Trieste
From 6am onwards it was all go in the Graham-Collins household. The moment that Tony’s alarm sounded his feet didn’t touch the ground. Naomi was now in her last year at Howick Intermediate School and needed her mother to drop her off at the school gate when she was on her way to work in the city. The older daughter, Carol, was studying at MacLean’s College and Tony had to drive her to school. Packed lunches were prepared the night before to help get everybody out of the house in time. But time they never seemed to have. The girls were teenagers and reluctant to get out of bed. It was once everybody was out of bed the challenges began. A typical morning started with:
“Where’s my homework, Mum?”
“Did you iron my gym blouse, Mum? You know I needed it today. I told you on Saturday before you and Dad went out. Tell me you didn’t forget; I need it today!”
“Dad, what did you do with my homework? You were looking at it before dinner last night.”
“Carol, you know the school rules, you can’t wear two earrings in each ear. Take one set out, now.”
“Mum, I need $20 for my trip to Goat Island today. If I haven’t got it today, I’ll have to miss the trip and do homework for Mrs Simmons. She’s such a cow, she’s just looking for the opportunity to get at me.”
“Yuk! Mum, this milk’s sour. I can’t eat this; it tastes like crap.”
“Mind your language young lady, that’s no way to speak to your mother.”
“Yeh, right Dad!”
“OK, in the car, let’s get you off to school.”
“Hang on Dad, where’s my iPhone?”
As Tony shut the door of the Volvo after Carol had run towards the school gates, his pulse gradually steadied to near normal. It was the same every morning, and every morning he could feel the tension in his neck throwing pain over his eyes. Massaging his right temple, he took a number of deep breaths and felt the tension start to melt away. Today though, as he turned left onto Bucklands Beach Road, his phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Hi Darling. I’ve just dropped Naomi off at school and I wondered, are you were free for lunch?”
“Sorry love I’ve got to meet Jonathan Littman the restaurant’s customs broker. Sorry. What about tomorrow? I can make it then”
“It’s alright.” Nadine lied. “I was going to be in the city near the restaurant and thought we could meet. Never mind, it’ll keep.”
“Nadine, I can’t rearrange the meeting, we’ve got a big order coming into Tauranga next week. I can’t get out of it. Really sweets, I can’t cancel at this late stage. You know how it is.”
“OK then, I’ll hold you to tomorrow, and I don’t want lunch in your bloody restaurant either. You’re going to pay for this brush off, buster.”
“Promises, promises. Tomorrow then, I promise. See you tonight, I won’t be late.”
“You better hadn’t be buster, we’re at the Aotea tonight. I hope you remember it’s ‘Norah Jones and the Handsome Band,’ and don’t leave the bloody tickets at work this time. Love you, see you later.”
Norah Jones, he’d forgotten all about that. Thankfully he’d got the tickets from Ticketek.com the moment Nadine had mentioned it. Tony had a good memory for chemistry, but remembering appointments, well he was a dead loss. Although he had a notes app on his iPhone, as an aide d’ memoir, he kept forgetting to use it. At Highland Park, instead of turning left onto the Pakuranga Highway, he carried on down Aviemore Drive before making his way along Te Irirangi Drive and eventually onto the Southern Motorway. After turning off the motorway at Drury, it was then only a few minutes’ drive along Harrison Road to the ‘The Finches’, a lifestyle block that was his office. Unknown to Nadine and the girls, Tony was no more a restaurant manager than he was an astronaut. He was a biochemist, and a very good one.
Before he and his family had immigrated to New Zealand in the mid-nineties Tony had been a research chemist for Glaxo SmithKline Inc, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical research companies. Based at Stockley Park, Uxbridge, just outside London, Graham-Collins had been researching alternatives to pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant used in cold and flu medicine. In many countries, including New Zealand, pseudoephedrine was a controlled drug, because its conversion to methamphetamine was relatively easy. Legislation restricted the sale of cold and flu remedies that contained pseudoephedrine and, the loss of business meant profits were affected. Pseudoephedrine was a very good medicine for unblocking respiratory passages, just the thing if you were suffering from a cold or flu. Finding a safe alternative to pseudoephedrine was therefore a priority, involving hundreds of hours of research time that consumed millions of dollars, profit dollars, shareholder dollars.
Despite his expertise as a research chemist, Tony Graham-Collins was paid a pittance. When he told his general manager that he wanted a transfer to GSK’s research facility in Auckland, New Zealand, his request had been denied. So, Tony resigned and he and his family emigrated anyway. It was a risk, but he and his wife felt that becoming ‘Kiwis’ would secure a better future for his family than if they stayed in the UK.
Tony had never been unemployed before and during the first three months in New Zealand the whole family felt the pressure and stress that came with not having a steady income. One of Tony’s friends, Alan Stephenson, who had emigrated with his own family two years earlier, worked as a pastry chef in a Brazilian restaurant on Auckland’s trendy Viaduct Harbour. Alan had reassured Tony that he would put his ‘feelers’ out and get him a job through his contacts at the restaurant.
The restaurant, ‘Terra Brasil’, was owned by two Croatian brothers, Dino and Levorko Sutic. One day, early in January 1995, they had invited Tony to their offices above the restaurant in Customs Street West, to discuss a proposition they had for him. The brothers needed an expert chemist in a little enterprise they were starting in South Auckland. The “little enterprise” was to make methamphetamine, crystal ice. At first Tony had rejected their offer, but when they offered him a salary four times that he might earn legitimately, his resolve not to plunge into the illegal world of manufacturing and trafficking drugs gradually began to wane. Tony was still angry with GSK for refusing his transfer to New Zealand. He was angry, and vulnerable. When the brothers offered him the house in Howick, freehold, as a gesture of goodwill, he willingly accepted their offer. Although he didn’t realise it at the time, from that moment on there could be no turning back. To try would endanger his life and those of his whole family.
Unbeknown to Tony, the Sutic brothers wanted Graham-Collins for a more sinister reason; his past experience at Porton Down, the British Government’s top-secret biological and chemical weapons establishment. Although both biological and chemical weapons had been outlawed by the United Nations Bio-weapons Convention, the British had continued bio-weapons research under the guise of developing antidotes to such weapons. This was, like lots of other treaty-banned activities, just a smoke screen for continuing the development of such weapons. However, the gravy train had eventually slowed to a crawl and redundancies were inevitable, so when Tony was offered the job at GSK, he took it. He had a very generous severance package from Porton Down, along with an exit contract that endeavoured to gag him from selling secrets. Although Dino had assured Tony that he wasn’t employing him to manufacture biological weapons, hiring one of the world’s best bio-weapons engineers was indeed the ultimate reason why he had been selected from a long list of suitable chemists.
Two Rottweilers tore at the wire netting in an effort to tear Tony limb from limb. He had advised Dino that the two so-called ‘guard dogs’ were only going to attract attention, rather than deter nosey neighbours. Dino had taken no notice. The permanent resident of ‘The Finches’, was a giant man of Māori heritage, namely Petera Mokaraka. He was almost as scary as the dogs. Standing two metres ten tall, Petera weighed nearly 150kg. His dark facial features and brown eyes gave him a kind, sensitive, warm-hearted appearance. His pride and joy were his dark, shiny, well-kept hair, tied
in a pony tail that hung so far down his back that it touched the top of his trousers. However, Petera was no choirboy when it came to battles. Primarily a guard Petera was a patched member of the Skorpions and their representative at the meth lab. Although he had left school without any formal qualifications, he was an intelligent guy who loved to read. He would read anything and everything, even Tony’s chemistry manuals.
Often if Tony left before the day’s work was finished, he trusted Petera to complete the meth synthesis and then clean the glassware ready for another batch in the morning. To Tony, Petera was a great asset. The 210 litre steel drums containing the precursor chemicals they needed were difficult for him to move, but for Petera they were routine. Tony and Petera also shared a passion for motorcycles, though they always disagreed about whose bike was best. Petera loved his Harley Davidsons, Tony loved his Honda 1000cc ‘Fireblade’. However, both Tony and Petera were banned from bringing motorcycles anywhere near ‘The Finches’, they would give the wrong impression to the neighbours, so any race between Petera’s Harley and Tony’s Fireblade would have to be organised well away from the ‘lab’.
The lab, had been bought by Dino Sutic specifically for the manufacture of crystal ice. It took up three rooms of the house, which was situated nearly a kilometre from the end of Harrison Road and almost three kilometres from their nearest neighbour; a professional couple who occupied their lifestyle block only at the weekends. The lab was ideally sited and had remained undiscovered for five years. During those years it had generated unimaginable wealth, though proportionally very little had been shared with Tony, and even less with Petera.
***
Goran Sumovich, Captain of the MV Olga Tovic, answered the cell phone on the third ring. His passengers were ready to come on board, so it was time to temporarily get rid of Tio Reihana. Ringing off, he put the cell phone back in his pocket and used the telephone on the bridge to call the general seaman’s mess deck. It was Tio who answered the call.
“Tio I’ve bought a case of Scotch for the seaman’s mess. It’s in the assistant harbourmaster’s office; bring it on board would you. Take it to the Purser and he’ll issue it to the mess, two bottles at a time. Don’t be too long though, we set sail in an hour, so look sharp.”
“Yes boss, I’ll go straight away. If I miss the boat, can I keep the whisky?”
“No, you cheeky sod, you can’t. Nice try though.”
Captain Sumovich watched Tio briefly on the foredeck before he disappeared down the gangway on his errand. Tio was not the most personable bloke. At 1.68 metres tall and 76 kilos he was amongst the smallest of the crew. But what he lacked in stature he more than made up for in aggression. Few crew members would pick a fight with Tio, even if they had a billy-club at hand. He was the only crew member who represented the interests of the Skorpion gang. However, Tio was not a fully patched member of the gang, he was just a messenger boy. To Sumovich he was a spy, and he had to manage him carefully, constantly. So, with Tio otherwise engaged, the two assassins could now come on board the MV Olga Tovic. They would spend the whole voyage bunked in the captain’s own aft cabin, well away from prying eyes. If Tio found out about them he would have to conveniently disappear overboard. Captain Sumovich was not a cruel man, but Tio brought out the worst in everybody.
Sumovich used his cell phone to call his two guests, leaving the bridge with Gregor Bukovac, the First Mate. He met them at the top of the gangway. There were no introductions, there didn’t need to be.
“Good evening gentlemen, the First Mate will show you to my cabin. As soon as you’re settled in, I’ll get some coffee and sandwiches sent up to you. If you need anything, just use the “Push-to-Talk” facility on your phone.”
The two men followed Bukovac aft into the darkness. Sumovich knew he would not hear from them again until they reached the territorial waters of New Zealand. Anton Krajnc, the Captain’s steward, would see to their needs during the journey. This was not only a precaution – to prevent Tio Reihana from discovering who the two “guests” were – it was good management of sensitive information.
Sumovich stood at the rail and looked across the pier in the direction from which Reihana would return. There was no sign of him.
Sumovich shielded the flame of his lighter more out of habit than necessity. His father, a veteran of World War Two, had told him that a sniper often looks for his target when illuminated by a cigarette being lit. There were no enemy snipers in Trieste now, but four years ago, during the civil war between the Slavic states, there had been. But for Sumovich, old habits die hard. During that war, Sumovich, had smuggled guns into Trieste, right under the noses of the authorities. The absence of the Americans in this conflict had led to slack security around the whole conflict zone. The MV Olga Tovic, a regular visitor to Trieste, drew little attention from the authorities. On the single occasion they were searched by UN peacekeepers, Sumovich was warned of the search so long before the troops arrived that the ship’s crew had plenty of time to off-load the illicit goods. Now the MV Olga Tovic was smuggling precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and Captain Sumovich had earned a fortune in those few post-conflict years. With the assistance of Dino Sutic, the Captain had managed to hide his fortune in a Caribbean bank. Sumovich would have delivered the cargo for nothing, not because he was still a patriot, but because now he played a vital role in the jihad that would eventually drive the Americans out of the Slavic countries.
As Captain Sumovich's drew into his lungs the strong vapours of the Sobranie Black Russian cigarette deep into his lungs he spotted Tio Reihana staggering through the shadows, making his way back to the ship. As Sumovich had suspected he would, Reihana had opened the case of Scotch. The effects of his greed were evident as Tio was struggling to walk in a straight line.
***
The process of turning precursor chemicals into money is easier than people think. With the assistance of Captain Goran Sumovich, the Sutic brothers had managed to infiltrate the legitimate importation of diethyl ether by Uni-Glue NZ Limited. Uni-Glue manufactured a variety of different glues and they ordered the ether in 210 litre drums from AVA Chemical Industries in Zagreb. The MV Olga Tovic was the ship that delivered it. Each time the ship docked in Tauranga the ether would be off-loaded onto a lorry owned by Sutic Transport Limited. When the consignment left the customs-controlled area it would call into the Sutic transport depot in Mount Maunganui. There, five specially marked drums of the ether were off-loaded and substituted for another five identical drums. It took less than twenty minutes to complete the exchange before the lorry continued its journey to the Uni-Glue manufacturing base in Hamilton. Dissolved in the ether of the five special drums was a high concentration of pseudoephedrine, a precursor chemical that Tony Graham-Collins would then convert into methamphetamine, Crystal Ice.
The first stage in the synthesis of the Crystal Ice was the responsibility of Petera Mokaraka. Using a large copper still, very similar to that used in the distillation of whisky or gin, he initiated the separation of the pseudoephedrine from the ether. The ether would then be returned to the five empty drums. Once the coding details of the next shipment were faxed through to Sutic Transport Petera would stencil the codes onto these new drums. These drums would then replace the five special drums in the next shipment.
Each 210-litre drum produced ten to fifteen kilograms of pure pseudoephedrine syrup ready for the next stage in the process for which Tony Graham-Collins, the cook, had been recruited. The extraction from the ether solution negated the long process that would be required to purify the pseudoephedrine from pharmaceutical sources, such as Sudafed or Contac NT. Once Petera Mokaraka had split the pure pseudoephedrine into batches, Graham-Collins’ dissolved each of them in alcohol and then boiled them with sodium borohydride. Once this was complete the beige sludge containing the methamphetamine was treated with a mixture of hydrochloric acid and more alcohol to yield pure Crystal Ice.
Tony Graham-Collins was good at his job an
d he produced a very high-quality product. From the ultra-cheap 50 kilograms of pseudoephedrine Tony made 30 kilograms of Crystal Ice. With a street value of $1000 NZD per gram, that was $30 million from the five original drums of ether.
Not all of the crystal methamphetamine was destined for the domestic New Zealand market. Substantial quantities were then re-dissolved in ether and shipped to Australia. Freely soluble in water the rest was bottled as Waimate Spring Water, a bottled water product manufactured by NZ Beverages Limited, which could then be shipped back to Europe. Both of these products were shipped by Captain Goran Sumovich aboard the MV Olga Tovic. Once the overheads of the Sutic brothers drug enterprise had been covered, tens of millions of dollars could then be invested in the jihad, for the training and recruiting of soldiers like Casimir Zupančič and the munitions that an ‘Army of the People’ required.
***
As the MV Olga Tovic cruised through the night, Captain Goran Sumovich gazed across the strip of the Adriatic that separated his ship from the shore. The twinkling lights of Dubrovnik reminded him of home. As a boy Sumovich had grown up in the ancient fortified town where he and his family had just survived WWII. On May 28th 1942, the day after Reinhardt Heydrich had been attacked on the streets of Prague, the Gestapo had arrested Sumovich’s father, Jožef. His father’s only crime was being a Slav, away from home, seeking work in one of the many munitions factories on the outskirts of Prague. Jožef Sumovich had been brutally tortured for two days, before they realised, he had nothing to do with the assassination attempt. They released him before Heydrich died, on June the 4th. If he had still been in custody, they would certainly have killed him, or worse, sent him to Terezín, a concentration camp established by Heydrich himself in November 1941.
Crystal Ice Page 5