Abdul, in Swedish: “It’s okay. We have to play by their rules today.”
Fahdi pulled out the gun and laid it in front of him on the table. Chris leaned forward. Picked it up, weighed it, turned it over in his hand. Read what was written across the muzzle.
“Nice. Zastava M57, 7.63 millimeter. Reliable. Almost as click-free as an Uzi.”
He popped the magazine. It dropped onto the table.
Then he showed them into an adjoining room.
The two men who’d driven them in the minivan were there. They asked Abdulkarim, JW, and Fahdi to take off their shirts and pants; the boxers they could keep on. They turned around once, slowly. JW glanced at Abdulkarim. Looked like he thought this was the most normal thing in the world-being body-searched by two semi-psychos who’d just forced them down on the floor of a minivan. He assumed the Arab’d been searched before.
They were cleared.
Five minutes later, they were back in the kitchen.
Chris’s smile greeted them. “All right, now we’ve dealt with the formalities. Big men with small guns really stress me out. Yours truly isn’t all too big, but damn do I have a big weapon.” He giggled and grabbed his crotch. Turned to John as though to get backup.
“Let’s sit here, relax, and enjoy this fine whiskey. How’s London been treating you?”
Small talk and pleasantries went on for half an hour. Abdulkarim really went in for the part of group leader. Told stories about their nights in London, the places they’d gone to, about the shopping, about London Dungeon, and the guide they’d freaked out. All with genuine enthusiasm.
“London’s a real city. You know, Stockholm is like a piss in Mississippi in comparison. But we got a subway.”
JW chuckled inside. What were the chances that Chris understood the Arab’s talk about American rivers?
After finishing three rounds of drinks, Chris got up and said, “Let’s get down to business. I want to show you around. I’m guessing you’re curious.”
They left the house and walked in a row behind Chris toward the barn.
The figures with the guns over their shoulders could be seen farther off, behind the greenhouses.
Chris stopped in front of the entrance. Barking from inside.
“Like I said, we call this farm the Factory. Soon you’ll see why. Before I show you, let me just say that we’ll solve your problems. We deliver. Over the past year, we’ve completed successful transports of over five tons of goods. We know this stuff. You’ll understand in a minute.”
He opened the door.
They went in.
The stench hit JW, a rank smell of dirt and excrement.
The walls were lined with cages.
In the cages: dogs.
The cages were seven by seven feet, with at least four animals in each cage.
There was fluorescent tubing in the ceiling.
When they entered the barn, they were met by deafening barking.
The animals seemed hysterical. They moved frenetically and yapped at the visitors.
The fur on some of the animals was tattered, worn-looking, and full of sores. Those in other cages were in better shape. Some dogs had long, groomed coats and calmer temperments. A few of the dogs appeared sedated; they were lying in heaps on the floor.
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.”
