by V E Rooney
The changing air pressure in my ears means we’re close to landing. The jolt of the plane as it hits the runway is enough to bounce us up and down a couple of times but we’re here – wherever here is – in one piece. The bodyguards tap us on our arms and we take our blindfolds off as the plane slows to a stop.
As I look around through descending clouds of dust on the patchy airstrip, I make out a small tin shack and two jeeps to the right of the airstrip. In the distance, I can see that we appear to be in a remote location – a clearing in the midst of a vast jungle or forest. The sun beats down through a cloudless sky and the heat is already becoming unbearable for me. The hastily-bought linen clobber I picked up in Amsterdam is already soaked with sweat.
The bodyguards beckon for us to follow them to the jeeps. One jeep is already crewed with extra chaperones and they are carrying rifles. You’re playing with the big boys now, Ali. Be cool, girl.
Sean and I plus our two fellas get in the first jeep and we set off, closely followed by the second jeep. We follow a dirt track leading into the jungle and I am thankful for the cover of the dark, leafy canopy above us keeping the sun at bay. We drive along this dirt track for about 25 minutes and it’s as bumpy as fuck. I swear I’ve dislocated a couple of joints. Have people in Latin America not heard of tyre suspension?
Anyway, the jungle track gradually widens into a dirt road which leads us out of the jungle and into another clearing, where the dirt roads twists around a series of hills. As we curve around the last hill, I see our destination – in the distance is a series of buildings comprising some houses and some larger buildings. As we approach, I can make out industrial units, much like the ones in Kirkby Industrial Estate, and what appear to be workers mooching about outside.
We go past this series of buildings and high up another hill in front of us, I get my first glimpse of Casa Mendez. It’s a massive white marble palace surrounded by high walls and stone terraces and sloping gardens. Let’s just say it pisses all over Buckingham Palace in first impression terms. Along the route to the house, men with guns greet us and the workers without guns simply nod their heads.
The jeeps turn into a gated driveway. The gates are manually opened by two armed guards and we head up the incline to the front of the house. A reception committee is already waiting for us. I see a man who looks to be in his late 50s or early 60s – he must be the main Mendez man, an impression reinforced by the much younger woman stood beside him. The main man has a bit of a beer belly but he’s in good nick otherwise. Slicked back grey hair, neatly trimmed moustache and a linen pant suit. His missus looks like she’s just stepped out of a shampoo advert, resplendent in a slinky crimson dress and long brunette tresses which she keeps flicking about. Behind them are bodyguards with guns, standing at a respectful distance.
Sean and I step out of the jeep. I’m still trying to get rid of the pins and needles out of my feet as Sean steps forward to greet the man. The man embraces him and it’s backslaps all round. The man starts speaking in a torrent of rapid Spanish.
“Mr Kerrigan, my husband Victor says welcome to our home. I am Drusilla Mendez,” says the brunette. “Welcome. I hope your journey wasn’t too difficult.”
“Hello, Senor Mendez, Mrs Mendez. This is my associate, Alison Reynolds,” Sean says as I step forward.
“Ah! The accountant!” says Drusilla.
“In a manner of speaking,” Sean concurs. Victor and Drusilla are all smiles and welcomes and from the show they’re putting on for us, you’d think they never had visitors at all. The main man is Victor Mendez, the actual boss man of the Mendez cartel.
Victor says something excitedly to Drusilla and she obligingly turns to us to translate. “We understand that you have had a long journey so please let us show you to your rooms where you can rest and relax before dinner.” With that, Drusilla beckons me to follow her while Sean gets collared by Victor and they march off into the house. Sean doesn’t speak a word of Spanish but Victor is gabbing away to him regardless, while a harried-looking bodyguard does his best to keep up and translate.
The house is gigantic. Is this whole place made of fucking marble? It’s the kind of place you’d expect to see in a Duran Duran video, with candles on stands and billowing white sheets in place of curtains. I keep expecting Simon Le Bon to walk out scowling in slow motion. Drusilla leads me down a corridor and stops outside the room at the end. “Alison, this is your room,” she says as she opens the large wooden door and into a cavernous bedroom with a stone balcony overlooking the gardens below. I’m impressed.
“Should you require anything, just press this bell,” Drusilla says as she points to a button in the wall by the bed, “and my staff will attend to you. Dinner will be at 8.30pm in the courtyard. OK?” she says, touching my shoulder.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, that’s lovely. Thank you.”
She blinds me with her smile and closes the bedroom door after her. I know I should have a mooch around but I’m so hot and sweaty and exhausted all I can do is flop onto the bed. I fall asleep in seconds.
A few hours later and there is a sharp knock on my door. I look at the clock on the bedside table. 7.30pm.
“Ali?”
“Come on in,” I say as I attempt to pull myself upright. Sean saunters in, looking refreshed and relaxed. He perches himself on the edge of my bed. “This is the life, eh? How about this place for a posh pad?”
“You’d need a fucking big vacuum cleaner. And a shitload of polish. So, what’s the plan?” I ask.
“Just dinner and small talk, you know. All the social niceties that you can’t stand.”
“How long are we here for?”
“However long it takes to do a deal, girl. Could be one day, could be a week. But for tonight, just relax, let them show off a bit, smile, be clever and all that. The business stuff will start tomorrow.”
“Sean, this is mental. I’d never even been out of the country before yesterday. And now I’m having my tea in Venezuela with the Mendez cartel.”
“You’re not having a wobbly, are you, girl?”
“You’re joking, aren’t you? I’m too fucking scared to have a wobbly.”
Sean laughs and puts his arm around my shoulder. “Listen. There is nothing to worry about. This lot? They’re professional. Not a bunch of trigger-happy cowboys, alright? You just tell them what you told Nunes and you’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.”
“Birdman.”
“You what?”
“Birdman. That’s the codename for Nunes from now on. Got it?”
“Whatever, girl, you sort all that out. Time to get your arse into the shower and clean yourself up, you’re humming.”
I put on the same evening dress I wore in Amsterdam to meet Nunes, take a deep breath and step outside my room. Sean is waiting for me and guides me to the outside terrace where a large table has been set with cutlery and crockery. Candles and lanterns surround the periphery of the terrace, giving it a feel of a secret wonderland, an impression which is immediately broken by the sight of the guards with rifles patrolling the perimeter of the property.
Sean and I join Victor and Drusilla at the table, with their bodyguards again keeping a discreet distance. Victor starts speaking in Spanish, Drusilla jumps in with English and Victor nods along before speaking in Spanish again. This woman should work at the United Nations with her linguistic skills. Turns out she was a runner-up in Miss Venezuela a few years back, and it’s expected that the girls in these contests will be multi-lingual, so she made sure to become versed in fluent English to maximise her chances of selection. Fair play to the girl.
“My husband designed and built this property himself. It sits on the site of his grandmother’s house. He has lived in this area his whole life.”
So then Sean and Victor are bonding over how much they love their grandmothers, football and whiskey. Victor starts asking me questions.
“My husband wants to know, Alison, are you married?”
I almost splutter my gazpa
cho over the crisp white tablecloth.
“No, no. I’m not married. I’m only 20,” I say by way of explanation. Once this is translated to Victor, he bursts into laughter and starts chattering away in Spanish.
“My husband was married when he was 19,” Drusilla laughs. Fucking hell. How old were you at the time, love? An embryo? Anyway, turns out Victor’s first wife died in her early 40s and he and Drusilla were married seven years ago.
“He has three children with his first wife. You will meet them tomorrow. Victor and I have two children of our own. They are with my mother this evening.”
“Oh really? How old are they?” I ask.
“Our son is seven and our daughter is four,” Drusilla beams. “They have such different characters. My son is so shy and polite but my daughter? Oh, she will not be told what to do. So headstrong.”
“Sounds familiar,” Sean murmurs, looking at me. I’ve got to hand it to Drusilla. For a trophy wife, she seems happy and if she likes saggy-bollocked older men, who am I to judge? The rest of the evening carries on in much the same way, with the swapping of pleasantries, old family tales and history of the local area. At around 11pm, my body clock is telling me that it needs new batteries because it’s fucked. Thankfully, it’s time for everyone else to retire to bed as well. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
At 7am I am woken by one of the household staff. Sean and I have a quick breakfast of fresh fruit and coffee and then we gather at the front door of the house. Victor, Sean, Drusilla and I are escorted by two bodyguards into a waiting jeep with the customary chaperone jeep behind us. Victor takes the wheel, babbling away in bursts of Spanish while Drusilla does her best to shout over the growling engine as we take the road back down to the industrial units we saw yesterday.
“Today you will see our manufacturing facilities,” she says as she clamps her straw hat to her skull with her hand. “Many years ago, we started off with just a few huts. Today we have a factory with 200 workers,” she says proudly as she points out some of the workers walking towards the units below us. The units include three large prefabricated warehouses plus several two-storey huts dotted around the outside.
Alongside the road towards the industrial complex, there are some larger single-level huts where groups of women and children are congregated. “Those are the schools for the children. All of the workers’ children are schooled here,” Drusilla shouts as we pass a bunch of kids waving at us. Victor salutes them as he drives past.
This place is a mini-city in the middle of nowhere, built by a local drug lord who blesses the residents with his patronage and protection. That’s one way to ensure loyalty. And especially when those residents are constantly circled by armed guards.
As our jeeps get closer to the warehouses, I see three men walking up to meet us, flanked by a group of men with rifles. Victor’s boys by the looks of it. Victor slows the jeep to a stop and jumps out. The three men then babble away at him while Sean, Drusilla and I step out to join them. Drusilla makes the introductions.
“Luis, Jorge and Manuel,” she says as the three men shake our hands in turn.
Luis looks to be the eldest and the one in charge.
“Sean, Alison. Welcome. Allow me to show you around,” he says in fluent English as he guides us into the first warehouse.
This is where the cocoa leaves from the plantations nearby are brought to begin the process of turning leaves into powder. The leaves are laid out in specially designed flat metal trays to dry out, where the leaves are doused with a chemical solution to extract the residue. Then the residue is taken to the second warehouse where it is pressed in giant metal vats to remove excess moisture, turning the residue into a white lumpy paste. This paste is then taken to the third warehouse where it is dried out again to produce good old powdered Charlie. Charlie is then taken to the packaging areas where it is divided into kilos and any other measure required.
“We have the capacity to produce a maximum of 50 kilos per day,” Luis says as he points out the various vats. “All of our plantations nearby are tended to by our farmers and are protected by our guards.”
“Have any of your plantations ever been raided by the Police or the government?” I venture.
“No, not once. We are in a very remote part of the country. The government sends planes and helicopters out into the country sometimes but they do not have the resources available to go this far. We have never been spotted. And even if the government were to try to send people here, one, they would never make it because of our network of spotters, and two, it would be easy for us to set up new plantations to avoid detection. We are talking about an area covering hundreds of square miles. And we control all of it.”
As Luis explains all this, there is a constant stream of workers going to and fro, all of them wearing facemasks, thick rubber gloves and aprons to protect them from the chemicals used to extract the cocaine. This is a full-functioning professional manufacturing facility with a professional workforce and infrastructure. I have to say, I am impressed. And judging by the look on Sean’s face, he is too. I’m starting to get a good feeling about this although I know I need to think with my head and not feel with my heart.
As we go through each warehouse, workers greet us with smiles on their faces. Victor and his boys occasionally break off to chat and laugh with the workers and there is no sense of them feeling intimidated by their bosses. There are people of all ages here, men and women. Some of the women seem surprised to see a young European girl inspecting their work but that surprise quickly turns into friendly curiosity and I get a constant barrage of “buenos dias, senorita” and affectionate touches on the arm from some of the old biddies. Those who are busy performing their various tasks certainly don’t give the impression of being here under duress. There is the same bustle and excitable chatter you would find in any factory anywhere in the world.
The final stop on the factory tour is where the cocaine is packaged up. An obliging worker hands a small lump of the finished article to Victor, who places it on a table and chops it into fine powder. Luis then turns to Sean and I. “Please, do try,” he says. Sean goes first, dabbing a fingertip into the coke and then onto his gums. He wiggles his jaw about a bit as Luis, Jorge and Manuel do the same. Sean’s eyes suddenly pop open. He nods rapidly, smiles like a lunatic and gives me the thumbs-up. The Mendez men copy him. “Si! Si! It’s good, yes?” Luis says to Sean as they both rub their gums furiously.
I’ve never done coke so I have nothing to judge it by but Sean’s demeanour is high praise indeed for this batch of coke fresh from the production line in Venezuela. I gingerly take a miniscule dab on my fingertip and rub my gums. Instantly I can feel an intense tingle and then numbness. OK, this stuff is quality. If it’s less than 98% purity, I’ll be very surprised. I return a thumbs-up to Sean and to Victor, and it’s backslaps and big smiles all around.
Then it’s time for lunch in a large outside cantina close to the warehouses. There are long rows of tables all laid out with various rice and corn dishes, beef, pork, chicken, and a selection of vegetables and fruits. We all sit at a table already half-full with workers and we tuck in, attended to by kitchen staff who make sure that our water glasses are always topped up. There doesn’t seem to be any hierarchical division of worker seniority here – workers and their supervisors, the armed guards and the Mendez men all sit alongside each other, chattering away. I sit with Drusilla, eagerly listening to her explain how this mini-city sprang up.
“This land belonged to my husband’s family. For hundreds of years his family lived here, on this land. Originally it was just farmland, vegetable crops and livestock. But this is one of the poorest areas of Venezuela and life is very difficult for farmers. There is hardly any transport infrastructure – no roads, no train stations or airports. No way for people to sell their produce. That is why many farmers began growing cocoa,” she says as she slurps a strawful of fruit juice from her glass. “The farmers realised that they could grow and sell coc
oa at a much higher price than they would get for their crops. Prices that would help them feed their families instead of trying to survive on a few pesos a day. Victor’s family began growing cocoa, they made good relationships with cocaine producers and soon they were able to produce cocaine themselves.”
“And all these workers here? They all come from this area?”
“Oh yes. Many of these people are relatives of Victor and the others all come from the area nearby. Everybody knows everybody here. The people who work here know that they will be paid well, that they will always have work, that they will have houses and hot water, that their children can go to school. Before Victor’s family established this place, there were no schools in this area. People could not educate their children. They lived in the dirt. That all changed with Victor,” Drusilla says, looking at her husband with an adoring smile on her face.
After our tour of the industrial complex is completed, Sean and I are taken back to the house. We’re joined by Victor, Drusilla, Luis, Jorge and Manuel plus a couple of Victor’s advisors. We’re all sat in the lounge area joining the courtyard. It’s time to talk business.
At first, it’s Victor and his boys explaining how the cocaine is divided, hidden within various goods and transported via various methods to the container ship port of La Guairá in Caracas.
The Mendez cartel has its own shipping company offices in Caracas, handling the documentation, letters of credit and licences needed to export stuff outside Venezuela. A separate freight shipping company deals with the physical and logistical loading of the cargo onto the ship itself and then it’s a case of fingers crossed as the container ship slowly makes its way across the Atlantic. Once it crosses into European waters, from the moment it docks at whatever destination is decided, the cocaine buyer must handle all unloading, transport and distribution of the cocaine from the ship to its end destination. If this meeting goes well, that will mean Sean and I.