? Or get a copy?" I asked him. He waved his hand to me to keep it and I was certain it was a copy.
"So now what do you suggest? I don't really want to kill you, but I can't leave and let you fulfill the contract and your promise to Sergio. You can't let me leave and if you do you are honor bound to hire more killers to go after me. But you have to know, that I won't just kill you. If you come after me, or send someone after me it is your whole family on the chopping block." I told him.
"Well I've never killed anyone. I honestly thought I could shoot you in front of those men, be done with you and keep all the rest of the money for myself but I couldn't pull the trigger. I don't want you coming after me or my family. If I am honest with myself I know that Sergio was tricked. Tricked into thinking that you were coming for him. Tricked into signing this contract and sending people after you. After he did it he knew it meant his own death if The Saint didn't get to you soon enough. He told me he was worried about it. But I am honor bound to this contract and my promise to Sergio."
"What exactly did you promise him?"
"I promised him I would keep hiring people to take you out until you were dead, even if it cost me some of my own money."
"What did you promise on?"
"What?"
"Did you promise him with your life? Your firstborn child? On your father's grave? On the life of your mother? What did you promise him on?" I asked.
"Nothing. I didn't swear to or promise on anything."
"And what are you going to say to your mama, that you got her killed as well as your brothers and sisters and their children, your nieces and nephews because of a promise you made to someone who was mentally unfit? Who was legally not all there? You understand that a crazy promise to a mentally unstable person is not a promise you have to keep?"
"Well…" He paused for a while staring while he took a drink and relit his cigar. I just waited him out smoking and drinking. I wanted to get through to him and get him to rescind his promise and the money he was given. I was worried if he kept the money at some point in the future he may decide he still owed Sergio and act. Finally he looked over at me.
"I guess making a crazy promise to a man who was mentally losing it is not something I should hold to, given my life and the lives of my family are on the line."
"I will more than compensate you for this, but the first thing you have to do is give me the fifteen million."
"Twenty-five million actually."
"I thought ten million had been paid to Santiago."
"It has been promised to him upon completion of the hit but it hasn't been paid. I was given all the money to hold until it was confirmed."
"Ok give me the twenty five million and swear on your mother's life that you will break your promise to Sergio and no longer pursue me or my family." I demanded in a forceful tone.
"Yeah sure."
"No you have to state it." I told him.
"I promise," he held up his right hand. "I swear on my mother's life and my father's grave that I will no longer hold to my word to Sergio Valentino to fulfill this contract any longer. I will no longer pursue you or your family. I won't hire any more killers to go after you and I will call off the contract that was already set in motion." He looked at me." Was that good enough?"
"Yes, now write me a check or I'll have my financial consultant come take the money out of your account."
"Have your financial consultant come. I don't have a checkbook for the account it is in."
I texted Hector and he responded 'five'. Sure enough a few minutes later Hector came in the room and I waved him over to sit on the couch with me.
"Fernando needs twenty-five million taken out of his account and put into my personal overseas account." I explained.
"All I need is the bank name and your account information." Hector told him.
Fernando took out a yellow sticky note, wrote the name and a bunch of numbers and passed it to me. Moments later Hectors fingers were flying across the keyboard. I took another sip of my Aguardiente and thought this had been one of the most important drinks in my life.
Minutes later Hector wrote another long string of numbers down on the paper and passed it back. "Confirmation number."
"Call it off." I said in my authoritarian scary voice and Fernando quaked in his shoes. He pulled out his phone and started talking in rapid fire Spanish.
"This is Fernando Jimenez, canceling the hit ordered by Sergio Valentino. Code 9438724417."
"No. Sergio is dead and the hit has been canceled. All his accounts have been drained there is no more money left."
"No there is no more money." He covered the receiver and looked at me.
"He says he was promised ten million no matter what for his time and efforts and he has been working on this assignment for months. He doesn't care how I pay but I have to pay him."
"Get his email for his account." He got another sticky note and wrote on it. I handed it to Hector. "Ten million to this account." He nodded to me and moments later signaled that it was done.
"The money has been sent." I told Fernando.
"Ok the money has been sent to your account." He said over the phone.
"He's verifying it." He told me as he waited on hold.
"Sorry to be so much trouble. Glad to have this finally concluded. Nice doing business with-" He stopped talking and looked at me. "He hung up but he verified he got the money. I'm taking that to mean he accepts the contract is called off."
"Very good. That concludes that business. Thank you Hector. Don't go far I will still need you." I politely dismissed him and he closed his computer and walked to the bedroom without looking back.
"Now we must conclude the business we came here for. I have one business left that I saved for you. He has a company that buys and sells manufacturing goods internationally. It is a very profitable business. I know that part of the business was a cover for some of the countries he was illegally selling uranium to but it transacted over eighty million dollars worth of business last year. That's not all from the extra uranium. He was making a good profit off that. Are you interested?"
He looked surprised that I would still offer him a business.
"You were someone he obviously cared about and trusted, he would want you to have one of his businesses." I told him.
"Sure… I guess, since there is no one else." He was hesitant.
"You can show him how much you learned from him and apply what he taught you to build his own business."
"Okay" He sounded more enthusiastic.
I handed him the paperwork and explained about my requirements for the treatment of his employees. He agreed to it all and signed the contract. Then I handed him the last form.
"You already verbally agreed to this but I like to have everything in writing." I told him as he read it over. He quickly signed it and passed it back. "One more thing. I am paying you to fulfill this contract." I called Hector back into this room.
"Send fifty million dollars to the same account you took the twenty-five million out of." I requested.
"Fifty million dollars." Fernando sputtered. "You don't owe me fifty million dollars."
"It is what I was willing to pay to get rid of the contract on my family. You did that for me. You went against what you promised Sergio for the good of your family and yourself, but you did it. You told me about it. You made the call. You signed the contract promising to never come after me again. The least I can do is pay what was promised for calling off the hit."
He nodded to me, relit his cigar smoked for a moment and drank his drink.
Then I turned to him. "Now, you get fifty million dollars for your business. What account do you want that in?"
I could see remembrance dawning in his eyes as he remembered everyone else getting the money. He quickly wrote the account information on another post-it and I passed it to Hector.
We both finished our drinks while waiting for Hector to complete the transaction. Minutes later Hector signaled that the transfer was done.
I stood. "I think we have completed our business Senior Jimenez. You will hear from me before next week with the details of the business. After that I look forward to your annual earnings report." I told him as I held out my hand. He shook it.
"Thank you Senior Manoso. I figured you were just going to kill me but you have made me a much richer man. I truly thank you."
I walked him to the door and he left without any more fanfare. I turned around and stalked back to the living room. The hit had been called off, my family was safe, but I had to find the man who presented himself as Boris Gonzalez. He got Sergio worked up enough to sign a contract and take twenty five million dollars to kill me.
Somebody wanted me dead. Somebody was willing to work very hard behind the scenes to create an elaborate setup to hide behind. Somebody with a lot of money. Somebody that knew my Special Forces history. Somebody who had researched my family. Somebody with a grudge. Somebody who did not want me to know who they are. It would not be over till I found them.
To be continued….
A/N: Thank you all for your reviews! This chapter finishes all his business with Sergio Valentino. What did you think? Did I cover everything? Please read and review.
As always big THANK YOU to my beta Sassysaint I really appreciate you!
Second Big THANK YOU to my sister, Jonelle. Thank you for fixing all my many little mistakes.