“But ‘cartel’ is really a misnomer in our case; in fact, it’s oxymoronic to speak of ‘cartels’ in the plural.” They have competition, he explains—the remnants of the Zetas, bits and pieces left of the Gulf “cartel,” the Knights Templar—but what worries Núñez is Tito Ascensión.
Ascensión asked Iván for permission to get into heroin, Iván smartly refused, but what if Tito does it anyway? Jalisco could become, quickly, the Sinaloa cartel’s biggest competition. He’d undersell them, and Núñez is not of a mind to be forced into reducing profit margins. So …
They step into a back room.
Núñez closes the door behind them.
A young Asian man sits behind a table, on which are stacked several tightly wrapped bricks of …
Ric doesn’t recognize whatever it is.
“The only good response to lower prices,” Núñez says, “is higher quality. Customers will pay a premium for quality.”
“So this is a higher-grade heroin?” Ric asks.
“No,” Núñez says. “This is fentanyl. It’s fifty times stronger than heroin.”
A synthetic opiate, fentanyl was originally used in skin patches to relieve the pain of terminal cancer patients, Núñez explains. It’s so powerful, even a small dot can be lethal. But the right dose gets the addict much higher, much faster.
He leads Ric out of the office to the back of the warehouse. A number of men are gathered there, some of whom Ric recognizes as high-ranking people in the cartel—Carlos Martínez, who operates out of Sonora; Héctor Greco, the plaza boss of Juárez; Pedro Esteban from Badiraguato. A few others that Ric doesn’t know.
Behind them, along the wall, three men are tied to chairs.
One look at them, Ric knows they’re junkies.
Emaciated, shaking, strung out.
A guy who looks like a lab tech sits at a chair by a small table, on which three syringes are set.
“Gentlemen,” Núñez says. “I’ve told you about the new product, but seeing is believing. So, a little demonstration.”
He nods at the lab tech, who takes one of the syringes and squats next to one of the junkies. “This is our standard cinnamon heroin.”
The tech ties off the junkie’s arm, finds a vein and injects him. A second later, the junkie’s head snaps back, and then lolls.
He’s high.
“The next syringe is the heroin laced with a small amount of fentanyl,” Núñez says.
The tech injects the second junkie.
His head snaps, his eyes open wide, his mouth curls into an almost beatific smile. “Oh, God. Oh, my God.”
“How is it?” Núñez asks.
“It’s wonderful,” the junkie says. “It’s so wonderful.”
Ric feels like he’s watching QVC.
And sort of he is. The myth, he knows, is that cartel bosses are dictators who simply issue commands and expect them done. That’s true with the sicarios, the gunmen and the lower levels, but a cartel is made up of businesspeople who will only do what’s good for their businesses, and they have to be sold.
“The next,” Núñez says, “is just three milligrams of fentanyl.”
The last junkie strains against the ropes, screams, “No!”
But the tech ties him off, locates a vein, and then shoots the full syringe into his arm. The same snap of the head, the same wide eyes. Then the eyes close and the man’s head falls forward. The tech holds two fingers against the junkie’s neck and then shakes his head. “He’s gone.”
Ric fights the urge to throw up.
Jesus, did his father just do that? Did his father just really do that? He couldn’t have used a lab rat, or a monkey or something, he just had a human being killed for a sales demo?
“Any addict who tries this new product,” Núñez says, “would never go back, could never go back to the more expensive and less potent pharmaceutical pills or even cinnamon heroin. Why take the local, when you can take the express?”
“What’s the cost to us?” Martínez asks.
“Four thousand US per kilogram,” Núñez says. “Although by buying bulk we can probably get that down to three. But each kilo of fentanyl will produce twenty kilos of enhanced product worth over a million dollars at the retail level. The margin isn’t the problem.”
“What is the problem?” Martínez asks.
“Supply,” Núñez says. “The production of fentanyl is tightly controlled in the US and Europe. We can buy it in China, however, and ship it into the ports we control, such as Mazatlán, La Paz and Cabo. But that means we have to control the ports.
“Gentlemen, thirty years ago, the great Miguel Ángel Barrera—M-1, the founder of our organization—introduced a derivative product of cocaine at a similar gathering. That derivative, ‘crack,’ made our organization wealthy and powerful. I’m now introducing a derivative of heroin that will take us to an even higher level. I want to take the organization into fentanyl and I hope you’ll get behind me. Now, I’ve arranged for dinner at a local restaurant, and I hope you’ll join me in that as well.”
They go out to dinner at a place on the shore.
The usual drill, Ric thinks—private room in the back, the rest of the place bought out, a ring of guards circling the restaurant. They dine on ceviche, lobster, shrimp, smoked marlin, and bearded tamales washed down with quantities of Pacífico beer, and if any one of them gave a thought to the dead junkie in the back of the warehouse, Ric doesn’t notice.
After the banquet, the plane flies Ric and his father back to Culiacán.
“So what do you think?” Núñez asks on the flight.
“About …”
“Fentanyl.”
“I think you sold them,” Ric says. “But if fentanyl’s that good, the competition will also get in on it.”
“Of course they will,” Núñez says. “That’s business. Ford designs a good pickup truck, Chevy copies and improves it, Ford designs an even better one. The key is getting there first, monopolizing the supply chain, establishing dominant sales channels and a loyal customer base, and continuing to service them. You can be very helpful by assuring that La Paz remains ours exclusively.”
“Sure,” Ric says. “But there’s a problem you haven’t thought of. Fentanyl’s a synthetic?”
“Yes.”
“Then anyone can make it,” Ric says. “You don’t need farms, like you do with heroin. You only need a lab, which you can put up anywhere. It will be like meth was—every asshole with a couple of bucks and a chemistry set will be making it in his bathtub.”
“There’ll be cheap knockoffs, no doubt,” Núñez says. “But it will be an annoyance at the edge of the market, at most. The bootleggers won’t have the sales reach to create a serious problem.”
If you say so, Ric thinks.
But you won’t be able to control it at the retail level. The retailers won’t have the discipline to limit the doses, and they’ll start to kill off the customer base. People are going to start dying, just like that poor guy in the warehouse, and when they start dying in the US, it’s going to bring heat and light on us.
Pandora’s box has been opened.
And