by Blake Banner
He scowled. “I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job, Bauer!”
“Apparently, what you want and what you need might be two different things, Colonel. Common sense should tell you I am unlikely to have taken her or hurt her. Your answer is in the foyer. Now, was there anything else?”
“Not for now, no.” He stood, hesitated. “You said you’d been planning this trip for some time. What did you come to LA for, Mr. Bauer?”
I smiled and gave my head a small shake. “I’ve undertaken some lucrative jobs, and made some smart investments, Colonel, and I have been lucky enough to make some money. Like a lot of people who have been involved in my type of work, I have reached an age where I feel I need to do something…” I hesitated, like I was searching for the right word. In the end I spread my hands and said, “Worthwhile. Something that does not involve killing bad guys, but doing something positive for people who are in need.”
“That’s very admirable. You want to cut to the chase, Mr. Bauer?”
“I’m getting there. I did some research and I found a few organizations that undertake projects to help provide kids with clean water, schools, hospitals. Yeah, OK.” I shrugged. “So you don’t believe a man like me can give a damn. But I don’t need you to believe me, Colonel. I’ve seen enough killing and cruelty, and I have done enough killing and cruelty of my own, now I’d like to know what it’s like to be on the other side of the fence. You don’t believe me, go screw yourself.”
I was surprised to discover that the anger I felt on seeing his dubious expression was real. I stood. “Where was the last village you provided with water, Colonel? How about the last school you built, or the last child you adopted? You’re going to sit in judgment on me? I don’t think so.”
“All right, Mr. Bauer, you made your point. Mind telling me the name of the organization you’re going to see about your project?”
“No, I don’t mind at all. It sure as hell isn’t going to be the Clinton Foundation. I’m going to talk to the Cavendish Foundation, and if I’m not satisfied with them, I’ll go to the Gates Foundation. Anything else?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I saw him out, swore softly and went to call the brigadier.
“Harry, what is it?”
“I just had US Air Force Colonel James Armitage here, wanting to know about my relationship with Colonel Jane Harris.”
“Naturally you stuck to the script.”
“Yeah, and I told him exactly what happened. They tracked me through my credit card. Air Force intelligence are looking for her and they are not wasting any time.”
“Good, neither are we.”
“But this means they are going to be watching me like hawks.”
He didn’t sound worried. “You told them you were there to invest in the Cavendish Foundation?”
“Yeah, or Gates.”
“Good, and that is exactly what you are going to do. The worst thing you could do is back out and run back to New York. Do exactly what you told him you were going to do.”
“OK. Any news?”
“No, we are looking at the boy who was on the reception desk when you dropped her off. But we are still trying to piece together what happened.”
“OK, I’ll go ahead then, but if you can pull any strings to get this guy off my back, do it. These guys are not amateurs and they have the kind of budget that could make them a real pain in the ass.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I hung up and while I dressed I went through the file. The colonel had suggested I contact one Sheila Newton at the foundation. There was a photograph of her. She looked like a cute English rose, with pink cheeks and bright eyes, and a body that might keep you awake at night. I called the foundation and asked for her. After a thirty-second wait a cute voice that fit with the image came on the line and said, “This is Sheila Newton, whom am I speaking with?”
“Good morning.” I injected a smile into my voice. “My name is Harry Bauer, I’m here in Los Angeles from New York, and I was wondering if we could meet to discuss a project I have. I think it might be of interest to your foundation.”
There was a small pause. “Oh, um… Who gave you my name, Mr. Bauer?”
I laughed and suggested with my tone of voice that it was an apology. “Miss Newton, forgive me, I did some research on the foundation before contacting you. I like to know where my money is going. The fact is my secretary brought you to my attention. She said you have been actively and creatively involved in launching a few projects over the last year. She described you as a rising star.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
“And to be honest, I am looking to put my project into the hands of a good, creative team. That’s why I have come directly to you. I’d like you to take the project to the foundation, and I’d like you to be involved in making it happen.”
“My goodness, I am very flattered. I’ll certainly do what I can. What is the project about, Mr. Bauer?”
“Well, I would really rather discuss it in person. Can you squeeze me in today? Or perhaps I could take you to lunch…”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Bauer.” She made a pretty sound laughing. “Not yet, anyway. It’s rather short notice, but how about eleven o’clock. Just come into reception and ask for me. They’ll give me a shout.”
“That’s superb, Miss Newton. I’ll see you at eleven.”
I spent the next hour studying the plans for the project that the colonel had sent me in the file, memorizing names and places and making sure I fully understood the concept that I was going to try and sell. Then I phoned around some companies that specialized in fundraising events, chose one I liked and made a tentative appointment to go see them that afternoon. At ten thirty I took my attaché case, climbed in the beast and headed downtown to Hill Street in the Financial District. In my rearview mirror I noticed a dark blue Ford sedan, keeping its distance.
The Cavendish Foundation was housed on the eleventh and twelfth floors of the 1920s Italian Renaissance Revival monstrosity on the corner of West 5th and South Hill Street, now known as the Cavendish-Pershing Building. It was grotesque, but it had somehow acquired a kind of venerable integrity based entirely on its uniqueness, the way a good, hundred-year-old fake accrues a value all its own.
The foyer, which was more Art Deco than Renaissance, was all dark wood and brass. The elevator, with concertina doors and more than a whiff of Tiffany and Lalique, carried me to the eleventh floor and I exited directly into the Cavendish reception. It was decidedly 21st-century functional, seemingly molded from unidentifiable materials that could as easily have been steel, carbon fiber, fiberglass or plastic. What wood there was, mainly on the floors, had been treated so extensively it might as well have been synthetic. Maybe it was, like the shiny girl who pretended to smile at me from behind the gunmetal desk.
She said, “Good morning,” but her smile said, “What can I do to enhance your experience at the Cavendish Foundation this morning?”
I returned an unsettling smile that suggested various unorthodox options, but I said, “I have an appointment with Sheila Newton. My name is Bauer, Harry Bauer.”
“Of course. I’ll call her for you right away.”
For a moment I was reminded of Blade Runner, and wanted to ask her how she felt about walking along in a desert and finding a turtle lying on its back. But by then she was talking brightly into her phone.
“Good morning Sheila, I have Mr. Harry Bauer here for you. Shall I send him up…? Of course!”
She hung up, showed me the same shiny bright smile and pointed at a steel elevator over on my left.
“Take that elevator to the next floor. Sheila’s office is the third door on your right as you come out.”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you, and have a very special day.”
I walked away convinced that nobody could be that bright and cheerful about something they really didn’t give a damn about. She had to be an android, a first generation iE
mployee, Receptionist Model 1.1. No question.
Sheila was waiting for me at the elevator when the doors slid silently open and I stepped out. I was surprised to see her in jeans and sneakers, with a sweatshirt and red hair tied back in a ponytail. She gave me a smile that did not look like the latest generation of Apple Technology.
“Mr. Bauer? I’m Sheila Newton.” She pointed toward an open door where I could see a small but sunny office. “This is me here, come right on in.”
She had dark blue eyes and a faint smattering of freckles. The accent was Texas and I found I wanted to go right on in, just as she suggested.
The office was small, with a small window looking out onto 5th Street. She had a melamine desk and a black vinyl imitation chair that she could swivel in. There were a couple of DIY bookcases stuffed with folders full of papers, and here and there a few paperbacks including a few Rough Guides, textbooks on economics, a few well-thumbed atlases and selected copies of National Geographic.
The chair on my side of the desk was steel tubing and blue fabric, and it didn’t swivel. She gestured to it as she lowered herself into her seat.
“Let me say right from the start, Mr. Bauer—”
“Harry, please.”
She smiled in a way that was almost apologetic, like I was coming on too strong but she had to be nice about it. “Harry, let me say from the get-go, that I do not normally handle this kind of thing. But I had a talk with my supervisor, and with Mr. Cavendish, we had a meeting, and they both agreed that if you wanted to liaise with me that was cool, but obviously any major decisions have to go through them.”
I gave her a bland smile. “That is pretty much what I had in mind. I want you onboard and I want you to be part of the project. I figure to start with your role will be creative and advisory, Sheila, but as we move along, and perhaps on to other projects, I imagine your role will grow and develop. Is that OK with you?”
“Like I said,” she gave a small giggle, “I am very flattered and honored by your trust.”
“Good, so let’s move on to the project.”
She spread her hands and laughed prettily again. “OK! Shoot. Tell me about the project and how you think we can help.”
I cleared my throat and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees.
“Sheila, I was, at one time, involved in combating the export of cocaine and heroin, and various chemical byproducts of cocaine, in various parts of Latin America, not least Colombia, and I have to say,” I shook my head, “the fact is, however unpopular this view may be, the big losers in that great drugs war were the small people, the villagers, the poor and alienated, and especially the children of Colombia and Mexico.”
I sat back and allowed a touch of outrage to enter my expression.
“The winners? The winners were not the DEA, or the Pentagon or the American people. Because the flow of drugs from Latin America never even slowed, let alone stopped. The flow of drugs increased, because it now entered the States from Mexico instead of Colombia, and it was easier to get it into the USA because it had less distance to travel and fewer borders to cross. The winners—the real winners—were the now massive Mexican cartels.” She frowned and I paused to study her. “But the losers, the losers were, above all, the Colombian children, and the vulnerable, alienated people of the Colombian ghettos and the countryside.”
Her frown had deepened. “I’m not sure…”
“Why?” I interrupted. “Why are the Colombian children the losers? Because, however barbaric the Colombian cartels may have been, they made a point of buying the support of the people, the small people. They built homes, they built hospitals and schools. They provided water for remote villages and provided work for the people.”
Sheila was looking worried.
“I’m really not sure what you’re driving at, Mr. Bauer.”
“What I am driving at, Sheila, is that when the narcotics trade’s power base shifted from Colombia to Mexico, tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people were left without work, without support, without a safety net, without anybody to care for them. Because the truth is that the Colombian government does not give a single, solitary damn for the small people, and their children are growing up in a world where they believe that the only way out of the squalor in which they live, is through crime. Partly they are right, and so the cycle perpetuates itself for yet another generation.”
She drew breath and I held up a hand.
“That, Sheila, is the problem which I want to address. So how do I intend to address it? What is the project?”
She smiled and there was a hint of relief in her expression.
“That was my question.”
“I know it was.” I smiled back. “But I wanted to be sure you were aware of exactly what kind of problem I was looking at. Now, what I want to do, Sheila…” I shifted my smile to what some might have called a dangerous smile, and pointed at her. “What I want to do is take you to a small village in Colombia.”
Four
I sat back and crossed one leg over the other.
“About two hundred and twenty miles west-northwest of Bogota, on the Pacific coast of Colombia, there is a tiny village called Nuqui. It sits at the mouth of the Nuqui River, which flows down to the ocean from the Baudó mountains. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, despite being really quite tiny, Nuqui has its own airport.
“Now, about five miles upstream, climbing into the foothills of the mountains, where the rainforest starts to become dense, there is a coca plantation, complete with its onsite labs. And scattered around the plantation and the labs, are the settlements. Settlements that do not even appear on the maps.”
“Gosh.”
“In the old days, Sheila, these settlements depended on the cocaine trade. It was their only source of income, but it allowed them to live with dignity, feed and educate their children. Now, under the combined assault of the DEA, the CIA and Mexico, they have become minor producers whose scarce benefits come from the minimal wages the men get from cultivating the plants for the Mexicans.” I sat forward again, elbows on knees and staring intently into her eyes. “What I want to do, Sheila, is to bring new hope to these people. Hope, how? Well not by preaching to them about right and wrong, the law, sin, God…but by bringing them schools where the children can learn to read and write, where they can learn history and geography, where they can maybe get a shot at going to university and forging a career. That is real hope.”
Her eyes were bright. “Yes, I agree!”
“But that in itself is not enough, Sheila. Because, what good is a school if you are living in squalor, constantly fearing illness and infection? These people depend on the River Nuqui for their drinking water and their washing water. Yet that river is riddled with bacteria, disease, insects. And all the more so because they use it to bathe, to wash their clothes and as sewage. So I want to bring them hope by providing them with clean water. But I’ll go further. For, what use is clean water and an education, if you have no work and no income?”
She was blinking a lot and smiling. “Mr. Bauer, Harry, I agree with you totally and wholeheartedly, but I am still not clear on what you are proposing.”
I smiled and shook my head. “What I am proposing, Sheila, is a whole new concept in aid projects. I want to offer Nuqui a complete, integrated package that will ultimately allow them to rise out of poverty and ignorance and start to build a sustainable, local prosperity.”
“How?”
I stood and pointed my finger at her like a gun. “The first step is to build a canal running a full five miles in a huge loop, taking in all the settlements in the area, and at the beginning of the canal, and at every settlement, to build a solar-powered water purifying plant. Now, the value of this first step is that we use ninety-eight percent local labor, and we pay them a living wage for their work. The other two percent are experts that we provide to teach the local people how to do the work for themselves. Now, hold on to your britches, Sheila, because this is the good b
it.”
She laughed out loud, but it was not mockery. It was a laugh of pure pleasure, and in that moment I decided I liked Sheila Newton a lot. I went on.
“Once the first stage of the canal is complete, we set up the first of a series of schools, but these schools will not be just for the children. They will also provide help and guidance on setting up small, local businesses. With their new wages, these people are going to need clothes, food, shoes, hats… Hell! All the things you need for a home! Beds! Wardrobes! Frying pans! And all those things will have to be bought and sold from shops, and those shops will have to buy those things from people who manufacture them. We will teach those people to produce those goods and supply them to the shops, which their friends and neighbors will be opening!
“More! There will have to be some kind of an inn for the foreign workers who come in to help. Somebody is going to have to build that, and somebody is going to have to run it. Sheila, before long, these tiny settlements will be building shops, houses and factories, and a road to Nuqui on the coast to trade with them. What I am talking about is no less than kick-starting a local, sustainable economy that will in turn lead to prosperity and home-generated education.”
She was shaking her head, more in wonder than in disbelief. “Harry, that is one hell of an undertaking, but it is going to be very expensive!”
“I’ve done my math, Sheila. I know what it will cost, and I will fund fifty percent of the cost for the first five years if the foundation will meet the other fifty percent. In five years we will review the progress and see about other sources of funding.”
I took my attaché case, opened it, withdrew a bulky file which the colonel had prepared for me and dropped it on her desk.