44
JW was on his way to the Isle of Man. Manx Airways flew six times a day. It took a little over an hour from Heathrow to the airport outside Douglas, the main town on the island. As opposed to flying with Ryanair, it was smooth, speedy, stylish.
He was still walking around in a dream state-the quantities that could be shipped from Warwickshire. Pricing and upward curves. The C cycle-a sunny future for the trade. The Arab’s ideas would be realized. JW would be a wealthy man.
Two days ago, he’d met Nenad at a hotel in London. The man who was Abdul’s superior rocked a totally different style than the Arab. Felt good to meet the mythic/shadowy boss. To get closer to the top.
The negotiations with Nenad and the Brits’d gone well. They sat in one of the hotel’s conference rooms. Nenad’d booked a room first, but the Brits asked to switch it as soon as they got there. Nenad ate it up-higher security awareness than Abdulkarim.
The conference room was decorated with rococo furniture. An elliptical table of walnut wood in the middle of the room. Crystal wall lamps spread subdued lighting. Pretty different from Abdulkarim’s living room.
The Brits looked like soccer hooligans. Nothing like the style they’d seen on Chris, the guy who’d met JW, Abdulkarim, and Fahdi at the packaging plant. The guy in charge was in his fifties, with gray hair combed back and casual clothes: Paul amp; Shark polo shirt, Burberry jacket, and Prada shoes. Pockmarked face and calm demeanor. He oozed confident power. The other guy was overweight but hadn’t compensated for his size by wearing baggy clothes-gave a slightly ridiculous impression when the Pringle pullover stretched taut over the man’s spare tires. But after the initial pleasantries, that impression was wiped right out-the fatso was a bone-hard brainiac. JW sat with his notebook and calculator in front of him. The fatso did all the counting in his head.
They negotiated the price of the wares, different grades, shipping methods, payment systems. They went over the risks versus the proceeds. Customs, narcs, competing networks, companies that could be used as fronts. Ways to guarantee that neither side got ripped off. What would happen if pounds disappeared along the way. Transportation was ultimately at whose risk, exactly?
The Brits were cautious. Their routine felt calculated. After two hours, Nenad asked for a break.
They went up to Nenad’s room. Compared their negotiation position with their calculations. The deal Nenad was after consisted of 90 percent pure coke in cabbage for under 350 kronor a gram. Would probably total two containers, with five tons of cabbage per container. The five hundred outermost cabbages would go without C as a safety measure, in case of crap customs and sanitation department checks. Sum: two thousand cabbages filled with ice. Fifty grams per veggie, which is to say: one hundred kilos-220 twenty pounds-of cocaine to be transported by trailer and ferry. Some bribing of the shipping company would be necessary in order to separate the containers from those with only regular cabbages inside, and to keep a special eye on them when the situation demanded, including some bribes to actual cabbage suppliers. In Sweden, they had to cover the costs for driving, for reduced checks of the containers, plus fixed sales and distribution costs. Price tag from the Brits: between thirty and forty million. Price on the street in Stockholm after discounting price pressure: seventy to eighty million. Iiiiiill income.
After an hour and a half in the room, Nenad’d made up his mind. The deal was definitely worth going for. He set a bar for the lowest-possible price, plus a level of security, the highest imaginable.
They went down.
Continued negotiating with the Brits. The mood was good. Beneath the surface, the Brits’ attitude glared: You know you can’t get a better deal anywhere else. Gave them psychological advantage. Gave them mental strength.
The negotiations dragged on; they kept at it for another two hours. JW got exhausted by all the numbers, appraisals, and calculations. At the same time, he loved the whole thing.
By two o’clock, the two parties’d reached a preliminary agreement. The tension eased up. Nenad shook hands with the older Brit. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes-the code of honor sealed the deal.
They would reconvene the next day at noon to confirm that the sale was finalized.
Nenad and JW had a seat in the piano bar at the hotel.
The Yugo ordered in two cognacs.
“JW, thank you for your help. I will convey my praise to Abdulkarim.”
“Thank you for letting me take part. It was very interesting. I think we got a good deal in the end.”
“Me, too. After our drink here, I’m going to run some numbers by Stockholm and hopefully get the whole deal approved.”
“By who?”
“JW, sometimes it’s best not to ask.”
JW didn’t answer. He’d seen the same stiff facial expression on Abdulkarim when his boss’d come up in conversation-the Arab’d never mentioned Nenad, even though JW’d nagged. The layers between the levels in the dealing hierarchy were airtight.
“One more thing. You’ve never met me. Don’t recognize me. Won’t call out to me at a bar. Will never mention my name to anyone.”
JW got it. Nodded.
“It might get really sad if you do,” Nenad said gravely.
“It’s cool. I understand. Really. I understand.”
The plane was small; each row was only one chair wide.
JW was forced to keep his phone turned off. The restlessness gnawed. He thought about what the police were doing. Were they getting anywhere? Maybe they’d called while he was away. If not, should he call Mom and tell her everything? She felt so remote. Bengt felt even more remote, on his way out of the picture altogether.
Outside, gray British weather. He couldn’t even see the ocean beneath the plane, despite the fact that they were flying low.
The pilot reported: fifty-three degrees on the ground.
Gearing up to land, the plane passed through the haze.
It was drizzling.
The island appeared down below. Rolling hills dressed in trees sprouting new leaves.
JW on the Isle of Man. He was going to do this thing.
Douglas was situated on the water. The feeling was fiercely British. The place was crawling with hotels, banks, and financial institutions. But few people-winter was off-season, only bankers and finance sharks on the streets. They were well dressed, well situated, and well informed about the rules on the Isle of Man-bank-privacy paradise.
Of course there were other spots in Europe that were as good: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Channel Isles. But the downside was that those places aroused suspicion. The tax man and the financial-crime investigators immediately raised their eyebrows when they saw accounts registered in those types of places. The Isle of Man was more discreet, but the regulations were just as advantageous.
The basic idea of offshore jurisdiction: easy to create companies, strong company privacy, even stronger bank privacy, and tax-free, obviously.
JW checked into a small hotel overnight. Top-of-the-line service, every single staff person welcomed him by name. Impressive.
He walked along the beachfront boardwalk on the way to Central Union Bank’s headquarters. A meeting’d been booked a month back with Darren Bell, a senior associate. According to trusty sources, Darren Bell was an exceedingly reliable person.
The building he was on his way into was ultraspruced. You could tell from ten yards away. The bottom section was made all of glass. The escalators up to the second level, a couple of enormous ficuses, and the gray Ligne Roset couches could be seen plainly from outside. JW walked through ten-foot-high revolving doors. Announced his arrival at the reception desk.
He looked around. Complex light fixtures of glass and chrome were hanging from thin cables. Marble floor. The Ligne Roset couches-empty. He thought, Does anyone ever sit on them?
No time to ponder. A man emerged from an elevator and introduced himself to JW. It was Darren Bell.
He was impeccably dressed in a gray suit with two buttons, a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, blue
