Chris said, “Let me introduce our first product for delivery. We’ve used it successfully to transport goods to countries like Norway, France, and Germany.”
A man dressed in a white doctor’s coat and rubber boots approached them from one of the aisles.
Chris greeted him. “Hi, Pughs. Can you show them what I mean?”
Pughs nodded. Opened one of the cages where the dogs were calm and coaxed one with a nicer coat out. JW thought it was a golden retriever.
Pughs grabbed hold of the animal’s fur right under the front legs and said with a raspy voice, “I operate. They call me ‘the Vet,’ but that’s just bullshit. I was a surgeon before. Look here.” He waved them closer. “I’ve inserted four bags containing a total of six hundred grams of Charlie under the skin of this pooch.”
JW leaned in. What Pughs was pointing at didn’t look like anything more than a fold between the dog’s legs. No scars, as far as he could tell.
“It takes a month to heal and another two months for the fur to grow back enough.”
Chris took over. “We’ve sent out more than thirty animals. It’s worked every time. But most of the animals in here are ones we’ve taken in, straight from South America. That’s how we import quantity.”
JW turned and looked around before they walked on through the barn. There was a total of at least fifty animals in all the cages. He calculated: If half the animals’d had shit inside, they would’ve brought in over thirty pounds on them alone. Thirty pounds on the streets of Stockholm-almost fifteen million kronor.
He was impressed; this was massive, Trump-size business in a barn in the countryside.
Pughs pulled the dog back into a cage.
Chris led them on through a door.
They came into another room with high ceilings. There were two large green metal machines on the floor. Two men were working at one of them. JW thought the machines looked like the lathe in the woodworking shop in middle school.
Chris explained. “Our next product. We are producing tin cans. Look carefully. The machines are exactly the same as the ones used by Mr. Greenpacking, for instance. We fill them with whatever the order is. Fly them across the borders.”
Abdulkarim asked his first question. He seemed completely taken by all this. “Why you fly the shit over? Boat’s not cheaper?”
“Good question. Customs is always breathing down our necks. They know to take random samples on big deliveries containing tinned cans. A couple friends of mine got slammed hard by that a few years back. Still rotting in an iron box right now. Listen, we’ve got connections with a company in the catering business. They sell food boxes to airlines. The idea is simple. On any given flight, let’s say ten of the food boxes contain our cans with our contents. Ten people order special food, most often vegan food. They eat heartily but don’t open the tin can that’s included with the meal. Instead, they throw them in the trash cart the stewardesses push through the plane after the meal. The garbage-that is, the full cans-is then taken care of by our people working in garbage management at the airport. The icing on the cake is that it doesn’t even have to be our people ordering the food. We just hire some Ibiza-bound kids, ask them to order the veggie grub, and it’s a done deal. We transported two pounds of amphetamines to Kos that way last week.”
“And it never happen that some nasty brat pockets the can, not throw it out like you want?”
“It’s happened. That nasty brat never made it home from Kos.”
JW was fascinated. This was big, brainy, beautifully bad. And fucking surreal.
It was a drug-packaging industry, transportation insanity, amazing logistical philosophy.
Shit.
Chris led them onward. John picked up the rear.
They walked out of the barn, toward the greenhouses.
Abdulkarim asked Chris about stats. How often did their deliveries succeed? What size loads could they take? How much did they import on their own? From which countries? Whom did they represent?
Chris explained. They imported tons from all over the world. The cocaine came directly from South America. Warwickshire operated as the ultimate price regulator. They repackaged, sold their products from there, spread the risks, selected destinations, kept demand high.
A high-level European supply cartel.
Chris’s answer to Abdul’s last question: “I thought you’d been informed. We’re the extended arm of a syndicate. Doesn’t matter which one, but you’ll get a good price with us. Guaranteed.”
They were approaching the greenhouses. JW discovered that they stretched farther than he’d first thought.
Chris stopped outside one of them and pointed. “We grow all kinds of things in these.”
He opened the door.
No humidity washed over them. Instead, it was cool.
JW’d expected a jungle of cannabis sattiva. Or, even better, rows of coca plants.
Nope.
In rows along the ground grew small, unripe white cabbages.
Abdulkarim looked like a boldface question mark. He’d shared JW’s expectations.
JW caught himself-his mouth was wide open; he was gaping.
Fahdi looked at Chris. Was this a joke, or what?
Chris threw his arms open and laughed. “As anticipated. Everyone reacts like you. Goddamn it, aren’t they growing weed? Aren’t they growing blow? Forget it. We’re growing cabbage. In case you hadn’t thought of it already, you haven’t seen anything illegal here yet. You’ve seen dogs. But have you seen ice? You’ve seen two blokes making cans, but have you seen what they’re filling them with? Get the point. We don’t take risks. If there’s a sting operation here, at least we’ve got some ability to protect ourselves. We store the actual shit somewhere else. When it’s time to put it into animals, cans, or whatever else, it’s brought here under the strictest surveillance possible, and everything happens very fast. We’ve minimized the opportunities for the bobby fuckers to get at us.”
Abdulkarim was still eyeing the cabbage patch.
Chris continued: “We’re not done in here yet, but it’s our third, and largest, product.” He pulled a couple photos out of his jacket pocket and showed them to Abdulkarim and JW. In the first photo: a cabbage the same size as the ones in the greenhouse. In the next photo: a somewhat larger plant. In the middle of the plant was a plastic bag, tightly knotted, about two inches high and one and a half inches wide. Next photo: same plant, just a little bigger. The next photo: the plant with the bag again. The cabbage leaves almost completely concealed the bag. The next photo: the finished plant. The bag wasn’t visible at all. The last photo: three crates filled with cabbage.
JW understood before Abdulkarim did. “Jesus.”
Chris held the photos out to Abdulkarim. “Jesus is right.”
Abdulkarim looked at JW.
JW said in Swedish, “Don’t you follow? They grow the shit into the plant. Look at the picture with the crates. There’s no fucking limit to how much they can send.”
Abdulkarim said, “Allahu akbar.”
Abdulkarim was max-speeded all the way back in the stretch. He lay on one of the seats and sang with a Fanta in hand. Around his nose-coke rings.
JW was lit even before he did a line.
Fahdi tried to communicate with the driver. He wanted to change radio stations.
The meeting at Warwickshire’d ended with Chris explaining some economic conditions. Abdulkarim’d promised they would think it over. They’d said good-bye. Chris’d given Adbulkarim a little envelope-in which they’d found the white powder they’d just consumed.
JW asked why they hadn’t just sealed the deal right then. He’d done the numbers; profit would be huge.
“No, you don’t get it. Me, I’m not the high boss. Chris is not the boss, either. Tomorrow, the real gangstas meet in London. If you’re lucky, you get to come along.”