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

by Arjun Kramadhati

  The city was slowly being gripped by an epidemic of high quality narcotics streaming from a lonely farmhouse. Colinao now had some real drug issues, comparable to those in the other South American cities. The stage for an all out war of power was being slowly set.

  Gathering Clouds

  “But we are not law makers. We are drug peddlers. We are making money and that is all we care about. Kids or adults, who the hell cares?”

  Three years had gone by smoothly since the deal with the three cartels was made. Rock, Herba and Natas were sitting in the front porch, smoking a joint each. Apart from a few incidents with a nosy police officer, who was then quickly taken care of by the cartel, everything was functioning the way it was supposed to. The three had made an enormous amount of money for themselves.

  Herba was practicing the art of exhaling smoke rings. Rocky was lost in thought and Natas was silent as usual. Rocky had a doubt in mind.

  ‘The government spends billions every year for the fight against drugs. But they have not made so much of a dent on the drug trafficking and productions,’ he said as he exhaled a neat smoke ring.

  He turned to Herba and smiled. She smiled back. Rocky continued to talk.

  ‘What do you think they are doing wrong, Natas? How do you think they can stop the drugs from reaching youngsters?’ he asked.

  For Rocky and Herba, Natas was the all-wise figure who could guide them over every hurdle. For them, Natas knew everything.

  Natas thought for a while and replied.

  ‘It is because the drugs are illegal,’ he replied.

  Rocky and Herba were curious about the answer. Natas’s answer seemed, obviously, absurd.

  ‘What do you mean Natas?’ Herba asked as she managed to exhale a partial ring.

  ‘Let me explain. Take a nineteen-year-old kid on the street for example. He is more likely to be hooked onto drugs than alcohol. Why? Because drugs are illegal. Ask him to get you Cannabis. Ask him to get you meth. Ask him to get you Cocaine. He will get it to you in no time. On the other hand, ask him to get a bottle of whiskey, he will be clueless because alcohol is prohibited for people below twenty years of age. In case of alcohol, the business is transparent and legal. So, the kid cannot get past the structured, legal barriers to procure alcohol. Whereas, in the drug business, there are no laws. Nothing is accounted for. Everything is illegal. You pay money and you get the product no matter your age or sex. That is why more teenagers are addicted to drugs than they are to alcohol,’ he explained.

  What he spoke made sense to Herba and Rocky. They had never thought of this. Making something illegal had its own set of bad consequences and this was surely one of them.

  ‘What would you do if you could change this?’ Rocky asked Natas.

  Rocky and Herba were fully tuned into Natas’s little discourse.

  ‘Legalize it with a contingent of heavy regulations and conditions. Set the age limit to a limit quite higher than the alcohol limit. That way, kids will never ever come in contact with the drugs. Although there will still be very many addicts who will be legal to use the drugs, at least the kids will be safe. The probability that the teenagers will switch to drugs after they have crossed the legal age limit will drop down significantly. Because of the maturity that comes along with the age. Before they reach the legal age limit, they would certainly have seen many of the extreme side effects of the hard drugs on the older users. Of course, this is not a foolproof method. It is not even a good solution. At least a higher percentage of youngsters will be safe from the grip of drugs. In general, the future population will become a little more controllable,’ he reasoned.

  ‘But, if it is legalized, then the entire set has to be legalized and not just the Marijuana,’ he added.

  ‘Why is that? Then why is it that many countries are legalizing Marijuana and not anything else?’ Herba asked a little confused.

  ‘If the legalization is only restricted to the Marijuana, the drug cartels will resort to an increased selling of the hard drugs like Heroin and Cocaine. The cartels cannot keep up with the scientific machinery and the legal competition that will come up to produce Marijuana after it is legalized. So, to maintain their revenues, they increase the Heroin, meth and Cocaine productions and this creates a bigger problem than there ever was. This is what is happening in the Unites States. The Marijuana legalization has led to the Heroin outbreak in those states. More people in those states are now addicted to Heroin than ever before. That is dumb. If it is legalized, it should not just be the Marijuana,’ answered Natas.

  The atmosphere had become intense and silent. Natas broke it with a joke.

  ‘But we are not law makers. We are drug peddlers. We are making money and that is all we care about. Kids or adults, who the hell cares?’ he said, bursting into a fit of laughter. Herba and Rocky did not find it very funny.

  Rocky had never paid much thought about the number of kids whose lives were being derailed because of the drugs that was produced in the farm. Number of families affected by the drugs he produced. Number of precious lives lost. It touched him deeply when he thought of how thick skinned he had become after the money had started flowing in.

  Throughout history, the fall of great empires and civilizations can be pointed to big singular events. The single big event being the culmination of series of mistakes which have accumulated over many years. In the same way the long abuse of meth and Cannabis was leading to something terrifying in the future of the three young lives. Owing to the increase in work force at the farm, Rocky and Herba were mostly jobless the whole day. While Natas was out delivering the packaged narcotics and simultaneously building contacts of his own, Rocky and Herba resorted to an increased usage of meth. In the three years that went by after the deal with the cartel, Rocky and Herba were severely addicted to the crystals. They were proud of the fact that they had not tried Cocaine, not knowing how much damage meth had already done to their body. Rocky and Herba were now extremely weak and scrawny. Their body showed no resemblance to the sporty figures they boasted three to four years prior to their addiction. The two of them had reduced smoking weed and were now snorting meth almost all the time. They felt weed was too mild to kill their boredom. Due to the irreversible meth addiction, Rocky and Herba were faced with a wide range of clearly seen symptoms. Their teeth were beginning to weaken and deform. Few had even fallen off. The gum line had retracted a bit. Their faces showed a bold and unhealthy jaw line and an inwardly bulged cheek thanks to the severe loss of fat and muscles. Blisters and pimples were beginning to show all over the body.

  As for Rocky, he had nothing to worry about. He had built a drug empire from scratch with the help of his friends. His dad was happy and proud about the successful clothing company. He had found the ONE in Herba. There was so much money with him that he did not know what to do with it.

  All these factors and the addiction of meth led to the one-big mistake in Rocky’s life.

  One fine day, amidst all the satisfaction and happiness, Rocky made up his mind on trying LSD.

  †††††††

  What started out as an accidental discovery in a chemist’s lab, LSD became quickly notorious, worldwide for its ability to induce extremely realistic hallucinations. Under the effect of LSD, a person’s perceptions, sensations and reality is deeply dented and altered. Sometimes, permanently so. Also known as Acid, just about 40 to 500 micrograms of this liquid is enough to send a person into an extraterrestrial journey unlike any other.

  Paper blots with small quantities of LSD liquid dripped onto them is placed under the tongue. The liquid from the blot paper slowly makes its way into the body and the rest is magic. LSD is very widely known for the bad-trip it can, sometimes, give. A famous incident involved a young couple, under the influence of LSD, roasting their newborn baby alive in the oven. LSD offers a trip into an unknown, which can end very badly for the user. The trip lasts well over ten hours in many cases.

  ‡‡‡‡‡‡‡

  Rocky a
nd Herba sat huddled together in a makeshift camp outside the house. In front of them, on the table, lay two small paper pieces. To an innocent eye, the paper piece was nothing but bits of waste paper. But, for Rocky and Herba, the two pieces of paper were no ordinary paper pieces. The pieces were laced with LSD.

  ‘Okay, this is it’, Rocky spoke in a soft, excited tone.

  ‘Open your mouth and pull up your tongue,’ he instructed Herba. He carefully dropped the paper in the gap between the tongue and the lower jaw.

  ‘Close it,’ he said as Herba followed the instructions promptly.

  ‘Now, do the same for me’

  Rocky readied himself and opened his mouth.

  After the procedure, they held hands and waited for the acid to work its magic on the body. In few minutes time the acid would hit them so hard that their realities would be altered beyond recovery.

  Natas was readying himself for a different and a far more life threatening operation. An operation that would change the course of life for all three of them. While Rocky and Herba wasted away in the tent, Natas was bringing in high explosives and ammunitions into the house. In the list of items, there were high explosive mine-grade dynamites, five rifles of Kalashnikov popularly known as AK47 and detonators.

  Unknown to Rocky and Herba, Natas had spent the last few months by systematically placing complaints against the trio. The complaints ranged from steep decline in drug quality to misbehavior by the young drug suppliers.

  The intermediaries and dealers that Natas had befriended in the three years’ time carried all these complaints to the top of the chain of command. The complaints and issues slowly made its way to the very top. The cartel heads were infuriated. The drugs that the trio was making were a huge hit in the streets and the cartels did not want to lose that. They must have become arrogant and ignorant because of the money they are making, the cartel heads thought. Therefore, the cartel heads decided that it was time to teach the three youngsters a lesson and put them back in their place. They arranged to visit the drug farm and intimidate the youngsters.

  Just as Natas had planned.

  Through a network of informants that he had built over the years, Natas learnt that the three heads had decided to pay a visit the next day. There was no time to waste. Natas first had the barrels of chemicals and hoard of apparatuses removed from the house and hidden away in one of the tents around the house. The second step was to rig the house with the explosives. For this,

  Natas put one dynamite cylinder into different tin containers filled with sharp metal scrap pieces. The idea was that, when the blast engulfed the house, any chances of escape by the drug lords would be nullified by the fast flying, hot metal-scrap pieces. At that speed and temperature, the thousands of flying scrap pieces can cut the body into many pieces. The small contraptions were then placed strategically throughout the house to ensure complete coverage. Wiring was done to detonate the explosives remotely from a safe distance. Natas gathered the men and chalked out the plan in high detail. The plan was straightforward and was based on few critical assumptions. Natas assumed that the cartel heads would come moderately armed. He reasoned that the cartel heads saw the trio as a bunch of amateurs who were easily intimidated by the drug mafia. Hence, they would naturally think that the trio posed no major and direct threat.

  ‘When the drug lords come here, I take them into the house. You wait for my signal to detonate,’ Natas said as he pointed to one the men.

  ‘What is the signal?’ the man spoke with no expression on his face.

  ‘I will jump out of that window,’ said Natas as he pointed at the window of the room on the first floor. It was the floor where the meth was cooked.

  ‘After the explosion, the cartels’ men, who will be outside the house, will start firing at everything and everyone that moves’

  Natas picked five men in the crowd.

  ‘You will kill them after I jump from the window. Spray them down with all the bullets that your rifles can carry before they even begin to react,’ he instructed.

  The five men nodded obediently. Violence and shooting was not new to them. They had used guns on many occasions before and had not lost touch.

  Few more intense hours were spent on planning the finer details of the daring operation. The house was cleared of all the important equipments. All the chemicals and the apparatuses were hidden cleverly in the tents around the house. The detonators were wired and the wires ran discreetly from the house into the green house where weed was grown. The bomb was to be detonated from that place because it offered the best view of the window from which Natas planned to jump. The positions of the men who were to shoot was finalized and the stage was set for a gruesome massacre.

  The Storm

  “Natas closed his eyes and prepared to meet his creator. He asked god to punish him for ruining the lives of his friends. He was ready for the pull of the trigger.”

  Natas spent the night, nervous about the big day. The events of the following day would either get him brutally killed or make him the most powerful drug lord in the city. Both the prospects made him sweat. He could barely catch sleep.

  Natas could have very easily played along by the rules of the cartel. He could have led a settled life with Rocky and Natas. He could have done all the things he ever wished to do with all that money. But, now, he risked losing all of it. All the things he had built and achieved in the past few, turbulent years could very well be wiped out in a day or two. He had thought long and hard about these things. But, in the end, there was a very obvious fact he had to acknowledge. The fact that he was never the person who played by the rules. He was never a person who liked being controlled. He never accepted subjugation. The only two choices he really wanted in front of him were either to win big or to die fighting. He did not care about the collateral damage; he just wanted all of it.

  As Natas struggled to catch sleep, he decided to smoke a small joint to ease the mental torture. It always helped him.

  ‘It could very well be my last joint,’ he thought to himself as he took a long, satisfactory drag. He quickly fell asleep after that.

  The following morning was beautiful and crisp. Too bad, it had to be so violent in the hours to follow. The men were up and ready for the operation. They knew that if anything did go wrong, there was certainly no coming back. But for the money Natas had offered for the operation, they could not resist but to go ahead with it.

  Natas woke up and noticed the tent where Rocky and Herba were sleeping. The tent appeared still and quiet. Natas wondered what the two were doing in the tent for such long hours. He had no idea that the two were high on LSD. He pushed aside his curiosity and got on about the final detailing of the plan. He inspected the wiring and checked the detonators. He cleaned the AK47 himself to avoid a barrel jam while firing. He briefed his men for one last time.

  The informants promptly informed Natas about the entourage of the two black SUVs that were coming their way. The men took positions. The gunmen hid themselves in a thick outgrowth of bush in front of the house, ready to fire immediately once Natas jumped from the first floor. The man responsible to detonate the dynamites took position in the green house. In his hand was a rectangular box with a clumsy red button on it. There was a switch with an LED right next to the button. The switch acted as a safety lock in case the red button was activated by accident. The LED showed whether the safety lock was active or not. The box was wired directly to the dynamite contraptions inside the house. One press of the button and the whole house would be pulverized to a heap of burning waste.

  Natas was beginning to get very nervous. He knew exactly what would happen if the plan went awry. The cartels were not the ones to be messed around with. There were no second chances, especially this time. The brutality and mercilessness of the cartel’s killing sprees were feared across land.

  Right from the beginning, Natas had chosen to keep Rocky and Herba in the dark about the plan for obvious reasons. Rocky and Herba would, for sure, prote
st and detest such plans. He walked towards the tent where the couple was sleeping. Natas peeped in to see Rocky and Herba in deep sleep. He smiled at their ignorance of the surroundings and made his way back to the house. On the way back, he collected more than a handful of dry leaves and litter.

  Natas went into the house and made his way straight to the first floor. The floor where the action was planned to unfold. There was a small chimney in the first floor which was used to channel the toxic fumes and smoke out of the house while the cooking of meth was in progress. He placed the dry waste he had with him near the end of the chimney and lit it. Plumes of smoke began to emanate from the burning litter. The smoke went through the chimney and exited to the outside world. From outside the house, it looked as though the cooking was in progress inside the house. Natas came out of the house, looked at the huge thicket of bush in which the men were hiding. The men were sweating profusely but they were as ready and alert as ever. He then looked at the green house where the sought-after Marijuana was grown. A man was sitting in it, watching the house with a small box in his hand. Natas nodded and the man nodded back. Anytime now, two cars were going to barge into the property. Natas walked out of the house and turned back to see the house. The house from which they had built a drug empire. The house where it all started.

  ‘Whatever happens, I am definitely going to miss this place,’ he thought to himself silently, with a tiny hint of sadness.

  But great sacrifices had to be made for greater successes. Just when Natas was beginning to get emotional about the old house, he heard the sounds of reverberating engines. The cars were coming. The two SUVs were off-roading their way through the forest to reach the farm nestled amidst the trees. Natas lit a joint to hide the nervousness of the situation. He quickly glanced at the wires that ran from the green-house to the house. The wires were carefully buried about an inch under the ground as it made its way to the house through the open yard.