An Absence of Light

“Okay,” he said, ready to go on. “For over two years now, two and a half years, Kalatis has had an export operation in Colombia called Hermes Exports-totally separate operationwise from what I’ve been doing… another compartment altogether-shipping flowers and coffee into the U.S. Colombia’s the second biggest flower importer to the U.S. after Holland. And coffee, you know about coffee. But it’s the flower business that’s the heart of the Hermes story. It’s a first-class operation, and the flower importers here love their products because they’re all packed in a Styrofoam-like insulation. The shipments arrive in pristine condition. This insulation is made in a Strasser-owned chemical plant in Bogota. The chemicals for the plant are shipped to Colombia from another Strasser-owned company called Hormann Plastics here in Houston. Now, to manufacture plastics in any volume-and Hormann’s operation is huge-you gotta have access to big quantities of sulfuric acid and acetic anhydride. Both are used to make cellulose acetate, stuff you got to have if you’re gonna make plastics and foam insulation.

“But”-Sheck raised a muscular forearm and held up his index finger-”as you well know… sulfuric acid is also used in processing cocaine… and acetic anhydride is used in processing heroin.”

He grinned and shook his head admiringly. Even as upset as he was, even as fearful of his own life as he claimed to be, he had to appreciate the genius of what he was about to describe.

“Not only are Kalatis and his buddy Strasser shipping themselves the chemicals to process cocaine and heroin-and these chemicals are on the DEA’s and Customs’ hot list, so they gotta be paying off some pretty big boys because the feds watch that shit with a microscope. Not only are they doing that, but they have-or their chemists have-developed a shit-sure method of ‘reconstituting’ cocaine. Those damn flowers are packed in form-pressed cocaine ‘insulation’ which has been douched in some kind of hydrofluorocarbon or some such shit to cover the smell so the drug dogs can’t pick it up. They’ve been shipping flowers packed in cocaine for nearly three years and no damn Customs hound has ever blinked. Not once. No, shit no.”

Sheck suppressed another belch, and a sour expression crossed his face. “That ballsy Greek has used this very successful system, which has produced a hell of a cash flow, to entice Houston and Texas investors to their even bigger-their global-drug business. They make their pitch to legitimate businessmen who are so shit-faced greedy they can’t stand seeing their money get less than a pirate’s ransom in interest. These men have been giving their money-their cash-to Kalatis who has promptly turned around and tripled it for them. It’s like a come-along thing, a Ponzi scheme… they win every time… they start trusting him… they start putting in bigger and bigger amounts. The money’s so big now that they’re able to buy commodity volumes of cocaine and heroin… all over the world. They’re moving merchant ship loads of stuff… out of Afghanistan, out of the Golden Triangle, out of Peru… everywhere.”

The combination of whiskey and beer was taking its toll on Sheck, but even in his increasing stupor he had just filled in a gap in Burtell’s puzzle. Burtell knew the huge sums of money had built to the point that Kalatis had thought it was time to effect his final plan, the grand finale, but he just wasn’t sure that the cash flow was all coming from information buyers. Now he knew it wasn’t, and though he had suspected drugs all along, he had never been able to prove it or to draw it out of Sheck until now. Sheck had given him the beginning and the end-and now the middle, the part that was the driving force behind Kalatis’s one-man stratagem for achieving financial Nirvana.

Sheck started to reach for the Wild Turkey again. But his hand had just gotten on the neck of the bottle when he froze. He cut his eyes at Burtell. He sniffed a little. Then he sniffed again, deeply, loudly. His face blanched.

“What is that shit…?”

Remberto and Murray both were looking through their powerful binoculars into the lighted cabin windows when the explosion turned the air into a liquid mist of fire that incinerated the oxygen and everything else within a one-hundred-foot globe, the epicenter of which was the boat they had been watching.

Everyone in the hotel room yelled reflexively. Remberto and Murray recovered instantly, alternately lowering and raising their binoculars, unable to see all they wanted to see with or without them.

Boyd’s tripod camera began ratcheting frames as he quickly pulled out another kind of camera and went to work.

Cheryl flung off her headphones and stared out of the darkened hotel room at the billowing plume of orange light illuminating the silence and the astonishment on her face.

She still could hear him sniffing. What is that shit… she heard him say.

Chapter 51