Queen of Green

by V E Rooney

  The meeting then moves onto Sean who gives an overview of the crew and their various roles, how he will be organising things at his end and his various contacts. He hands over to me where I give an overview of how we will establish front companies to deal with the import side of things, the usage of various haulage and freight operators to physically move the product, likely routes that we would take and how the product will be delivered to the wholesalers who will be selling it. At each stage of my explanation I tie it in to how we have brought pills into the UK from Holland so that the Mendez boys have successful real-life examples of how we do business.

  I then explain the money side of things, how the money will be collected as soon as we start selling, how it will be hidden in our network of accounts and businesses and how the Mendez cartel can expect prompt payment in full on every order we place with them.

  And then it’s onto pricing. This is where I bow out of the discussions, leaving it to the two main men – Victor and Sean – to agree on terms and conditions. I wish I could tell you that it was a tense negotiation complete with gamesmanship, macho willy-waggling and bluster but it was straightforward and cordial. Victor may be the one selling what we want, thereby placing him in control of negotiations, but he desperately needs a reliable partner who can guarantee professionalism and payment. Because of that, he is willing to give Sean partial credit upfront on the first shipment. Sean is happy with this because even though he has the readies to pay in full, the fact that Victor is willing to extend him credit shows goodwill.

  If the first shipment makes it to Europe, if we can successfully move Charlie into the UK and start reaping the returns that we’re expecting, then Victor has his longed-for gateway into Europe with a trusted partner. And once he gets that gateway, that means he can sew up most of the European cocaine market for himself, thereby gaining a massive edge over his Colombian rival cartels. And if we join forces with Victor and the Mendez cartel? We become the biggest cocaine importers in Europe overnight. This is a potential business partnership that promises to bring us all millions, even billions of pounds, dollars, pesos, whatever flavour of currency we prefer to do business in.

  We’ve nailed down the routes, the methods, who is doing what. Now it’s time to agree an initial quantity and payment.

  “I think that an initial trial run of 100 kilos would be sufficient,” Luis says, speaking to Sean. “That is the standard size of order we undertake at first, it is not too small and not too big. That quantity of cocaine can be easily hidden on a mid-size container ship. That way, everyone can assure themselves that the process is in place. And if it works? If it makes it to Europe? Well, we know that it works and that we can continue with bigger orders.”

  “We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Drusilla says, mimicking Roy Scheider in Jaws, prompting a further round of laughter.

  Sean is nodding. “100 kilos. Sounds adequate to me. Ali?”

  “I agree,” I say. “We don’t want to be too ambitious straight away. This is something that needs to be scaled up gradually. But for now, I think 100 kilos is easily manageable for us with the infrastructure that we already have in place.”

  Sean and Victor agree on a price for the 100 kilos. Because Victor is giving us half upfront credit, that means that the balance is now outstanding. Once everyone is happy with the terms and conditions and has shaken hands, it falls to me to instruct one of our banks to make an immediate wire transfer to one of the cartel’s banks. Victor hands me a landline phone and then everyone’s eyes are on me.

  I know I shouldn’t ask. It’s such a stupid question that I’m already blushing with embarrassment but for my own peace of mind, I ask anyway. I turn to Drusilla for her to translate to Victor.

  “Excuse me, I am sorry. I just wanted to check…is there any risk that these lines might be tapped?”

  Drusilla giggles and then translates. Victor lets rip with a raucous burst of laughter, accompanied by his sons. Victor babbles away at me and then turns to his sons, still laughing. Drusilla turns back to me.

  “These lines are all secured. Nobody is listening in. And besides, my husband owns the telephone company.”

  The deal is done so it’s time to head back to Europe. As the Mendez bodyguards leave us at the entrance to Caracas airport, I turn to Sean.

  “You know what? I’m embarrassed,” I say huffily as I fiddle with the handle on my suitcase, thinking about the events of the last 48 hours.

  “You?” says Sean, giggling at me. “What the fuck for?”

  “I thought I grew up in poverty until I came here.”

  “Doesn’t matter where in the world you live, girl. If you’re going to bed hungry and crying yourself to sleep because your ma and da can’t afford food, that’s poverty,” he says as he strides into the airport.

  So now I know why Sean is so driven and so afraid of debt. Why he’s so determined to keep the cash coming in regardless of how much he has already. Behind all the macho bluster, and the hard-hitting fists, Sean is still trapped in his childhood the same way I am. And right now he’s a little boy who doesn’t know where his next hot meal is coming from. It turns out Sean and I are spookily similar in all the ways that matter.

  On the flight back to Spain, I turn over the events of the previous 48 hours in my mind.

  Oh, it was an impressive display by the Mendez lot. They played the role of the gracious hosts to perfection. We had every need attended to and we were lavished with lots of fine food and drink.

  On the business side, again, no complaints. A well-organised professional outfit with deep cash reserves and an impressive network of contacts all over the world. Their facilities are top-notch and people seem happy to be working for them. And their coke is high quality. If the Mendez lot wanted to convince us that they had magically created this utopia of socialism on their home turf thanks to their drugs, they did a pretty good job.

  Am I convinced, though? Am I fuck.

  I know that those factory workers were putting on a show for us with their beaming, happy faces. I also know that as soon as Sean and I left, they would’ve been back to being under the cosh, working under duress, under the threat of death. Most of those poor sods were probably kidnapped from their villages and taken from their families, and forced to work as slave labour through all hours under the barrels of guns pointed at them by those guards who were never far away.

  I’m not soft, if anything I’m too fucking hard for my own good. I am under no illusions as to how coke comes about. It’s not my place to question the moral ambiguities when millions of pounds are at stake. I know that I am complicit in the enslavement of people poorer than myself for my own benefit.

  I know that Victor Mendez isn’t this benevolent Robin Hood figure. His workers do his bidding because they’re fucking terrified of him. Behind the Latin charm and the suave manners is a ruthless drugs boss who is chasing the dollar signs in front of his eyes just like I’m chasing the pound signs in front of mine.

  If I’m still kidding myself at this point that I have some sliver of virtue left within me, the realisation that I am now one of the business partners of the Mendez cartel shatters that self-image. What difference is there really between Victor and me? Between Sean and me?

  The longer the plane journey goes on, the more I feel like I’m starting to lose myself, if I haven’t already. Who am I, really? What have I done? What have I become?

  31. LOGISTICS

  Here’s how the whole container ship thing works. Sometimes, a container ship will be transporting cargo to deliver to one client at one port or several lots of cargo to different clients at different ports. Some companies, like coal companies, will have their own ships to transport their own cargo elsewhere. Some companies will hire space on a container ship alongside other companies doing the same thing, exactly like a cargo plane delivering different bits of cargo here and there.

  The first shipment of Venezuelan Charlie is coming over on the MC Vasser, a commercial Panamax container sh
ip for hire. Vasser is carrying a very large mixed bag of cargo. The legitimate cargo includes machinery parts, building materials, shoes, tinned food, furniture and clothing. Nestled in amongst the legitimate cargo is the hidden cargo. Our 100 kilos of Charlie have been carefully secreted within moulded cement blocks, which for the sake of appearances are on their way to a construction firm in Holland.

  The Mendez cartel has got the art of hiding Charlie down to a fine art. They even know how big the cement blocks need to be to hide the stash effectively – one of their insiders knows the exact length of the drill bits that every European Customs force uses to drill into suspicious-looking cargo, so our cement blocks have been moulded to ensure Charlie is out of reach of any drill bit Customs might have at their disposal.

  With the weight of the cargo on board, with the Vasser having a maximum speed of 20 knots, and if weather conditions over the Atlantic are in our favour, Vasser will be leaving La Guairá in Venezuela and will dock in Rotterdam in 10 to 12 days. Once Vasser docks, it’s over to us to extract the cargo and move it to the UK undetected.

  We’re moving it from Rotterdam to Felixstowe via the normal route we use for pills, and then onwards up to Liverpool. We’ve thrown in a few diversions along the way but the whole process is much the same as doing an E-run – it’s just that this time, the cargo is a lot more precious and dangerous. And profitable. Just got to hope none of our containers goes over the side during the journey. That’s one act of God I can do without.

  Everyone knows their roles. Sean, Paul and Lee are in Spain organising the crew there but they’ll be splitting up and heading to Holland to await delivery. I’m in the UK, glad to be back under a cloudy sky and milder temperatures. Business goes on as normal, with me collecting the takings at Taylor’s and our other businesses and making sure nobody has been skimming the cream in our absence.

  Ste, John and Brian meet me at Taylor’s and they’re waiting for me to finish the accounts so we can have a leisurely lunch at one of the fancy new restaurants at the Albert Dock.

  “Any problems while I was away?” I ask Ste as I lock up the safe.

  Ste shakes his head. “Nah, girl. Oh yeah. There was one thing,” he says, trying to do nonchalance but failing miserably. I scowl at him.

  “What did you do, soft lad?”

  “I didn’t do anything, it was Jimmy Powell,” he says.

  “What did you do, Ste?” I say, clocking his evasiveness.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he protests.

  “Only because Karl stopped you,” blurts out John.

  Seems there was a showdown of sorts outside Taylor’s with some of Jimmy Powell’s lads while Sean and I were away. Ste picks up the story.

  “So it’s Saturday night, right? The last dregs are staggering away but there are still some people hanging around near the entrance to the club, sprawled out on the pavement and in the gutter, smoking, dancing, snogging the gob off whichever random they got lucky with.

  “Then, just after 3am, about six lads turn up, proper steaming for a fight, I’m telling you, girl. So there’s me, Frank and two other bouncers, Dean and Chris. I’m inside by the bar when I get radioed by Frank and Dean on the front door. So I go out and there are six of Jimmy Powell’s lads outside fronting them up. The hard-faced twats just come straight up to us and start giving it loads. So Karl is watching all this on the CCTV in the office and he radios the other lads in the club.

  “So I go out the front and I recognise one of these pricks, this Eddie lad, one of Jimmy Powell’s lads. Seen him knocking round Seel Street a few times. He’s a fucking cunt and all. So we’re like, no way lads, gay club and all that, and then they started kicking off. Eddie starts going, ‘Come on then, fuckface, have a go,’ and he starts fronting me up. He starts effing and blinding at me, going, ‘I’ll fucking have you, you cunt.’ So I’m like, ‘Whatever, fuck off, gobshite.’ So he goes, ‘No, you fuck off, gobshite.’ So then I go, ‘If I wanted the same comeback, I’d be sucking on your bird’s cunt.’”

  “Oh, Ste,” I say ruefully, although secretly admiring of a such a retort.

  “So then he swings at me, but I see it coming and duck out the way, and then it kicks off properly. Eddie’s mates start piling in but we land a few punches and they start backing off. It’s when I’m pushing off Eddie that he swings at me again and gets me here,” Ste says, pointing to the cut on his cheek.

  “By this time,” he carries on, “the other lads inside the club are all holding the doors while some of Sean’s lads are on their way for reinforcements, but Eddie and his lot fuck off. It was all over in a couple of minutes.”

  “Were they tooled up?” I ask.

  “Nah, just fisticuffs,” says Ste. “But they were pushing and pushing, wanting us to go apeshit at them so they could get stuck in big time. Then as they’re fucking off, Eddie turns back and says, ‘You’re a fucking dead man and so is your boss.’ I’m pissed off that I didn’t get to twat that cunt properly.”

  “Listen, it’s better that you didn’t, Ste,” I say, wondering just how much of a bloodbath might have happened.

  It’s when I relay all this to Sean later that evening over dinner at the Woolton house that the gravity of the situation becomes very fucking heavy indeed.

  “So who is this Eddie and what does he do for Powell?” I ask.

  “One of his heavies, one of Jimmy’s old-timers. He’s one of the cunts that’s been taxing on his behalf,” Sean says. “If I wasn’t sure before that Jimmy was behind all this aggro going on, now I definitely fucking know for sure. Eddie wouldn’t go for a piss without Jimmy giving him the OK. The cunt’s poking us. Trying to see how far we’ll jump.”

  I’m almost hesitant to ask the question.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  Sean pauses, rubs his hand over his head.

  “Nothing. Not yet. And that goes for everyone as well,” he says. “Nobody fucking reacts until I say so. Even if anyone sees that cunt Powell, nobody does anything without me giving the nod. Make sure that everyone understands.”

  Yes, boss.

  In the taxi on the way back to my place, I try to make some sense of Powell’s mischief-making events. What the fuck is Powell playing at? Is he seriously trying to cause open warfare? What does he want?

  Jimmy has been making mischief all over the place, the arrogant wankstain. It’s a miracle that open warfare hasn’t broken out already. Powell isn’t content with his own growing empire of pubs, clubs and shops on the north side of Liverpool, close to his old stomping grounds. It’s not enough that he effectively controls all drugs shipments coming through the container docks in Seaforth near Bootle, thanks to his network of insiders. The greedy fucker wants more.

  He’s sending his lads into various pubs and clubs all across Liverpool, trying to get a firm foothold in place, trying to sew up distribution rights as well. He’s going from wholesale to retail, would you believe it, when us lot are going the other way. He’s even sending spies into the south side – that’s brazen and suicidal if you ask me.

  But I’ve got no time to be distracted by piffling little turf wars, because we get word from our crew lads in Holland that the Vasser has docked, safe and well, the coke has been extracted and secreted into other hiding places and our cargo is currently beginning the next leg of its journey to Felixstowe. For old times’ sake, I agree to do the chaperone thing again with Richie. But it’s more than that. I actually want to keep a close eye on our cargo, all the way home, and if I have to spend the best part of a whole day trapped in a car with Cro-Magnon Man, I’ll grit my teeth and bear it.

  “You sure you wanna babysit this one? Don’t get me wrong, girl, if anyone can spot anything, it’s you. I just thought you wouldn’t wanna do the grunt work any more,” Sean says ahead of the journey to Felixstowe.

  “Listen, if any shipment needs babysitting, it’s this one. Am I right?”

  “You’re always fucking right, swell-head,” Sean mutters.

&nbs
p; “You know what? It’d be so much easier if we could just ship straight to Liverpool,” I sigh, thinking about how much time and money it would save.

  “You know that won’t happen. Not while Jimmy fucking Powell is around. Nothing gets through Liverpool docks without him knowing about it, girl,” Sean says.

  So…I could bore you with the details of the first coke run but it was a piece of piss. It got to Liverpool, and our 100 kilos of the finest Charlie were soon dispatched and sold onwards, much to everyone’s delight. Well, it’s not often you make a return of 126% on your initial investment, is it?

  The Mendez cartel are made up with us. We get calls from Victor and his boys and Nunes in Holland congratulating us on a smooth and efficient operation. We’ve given them what they wanted – a new supply route into the gateway of Europe. And this new business partnership brings in the brewsties faster than ever before.

  We do another seven coke runs that year, all using the same route and methods. By this point, I’m in Amsterdam every other week, meeting up with Nunes, making payments and sorting out the details of new deals. And when I’m not doing business? The rest of my time is spent working out how the fuck I’m going to hide all the money that’s coming in faster than Ayrton Senna with diarrhoea.

  So far, we’ve done seven coke runs. We should be sitting back and chilling out, but there’s no rest for the wicked. For the past few weeks, the underground buzz has passed on the details of a few of Jimmy’s audacious forays into other people’s territory. A drinking den in the Kensington area of the city got taken over by his lads when the landlord had a few bad hands at the poker table and the landlord was forced to give up the bar as payment in kind. The regulars were a bit pissed off at this and decided to torch the place as they preferred reducing the place to a pile of ashes than let Powell take over. In revenge for the bar being torched, some of the place’s regulars ended up in hospital when Jimmy’s lads tracked them down to a house nearby and raked it with gunshots.