Herba: Once in, there's no way out.

by Arjun Kramadhati

  Blitzkrieg

  “Within a few months, everyone knew about the new gang in town. Rocky, Natas and Herba had so much money with them that they did not know where to store it all.”

  Four months pass by silently. The three had become very much at home in the lonely farm. The production went on smoothly and they had about two kilos of Crystal Meth and fifteen kilos of Cannabis ready to be distributed. The weed that the foot soldiers had planted four months ago across city, now, had grown fully enough to be taken seriously. It spread like wild fire. Very soon, it was all over the news. Hospitals and schools started to panic and civil authorities were questioned for their blatant ignorance. People started to raise angry protests and the pressure on the mayor was building up at a rapid pace. Civil authorities tried their best to clear out the outgrowth but there was just too much to clear. The mayor had to respond.

  Until that point, the city’s drug routes and distribution was mainly controlled by the three big cartels. El Morto, Assesi and Musculo. They brought in low quality drugs at dirt-cheap prices and sold it on the streets at a high price. They sold a variety of drugs but their main money churners were meth, Cocaine, Heroin and obviously Cannabis. They tried to manufacture some of it on their own but stopped soon after they cooked their first batch. The quality was horrible. They did not have the scientific know-how to produce high-quality drugs. For years, the three cartels had fought each other over the rights to sell their drugs on the streets. After a long and a bloody street war, the three cartels realized that a deal had to be made or they would risk losing their businesses entirely to violence. After months of hostile negotiations, the cartel heads agreed to mark out the city into three big territories. Each territory was then given to one of the three cartels. The cartel from one territory was forbidden, as per the deal, to enter the other territory without consent. This ensured that the cartels could now continue to focus on the drug distribution and marketing rather than fighting each other. This brought in an era of peace and great prosperity to the local drug industry. The cartels made fortunes owing to the peace and non-interference from any other cartel. They enjoyed an enormous amount of power and influence in their respective territories. The cartels did not entertain newcomers in their territory. They would either slit their throats or force them to pledge loyalty to the cartel-collective. Until this point, no one knew about the new team in the block. However, things were about to change, thanks to Natas.

  The mayor finally decided to launch a full-scale crackdown on the three cartels and their distribution routes. The cartels were in for a complete shock. Fingers were pointed at each other and everything fell back into the violent whirlpool they had worked so hard to avoid. The cartels suddenly had a two-pronged attack to face with. On one side, the police and the drug enforcement officials were coming hard at them. They cut off all their distribution routes. On the other hand, the cartels had to face the other two cartels on the streets because of the confusion that had been created by the outburst of Cannabis in the streets. The police seized much of the store houses where the cartels stored their drugs. They arrested many of their street dealers and intermediaries. The cartel leaders, with their money power, steered clear from the vice of the law but their businesses were hit severely. The supply of drugs in the street went down heavily. This demand in turn skyrocketed their street price.

  It was in this chaotic situation that Natas decided to start distribution. Since all the attention was on the three cartels who were forced to run for cover, it was a cakewalk for the trio. Natas ordered his twelve men to start the street distribution at the normal rates. Amidst the high price of drugs, Natas launched extremely high-quality drugs at low rates. Natas’s weed that people had been waiting for, sold out within hours. The meth sold out within minutes. Many of the street dealers of the traditional cartels switched sides and offered to work for the trio. And just like that, Natas now had a considerable amount of manpower under him. Production of drugs was ramped up and sales went through the roof.

  Natas’s plan had worked perfectly. It exceeded his wildest imagination. Only this time, he was prepared for the sudden influx of demand. Rocky and Herba’s work was now done by the foot soldiers who had freshly pledged loyalties to Natas. Weed cultivation was expanded to an acre of land. Huge greenhouses were built and a massive centralized air conditioner was installed to control the growth-temperature. An extensive lighting system was set up inside the greenhouses. Meth lab was now functional in two of the rooms in the house. The trio now had an army of over ninety street dealers and ten foot-soldiers. The foot soldiers acted as the muscle of the organization, they stayed in small shacks around the perimeter of the farm. Apart from the foot soldiers and the three of them, no one knew about the isolated drug farm located on the outskirts of the city.

  Within a few months, everyone knew about the new gang in town. Rocky, Natas and Herba had so much money with them that they did not know where to store it all. Initially, they tried stashing the hard cash in one of the empty rooms in the house, which soon overflowed. Next, they tried hiding it underground. They were soon out of options. With limited options, they desperately needed a place to store the money. The bank was a risky place, as they did not have a proper cover-up story. Since they no longer needed to worry about production, they focused their energy to design and engineer the supply-distribution chains and come up with a plan to deal with the rapid cash flow.

  After hours and hours of intense planning, the three decided on a clever idea. The first step involved was to buy a big office space in the city.

  The three youngsters went through many options and finalized on an office space perfect for their requirements. It was a big one-storied building in the heart of the commercial part of the city. Surrounded by a lot of upscale houses and huge malls, this building was an expensive and posh property. The office was designed in an artistic western way with an extensive hall covered on one side with big panes of glass befitting its modern looks. It looked more like an art museum than the drug den it was soon to become. Supplementing this, the English wood flooring and centralized air conditioning system made it the most unsuspecting of places for any such illegal activities. Natas had the Hall split into two parts, separated by a thin wall. The front part was smaller in area compared to the other. The front part was populated with fancy looking China-made fashion clothing. A big board adorned the massive entrance. The hoarding read “The Herba Store” Below which was written “Fashion clothing”. For any passerby, the building looked like a huge and expensive fashion wear showroom. Herba was given charge of the showroom. She also doubled as the shopkeeper in any event a customer came looking for fashion wear.

  Natas diligently purchased three medium-sized goods trucks and had its exteriors completely redone. The grey trucks were painted with fresh looking bright white paint. On the sides, in big blue letters, were written “THE HERBA STORE”.

  The foot soldiers who were paid higher than the rest of the people on Natas’s pay roll, were tasked with ferrying the packed consignments to the store. The drug consignments were stored in the bigger half of the showroom. The street dealers would then enter the showroom, posed as buyers for the clothing line and walk out with smaller quantities of drugs that were to be sold in the streets of the city. The purchase of the office space also allowed the trio to put the money effortlessly into the bank. Disguised as revenue from the clothing brand HERBA, the drug money was effortlessly converted to clean white money, innocently resting and growing in the banks. The drug blitzkrieg was a huge success.

  Almost a year went by without much hassle. The trio came to be known in the streets as the Herba Cartel. Although they were amateurs, Rocky, Herba and Natas now were heads of a growing drug cartel. They had hired a lot of muscle power to reinforce their stance. The clans on the hills multiplied and their strength grew. They were severely hooked onto Crystal Meth just as Natas had planned. The clan members looked more like half-rotten zombies due to the extreme side effects of snorting cr
ystal. Business was at an all time high for the apparently successful clothing brand HERBA. They now had two showrooms in the city.

  Amidst the chaos that Natas had engineered, they were able to spread distribution into all the territories that the big cartels traditionally controlled. This proved to be a disastrous amateur-move by the three young drug lords. They were not aware of the fact that it was always unwise to mess with the drug cartels of the land. It was an uncalculated step.

  By now, the crackdown on the three cartels had subsided and the cartels were hungry for business. Their revenues from the drug trades had taken a whopping thirty percent hit since the chaos had begun. They were not one bit happy with the newly formed gang. It was more than clear to them that the new gang was responsible for the unforeseen plight they had gone through.

  Something had to be done about the new cartel in town. The cartel called Herba.

  The Meeting

  “Although the car had to travel only about four kilometers to reach the house, the driver purposely went in circles and took long cuts.”

  It was a beautiful Sunday morning and Rocky, Natas and Herba were out at the local bazaar, securing a deal to buy cheaper clothes for the Herba showroom. The bazaar was affectionately named as the China Bazaar. It was the one place in town where literally every pirated item was sold at dead cheap prices. From fake Rolex watches to fake Sony TVs, everything was available. The bazaar was located in an old, city street. The road was closed to public vehicular movements at all times. It had only one main-road running through the length of the bazaar. One way in, one way out. Back at the showroom, people had begun coming in, interested to buy the clothes. Hence, they could no longer keep the same old stock. They had to at least sell some clothes.

  ‘The way we are positioned right now, we can actually stop our drug run and start an actual clothing line,’ Herba joked. Rocky and Natas looked serious. They did not get the joke.

  ‘Relax I am kidding,’ Herba chuckled as she tugged Rocky’s hand.

  While the three continued to look for a suitable fashion wear distributor, two muscular men were silently observing them from a short distance. The two men were both wearing thin and airy black-banyans with military cargo pants. They each had a ring on their left thumb finger. Had anyone noticed the ring and the emblem on it, they would have panicked and ran fearing for their lives. The ring had a leopard emblem right across the face. The leopard was the symbol for one of the three big cartels in the city. The gang named El Morto. Everyone knew not to mess with these people. They meant business. Merciless, fierce business.

  After about an hour of observing from a distance, the two men decided that it was time to carry out the simple operation they were instructed to carry out. They hurried back to their SUV parked nearby. It was a big black Chevrolet SUV. The car could easily accommodate nine adults. Heavily tinted on all sides with fancy alloys showing off its wheels, the car certainly looked like the real deal. The intimidating, shady cars of the underworld. While one of the men drove the car towards the main road running towards the bazaar, the other prepared for the drama that was about to unfold. There were two more men seated at the back of the car. As the car entered the crowded main road, the driver honked incessantly. He stepped on the throttle as they sped towards the three unsuspecting youngsters standing right next to the roadway. The car screeched to a halt a few feet ahead of the three youngsters. Three men with masks sprung out of the gigantic SUV with blindfolds in their hands. Herba put up no fight and she was the first to first to give in. The other two put up a weak fight. Long periods of drug abuse had weakened them beyond recovery. They were no match to the muscular men of the cartel. For the men of the cartel, this was a routine operation. They quickly got into the car and the driver reversed the car rapidly to exit the road of the bazaar. While the driver skillfully maneuvered the car, the rest of the men blindfolded the three helpless youngsters. Next, their hands and legs were tightly tied up.

  The three cartels were seriously worried about the new developments. The Herba cartel was responsible for a steep decline of their revenue. They had to act fast. So, the heads of the three cartels decided to meet and draw out a plan of action. The heads were battle-hardened veterans in the field. They knew every trick in the book. They had fought every obstacle in their way to be at the top and they were willing to fight any more on their path to power. They were not willing to be toppled by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs who had just entered the business. For a brief moment, they had agreed that the best plan would be to eliminate the trio, thereby ending their run for glory. But that was soon dropped.

  The fact was, the Cannabis and the crystals that the trio was selling were far better than what they sold. The three cartels combined could not figure out how they were coming up with such good stuff despite the fact that the trio was just amateurs in the field. Hence, the secret of their product would die along with the young cartel if the big cartels wished to kill eliminate the trio. Adding to this, the cartels had just freed themselves from a cat and mouse chase by the law enforcement agencies. Any murder related to the drug cartels would definitely re-ignite the heat on them. The heat that they had just extinguished with difficulty. Thus, the plan to kill the gang was quickly dropped and a new plan was made. It was decided that it would behoove both the sides if a peaceful deal could be agreed upon. A deal which allowed for the exchange of resources and techniques just like how the three cartels did until that time.

  Rocky, Natas and Herba had no idea what was happening. Rocky tried to shout out for help but his mouth was stuffed with a cloth. His voice was barely audible. They had no idea where the car was going.

  Although the car had to travel only about four kilometers to reach the house, the driver purposely went in circles and took long cuts. This ensured that the three youngsters had no clue where they were going.

  The car came to a halt after a grueling forty-five minute ride.

  One of the men shouted.

  ‘Open the gate! They are here.’

  The three were rudely shoved out before the car was parked. The blindfold and the ropes were removed.

  Rocky could barely see. The sunlight was directly hitting his eyes. Once he could clearly see, Rocky panned his eyes to see where he was. He could see high walls on all sides. In the centre of it lay a massive bungalow.

  The house was a huge three-storied mansion with an appropriately apt mega entrance. It was marble floored almost on every square inch. Muscular napoleon mastiffs roamed freely around the house, patrolling. On the inside, everything was modern. Abstract paintings studded many a wall, complete with artistic lighting for them. The chandelier in the hall right after the entrance was truly magnificent. The entire house was cool and natural lighting was more than abundant. The couches were huge. It looked as though it was built for the ‘royal’. Everything around was king sized and posh. The house looked thoroughly out of place in the otherwise poor city.

  They were escorted to a spacious room on the south end of the house. At the centre of the room was a big rosewood desk with three chairs docked to one of its sides.

  ‘Those chairs are not for you. You may not sit,’ said one of the men.

  The three were then left to themselves in the room.

  Just before either one of them could talk, three men barged into the room. They quietly occupied the chairs arranged for them behind the desk.

  Natas spoke surprisingly boldly.

  ‘I need to know what is happening. Who are you people? I can have my men come here and have you trashed’

  Rocky and Herba immediately signaled Natas to stop talking, realizing the foolishness of his sentence.

  The three men looked at each other and guffawed. They were all at least thrice Rocky’s age. After a minute of uninterrupted laughter, the man in the middle began to talk.

  ‘Look son, we...’ Natas interrupted him.

  ‘I am not your son. Treat me with...’ Natas spoke arrogantly with an air of superiority.

&nbs
p; The man got up from his chair, reached out and slapped Natas hard, right across his face.

  The atmosphere in the room suddenly becomes very intense. Rocky, Herba and Natas could not believe the initial shock. Natas was thrown back by a good two feet by the force of the slap.

  ‘I will talk the way I want. Understood?’ The man in the middle was enraged.

  The other two men calmed him down and made him sit on his chair.

  The man in the middle was the head of the El Morto gang. His name was Gonzalo but people knew him better by his other name, The Bulldog. He was a short, plump man of about fifty years of age. His face always looked like he was frowning. Adding to that, his temper was notoriously short. He was considered the most ruthless of the three heads. His forearms were noticeably big and muscular. Probably because of slapping people on a regular basis!

  The three nodded almost in unison. Natas had his hand over his cheek, still reeling from the solid slap.

  ‘Good. You must consider yourselves lucky. We had initially planned to kill you all,’ the Bulldog spoke.

  The three were taken aback completely. They had no idea who these scary people were.

  ‘We are the heads of the three cartels that control the drug routes in this city,’ he said, with an air of dominance.

  He continued.

  ‘We have all been through your age. We know the restlessness and the aggressiveness of the youngsters. But that is no excuse for what you guys did to us,’ he pointed at the Natas, who was standing silently.

  ‘It is well known to us that you were the people behind the wild outgrowth of weed in the city. Witty plan, I must admit. But not enough to fool us,’ Gonzalo spoke with his eyebrows raised in an intimidating manner.

  Herba was beginning to sweat. Rocky held her hand and pressed it gently. Natas remained calm, as though he knew what was going on.