Toward the end of the second, hectic year of his ownership of KDEC, a familiar mood captured Yousseff. He became restless, and even irritable. He was feeling constrained. Pakistan was becoming cramped and small. He started traveling constantly from Jalalabad to Islamabad, to Hyderabad, and then back to Karachi. He bought his first plane, a fast twin-engine Cessna Piper Aztec, and found a pilot, Abu bin Mustafa, to fly it for him. Before long he was spending more time in the air than on the ground. He was in his early 20s, and already extremely wealthy. But he was restless. It was the same mood that had taken control of him when he started taking trips through the Path of Allah.
Kumar and Omar saw him one morning, sitting on the edge of the dock, gazing over the Karachi inner harbor. He spent all day sitting by himself, thinking. By the time he had figured things out, the sun was low on the horizon. He joined Kumar and Omar for tea on the rear deck of the Janeeta II. “I’m going to leave for a while,” he said to his friends.
“How long?” they asked, in unison.
“A year. Maybe two.”
“What? What did he say, Omar?” asked Kumar. “Did he say what I think he said?”
“Year or two, he says. Obviously too much sun and opium. He’s lost it, I think,” responded Omar. “What on earth are you going to do, Yousseff?” he asked his friend.
“I’m going to learn the shipping business,” Yousseff answered.
“But Yousseff, you already know it. We’ve been up and down the Indus hundreds of times in the Janeeta, and then in the Janeeta II. Now we have half a dozen water ferries skirting around the Indus and sailing to Karachi. What more do you need to learn?”
“No, no, Omar. I am not talking about boats on the river. I’m not talking about ferries. I’m talking about ships. Vessels. Big iron. I’m going with that old pirate, Bartholomew. He’s asked me before. He knows I can learn things, and I’m good with people, even though I’m not so good with tools. He’s ready to retire. He wants a nice little estate on the coast where he can enjoy his grandchildren.”
“You want to buy that rusty old boat of his so you can bring it here to fix it up and have us all go broke?” asked Kumar.
“Not his boat, Kumar,” Yousseff replied. “His business. His connections. His boat — take it out to the middle of the Arabian Sea and sink it for all I care. But his business…”
“His business?” repeated Kumar.
“Yes,” said Yousseff. “Like I bought this business, KDEC. Like I purchased Omar’s father’s business, and expanded it, with Omar running it. We can do that again. You can all cut in on the profits. I have no problem with that at all.” Indeed, both Kumar and Omar, like Marak, Ba’al, Izzy, and Rika, were becoming wealthy through their association with Yousseff.
“Look at what Bartholomew pays for our product,” Yousseff continued. “Compare that to what he charges for it on the other side of the ocean. We can do this. Do you know how much the price of heroin changes between Karachi and Los Angeles? It increases more than fivefold. A huge profit, just for transporting it. If a moron like Bartholomew can do it, we certainly can.”
“What do the rest of us do, Yousseff? We have all the farmers in eastern Afghanistan, the refiners in Pakistan, the safe houses, the river ferry company, this thing here,” Omar said, motioning to the KDEC yard behind him. “The various laundering operations, all of that. What are you going to do with it if you leave?”
“You can run it without me for awhile. I’ll drop in every now and then. Things are running nicely. I may be gone for two months and back for a week or two, then gone again. But this enterprise is running almost by itself. If things become problematic I’ll come back and fix it. But I need to travel.”
Omar sighed. Yousseff was right; the efficiency of the little company was obvious. Things were running on their own. It was a testament to Yousseff’s organizational abilities that a company of this complexity was able to spin along without much guidance from its master. But it was never enough, for Yousseff, to sit back and be happy with what he had done. He was restless. He constantly needed more.
While Yousseff was away, learning the smuggling business and the various points of entry into North America, KDEC did manage to take care of itself. Before long it was running too efficiently, and making too much money on its own. Added to the large cash flow that needed laundering, the company’s large income began to draw attention. The best way to deal with that was through ongoing capital acquisitions. KDEC started to purchase properties in Karachi, and elsewhere in Pakistan. The concern was that if the business grew too quickly, it would look even more suspicious, so no purchase was overly large. Omar made sure that they were carefully spaced, making only one or two purchases every few months. Some other minor problems arose in the growing, refining, and transportation of opium and heroin, but minor tinkering usually resolved the issues. Sometimes Marak needed to be called upon, but those occasions were few and far between. There was one episode, however, that required more than just a casual visit.
The much older, much larger KSEW had become rife with labor unrest. Seven unions were represented at the venerable old company, constantly making threats and demands. Then Kumar presented them with a check for the full amount of the mortgage redemption. The management of KSEW was astounded. They would not be able to repossess and resell the property as they had expected to do. It threw their budget into a tailspin.
“How the hell did he do that?” Nooshkatoor was flummoxed. Others asked the same question, and when they saw that business was starting to tick for the tiny competitor on the far end of the harbor, they decided that something needed to be done. KSEW wanted to be the only show in town; they could not afford to have successful competitors. This Karachi Drydock and Engineering Company nonsense had to stop. Nooshkatoor, who had recently been promoted to president, was given the assignment of dealing with KDEC; an assignment that he accepted with relish. Like Marak at the Four Cedars many years earlier, Nooshkatoor felt that the battle was already won.
Large corporations have many sly tricks that they use to dismantle competitors. One of them is to stuff unions down their throats. One day, the business agent for the PASWEU, which stood for the Pakistani Allied Shipbuilding Workers and Engineering Union, knocked on Kumar’s office door.
“Sahota,” the man said. “Just call me Sahota.”
Kumar, by then 17 years old and trying desperately to grow a beard, told him to get lost. Sahota informed the young owner that the law gave him the right to be there, and that he was going to talk to the employees. He treated Kumar with as much arrogance as he could sum up. “Go back to your mommy, kid. Where’s the boss?” Eventually Kumar gave in and asked the man what it was he wanted.
For two days Sahota spoke to the workers about the benefits of unionism and how the PASWEU was there to bring them great prosperity and happiness. The workers were by and large satisfied with their lot, and their wages, but the union representative did not relent. He continued to shadow the drydock and warehouses, pestering the workers and pushing them to join the union.
Two days after the man’s first visit, Yousseff returned from Manzanillo, Mexico, where he had been with Bartholomew. After considering the situation, he asked Marak to have an investigator do a background check on Sahota. When Marak, in his usual expeditious manner, handed Yousseff the report, Yousseff called the union representative into the small Karachi Drydock and Engineering office. “Just for a little chat,” he told the man.