by Gavin Reese
Alfred self-consciously smirked at the man’s truth. While he has had the easier job of buying and accepting an in-demand commodity that sells itself to Vienna’s nonstop flow of young, relatively affluent tourists, he does have something of a point. He has contacts and human assets in his community that I could never acquire. He very quickly employed a cadre of willing dealers to peddle our wares. I could never navigate among the immigrant population like that. They’d assume I was an undercover cop at best, or rob or murder me, at worst. Alfred sighed and leaned back in his chair, but never broke eye contact. If his people ever learn who I am and what I’m worth, the riches and wealth to which I have access, I’d be blindfolded in a damp sub-basement somewhere in the tenement apartment buildings in the city’s outskirts.
“Even though your business records show nothing but a subsistence survival for you and your family,” Alfred countered, “I know better. Much better. Even if you do nothing more than double your investment, you should have had no difficulty in coming up with a million euros. So, can I rest assured there will be no problems with the payment?”
Altüss sat upright and held his head high. “There will be no problems.”
“And your men have a better understanding of how not to kill all their customers this time around?”
Altüss reluctantly nodded. “I fixed that problem after the last such shipment."
“That is all I needed to know.” Alfred continued to evaluate the man’s body language. He will someday introduce violence into our relationship. It’s always an implied aspect of this business, but he’s too savage to let that be enough. It will soon be time to close up this vulnerability and find his replacement. “Another small parcel arrives in two days’ time. Do try to be punctual then. It is a basic sign of respect in our culture, one that you would do well to adopt to further your assimilation. You’ll be among the wealthiest men in Vienna in five years. It’s time you started acting like it.”
Altüss stood as though he understood his dismissal. He collected his envelope of cocaine, nodded, and started for the door.
Alfred again pressed the concealed button below his desk, and the light buzzing announced the locks’ release. It also reiterated his permission for his distributor to leave. As the door closed, he pulled open his camera monitor drawer to confirm that Altüss had, in fact, departed toward his awaiting delivery van.
Retrieving the cardboard box, Alfred stepped toward the bookcases that stood behind his desk and against the glass wall. He removed his RFID key ring from a pants pocket and set it against the case’s back panel, near his hardback Nietzsche collection.
thuck
Another magnetic lock released, and Alfred pushed the hinged bookcase into the wall. The hidden doorway swung back inside his concealed storage and panic room, which he’d spent most of his first million drug euros constructing, equipping, and furnishing. A series of dark floor-to-ceiling wood cabinets covered the shared wall with his office, to Alfred’s left. Three televisions along the wall before him broadcast surveillance feeds from his office and the hallway outside. Altüss is nowhere in sight.
Alfred stepped to the middle of the room, where an automated money counter and a suppressed Heckler & Koch .223-caliber semi-automatic rifle sat upon a waist-high, dark grey granite counter and dark stained wood cabinets. He opened the box from Altüss and used the counter to confirm the man paid all he owed. Perfect. Alfred paused and thought about all their past shipments. Now that I think about it, he’s never brought me a short delivery. Does he have that much loyalty? I know it's not integrity, he is a drug dealer, after all. Perhaps it’s respect and fear for the consequence of robbing me? I expect, to a man such as him, that my position in his adopted country and in our world must seem larger than life, perhaps impossible for him to achieve. Perhaps he assumes I wield authority and influence beyond my actual abilities and he fears the outcome, that I might be able to sic the cops and immigration authorities onto him and his family for failures. That could be done, but I have no say over the outcome, only the initial contact. Now, if I had a few judges in my pocket, that is the kind of power that could motivate my enemies. It’s ironic that Altüss’ apparent accountability has spurred me onward toward new objectives for subversive influence on my own world.
Alfred removed five bank money bands from a shallow drawer beneath the counter. He added the delivery onto a running balance ledger sheet next to the stack of new, unused money bands before closing the drawer.
Once the 10,000-euro bands secured his five stacks, he stepped over to the wall cabinets. Alfred opened the middle cabinet door, which revealed three wood shelves, each of which held three identical black duffel bags. The top right bag was unzipped. Alfred pulled it down, walked back to the counter, and opened the duffel. This should be the payment that tops it off. Adding the five stacks, he shifted the stacks of currency to close the duffel’s zipper. I need to buy more duffel bags. Once next week’s shipment is reconciled, Stefanie and I will also need a trip to Grand Cayman. I could use the Swiss banks, they are so much closer, but the Swiss ruined much of the storied security of their numbered accounts. Besides, what’s the fun in traveling next door when white sand beaches and azure waters await?
Alfred carried the twenty-pound bag of currency back to its shelf and knocked on the back wall of the cabinet with his knuckles. It sounded like he’d just rapped on concrete. The heavy ceramic ballistic rifle plates he had installed behind them allowed his storage room to double as a panic room. Even at my upper echelon of the drug world, one must always plan for the day men with guns believe themselves entitled to what is mine. By the time they get through my outer door, I’ll be well hidden in here beyond their reach and armed to repel any attempted entry.
Alfred opened all three wall-cabinet doors. He recounted the duffels to masturbate his ego. Eighteen duffels, each with five-million euros apiece. I can leave this life any time I choose and live out the rest of my days in luxury, but I have no desire to do so. Any reasonable man would cut his risk, take all this cash, and run. I could disappear, if life as an anonymous nobody appealed to me. No, without risk, one cannot fully live. It is only through my continued illicit efforts that I celebrate, realize, and enjoy every free breath I’m afforded. I’m not yet ready to die of old age and apathy in the tropics, no matter how terrible the alternative might be.
The third cabinet held two additional suppressed H&K pistols, loaded ammunition magazines for the pistols and rifle, and two black carry-on roller bags that held clothes and supplies if he ever had to flee the country. Three tan duffels on the bottom shelf each contained five kilos each of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. The heroin duffel also concealed two-hundred-fifty grams of fentanyl. Those three bags comprised his emergency supply should any of his shipments fall short or Altüss require additional product between the scheduled Mediterranean cargo ship arrivals. A smaller, bright red bag displayed the international medical aid symbol and sat atop those. The hoarded antidote secured inside would ensure Alfred survived an accidental exposure to his own wares.
Smiling broadly at his success, Alfred reveled in the knowledge that he alone enjoyed. I should always seek out aged and sickly conspirators. Three may keep a secret only if two are dead, after all. He closed the cabinet doors, strode back into his office, and locked the concealed doorway.
Alfred sat back behind his desk, again looked out over the Royal Opera House, and contemplated his business dealings. I can cover any shortfall that Altüss has with the payment next week, but I prefer that he’s not further indebted to me. That increases the probability that he resorts to ugliness. So, the bigger issue will be ensuring that his network of street-level, immigrant drug dealers do a better job of decreasing the fentanyl’s potency this time. The more addicts and junkies they kill, the greater the chances that one of them turns informant to the police, which endangers Altüss. He, in turn, endangers me. I can’t stand by and allow that to happen, not for any amount of money.
Febru
ary 12, 09:56am local
Tourist Information Center. Vienna, Austria.
Altüss Bulaji strode from the main entrance of the Tourist Information Center to the delivery van he’d parked curbside with its flashers on. Altüss kept his face expressionless until he climbed into the Mercedes Sprinter and locked himself inside with his kilo of cocaine. Shutting off the flashers, he tossed the envelope onto the passenger seat and started the van. The windshield’s interior had fogged over during his absence, so Altüss sat and waited for the vehicle to warm up.
The van’s HVAC system wouldn’t circulate air until the heater core had again warmed, so he rubbed his hands together and glanced down at the parcel. It hadn’t been opened. That selfish, arrogant bigot didn’t even confirm the shipment before taking my money and passing it off to me. Altüss shook his head in anger and frustration. What if it’s short? Or counterfeit? Or there’s a police tracker hidden inside? König demands such consistent perfection from me and my people, but conducts his responsibilities to us with such carelessness. He’ll get his, and not that long from now. Someday soon, that white devil will regret ever having pointed a gun at me. Just because he keeps it under the desk doesn’t mean I don’t know it’s there. I killed my first man at fourteen, and I doubt König has even punched a man in anger. The patient predator eats most often…
Only two years ago, Altüss had followed the advice of James Michener’s The Bridge at Andau: “If I am ever required to be a refugee, I hope to make it to Austria.” Despite the optimism he’d brought with his family from the Republic of South Sudan, they’d endured pervasive hardship of a less violent nature. Despite having escaped his childhood of tribal violence to study and train as a professional dentist at the Khartoum College of Medical Sciences, Altüss eked out a subsistence living by serving less affluent populations in Vienna. He naively believed his professional training would finally allow his family to thrive in the prosperity of their adopted land, but harsh, Islamophobic realities quickly killed that dream.
Inside of three months, Altüss sold cocaine and Balkan marijuana to tourists on the U lines. Six months later, after border authorities had all but shut down the eastern drug supply routes into Austria, he struggled to keep food in his pantry. Paranoia among Austrian nationalists over the growing refugee crisis eroded his client pool. It was then that he’d been fortunate enough to offer a dime-sack of marijuana to Alfred König at the Praterstern station. His family’s lives had changed overnight. He could pay off the loan against his van, but Altüss understood König’s demand that his business still appear to struggle.
Altüss recalled the optimism he’d felt at the beginning of their partnership. Not just for what I could do for my wife and children, but what Allah could do through me, through all of us. Despite the financial opportunity and success that König facilitated, he despised the man. Altüss appreciated the hatred that kept him focused on fulfilling God’s will. I cannot become lazy and tolerant. Allah has chosen to use König as a means to an end, a lightning rod to destroy the native Austrian infidels, and that has become my jihad.
As soon as the windshield cleared, Altüss checked his mirrors for police cars, merged left into traffic, and drove south on Operngasse. I’m too close to the station to be complacent now. Like much of the world, police here can stop you and violate your rights for no reason, and I cannot afford to be caught with König’s cocaine. Despite anything I can say and prove, no Austrian police officer would ever take the word of a black refugee that Herr Alfred König had sold him a kilo of cocaine.
Altüss inhaled a deep breath and reassured himself that he would not be stopped and arrested. He knew he could return home, break the kilo down, and prepare it for delivery to his network of immigrant dealers just inside of two hours. His thoughts next turned to his objectives. The funding derived from König’s greed allows my children to live with full bellies while my brothers and I wage a subversive war. By selling deadly, addictive drugs to the Europeans, we erode the future Christian population. We funnel their own money to our Salafist imams who then fund the needs of our soldiers all around the world. The coming ‘One Great Day’ will be our third and final rise into the fertile fields of Europe. Our children already outnumber Catholics in Vienna public schools. We’re overtaking them from within. After we secure the ballot boxes, Austrian law will become sharia law. Then, unlike the last time we controlled everything to the Iberian Peninsula, our enemies will require something far more potent than stirrups to banish us back to the world’s sandboxes.
As Altüss drove on toward the city’s outskirts and its refugee enclaves, he obsessed over his hatred of König. The man pays me a relative pittance to launder his money and divvy up a few kilos per week to my dealers. I take far more risk than he, but for only the lamb’s share of the profits. Still, it is enough to accomplish all that we seek to create, and to destroy.
Stopping for a traffic light, Altüss glanced at the vehicle to his left, where a young white boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, looked up at him. As they made eye contact and Altüss smiled at him, the boy shied away. His body language showed the internal fear and apprehension he felt at seeing the dark black man seated over him.
Altüss looked forward to the sedan’s driver’s seat, where a wealthy thirty-something sat and spoke on her cell phone. She’s oblivious to what’s happening in her car and within her own house. He faced forward to the traffic light and stewed in his rage. It serves them right to die in the streets, in the gutters, clutching at the tools and equipment that provided their sin, decadence, and death.
The light changed, but Altüss didn’t react until horns sounded behind him. He scowled at the side-view mirror until he saw the green light and accelerated. The ruling elite in Europe and Austria conspire to keep my people ostracized outside the halls of power, comfort, and influence. No matter how long my sons and daughters live here, they will never be viewed first as Europeans, as Austrians. They will always be thought of as ‘Muslim.’ It’s time that the infidels understand that’s not an insult to us, a lessening of our citizenship or humanity. That’s exactly how we want it. They want to deny me the privilege of being Austrian while I wish nothing more than to dismiss nationalism across all mankind. We should all be so lucky as to be men without countries, ruled by the purity of sharia.
A quick glance back at the passenger seat confirmed his parcel remained safe. The impending shipment, the massive one next week, this will allow us to stockpile fentanyl. Then we can exert greater control in the supply and demand of the commodity itself. Even more important, that stockpile, once weaponized, grants us a W-M-D for much less than the cost of typical chemical or biological agents, and a mere fraction of that required for a black-market nuclear device. The dirty bombs the West fears so much are now called ‘weapons of mass disruption,’ for they kill very few people. The detonation only really terrorizes, like a boogeyman costume, but does little to harm. This fentanyl, though, kills grown men in mere minutes with only a few milligrams, and its powder readily absorbs through the skin, eyes, mouth, and lungs. Altüss imagined numerous small aircraft flying over Vienna at the height of its afternoon traffic and population, each trailing thin white clouds of vengeance to rain down on God’s enemies. He broadly smiled as the pure joy of righteous retaliation filled his heart. Properly dispersed, a few kilos will annihilate all the population of Vienna, and I’ll turn their precious, arrogant city into an uninhabitable apocalyptic wasteland. Dozens of kilos, released simultaneously across the region, will bring the E-U to its knees before God. Inshallah, it will soon be time to strike at the very heart of these infidel governments and declare this as our moment to establish the caliphate in Europe. Allah Akbar.
February 13, 09:50am local
Operngasse. Vienna, Austria.
Dedos piloted an older, fading white Renault four-door sedan south on Operngasse, just three cars behind the African’s brown delivery van. Despite the cold February temps in Lower Austria, his window was open just enough
to let most of his cigarette smoke escape the cabin. He held the cigarette between his left thumb, index, and middle finger; he’d lost that pinky and ring finger to a rival street gang back in Venezuela. Dedos had traded those useless fingers for a revered nickname and street cred. Worth it.
Dedos hadn’t been with MS13 all that long, but he had lived in Vienna for the last six of his eighteen years. His mother fled Venezuela when he was ten, and Dedos followed her to Austria two years later expecting to leave his subservient, hand-to-mouth life behind. Even though his scenery and the weather had changed, the ceiling this society imposed on the potential success of his life hadn’t budged. The Mara Salvatrucha Trece click that had been in his neighborhood long before he arrived in the forgotten outskirts of Vienna had changed all that. Dedos went all-in on “the life,” and he now wore a massive MS13 tattoo centered on the front of his throat for all the world to see. He pulled a long, final drag off the smoldering butt, tossed it out the window, and exhaled smoke out after it.
“Where’s he goin,’” his passenger, Retaco, asked in their native Spanish.
Dedos looked over at Retaco, who’d earned the slang nickname for being shorter than his slightly taller, fellow Latinos. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t hafta follow him, Stupid.”
Unfazed, the passenger continued. “Where do you think he’s goin’?”
“Fuck if I know. If he is pickin’ up dope from the Tourist Office, then he’s gonna wanna take it to a stash house. Someplace he can break it down for the dealers or the junkies, right?”