Читать книгу Maximum Reach - Adam MD Hamedi - Страница 11

Ricardo Sanchez grew up in the hills around Bogota, Colombia. Since the age of eleven, he had worked the fields with his father, growing roses. By the time he was twenty, he was already tired from all the work and the lack of life’s necessities. Though his father owned the land, it never produced enough to keep them enjoying life in the style he thought they should.

All the hard work took its toll on his father and before Ricardo celebrated his 21^st birthday, his father had passed away.

When he was 24 years old, Ricardo was taking a stroll, inspecting his fields and noticed a plant he was not familiar with. He called one of his farmers and was surprised to find out it was a coca plant.

“How did it get here?” he asked.

“They grow wild here,” came the response. “But your father forbad anyone from harvesting them and had them destroyed.”

“Are you telling me this shit grows everywhere here? “

“Yes senor.”

“Would anyone buy it?” he inquired.

“Sure they would, senor. And it would bring in a lot more money than the flowers.”

“Who would buy it?” he asked.

“I know a few people that would love to get their hands on it. They were trying to convince your father for years.”

“How much of this stuff do we have on this land?”

“Not enough right now. But if we take care of the plants, we could have a good harvest by next year.”

“What do you mean by a good harvest?”

“Perhaps a quarter of a million American dollars.”

Ricardo was astounded by what he was hearing. He couldn’t understand why his father would work so hard for so little when he knew he could have been making a fortune.

“I want you to start cultivating the plant and find us a buyer,” Ricardo instructed his farmer. “Do keep it quiet though, and for that I will make you foreman and pay you a lot more money.”

“Thank you Senor Sanchez. I will take care of it.”

Years had passed and Ricardo Sanchez was accumulating a great deal of money. He managed to purchase more land around his farm and tripled his production.

He stayed away from the processing of the plants but, when he was 35, he became greedy and decided to try his luck on that side as well.

The drug cartels tried to persuade him to stay away from competing with them, but finally gave in when they realized they could use his father’s reputation and smuggle the drugs more easily into the United States.

For the next few years they would compound the drugs in the shape of thin paper and use it for wrapping the flowers and when it reached the States, they would dissolve the paper in water and then evaporate it into one of the purest forms of cocaine.

When Ricardo insisted on having his own markets, the cartel again gave in, as he promised he would go after the little towns in America and stay out of the big cities. They saw no harm in that and went along with him.

By the time he was 40 years old, Ricardo was making more money than he thought was ever possible, and things were going very smoothly as his market grew across the United States, sticking to small towns and rural areas. Then one day, one of his dealers encountered a problem in a small Texas town, and he decided to go himself to investigate.

He could not understand what he was told. How would kids decide they wanted out when they had been making more money than they could ever hope for in any other field?

Why would they be willing to give up all that money, and most of all, how could they still refuse to co-operate after they were threatened?

Ricardo decided the only way to convince those kids to relent was to make an example of one of them. He had to choose one; a kid the other kids looked up to. His man told him the perfect candidate would be a boy named Danny.

Ricardo and two of his men waited for the school to let out one afternoon and grabbed Danny in full view of all the others. Not a smart thing to do. Not there. Not in Burleson, Texas.

Danny knew he was in deep trouble when he saw who was there. He only knew one of the men but the other two did not need any introduction.

“What is this I hear,” started Ricardo?” Why won’t you deal for me anymore?”

“The Sheriff,” responded Danny.

“What about the Sheriff?”

“He told us that he would punish us if we didn’t quit dealing.”

“Punish you? Do you understand that we could kill you?”

“Yes sir.”

“And you still won’t deal?”

“No sir, I can’t.”

Ricardo could not understand how a kid could be more afraid of punishment than of being killed.

“Who is this Sheriff?” he asked his man.

“I am not sure of his name, sir. I have seen him around but never saw him get involved with anything until this.”

Ricardo tried to talk Danny into relenting and dealing for them again but when all his attempts failed, he and his men started beating the kid.

As Danny lay there on the ground, unable to move, Ricardo was curious about the Sheriff and decided he would have to meet the man – an idea he would have given up on if he had realized what he was getting himself into.