Bill Gates is negotiating to buy an uninhabited Pacific $47m ‘paradise island’ – 1,000 miles away from the nearest civilization in Hawaii, according to the agent handling the sale. Palmyra Atoll appears perfect as a place for the Microsoft Corp chairman to get away from it all. A mile-long airstrip left over from the days when it was used by the US navy means that Bill can drop in using his Gulfstream jet whenever he wishes to escape a world where he is pursued by US Justice department officials brandishing writs and Belgians wielding custard tarts. One obvious attraction of the place is a strong rumor that treasure is buried somewhere on Palmyra after the Spanish ship Esperanza shipwrecked there in 1816. Using the latest technology to detect it will obviously help Bill repay some of the purchase costs. But there can be hell in paradise too. The true-life courtroom drama ‘And The Sea Will Tell’ by Vincent Bugliosi is based on the savage murder of a middle-aged couple on the island in 1974. Apart from anything else, because it is situated where two sets of trade winds meet, it seldom stops raining there. A strange sort of paradise for Bill if he has to spend most of his time there under an umbrella.
