‘Well, Duat, I can see you’re anxious to get a move on. There is, however, one last part of the factory I must show you. Come.’ The general spoke briefly into his handset and led the way back through the processing plant. Outside, the air smelled fresh and clean. Duat’s head swam slightly. He paused at the trucks to steady himself. ‘Ah,’ said the general, ‘passive inhalation of the heroin dust. We must improve the ventilation, but it does keep the staff turning up in the morning.’ The general allowed himself to be helped up into his position behind the machine gun. He barked an order and several soldiers assisted Duat to his seat. ‘Breathe deeply, my thin associate,’ advised the general.
Duat’s head cleared quickly in the clean mountain air. The convoy crawled down the hill in low gear, engines racing. The trucks turned left, momentarily retracing their route before veering right, unexpectedly, into the heart of the jungle.
‘Do you know how heroin works, Duat?’ asked the general. Duat glanced at him. The assistant with the bald head who had relieved General Trip of the diamonds back at the house was sitting beside the general. He had seemingly come from nowhere. In his lap was a white plastic box. He opened it. Inside were large hypodermic syringes. One was in his hand. He flicked it with a fingernail and squirted a thin stream into the air in front of his eyes. Satisfied, he placed the syringe back in the box and smiled at Duat with black-stained teeth. Duat’s bowels contracted with fear. He was utterly at the mercy of his host.
‘Around four hundred BC, Hippocrates prescribed poppy juice mixed with nettle seeds. Several hundred years later, and on the other side of the world, the famous surgeon Hua To of the Three Kingdoms made his patients swallow opium preparations before undergoing surgery. Ah yes, the poppy has a peppered history. But heroin as we know it today is a relatively recent invention. It was first created in eighteen seventy and used as a cough suppressant for tuberculosis sufferers. Opiates inhibit the coughing impulse. They also inhibit the digestive process, and control diarrhoea. And, of course, opiate molecules have a profound effect on the brain’s pleasure and pain receptors.’
The road through the jungle widened marginally and the convoy came to a stop. Duat noticed something odd about the jungle and realised it had been clipped back. And then he saw the bamboo cages, no more than a metre and a half square, about a dozen of them. One such cage was beside his face. Something in it moved, and red-rimmed green eyes blinked lazily out from filth-blackened skin. The smell of vomit and faeces was suddenly overpowering.
‘Our man from the DEA,’ said the general, grabbing one of the bamboo bars and giving it a shake. The assistant with the hypodermics hopped down from the truck and began his work. ‘My two other current guests are tourists, so they claim, bushwalkers out for a stroll. Their papers were in order, but they took the wrong bush trail. Mea culpa.’ The general held his hands out apologetically, as if he had no choice in the matter.
The captives realised that there were outside people present and fought their way through the drug to consciousness. One of them, a woman, began to beg to be released, sobbing. Duat had started to think that perhaps the general was no more than a fat, wealthy degenerate. The sight of these cages brutally ended that impression. General Trip was a killer without a cause, save for the accumulation of wealth.
‘The chemical structure of opiates is similar to compounds derived from a naturally produced amino-acid pituitary hormone called beta-lipotropin,’ said the general, reassuming the mantle of the chemistry graduate. ‘When released, it splits to form met-enkephalin, gamma endorphin and beta endorphin. Opiate molecules, having a similar structure to these hormones, attach themselves to the endorphin’s nerve receptor sites in the pleasure centre of the brain, bringing about an analgesic effect.’
The man lying in filth on the floor of the cage beside Duat stirred sluggishly as the assistant administered the drug, injecting it into his toe. The green eyes blinked twice and then rolled back into his skull. A stalactite of drool hung from his mouth.
‘Basically, when the body experiences pain, endorphins are released as a protective reaction, relieving discomfort. Opiates work in the same way, mimicking high levels of endorphins and so producing intense euphoria. In short, the worse we treat our guests here, the better time they have of it. And from the looks of things, they are enjoying themselves immensely.’
Duat reminded himself that these victims were all infidels and, therefore, not worthy of Allah’s mercy. He felt no pity for the captives.
The man with the bald head jumped up and the trucks began to move slowly past the rest of the cages. Several cages contained the decomposing remains of other guests who had enjoyed the general’s drug-induced hospitality for too long. The final two cages contained Duat’s bodyguards, unharmed and undrugged, but heavily bound and gagged, their eyes wide saucers of fear.
Duat glanced warily at the general. Was he too about to be seized and caged by the spider beside him? The general held open his hand and the man with the bald head placed something in his palm with an almost imperceptible nod. He rolled the pink uncut crystals around with his thumb. ‘Just as you said, Duat, slightly more than five million US dollars. I am so pleased that now we be friends and can do business.’
US Embassy, Canberra, Australia
Gia Ferallo and Atticus Monroe sifted through the photographs, transcripts, circulars and other papers stamped ‘Secret’.
Ferallo and Monroe were two of the agency’s brightest up-and-coming stars. Ferallo had been instrumental in shutting down a major cocaine smuggling organisation headed by a former US senator with marital links to Colombia. Her Mediterranean appearance and linguistic skills had enabled her to pass herself off to the Colombian connection as a rich émigré from Argentina, eager to augment her wealth with an import — export business. The fact that both the ex-senator and the drug baron were falling over each other to take her to bed had also helped her get inside the operation. CIA HQ at Langley, Virginia, was impressed and Ferallo was put on the fast track.
Monroe also had an interesting story. In his former life he’d played half a season for the Atlanta Falcons as a defensive back. A tackle that left him with a crushed vertebra and torn cruciate ligament also left him with the risk of being a cripple for the rest of his life. He had no option but to give away the game completely. At the time, it was difficult to know who was more depressed about the career-ending injury — his team-mates, the team’s management, or his growing legion of fans. Atticus had been a major find, able to run the hundred in a shade over ten, and it seemed he would be going all the way. ‘That’s football,’ the surgeons had said when they told him nothing could be done. There was no consolation prize. He was a star, and then he was nothing.
Atticus didn’t think about it much these days. Things had turned around pretty fast. He was a football player with a brain, a political science/history major who’d won the university prizes in his final year. Out of the blue, the CIA approached him to be an analyst. It was something he’d never considered, but he’d liked the notion of it — James Bond and so forth. But, tied to a desk with paperwork, it wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d earned the reputation of being a crack shot after winning the interagency pistol marksmanship competition two years running, and had struck up quite a few friendships with field officers. Monroe liked the sound of what they did, in general terms at least. Mostly their work was shrouded in secrecy. He asked his section chief for a transfer, did the battery of psych tests, and found himself at CIA Station Prague, Czech Republic. Monroe quickly earned himself a reputation for being fearless, intelligent and resourceful. Ultimately, it was his fieldwork that had uncovered and foiled the al Qa’ida plot to assassinate the Pope during the Pontiff’s tour there.