Drugs, Guns & Gold- Afghani Black
Drugs, Guns & Gold- Afghani Black
A fictional account of a fall from grace in the
poppy fields
Things were damn near placid in the mountains these days, probably because once the CIA told the warlords the poppies could bloom all the locals got busy making money. SFC Dirk “Throatslitter” (I am just playin’ with the names) Thorskillen couldn’t believe he was still in Afghanistan, the action was over a couple of years ago and all they were doing now was babysitting.
They had two warlords in their AO and neither one was interested in much beyond how much sticky icky they could haul down out of the mountains and trade for fat satchels of gold and hundred dollar bills. Dirk had no real feelings about the good or bad of this and he found that was the best way to deal with shit he couldn’t change. His team was tasked with maintaining cordial relations with the various tough guys and that required a goodly amount of driving to the compounds of local poobahs for tea and flat bread. Unsurprisingly quite a few of these folks played fast and loose with restrictions on booze and drugs and occasionally these soirees got very interesting.
Today they were headed to the eyrie of Dirk’s personal favorite Akhnard ben Akhnard. It wasn’t AK that he favored, it was his chef de securite’ a reprobate Frenchman who called himself Jean Valjean. He was a former Legionaire and having survived some serious nastiness he was now quite a hedonist. Dirk was Sr. Weapons on his team so Valjean was his counterpart and he was expected to befriend him and build rapport, which was not something he considered a chore. Valjean had every form of pleasure dome-like entertainment available and an overnight there was a welcome reward for all his time spent looking at broken rocks. The best part was the always changing melange of the world’s most gorgeous women, who he knew were waiting, to say nothing of the top shelf booze and the chance to “chase the dragon”.
Akhnard was the bigger of the local poobahs and there was a huge amount of loot in play regarding the cultivation, processing and sale of the opium he controlled. As his enforcer Valjean enjoyed considerable power and discretion, consequently when hanging out with him Dirk was privy to much of the inner workings as Valjean has accepted him as a kindred soul. He often vented or bragged about the machinations of all with stakes in the potent flowers blooming in the meadows. Even though the official policy was to condemn the poppy trade, actual policy involved exactly what was happening here, watchingand befriending the drug warlords. This was the only way to have peaceful elections and so the deals with these men were struck, and now Dirk was trying to figure out what part he played in this whole charade.
“Hey Jean” he asked “How much longer do you think Washington is going to let you fuckers keep doing this shit?”
Jean smiled and told him “Poppies have grown here for thousands of years and somehow your little man from Texas will change the natural order? If your cowboy is so powerful why does he send 10 of you to pretend to control tens of thousands who have repelled every attempted occupation? No Dirk you will stay until you cause more trouble than they wish and then” the classic Gallic shrug.
Dirk couldn’t stomach the idea that his two+ years on the ground in this shithole were going to add up to nothing more than a divorce and a growing taste for the commodity causing the whole uproar in the first place. “So are you ever gonna’ cash out and head somewhere civilized?” Dirk inquired. Jean grinned more widely and spun around in a circle that encompassed the finest accoutrements of the modern world “I have all the trappings of civilization without those cursed sheep cluttering it up, no my friend I will die here fucking the finest women God or Allah has created, old and never sated.”
Dirk didn’t have anywhere near that rosy a worldview, matter of fact as far as he was concerned his life was fucked up like polio. His treacherous evil, whore of an ex-wife actually managed to turn the act of adultery into a money maker as he now had to pay the bloodless cunt alimony. For fuck’s sake, he thought, I’m paying for someone else’s pussy. How the fuck does that work? And now he had no house, no bitch wife, no real fuckin’ reason to care and that’s what made the dragon so good. The dragon just let him float away and all this bullshit rolled off him like water off a duck’s butt.
He went over to the side bar and opened up a wooden chest to reveal a dazzling array of opium smoking devices. He grabbed a simple brass pipe and then fished out a wax paper ball which when opened revealed a big, black ball of the magic. Dirk cut a little chunk off and stuck it in the pipe then he fixed a glass of Kentucky bourbon before flopping on the big couch by the window. He loved to feel the firstvapors of dragon’s breath curl through his whole existence while looking out at some of the most forbidding terrain on earth. It let him understand why Jean wanted to stay, but he still had to figure out how to unfuck his own world.
He hit the pipe and that wonderful rush that is so fleeting caught him up and swept him off like a bliss zephyr. Why can’t the fucking real world feel like this he wondered? If God made the world suck, but also made it feel this good, then what the fuck was he thinking? He took another hit and just let it flow because you could never make sense of that shit anyhow. He flew like a raptor lazily sweeping across the meadows of poppies and in his eagle’s perspective all he could see was gold. All that gold just lying there and he was fiddle fucking around pretending America wasn’t just letting it happen. Enough of this shit he thought, why can’t I have something worthwhile? Why don’t I deserve some reward beyond the chance to grind my body and soul down to dust?
“You got your own million dollars Jean?” Dirk queried. “I mean I know you said you are staying in Shangri-La, but you know this shit could all blow up and I know you have a go to Hell plan.”
Jean sharpened his eyes but laughed heartily, “Oh Ho, a million dollars, I think all Americans are fixated on this. I must be a millionaire. Why can’t you take the good life and not go so overboard? It is the ruin of more than the salvation. C’mon I think a blow job is in order, yes?”
Dirk couldn’t argue with that so the ladies were summoned. They were both new to him and while one was the classic bubble-headed California bleach blonde favored by Jean the other was so much more his flavor. Bright green eyes and a cafe au lait complexion carried on a full, curvy body left him thinking about a dusky goddess, and then he tried to remember the Doors lyric, which was made tougher as she swayed across the room with a wicked side to side, oh yeah “pluck that dusky jewel” yeah that sounds good.”C’mere baby” he beckoned and she draped herself across him. “What language do you speak?” “I speak English” she offered. He asked “Colombian?” She smiled and said yes. He offered her the pipe and she took a lungful, exhaled and looked him dead in the eyes ” I think you are a special man, so tonight I take care of you. You just lay back and feel good. I am Esmerelda and I was born to make a man reach his full potency, I will make the boolsheet go away.”
Throatslitter was obviously not his real name, but the nickname TS stuck after Dirk had seen enough videos of terrorist rat fuckers cutting the heads off innocent victims. “I swear to God if we capture more than one of the fuckers I’m slitting the throat of one of them, period. I simply just do not give a fuck what the Geneva God Damn Convention has to say. These cocksuckers need to know we ain’t playin’.” This was greeted with the usual derision any heart felt sentiment received in a Special Forces team room”Yeah you go get ‘em Throatslitter, yehaaw dirka dirka muhammad jihad”.
The poppies would be ready for milking in about three weeks and Dirk was trying to figure out how he could turn this whole goat rope into gold for him. Obviously he had to step somewhere in the process but he wasn’t sure where, he couldn’t sell the shit because he was the only opium smoker he knew. He figured he had to move a chunk of it and get rid of it in bulk, but to where and sell to who? Fuck he couldn’t even come up with a good way to break the law and make money, this was bullshit.
“Jean will you play straight with me?” he asked.
“Why do I already know where this is going?” Jean replied.
“What are you fuckin’ talking about?” Dirk asked.
“Your million dollars my friend, that is what you ask me, where is my million dollars Jean? How can I get my million dollars? Oh Dirk you know I have come to love you as a comrade, but you are such a goddamn American. You must have it all and all at once. Please tell me you will stop now and quit dreaming of drugs and million dollars. It is a step off a cliff my friend, you don’t need that.” Jean informed.
“Dude I don’t know what you see, but from inside here my world looks like six miles of squashed dogshit. I got nothing, no wife, no house, no money what the fuck do you figure I should be so fuckin’ copacetic about?” Dirk wanted to know.
“All the complaints you have are the biggest problems of the married man, a wife to constantly complain about him, a house to give her chores for you to perform, and money for her to waste on vanities. You are free yet you complain about your lack of shackles, please I beg of you my friend reconsider, you are a member of the most elite force on earth you will do more than this trifle.” Jean said.
“Yeah maybe I can do a tour in Iraq after this, Woo Hoo!” Dirk lamented. ” Fuck this shit man, just fuck it.”
Mid next morning Dirk crawled over Esmerelda and threw on a robe before heading downstairs for some chow. Since Valjean hired and fired all the staff Akhnard had a French-Moroccan chef and the food rivaled the drugs and pussy for quality. “How ’bout an Omelette du fromage avec cous cous Ibrahim?” He asked the chef. “My pleasure monsieur” was the reply and Dirk ran off a cup of the wicked strong brew they served cutting it liberally with cream and sugar. He sat at a big table in front of another window and the magnificence of the vista stunned him as always, the mountains were the most savagely natural thing he had ever laid eyes on. His head was pounding from the opium and bourbon, but he had work to do today so the dragon had to stay in the cave, but a little hash would make his head feel much better. He opened a drawer and pulled out a box which opened to reveal a pipe and a ball of black hash, he pinched a piece off and was soon contentedly exhaling a swell of murky smoke that immediately changed his owwww to ahhhh. Ibrahim dropped off a plate with his breakfast and he was spearing his first mouthful when Akhnard and his Operations Chief Mustafa walked in.
“Mr. Dirk, we are always happy when my favorite American comes to visit, has my hospitality met your approval?” Akhnard smoothly inquired. He was an Oxford educated sociopath and Dirk always felt a quick chill whenever AK scrutinized him.
“Pasha my visits to your paradise are the highlights of my time here in Afghanistan” Dirk drolled “I only wish there were more issues requiring my presence here”.
“Ha, I do love talking with you Mr. Dirk. You always sound like a young Richard Burton off on a swashbuckling adventure, you do my old heart good. What are you and Valjean up to today?” AK asked.
“We are heading up the pass to take a look at whether we need some kind of surveillance on the trail to Tajikistan. Too many bad guys traveling up and down it so we gotta’ put people or a device up there.” Dirk
answered.
“Yes, that is an avenue we cannot permit the Russian jihadis access to, I would favor a solar device as I would not want to add another manned outpost, but I defer to you and Jean if men must sit on the rocks”
Akhnard informed.
As he and Mustafa entered the meeting room adjoining, Akhnard closed the door and said
“That one has been showing some healthy greed according to Valjean, asking about how he can supplement his retirement, Jean said he covets the usual million dollars.”
Mustafa snorted and wondered “Why do you place such a premium on owning one of these westerners? We don’t need their help and they poke their noses already in too many places it were better off they ignored.”
“I know you have no use for the Americans but you underestimate their usefullness as tools. They are the only people who can stop us from taking our product to market, if we own one of them he can tell us what they plot. Let your prejudices rest my brother I have no love for the infidels but what Allah provides we must use, no?” Akhnard said.
Akhnard knew from where he spoke because he already owned one other American, a mid-level functionary at the US Embassy who worked in the counter-narcotics division. Americans are so funny< about their sexual perversions Akhnard thought. The poor soul at the Embassy found himself on the team for something as simple as buggering a twelve year old boy, in a country where that is not particularly uncommon. But the pictures proved overwhelming when shown to him and he has been quite useful in knowing the strategy and tactics the Americans would use regarding his and his competitor's operations. That reminded him that with harvest and processing looming it was time to meet with young Mr. Cruise and see what the future holds.
Mustafa's phone rang and after a quick conversation he told Akhnard "I will go to Bagram, the chemists have completed their work and I will pay them and bring the reserve back here."
"Is this the new Black?" Akhnard inquired.
"Yes" was the terse reply.
"Excellent" Akhnard opined "The price goes up by half and it costs us less to process, even you must love it now that the Russians too have caught the silliness of the westerners eh Mustafa?"
"I love them to death, you know that my brother" Mustafa answered "
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
An unsurprising alliance is formed
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The Americans join the game
Chapter 7
Hellfire & Damnation
