“Does it involve you making or selling meth?”
“Fortunately, no,” Townsend said dryly. “Manufacturing drugs, especially methamphetamine, seems to be a very hazardous undertaking, best left to you and the Mexicans.”
“If I find out you doin’ any deals with the fuckin’ Mexicans, asshole,” Harrison said, “I’ll kill every last one of you myself. Your hard-ass German friends won’t be able to help you one fucking bit.”
“Major Reingruber would like nothing better than to go to war with you, the Mexican cartels, the police, and anyone else who opposes us,” Townsend said sternly, affixing his one good eye squarely on Harrison. “But I prefer cooperation to war. Since we have somewhat similar political and cultural views, shall we say, we prefer to work with you.”
“But you got Bennie the Chef,” Harrison argued. “That means you’re cooking. You cook crank in Brotherhood territory, you die.”
“Mr Reynolds is serving as my technical expert and adviser to streamline methamphetamine production,” Townsend said. “We have devised a means to manufacture meth in vast quantities with safety, security, and profitability in mind-but we do not wish to do it ourselves. We will leave that up to you. Care to see what we have in mind?”
By this time, Harrison’s curiosity had taken over. He nodded his assent. Townsend led the way into the barn behind the house, which was guarded by four heavily armed soldiers. There, lined up like barrels in a brewery, were twenty black steel drums, mounted on small trailers. “What the hell’s this, Townsend?” Harrison asked. “This your idea of a joke?”
“This is the core of my new operation, Mr Harrison,” Townsend replied. “These are meth hydrogenators.”
“Say what?”
“Hydrogenators,” Townsend repeated. “Thirty gallons each, with built-in agitators, pressure monitoring, leak detection, air filtration, and product-purification apparatus. The trailer contains a power unit and vacuum-pressurization equipment.”
Harrison still looked confused, so Bennie clarified it for him. “Big bucks, Sandman. We’re talking two, three hundred thousand dollars a day from each one of ‘em. Fully portable, fully self-contained-you can practically set one of these things up in your backyard next to your barbecue grill and no one would know you’re cooking. It’s as easy to use as a Suzy fuckin’ Homemaker oven.”
That kind of information Harrison understood. He walked over to one of the units and ran his hand over the dull black steel surface. “Cool. I’ll take ‘em. How much?”
“They’re not for sale, Mr Harrison,” Townsend said. “But you can have them. All of them, if you like.”
Bennie looked thunderstruck. Harrison’s bearded face broke into a wide grin. “Wrap ‘em up, limey.”
“All I ask is that you pay my organization a modest sum of one thousand dollars a pound for every pound you produce,” Townsend said. Harrison’s grin vanished as he tried to do the math in his head, so Townsend did it for him: “That’s twenty percent of the wholesale price but only eight percent of the retail price per pound. You can buy the chemicals and catalysts from us if you wish, or you can supply your own. We even provide the security for each unit, courtesy of the Aryan Brigade.”
“But I get the cookers for free?” Harrison asked incredulously.
“Absolutely free,” Townsend said. “Each unit reports every time a hydrogenation cycle is completed.”
“Does this asshole ever speak plain English, Bennie?” Harrison complained.
“What he means, Sandman, is that the unit can tell us when somebody cooks up a batch,” Bennie said, falling back into his prerehearsed script even though he was still in a state of shock. “The colonel gets paid by the pound you cook up. Just so everyone stays on the up-and-up, the unit tells us how much you cook.”
“Precisely,” Townsend replied. “The unit can tell us how much was made, and when. Each cycle can produce up to thirty pounds of product. You pay us thirty thousand dollars every time you make a full batch, and whatever else you earn is yours to keep. We even provide maintenance for the units-if they ever break down, we will fix them without charge. We will become the Microsoft of the methamphetamine trade.”
“The what?” Harrison grunted, still running his hands lovingly across the surface of the hydrogenator.
“Never mind,” Townsend said. “Is it a deal, then?”
Harrison was clearly impressed. “I’ll take this deal to the chief,” he said. “I think he’ll like it.”
“Good,” Townsend said. “Then you’ll be off.” Again Harrison looked at Townsend as if he were speaking a foreign language, but when Townsend headed for the door, he understood the tour was over.
Bennie Reynolds was absolutely speechless. When the five Brotherhood bikers had left, he turned on Townsend and asked, “What the hell are you doing? You’re going to give away thirty hydrogenator units? We just spent a quarter of a million dollars building these things! They’re worth millions of dollars a month!”
Townsend shrugged off the protests. “It’s a good deal for us as well as the Brotherhood,” he said. “Of course, we’ll give a few to the Mexican gangs and a few of the other biker gangs as well. After all, Satan’s Brotherhood isn’t the only gang in the West.”
“You’re going to do this deal with other gangs? That’s suicide! If the Brotherhood finds out, they’ll go to war.”
“I don’t think there’ll be a war, Bennie,” Townsend said with a confident smile. “There’s too much money to be made. We have another ten hydrogenators to build, and then we can start scheduling training sessions for each chapter that will get one. My plan is to distribute and train all of the Brotherhood and Mexican-gang chapters in one night, all throughout California, Nevada, and Oregon. Let’s get started, shall we?”
Marriott-Intercontinental Marina,
San Diego, California
Saturday, 14 February 1998, 1915 PT
Helen Kaddiri glanced briefly at the good-looking guy who opened the hotel door for her before she walked out toward the docks. She had been born and raised in San Diego, but she hadn’t been down to the waterfront in years. It was much more crowded than she remembered, but still just as beautiful. The weather was perfect, dry and mild, with just enough of a breeze to bring in the salt air but not enough to require a coat.
She allowed herself to enjoy the weather and the scenery for a moment before her mind returned to the situation at hand: Namely, what in hell did Jon Masters want? His phone call the day before yesterday was the first she had heard from him since the BERP demonstration up in Sacramento. The rest of the board of directors and every one of the senior officers and managers had either spoken or met with her, pleading for her to return-everyone but Jon Masters. Pig-headed as usual.
She had tossed a grenade on their picnic by having her attorney draw up a proposed three-million-dollar settlement agreement. The deal included cashing in some of her preferred-class stock, converting the rest into common stock, and transferring ownership of some of the patents and other technologies still in development that rightfully belonged to her. She wasn’t looking to gut the company, although she certainly could if she wanted.
“Helen?” She turned. To her astonishment, she realized that the young, nicely dressed man who had held the door open for her was Jon Masters. It was practically the first time she had ever seen him in anything but jeans and tennis shoes. His hair was neatly trimmed and combed in place, and-this was almost too much to believe-he was wearing a necktie! She never imagined he would even own one, much less wear one!
“I… I’m sorry, Jon,” she said, completely taken off guard. “I didn’t recognize you. You look so… so…”