CHAPTER 4

I hear the sound of my cell phone in the distance. I was having a pleasant dream. Who dares wake me up so early? I answer coldly with a rusty voice.

‘Guillermo’.

‘Dad, it’s me.’

Damn! I almost drop my phone on the carpet.

‘Everything went wrong today Dad...’

I’m fully awake now but I can’t hear the rest of the explanation.

I can only hear some strange sound as if Rafael, my dear son, dropped his phone or so. I keep talking anyway.

‘For gods' sake pick up the phone and tell me exactly what happened. Where are you?’

Rafael sounds like he’s crying now. I can’t believe it! A twenty-three year old man. What the hell is going on?

He’s back on the phone.

‘I can’t speak Dad. I’m driving back home. A bloody dog got mad at...’

Again his voice disappears. What the hell is he doing? My son is El Cretino… Somewhere I always knew it. I should never have trusted him on this transportation.

Too big for him. It’s a major blunder.

‘What did you, did you do bloody idiot?’

‘I told you! The customs guy suspected something because of his bloody dog.’

‘ Yes but you! What did you do so the dog could sniff it’

‘Hm, well, We didn’t put the products at the front of the truck bed. Had no time for that.’

‘But what about the other truck then?

‘Hm. That’s the point’ he says in a lower voice. I fixed only one big truck this time.’

I feel my jaw dropping. I can’t believe he did it. Breaking against such a basic rule in our business.

‘Are you retarded? How could you be so stupid! ‘ I explode. ‘How could you think for a second that it was going to work? Come back here immediately!’

I hang up. I can't take it anymore.

I jump into the shower to cool down, I don’t even bother to shave afterwards.

I put some training clothes on and walk to my sports room at the other side of the hacienda.

Once arrived, I take a deep breath. Here is my very private and favorite room. A real man thing. Full of training devices and many punching bags. I go straight to my boxing gloves and put them on.

I spend 30 intensive minutes hitting the bag imaging I’m boxing my own son till it hurts my fists. I’m soaked in sweat but feel more relaxed.

I won’t kill him. He’s already dead as my heir. I have to realize he’s never going to make it in this business.

My stupid son has ruined everything, and this time... the reality is beyond fiction. I often wonder what I did wrong. I’ve the feeling, however, that I did everything to turn my only son Rafael into a real businessman.

From the day he was born I chose his first name carefully. A modern, international name, well before the famous tennis player’s name got so popular.

I wanted for him a name that will open the doors of the wealthy world not a shabby name like my own from the Spanish working class. My name tells everyone my family has been sweating their entire life, working like hell.

For my only heir, I made incredible efforts: I sent him to the best Swiss schools. That way he could come in contact with the best of the best.

He could hopefully make connections in the international financial world, which would help to expand our empire.

Rafael speaks English and French fluently. On the other hand he gave up German very quickly. He didn’t like the accent, he said. What a pathetic excuse. I rather guess he didn’t have any romance to motivate him, no attraction to the German rock bands which sound a little too barbaric for us Latin people. That I can admit. And finally the grammar was just giving him headaches he said. I’m sure of that one.

And all that for what result? A catastrophe!

I can’t accept that the best and most expensive schools in the world didn’t manage to make my son smart. Maybe I have to face it, it was asking them to accomplish the impossible. And El Cretino, as I like to call him, did it again. Willing to save time and money he lost everything. A whole cargo full of cannabis, worth millions!

I can easily imagine the party organized at the customs center right now. Rafael is going to pay for that. Rage is coming back on me .

I need another shower now.

I get up the stairs and the spacy and luxurious bathroom calms me down a bit already. I drop my training suit and step under the shower. The warm water is running all over my body. But I can’t help thinking of the loss so I step out and quickly get dressed.

Think! I’ve lost in a few minutes the equivalent of seventeen million euros or more. This is at least what would be written in the newspapers tomorrow, since for the press the catch counts at its resale price. To do so flatters the pride of the national police and makes people dream with huge sums. In fact I actually lost only half of it, even less, breaking everything down to about seven million. Still a lot.

But as I became friends with one of the first Moroccan producers, I got advantageous prices thanks to the quantities I’m regularly buying. This time it was about two thousand three hundred kilos of cannabis resin.

Since I’ve managed to really secure both transport and distribution in recent years, thanks to a large network of trustworthy and competent drivers and dealers, I’ve also lowered my final sales price. Of course my competitors are mad at me.

Anyway my margin has increased considerably.

No boasting, I get around sixty percent in profit. Many people envy me for that, but I took enormous risks and I made big investments too.

I even built a whole facade of import-export products that costs me much more money and makes me lose money. Unfortunately Spain's bad reputation for agricultural policies that don’t comply with European regulations have caused a dramatic drop in exports since last year. But I had to give that up so that my trafficking would be safer.

But today! Damn! I will have to pay seven million plus the other expenses around and get nothing for it.

Most of all, no one can ever find out I’m the one who got caught today.

My reputation is at stake. I’ll have to wait for a while before buying a new load.

I try to calm my nerves by walking in the patio of my luxurious villa, back and forth, back and forth. But the calm brought by the sun shining on this warm morning, the subtle scents emanating from my garden and the music made by the fountain only increased my nervousness.

This kind of decoration purring like a cat in the sun, that’s indeed a woman's idea. Too cool for me. For the time being, I just want to go to my club and shoot to take my nerves out.

But first I need to hear the details from El Cretino's mouth.

Ah. I can hear a car stopping by the door --but, no-- it’s only my wife.

‘Where were you?’ I burst out when I see her getting out of her convertible car. She looks surprised.

‘At my hairdresser's, like every Friday.’ she answers calmly, but I can see she’s a bit worried.

‘So you fucking have nothing else to do? Did you see what this damn house looks like? It's your job bloody hell!’ I need to yell at someone, even if it’s not fair.

Isabella is smart. She seems to understand that’s something serious has happened. I’m never rude with her, except in extreme cases like this one.

She’s approaching slowly and asks:

‘Tell me what’s wrong darling.’

‘Your stupid son just messed up a delivery of seventeen million euros. That’s what’s wrong! He wanted to be clever and save time and money the idiot. What an excuse! I should never have let him do it! There’s always trouble with him, nothing is simple. He's really too stupid. I should never have listened to you. You protect him too much. You praise him too often. He thinks he is invulnerable. He thinks he’s God. It's all your fault!’ I can’t help but raise my voice and my arm at the same time.

Isabella firmly stops the arm that I’m raising on her. I know I don’t frighten her, she always knows how to cool me down when I’ m in rage.

‘What exactly did he do?’ Isabella asks.

‘I'm waiting for him to come back to find out. As far as I understood, they were caught at the French border by a customs officer and his dog. I didn’t get everything on the phone because this stupid guy, instead of parking, he was still driving away. He was afraid to be stopped and wasn’t holding his mobile close to his ear obviously. I heard only every second word, I mainly guessed the rest. We’ll see what he’ll tell us when he comes back.

'He, luckily, was behind the truck and he said nobody noticed him. Let's hope he’s right for once. Fortunately I convinced him to take his simple little Korean car instead of his fancy convertible Audi.’ I shrug.

Isabella knows how make me shut my mouth on that matter.

‘But it’s your fault bloody hell! You didn’t have to send him to Switzerland to a boarding school. It turned him crazy, going out with upper class, snobbish people-- he lost his common sense of reality for sure.’ Isabella replies angry.

And there she is, always defending her dear angel.

I know my wife will never forgive me for having taken away from her only son at the age of twelve.

‘A twenty-three-year old kid, let me laugh.’ I exclaim.

There’s no point in discussing that matter now. I see Isabella’s trying another tactic.

‘Come in, let’s have a glass of porto. It will calm your nerves’. She says gently.

She catches my arm and curls up against me, she guides me gently but firmly to the living room.

The room is all white; the walls, the three leather sofas in the center, the carpets and the coffee tables. She slides behind the ultra modern designed bar and magically two glasses of porto come out with some olives in a crystal cup with sticks to pick them up.

The gentle warmth of the liquid cools down my anger a little, as well as the soothing caresses of my wife on my neck and in my hair. Not bad.

Isabella disappears for two minutes to give orders in the kitchen to be quickly served in the adjacent dining room. As a good wife she also knows the virtues of good food on me. My belly is a the proof of that. Good food is one of my sins.

My legendary anger makes everyone shake except her. We’ve known each other since childhood. We were born in the same village perched in the Pyrenees, grew up together as neighbors. At the age of 16, we both swore to escape from the rudimentary, rustic and poor peasant-life. We seized the opportunity to come to Barcelona, working at first in bars and clubs.

Through contacts, I became a specialist in quickly providing the impossible: drugs, and even girls and children, any traffic was good for me.

Then I specialized in drugs. It was easier. Less risky in many ways.

No doubt my solid sense of peasant realities have helped me never to fall into dependency myself. I never touched that shit.

On the contrary, I despise those men and women who depend on my dope or my services. I don’t even feel sorry for them. I’ve never managed to understand how people who have everything to be happy, according to my own materialistic criteria, need self-destruction in this way.

I’ve seen how they become worse over the years, their eyes becoming more and more empty as if the dope has taken life away from them, their eyelids more and more wrinkled by sleepless nights: I found them rather pathetic and useless.

I love how rich people fall for that shit over and over again and help me be richer and richer.

My success brings me a lot of pleasure, makes me feel like the king of the world, taking revenge over the rest of the world.

My wife is my link to my peasant world and its old solid values.

But sometimes I feel like I’m trapped somehow, stuck in a pact made with the devil. Of course I’ll never say so to anyone, even to Isabella.

For now, we’re both seated in our luxurious but cold and empty dining room, with made-to-order table and chairs, drinking a 2004 Pauillac wine, a Château Mouton Rothschild to be precise, that Isabella had the good idea to bring up from our cellar to go with a rib of beef. This nectar cost a small fortune, but it would help to calm me down.

And my lifestyle largely allowed me this little pleasure, as expensive as it is.

I’m firmly waiting for my son, planning my revenge.

After the nice piece of meat, served with a wok of green vegetables and some potatoes, Isabella tried to lessen my anger with a delicious warm mellow chocolate cake served with a homemade vanilla ice cream - one of my favorite desserts. She’s really trying hard.

The wine also does its work and I’m more or less sleepy on the couch when, like a wolf on a wait, I suddenly jump to my feet at the sound of a car engine.

That’s him now for sure.

‘Please’, interferes Isabella, placing herself before the French window.

‘Don’t hurt him’, she begs holding me by the arm.

‘You get out now and leave us’, I say and push her a little too violently.

The surprising blow sends her away onto the nearest couch.

‘You’d better not interfere. This is my business, not yours.’ I say very determined.

Isabella must feel it’s better to slip away, and realize the limit of her influence on me. I’m no longer the teenager she spent such a good time with. My business made me harder, being in contact with men and mafiosos of all kinds. Violence has infiltrated our lives surreptitiously.

The violence of rude words sometimes, then the violence of blows and of weapons. And even if I’m still very fond of her and caught up in a seduction game with her, I’m not a fool. I know when to stop the game to my advantage. I’m the master of this house.

Rafael, unaware of the danger, enters the living room through the wide open French window.

He comes closer to kiss me but I grip his right arm and twist it up behind his back. The sudden pain makes him scream but I stifle him with my hand against his mouth and push him to the floor. His left cheek is stuck on the cold marble. He can’t move.

‘First I want to know who came up with this idea to carry all containers in one truck instead of using the regular drivers’ I whisper angry in his ear.

Suffering Rafael manages to explain.

‘We packaged the cannabis resin in plastics into regular boxes, to load them all in one large truck full of fruits instead of using different trucks. I had a good deal with the driver with a huge truck, double sized. The guy was desperately in need of money right now so I thought it was a good idea to win save on transportation.’

‘First mistake.’ I say and give him a blow on his ear.

‘Dad! No please!’ he begs.

‘Why?’ I ask coldly.

‘Because we were in a hurry’ he says, his eyes wide open with fear.

‘Why so?’ I urge angrily.

Silence, meaning he’s the one responsible

‘Don't’ dare lie to me.’

‘Cause I was late to our appointment. So we just laid the boxes at the bottom of the refrigerated, not behind the fruits. Unfortunately the customs officer had a dog who couldn’t stop sniffing around the back of the truck.’ he says shaking his head.

‘Second mistake. It's not bad luck. You’re the idiot. Of course their dogs are trained to smell drugs. Therefore you should only have a little in each truck and well hidden by the smell of the food around.’

I give him a second blow with pleasure.

I can easily imagine the scene. Pretty containers wisely placed in the translucent smoke of the air of a cold room. You open the box and there you go. Full of cannabis resin.Too nice to be true for the police!

Oh, they must be still be laughing at them at the police station right now. A nice catch for them. Surely one of the most important ones lately.

That’s our monthly delivery for the Netherlands now stopped at the French-Spanish border because of a bloody well trained dog and a customs guy a little smarter than the French national average. But how stupid to have underestimated the customs at this point!

So typical of El Cretino. He’s always so self confident. He underestimates others instead. I teach him lesson one: ‘You think of yourself as a brilliant guy. This is a fatal mistake. The kind of mistake that led many to jail. Therefore I myself have a golden rule that helped me to be still free and alive today: never underestimate the opponent! Got it?’

Rafael softly whispers: ‘Yes Dad.’ But I no longer have any illusions about the IQ of my offspring.

I have to admit to my great dismay, that the best education system in the world will never make him more intelligent than he is. He’s lacking that kind of peasant ruse that made me successful.

Thanks to that, I know intuitively how to weave in and out, when to keep one’s head down, who to flatter, who to watch out and be cautious with.

That’s the way I’ve built my empire and my fortune. Thanks to that attitude I can now live in luxury. In twenty years, my bank account has gone from a few hundred euros, or the equivalent in pesetas of the time, to several billion.

Over the last ten years, I got around 30 million euros net per month in various forms of trafficking, mostly Moroccan cannabis, which I sell mainly in the Netherlands. But I also have other niche markets. I’ve built a plant over there for ecstasy and other chemical derivatives that increase my income drastically.

But this morning, part of my dream has just gone up in smoke.

I realize that I never wanted to face reality; my son is and will remain stupid, a Cretino, no doubt about it.

Many signs should have warned me but I of course refused to see them.

Maybe Isabella is right after all. I should never have sent him to a Swiss boarding school. He’s been living with the upper crust, believed he was one of them.

He eventually grew up in an environment totally disconnected from the real life. Therefore this vanity of his, an exaggerated self-confidence, instead of practical intelligence became his downfall. It’s up to me, Guillermo Sanchez, to fix all that mess.

It’s a heavy loss, I’ll take responsibility for it in my own way.

And my son is going to learn his lesson the hard way, to get tough, because there’s a war going on out there and he needs to realize he’s in the middle of it. To life and death ...

It’s out of question to physically harm him, even if my whole body is itching for that. Again, one of my strengths has always been not to let myself be dominated, ever, by the spirit of revenge, no matter how overwhelming. Over time I’ve learned to recognize it and tame my emotions. Demolishing my own son won’t help and will be a way of announcing to the world that he is the author of the fiasco at the custom border today.

Indirectly that will direct the police towards me and my trafficking.

No! My revenge will come later and be more subtle and penetrating...