“How does a Caltech chemist end up doing this?” asked Robie.
Fitzsimmons looked sheepish. “I have to admit, I was a huge fan of Breaking Bad. And I thought, why not? I’m a smart guy with special skills. I was making peanuts at my old job. Why not go for the brass ring? I just decided to do it on a much bigger scale.”
“How did you manage to build out all this without anyone noticing you rehabbing the space?” asked Reel.
“Oh, we didn’t do it on the scale that Roark Lambert did. We weren’t building out luxury condos, after all. So we used the tunnel from the quarry to bring in all the equipment and other materials. And we did it all at night. We actually didn’t have far to go. Some research showed us that the Army Corps of Engineers had tunneled pretty far into that ridge to increase the amount of usable space for their operations. So we just connected up on the other side.” His gaze swept over some of the workers in blue scrubs.
Robie noted that not one of them had looked up from their tasks when he and the similarly shackled Reel were led into the room. Also arrayed around the space were men with guns.
Fitzsimmons followed Robie’s gaze. “We take security very seriously.”
“I can see that.”
“We also brought sophisticated business, manufacturing, and distribution protocols to the illicit drug market. There’s too much crap out there. It can kill you. There’s this stuff going around now, heroin laced with carfentanil, or elephant tranquilizer. It’s lethal if you smoke it, swallow it, or even inhale it. Hell, it can make you really sick if you just touch it. And then there’s this shit called gray death, which is just a mixture of crap that’ll be the last hit you take. You got all these idiots trying to mix anything with stuff like fentanyl to give the big bang and they don’t know what they’re doing and they end up snuffing people left and right. And what business survives by killing its clients?”
“Ask Big Tobacco about that,” retorted Reel.
“Anyway, you have all these drug sites on the Dark Web. Remember Silk Road? They took that down years ago, but it was small potatoes compared to what’s out there now. There are hundreds of sites up now that are far bigger and trade only in synthetic drugs. Although the South American cartels are catching on to it, most are manufactured in China, shipped through to Hong Kong, and then mailed to the U.S.”
“Mailed?” said Robie incredulously.
Fitzsimmons smiled. “Heroin, coke, and pills are bulky. And easily tracked. Fentanyl on the other hand? You can ship enough Fentanyl to OD a hundred thousand people in a manila envelope. Two flakes of the stuff are lethal to an adult. But the thing is, the Feds are onto the Dark Web stuff and the use of the postal service. And they’re looking hard at shipments coming in from overseas. That gives homegrown manufacturers like us a huge leg up. American made, right? People want manufacturing jobs to come back here, right? Well, baby, here we are.”
“I don’t think they had what you do in mind,” pointed out Reel.
Fitzsimmons shrugged. “We can give people the same big pop much more safely with our crossover synthetics. And our drugs are made to exacting standards. Our facility is maintained to Big Pharma production standards. We actually have clean rooms where some of our most delicate processing takes place. We make custom products to order, too. We’re even thinking about using drones to deliver some of the stuff. You know, taking a page from Amazon. People do that right now to get stuff into prisons all over the country.”
“But it’s all illegal drugs,” pointed out Reel.
“I know all sides of the argument,” said a smiling Fitzsimmons, as he put the bottles and plastic bag back where he had gotten them. “People are going to use drugs regardless of what the law is, right? So we’re giving them a pure, safe product for their doping pleasure. And it’s not just druggies. Oxycodone is a painkiller. Do you know how much pharmaceuticals charge for it? It’s a disgrace. We’re actually making it affordable for people. I consider it a public service.”
“You mean servicing their addiction,” said Robie.
“We can mince words all day,” said Fitzsimmons amiably.
“How much money are we talking about?” asked Reel.
“Last year was our best, but this year I think we’re going to top it. Well into the nine figures,” he said. “Who knows, some day we might top a billion a year. And that’s with gross profit margins of nearly seventy percent.”
“Is that because your labor costs are so cheap?” said Robie. “I mean it’s not like you’re paying these people, right?” He nodded toward the blue-scrubbed workers.
“Well, we do have to feed and house them, if for a limited time.”
“So they’re not permanent workers?” said Reel.
“Nothing in life is permanent. Only death is permanent.”
“Very philosophical of you.”
Fitzsimmons smiled. “I actually studied philosophy in college. It balanced out the science part of my brain.”
“And what does Scott Randall do for the ‘business’?”
“He has his uses. He gets his healthy cut plus other things. That’s all I’ll really say on the subject.”
“And Patti Bender?”
Fitzsimmons smiled again. “She’s a free spirit. I met her when she came out to California for a few months. We really hit it off. We could see that our strengths and ambitions played well together. I let her know what I was thinking and she said she thought she could help. This operation was actually her idea. She knew about this silo. She also had a relationship with Scott Randall. She’d done some guide work for him. I just supplied the science. So I came out here as Dolph because she thought it would be good cover. And she said there were lots of ‘alternative’ groups in this part of Colorado. What was one more? I set up my neo-Nazi operation. In the background she actually helped with recruitment. There are a lot of lost souls around here looking for answers. For structure. Looking to belong to something. And I became their answer. But it was all just a sideshow for this operation, although it did help me meet people who provided excellent distribution for our product. We even ship internationally.”
“So Patti really came up with this whole idea?” said Reel.
“I think she got the concept from her mother’s marijuana business, which is a very nice, profitable, and legitimate business. But Patti wanted more than that. And to tell the truth, I think she loves the risk.”
“When I first met her she just seemed like a relatively simple person who was independent and liked the outdoors,” said Robie.
“She is that, plus a lot more. There are several more layers to the woman. I’m not sure I’ve seen them all, actually.”
“But what does she do with the money she makes? She certainly doesn’t dress like she’s rich. And she and her buddies go off acting as guides.”
“Oh, she likes the money. And I can tell you that she has a beautiful hideaway on an island in the Caribbean. I think she may end up there one day permanently.”
“So she goes off to the Caribbean and her mother and brother have no clue?”
“She disappears for weeks at a time,” said Fitzsimmons. “It’s the nature of who she is. Her mother and brother are well accustomed to that.”