Eliot Freeman’s Will
This is the last will I write. I won't be changing it again so I feel like I have to be concise and fair. I don't have much time so here we go.
To my wife Linda, with whom I have spent the most pleasurable moments of my nights and life, I leave everything. To my dear son Gabe, whom I love and know that having the Freeman's blood will carry on my name I also leave everything.
I don't want to be unfair so I split all I have in half for each one. I hope you never have to split my house in half, I love its grass.
You two are the most important things for me. I know I have disappointed you both, by being an unfaithful husband and an absent father but I hope that just like another billion of men before me, I get to be forgiven because I am dead.
Eliot Freeman
On his death bed, Mr. Freeman called Gabe, who was taking care of his mother who cried a torrent of tears.
“Son,” Mr. Freeman said. “I am sorry for being your father!”
Gabe stared at his father and said, “What are you talking about dad, shit happens. It’s nobody’s fault. And you are not dying. We just need to get to the hospital. Doctor Francisco agrees with me. He cannot give any diagnosis.”
“I know,” His father smiled and said, “No one can help me.” Gabe, a bit unconfirmed yelled, “Why don’t you go to the Hospital?”
“It’s useless. Son, listen very carefully, I am leaving my business in your hands. I have spoken to my lawyer and he will know what to do. You are going to leave college and have private tutors. You have got to take over my legacy but you also need to take care of your mother. That’s my last wish.”
Gabe got revolted and shouted, “Even near death you still want to dictate what is to be of my life. I don’t want your legacy.”
Mr. Freeman began weakening, nevertheless, he arranged the forces to say, “I love you son. I trust you will do the right thing. Remember the only father-son activity you and I never missed.” He made a long pause to recover his breath and said, “Get the box…” He started to fade and the machine started to make noise, the beep-beep noise sounded faster and faster.
“What box dad?” Gabe yelled, “What box?” He kept shouting “Doctor Francisco?” and “What box dad?” His father looked at the clock so animatedly focused and when the clock reached 20:44:50, he looked at Gabe and whispered, “Take care of your mother. Don’t do what I did to your… sis… ter”. And the machine stopped beeping forever. At that moment, Gabe could give anything in the world to hear a little noise of the machines beeping. Doctor Francisco, the family’s private medic just shut his machines off and said, “He’s gone”.
Helena, Gabe’s younger sister, died due to schizophrenia. At the age of twelve, her case got even worse. Mr. Freeman, to avoid bad publicity to his family, interned her in a madhouse. She eventually died five months later by strangulating herself with a piece of glass. This was a conversation no one in the family dared to talk about.
Gabe’s tears started to come out. His mom, who had talked to her husband minutes earlier and had to go out to let Gabe and Mr. Eliot Freeman have some Father-Son alone time, cried even louder and harder when she saw Gabe coming out of the room.
A few days later, his mother got in depression and she tried to take her own life by taking several heavy anti-depressive pills. On the same night, Gabe took too much cocaine that he had an overdose. Mother and son went to the same private clinic, and both mother and son grieved differently, the mother because she had just lost the love of her life and the son because he was afraid of becoming what his father told him to be.
Gabe was the first to recover conscience and when he was informed of what had happened to his mother, he went to her private room inside the clinic. Annabelle looked at him with despise and said, "I heard cocaine almost killed you. I would have really loved that because you are just wasting oxygen in the world but I also know that if you die, she will die too. You are an infantile selfish spoiled brat. Your mother almost killed herself because she’s courageous and you because you are a coward.
Those words ached as salt in his wounds because he already blamed himself for letting that happen, “I was a disappointment to my father in life and I am still a disappointment in his death. I am also a disappointment for my mom. I have to do something about this. I need to find strength for my mom. That would make my father proud”, he thought to himself.
Annabelle saw his pain and said, “You are all she has and she's all you have got. Don't let this happen again to her or I will kill you myself.”
He went to his mother’s room and as if nothing had happened to him, he brought flowers and slept at the hospital until she woke up. That smile on his mother’s face when she saw her drug addict reckless son sitting beside her as if he slept there to keep her company was the most beautiful and meaningful thing she could have given Gabe at that moment. Gabe was proud of himself. It was a smile of love, trust and respect. That love, trust and respect made him want to keep it that way so he decided to conquer an intrinsic change.
His mother didn’t want to stay at the hospital anymore so they headed home more united than ever. He hugged Annabelle for the first time after months of indifference since he didn't want his sister replaced in his mother’s heart but most important, in his. He realised how childish he had been all that time.
Finally, he did what his mother always asked of him and went for rehabilitation. Three months later he was clean. His mother was the happiest woman in the world. When Gabe noticed this, decided not to stop there, he felt like he was starting to make his father proud as well. He stayed another three months at home enjoying his mother’s company, he managed to attend to the annual encounter with Steve and Gabe and when the Christmas season was over, he went to see his father’s lawyer.
Mr. Sambo, Gabe’s father’s lawyer, wasn’t a role model student at the Law school. He seldom attended classes because he found a classroom environment, a barrier to his instruction so he stopped going to College and learned on his own. He had a full scholarship. The teachers failed him several times although in the examinations, he always passed with colourful marks. Somehow their heads believed that he who does not attend classes, don’t deserve to pass.
He was an introvert but whenever he spoke, everybody would listen for they knew how intelligent his thoughts were. Mr. Eliot Freeman, Gabe’s father, met him when they were young, at a workshop about “The usage of Portugal-based law in Mozambique”. Mr. Sambo raised some very compelling and genial questions about passive colonisation no one was able to answer and his pleas on the matter were unprecedented. His intelligence amazed Mr. Freeman and they became close friends. When he inherited his company from his father, he hired Mr. Sambo as his private and exclusive client, along with his family. By that time Mr. Sambo was working as a freelancer. Gabe’s father promised to quadruplicate his salary plus a mansion, cars, and everything he would want for primary, second and whatever tertiary needs he would invent. Those high wages in a job he loved demanded no further consideration so he agreed and they started working together.
Gabe knew Mr. Sambo usually from very bad occasions. Mr. Sambo had made charges against Gabe disappear like nothing ever happened. Gabe would commit 8 crimes a year but his crime record was as clean as a politician’s running for elections.
Gabe met Mr. Sambo at a coffee shop next to his father’s company headquarters, or better, his company now. Coffee
Shop was what it was called but it resembled a very fancy restaurant that only few people were allowed. They served everything, mostly fancy and very expensive but sometimes, only sometimes, they could even have coffee.
Mr. Sambo had very dark skin, average height, the kind that native Africans usually have, without basketball and a diet full of junk food metabolism boosters. His skin was shrivelled with a scar that went fro
m his left cheek until his left eye, a scar that told everyone out loud how he had suffered in life.
He was a man of objectivity. He told Gabe to sit down, the waitress came close, they made their requests, she brought their orders, he told the waitress not to bother them anyhow and when she left, only then Mr. Sambo started to speak.
“Good morning Mr. Freeman (referring to Gabe). I have got all the necessary steps required for you to take over your father’s place. First, on your father’s orders, you are going to have 10 private tutors you absolutely require to become a great CEO. Here, inside this folder you will check their resumes and other private things no one would, in his sane mind, put on a resume. Your classes will start at 6 A.M and will end at 9 P.M, each taking 3 hours. You will have 4 breaks of 60 minutes each to eat, exercise and relax. From now on, you will have a bodyguard.” He made a sign with his head and two men that were quietly sitting on the desk behind stood up.
They were both tall and strong, dressed in suit and tie like prototypical CIA agents, very tidy and formal and had a death stare. Gabe was both surprised and impressed.
“This is Tom Anderson, he is my bodyguard. You will stay with Marcus Thompson; his information is in this folder. He will also be your chauffer and he will take you ‘wherever’ you want. He has strict orders not to take you to particular places. And here,” He thrust a dossier forward, “is the company’s profit report, be free to read it. And for last but actually most important, here’s the Box.”
Tom put a Red Box on the table, Mr. Sambo continued, “Don’t ask me what is inside for I don’t know. I am not allowed to open it. Your father was very specific about that.” He stared at Gabe with an expectant look and finally asked, “Any questions?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Gabe answered a bit intimidated and uncomfortable, “I mean, perhaps after reading all these bunch of papers.”
Mr. Sambo, as if he heard an insult replied, “Mr. Freeman, this bunch of papers are part of your life now so get used to them. Have a nice day. And I wish you good work. If you do that, you won’t need luck. It will sure follow!”
Gabe watched Mr. Sambo leave the restaurant and Tom, his bodyguard opened the restaurant door. He kept inspecting them from the window until Tom opened the car’s door to Mr. Sambo and drove away. He looked at Marcus, who was still standing there like a statue. He took the documents and the mysterious Red Box but Marcus took them from his arms because they were heavy, he went to his car only to find out that his Ferrari sports car had been replaced by a bullet proof executive Range Rover. His first impression was of shock, he looked at Marcus and uttered ‘Where is...”, but then he knew that that was the beginning of his metamorphosis and that Mr. Sambo had made the switch. He got inside, looked at the bunch of paper and put both his hands on his face in regret. Then Marcus said:
“Where do you want to go sir?” He didn’t answer for a while, expecting someone else to answer but then he realised he was the “SIR” so he relaxed, remembered what his father would say, and answered, “Home Marcus, just get me home.”
From that day, he started having intensive particular classes with his 10 tutors. He had Maths, Psychology, Information and Technology, Management and Administration, Etiquette, Body language, Oratory, Leadership, Martial arts and military training and Finances.
Gabe learned how to use psychological hacks to convince people and getting whatever he wanted. One day, with the aid of his influential psychology tutor Mr. Frank, he managed to make someone buy a 1.500 Meticais coat for 15 thousand by putting it in one of his most expensive shops.
Amongst this and others, his favourite classes at the beginning were IT and Martial Arts and military training. His IT tutor, Mr. Heisenberg, was an MIT professor. He taught Gabe how e-financials worked and some tricks to keep him motivated on learning, how to trick the bank to give more interest than they are supposed to, about 200% more in 3 years. He learned how to hide stolen money into an untraceable Swiss bank account or by transforming the amount into bit coins, how to make a flawless money laundry scheme and to foresee the market crush or ascension in order to invest in a profitable business. With only a thousand dollars as investing capital, in less than a month, he had already made about 4 million dollars just in the comfort of his couch.
He was also shown by a manager of one of his banks, the most common money making hacks, to steal one Metical from each operation each client makes. An accountant of the same Bank cut 1.5 Mt from every working client’s salary. Those were clean ways of making money undetected and Gabe seemed born to it.
For martial arts and military training he had the same tutor, Mr. John Norris. He was born John Normand but had it legally changed to Norris when he joined the navy. He had been a champion of Karate for 10 years in a row and was an ex-navy seal. His reputation spoke for himself. In Vietnam, him and his other 12 American soldiers were ambushed and captured. They received untold punishment. He was the Captain of the team. They threw the other soldiers into the crocodile pit one by one to create fear amongst the remaining and extract confessions and military secrets.
Two of them committed suicide. Three started cooperating with the Vietnamese. He was the last of them. They tortured him but he didn’t break. One night he managed to kill 5 guards and escaped. He was considered a hero when he came back. Today, he tells people that most wars started by the United States have no sense at all. They are just excuses to steal from other countries and prove their military supremacy over the others. Gabe loved to hear his war stories but also to shoot targets at over 1km of distance and beat all his karate opponents. He even got a black belt in karate. Gabe was being transformed into a complete businessman. But money and power just brought dangerous people into his life and facing them would require more than what he was willing to give.