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

by Arjun Kramadhati

  ‘Your plan has worked, but I don’t think you realize what sort of game you have gotten yourself into. You have hit us hard, without realizing the consequences.’

  The man on the right lit a half-finished cigar and took in a long drag. Cigars are extremely concentrated with tobacco. One must be very used to such strong-smoke puffs to take in long drags. The air in the room felt heavy because of the strong smoke.

  ‘Before you kids blurt out anything stupid again. Let me make things clear. We do not hesitate to kill. We have been doing that all our lives and that is why we have come so far. We know everything about you. Rocky, we know how hard your dad works in the factory. We know about that watch you sold to pawnbroker. Here, look at it,’ said Bulldog as he showed the watch he was wearing. Rocky had sold the same watch to his dear pawnbroker friend recently.

  ‘I bought it at the auction house for two million pesos,’ he added.

  Rocky’s face turned cold. He kicked himself in the head for having sold it off for a dead cheap price. In the back of his head he wondered whether his dad had noticed the missing watch.

  ‘We know about your farmhouse too,’ he added.

  Rocky, Herba and Natas were shocked.

  The man then turned to Herba.

  We know all about the dispute in your family. We know about the uncle who is behind bars. We know about the showroom too’

  Herba began to sweat profusely.

  ‘I hope you realize how easy it is for us to stick in our fingers and ruin your lives,’ The Bulldog said, with a calm superiority that came naturally to him after years of terrorizing people.

  Rocky, Herba and Natas were now completely intimidated. They feared for their lives. They wondered what Natas had gotten them into.

  Before either one of them could talk, the man on the left started talking.

  ‘Now that you realize how small a gang you are in front of us, let us get into the real reason why we brought you guys here today,’ he said.

  This man had a more fluent English and looked more of a tech-savvy businessman. He was the head of the Assesi Cartel. His cartel was known for its relatively sophisticated ways of operating. His name was Facundo. He was the tallest of the three dons and without any doubt, the most handsome. His face had an unmistakably bold, square jaw line. His shoulders were broad and his frame was well built.

  ‘We can easily destroy you. However, that would serve no long-term benefits to us. So, we have some plans for you,’ he said as he stopped to drink water.

  ‘Here is what you are to do from this day onward. You will stop all of your street distribution routes. Instead, you will distribute directly to us on our own terms and pricing. You will also be handing over the showrooms to us. In return, to this service, we will keep you on our payroll. We will provide you security from the law and we will gift you a long and healthy life,’ Facundo stopped talking and smiled at the petrified youngsters in front of him.

  Basically, the drug distribution was to be stopped and the trio now had to distribute directly to the three cartels for a price the cartel decided upon. In return, the cartel would ensure the safety and well-being of the three amateur gang lords. As far as the three cartels were concerned, they did not have to bother setting up the weed and meth production houses using the trio’s secrets. Setting up the production and distribution all over again was a pain. That was one of the reasons why the cartel had decided against killing the youngsters.

  Rocky and Herba knew they had no choice but to agree to the deal without questioning. Nevertheless, Natas had some doubts of his own.

  ‘If we are going to be business partners, can we at least get chairs to sit?’ Natas asked, trying to be as polite as possible fearing another slap.

  The man in the middle smirked and called out for his men to arrange for chairs in the room.

  The three sat down and Natas spoke.

  ‘What will be the pricing?’

  The man on the right, who was silent until now, began to talk. He was the oldest of the lot. Carlos was well in his seventies. He was the don who listened more than he talked. Years of dealing dangerous situations had taught him to stay silent rather than to do the talking. His hair had turned grey and he looked like a peaceful, retired citizen. But he was not. He was anything but peaceful. Carlos was also known as the Chef because his preferred way of terrorizing and killing was to have his victims cut up in a variety of ways.

  ‘We will let you know. It is upon us to decide that. Either ways, you have no choice but to agree’

  ‘You will hear from us soon,’ the bulldog said as they got up to leave the room. There were no handshakes.

  The trio were transported back to the bazaar in the same blindfold method and dropped off. Rocky, Herba and Natas had now lost all their distribution routes in an instant. They had just lost their army of street dealers. They had even lost their two showrooms. All they had with them was the drug farm and the few foot soldiers that protected it. On the up side, the trio now had nothing to worry about the sniffing noses of the law. The cartel would protect them from everything as long as the deal was not broken. How naive they were to think they could take on the cartels.

  The trio made their way back to the farm silently. The sudden twists of events were still to sink in. Rocky and Herba were deep in a well of thoughts. It was a mixed feeling. On the one hand, they now had complete safety and a steady income. On the other hand, they had just lost everything they had built over the past year. The freedom of doing business was completely absent. In the days to come, half of the foot soldiers would leave camp and the trio would be forced to do the cooking and growing themselves, just like before.

  While the two worried about the future of their business and lives, Natas remained utterly quiet.

  He had a tiny smile on his face.

  The Calm before the Storm

  “The Cocaine that is ready to be snorted contains significant amounts of cement, kerosene, petrol, acetone and a long list of toxic chemicals that the human body was never designed to handle.”

  The trio never realized how lucky they were to have been given a second chance by the cartel. The cartels, who usually end their dealings with murder had somehow spared the three youngsters.

  The plan was simple. The finished goods in the farm was to be sold directly to the three cartels instead of selling them on the streets like before. The cartels would then distribute them in their territories with the man power they already had set up, years ago. The only downside to this set-up was that the trio had no freedom and flexibility that they had enjoyed for a full year. But the upside was a steady and guaranteed flow of income with full protection from any harm. The street dealers who were under Natas shifted camps to their original lords. The trio was now left only with a handful of the loyal footmen who stayed at the farm.

  The productions kicked off once again. Herba and the footmen tilled the soil and planted the Cannabis while Rocky and Natas worked in the toxic environments of the meth lab inside the house.

  Once a sizeable consignment was ready, the men would transport truckloads of the stuff to the showrooms. The cartel men at the showroom would then purchase the goods at the pre-decided cartel prices. It was the same HERBA trucks and the same HERBA showrooms. Only difference was that the people inside them had changed. The showroom concept of the trio played well with the cartel’s business model and the cartel had decided to build more in their own territories. In total there were now around eight showrooms across the city, each belonging to their respective cartels. The showroom was a big hit as far as the public was concerned. The trio had to sell only to these eight showrooms. The public believed that the HERBA brand was a huge fashion chain. They did not have the slightest clue that it was the front end for a big bad business of money laundering and drug trafficking. All the showrooms were located in slightly uptown locations and hence no one suspected the unusual traffic of trucks coming into the showroom.

  For the trio, although the money inflow was steady, it
was not half as high as their one-year home run. They could still technically sell their stuff on the streets, but the cartels had eyes and ears literally everywhere on the streets. The risk was too high. They decided to just stick to the current business model. The two showrooms that they had bought originally were still in their names; the money channeling was not an issue.

  Because of Natas’s revolutionary meth and weed products, there was an increase in patients flowing into the de-addiction centers. Many working class adults were hooked onto meth and many had even died due to over dosage. All thanks to the little initiation Natas had given with the speech on top of the hill a long time ago. That initiation had kicked off a buying frenzy that spread to their colleagues and their kids. Because of Natas’s weed-trap, they had all fallen irreversibly into meth addiction. Throughout the city, the addiction and usage was multiplying rapidly. Such was the consequences of the events and practices that originated on Stoner Hill.

  Until this point, the three had never really allowed themselves to be seriously hooked on to meth. They smoked the usual Marijuana around six times a day and occasionally snorted meth. The high money inflow was enough to keep them distracted and intoxicated enough from meth addiction. Now, the money was steady, but lower than before. Everything went back to being boring. They had nothing to worry about except for the production of meth and Cannabis on their farm. It was in the wake of these events that the three started seriously snorting meth. The six joints they smoked up in a day were nothing compared to a snort of few milligrams of Crystal Meth.

  The cooking of meth and cultivation of Cannabis took up about six hours of the day. The rest of the hours, the three spent in snorting meth and lingering around the farm. The footmen were jobless almost the entire day except for driving the goods to the showroom.

  ‘We are wasting a lot of man power,’ Herba raised an issue to Rocky.

  ‘True,’ Natas replied.

  The three were sitting on the front porch with a few milligrams of meth in front of them that was ready to be snorted.

  ‘We work for only six hours and the rest of the time we waste away snorting this shit. The foot men are even worse. They sit there in their tents, smoking cigarettes and playing cards the whole day. They are getting paid just to deliver the goods once a week!’ he said.

  Natas was irked about the fact that lot of man power and money was being wasted.

  ‘What do you propose to do?’ Rocky asked.

  ‘Since we have loads of unused man power we can start preparing Cocaine as well,’ Natas said pointing at the jobless men sitting in the tents, out in the farm.

  Rocky and Herba looked at each other. They were not surprised but rather happy at the hint of earning more money.

  ‘The meth we cook and the weed we grow are both huge hits in the streets due to their high-quality. Because we follow scientific methods. This is exactly what we will be doing with Cocaine as well. Since Cocaine production is similar to meth, we need not worry about bringing in extra infrastructure and raw materials,’ Natas said looking at Herba.

  ‘Let’s do it!’ Herba said.

  She was visibly excited.

  And so it went, the trio were now stepping into the territories of one more drug. They knew that the cartel would readily buy the new product because of the trio’s superior quality produce in everything they did.

  †††††††

  Cocaine, also known as crack, is a severe psychedelic drug made from the leaves of the coca plant. Cocaine floods the brain cells with dopamine, which is normally released by the brain during potentially rewarding situations. The dopamine, normally, is sent back to the cells which released it. In the case of Cocaine, the excess dopamine trapped in the brain cells are not allowed to go back to the cells, which released it. This affects normal brain functions and hence causes the feeling of extreme euphoria.

  Cocaine is one of the oldest and one of the most potent drugs known to humankind. The Incas used to chew coca leaves because it made their heart beat faster. Spanish invaders fed coca leaves to the Peruvian miners. It was easier to control them this way. Coca leaves were even used in the ultra-famous beverage, Coca-Cola in the 1880s.

  In the twentieth century, almost all of the Cocaine in the world was produced in Colombia. Gigantic areas of ungoverned forestlands were a perfect place to set up Cocaine farms. The coca plants grew excellently in the rainforests and the Cocaine produced was the purest. But since then, the Colombian army backed by the American government have cracked down heavily on the Colombian cartels. After almost two decades of a bloody civil war, which cost the lives of thousands of innocent civilians, the cartels in Colombia were pulverized. The cartels were once one the richest and the most powerful gangs in the world. Now they were broken down into smaller outfits. Just like how when a balloon is squeezed on one end, it expands and bulges on the other end, the base for the Cocaine operations had popped up in Peru. The rainforests serve as perfect places to grow the coca plant. Large tracts of unchartered forests just like Colombia prompted the start of Cocaine in Peru. Peru, as of today, is the new capital of Cocaine in the world. In the remote region of the Peruvian jungles called as the VRAE valley the ‘snow of the Andes’ is produced. Although the crackdown by the police in Peru is high, a large percentage of Peru’s economy comes directly from the revenues of the Cocaine industry. Unlike the messy Crystal Meth production, Cocaine production is a highly organized and structured chain of steps.

  In case of meth, almost in all cases, the cooks will also be users. In case of Cocaine, the cooks are almost never users of the drug. It is often said that even if a Cocaine addict watches the process of production of Cocaine, the person will stop using it. The Cocaine that is ready to be snorted contains significant amounts of cement, kerosene, petrol, acetone and a long list of toxic chemicals that the human body was never designed to handle.

  The coca plants are grown deep inside the Peruvian rainforest. The farmers harvest the leaves once it reaches maturity. Huge piles of leaves is then crushed and broken down into bits. To the pile of crushed leaves, cement is added and mixed with a bit of water. This paste is dumped into a barrel to which petrol is added in large quantities. After a good two hours of marinating, the strong concentration of liquid coca is filtered out from the leaf paste. To this, batches of potassium salt and sulphuric acid are added which turns the liquid, golden white. This is then dried and pressed into cakes. The golden colour cake is highly concentrated Cocaine which is not yet ready to be snorted. The cakes are sold at two hundred US dollars a kilo. By the time the finished Cocaine makes its way to the American soil, the street value of Cocaine will stand at ninety thousand US dollars a kilo.

  The cakes are sold to cooks who process them to get the final Cocaine white powder. The cooks have their own unique styles of cooking and this brings in the final taste added with the cook’s special touches.

  ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡

  Natas had arranged, with the cartel, to get the gold cakes. The three were standing outside the old house in the drug farm. The foot men were also present. In front of them lay an array of chemicals, a hydraulic press and a gas burner.

  Natas began the presentation. He explained each process in detail. He first broke the cake slabs into smaller bits and mixed them with a solution of hundred percent alcohol. This paste was then pressed in the hydraulic press to get rid of the liquid. The dry compressed pieces were then heated and melted to evaporate the alcohol and water left in it. After a highly toxic reaction with acetone and hydraulic acid, the product was dried and it was ready for packaging.

  Unlike meth, the yield, here, was high.

  The life expectancy of a serious Cocaine addict is pinned at five to seven years.

  Rocky was always curious. How did Natas know all these techniques? Where had he learnt all these trades?

  He decided to ask Natas.

  ‘How the hell did you learn all these things?’ Rocky asked Natas, who was admiring the Cocaine he had just cooked.
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  ‘You are very intelligent,’ he replied to Rocky’s usual question.

  ‘What?’ Rocky couldn’t make any sense of the reply. Before a reply came from Natas, one of the men came front and snorted a few ounces of the fresh coke.

  ‘Daaamn! This is some good shit!’ He shouted, ecstatic.

  A kilogram of sample was sent out to the cartels to test on the street. The street responded. It was a hit. They loved it. The cartels ordered for more. And thus, the Cocaine line was alive and functional. Most of the drugs the cartel sold on the street were coming directly from the drug farm run by the three youngsters. In the days to come, the demand grew for all the three drugs being manufactured at the farm. Many make shift camps were constructed around the house to expand the meth and the Cocaine productions. Better enclosures were built for the Cannabis cultivation. The enclosures contained controlled humidifiers and advanced lighting to ensure high quality and fast growth. The cartel even agreed to spare few men to accommodate for the rise in productions.

  Everything was going smooth. The inflow of money was high and steady. Rocky and Herba were now regular users of meth and Cannabis. While the men worked at the house and the farm. Natas had chosen to drive the consignments to the showrooms himself. There was a hidden motive behind this, unknown to Rocky and Herba.

  Rocky and Herba did not know an important thing about Natas. Natas was never the one who would work under others. He was the one who would make others work. Natas never liked the fact that they were working for the three cartels. Natas wanted to be the head of The Cartel. While everything went smooth, Natas was building contacts of his own. While he delivered the consignments to the showrooms, he met various intermediaries and smaller dons. He never wasted an opportunity in networking with them and building contacts with such people. These contacts would come useful the day Natas planned to topple the three cartels all together.