Magnolia Operation

By Alvin Ibarra

In the war against drug trafficking, the Nordic front has just opened.

Cocaine trafficking is a high-stakes form of hybrid warfare responsible for the death and suffering of countless innocent victims. After decades of no end in sight, what could turn out to be the war's final offensive begins in the most unlikely of places – just outside the Arctic circle. From the frozen Nordic steppes hails a new soldier and a new weapon, and together, they may destroy thecocaine trade for good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Caligrama
• Release date: Dec 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9788418500985

Alvin Ibarra

Alvin Ibarra es un científico con amplia experiencia en extractos botánicos. En su novela La Operación de las Magnolias, Alvin fuerza conceptos veraces para crear una ficción donde se atisba el fin de la cocaína como una posibilidad real. Alvin hace uso de sus años viviendo en Latinoamérica, Estados Unidos y Europa, así como de sus interminables viajes en otros países, para enmarcar la vida de los personajes de sus novelas en un mundo globalizado. La Operación de las Magnolias le permite a Alvin hacer lo que le es negado en sus artículos científicos: ser provocador con una hipótesis sin necesidad de probarla. Además, se entretiene creando protagonistas imaginarios, cuyas personalidades ha rescatado del cajón de sastre que esta vida le ha ofrecido.

Book preview

1

Santa Cruz de la Sierra had become a bunker, but in the eyes of the locals, nothing was different. The meetings were held in secret in more than a dozen houses and hotels where armed men guarded the surroundings in disguise.

Times had changed; long gone were the years when meetings could be held openly in Medellín or even Miami. But deep down, the trade that separated producers and buyers remained. It was not just the commercial aspect that divided them, but above all, the forms. The producers, even the third generation, maintained the stately countenances that had always characterized them, backed by the names of their families. The buyers, on the other hand, belonged to a volatile elite forged by force. They were always young, very lively, and of diverse backgrounds, although most were Latinos and Americans. However, there were also Serbs, Ukrainians, and even Koreans. Everyone knew that the life of the buyers was not long; most ended up dead or in prisons before their thirties, although the exceptional, those really smart and fearless, sometimes even passed their forties. The latter were those who were in the conference; there, only true leaders attended.

The tension could be felt in the air; not only because of the negotiations but because of the risk of being attacked suddenly. It had happened to them before, when the Americans infiltrated Colombia and stormed one of the hotels. That time, El Puma did not hesitate to kill his bodyguards at point-blank range before leaving Cali to be sure that his presence had not been compromised. It was then that the barons chose Mañuco, a trusted secretary whose own baron was hunted by the Americans, to organize the events. Ever since, the protocol had remained unchanged; Mañuco planned the conferences with his team in strict secrecy and communicated the locations to the barons only a few days in advance. Mañuco’s wife and three children were then deposited as collateral with one of the producers. A similar system was followed in the cities where the conferences were held; families of secretaries were held hostage in secret facilities to secure the meetings. Otherwise, each baron was responsible for maintaining the loyalty of their own team in their own way.

That afternoon the tropical sun warmed the west, and El Puma was in a good mood because he was going to meet Tutuy, the extravagant Colombian with whom he had an almost amicable relationship. El Puma still remembered the lack of trust Tutuy had inspired in him the first time they met. He had even thought seriously about eliminating him, but other capos who knew Tutuy better convinced El Puma that he was genuinely crazy. Tutuy controlled a piece of Colombia’s hard-to-reach northern coast, but what made him popular was his imagination, especially when it came to transporting the drug. He spent his days thinking in an almost obsessive way how he could slip through U.S. controls. It was Tutuy who designed the first submarines used for trafficking with the help of Russian engineers, passing nearly forty tons of product in the first three months alone. That, along with the joviality that characterized him, earned everyone’s affection.

Upon entering the room with his men, Tutuy went to hug El Puma. Instantly, José, El Puma’s ever-present right hand, inadvertently gripped his revolver, despite being aware that there was no danger there. Tutuy tossed an American newspaper on the table with the front page facing El Puma.

"Maestro, have you seen my latest mischief?" he asked.

El Puma already knew the story; it was the talk of the conference. Tutuy had managed to take over a shipyard in the Panama Canal, where he built hollow propellers to transport cocaine to the two U.S. shores. When the plot was uncovered, shipyards fell on both shores, as well as several ship captains. Although it went unspoken, everyone knew that only one person could be behind it: Tutuy.

It was almost impossible to stay serious when Tutuy was around. El Puma took the opportunity to invite him to his estate, and the two bosses continued chatting until the volume of their voices began to drop, at which point it was understood that the time had come to discuss business. With a gesture, the bodyguards were instructed to leave the room. Only the bosses were left, with their respective secretaries hovering closely by as protection, in the way that tradition dictated. It would be because of the intimate conversation that followed that in the days to come, product changed country by the ton, fortunes passed from hand to hand, and countless lives were lost or broken beyond repair.

2

The passengers shuddered when the captain announced that the temperature in Helsinki was twenty degrees below zero. The clouds disappeared on the horizon, revealing the snowy forest steppes that dotted and lined the vast frozen archipelago. Then, abruptly, the airplane began rolling over the silver mirror that the runway had become.

Soon after, apprehension took hold of Daniel as he drove away from the airport. He clutched at the steering wheel as his vehicle skidded slightly on the snowy road and comforted himself with the thought that the other drivers must be experiencing the same. Traffic lessened as he drove farther from the city and disappeared almost completely when he left the northern town of Tampere behind. From there, he continued to Ikaalinen, finally stopping at the edge of one of the wide lakes the country is so well-known for.

Despite the fact that the clock showed only six in the afternoon, the few hours of sunlight in the Nordic winter had been left behind. The lights of the car were all that illuminated the invisible line separating the dirt road from the immense mass of frozen water adjacent to it. According to Marja, this was the safest route in winter, so after checking the navigator to confirm that the coordinates were correct, Daniel stepped on the accelerator decisively. To his surprise, he felt no difference driving over the giant sheet of ice, but found it impossible to suppress the sense of helplessness that arose out of the thought that only months before, boats had floated on the same spot where his wheels now turned. Endless minutes seemed to pass in the middle of that white desert before he saw the cabin. It was not until Marja opened the door and welcomed him inside that the anxiety of the trip began to disappear.

Welcome, Daniel! I see you’ve learned to drive in winter, Marja said, offering a friendly hug as she spoke.

Daniel returned the hug, consciously holding back the kisses to her cheek that he was used to giving in the customary Mediterranean style. They wasted no time moving to the cabin’s hearth, where they warmed themselves in front of a blazing fire.

Daniel politely waited for Marja to speak first.

How is Anna? she finally asked.

Better. I went to visit her at Christmas. She’s signed up for some workshops, and that keeps her busy. Also, since her Spanish has improved a lot, she can communicate better with more people. She asks me not to talk about the outside world, though, and she wouldn’t take the magazines you sent.

As he spoke, Daniel could see the fire reflected in the tears that formed in Marja’s blue eyes. At that moment, he would have killed to see her smile.

The defense appeal is ready. We’re confident that the mistakes the prosecutors made will lead the sentence to be reviewed and hopefully make it shorter, he said in the hope of encouraging her.

Thank you so much for everything you are doing, she replied with a sigh.

Trying to comfort her, Daniel touched Marja’s hand, but she quickly moved it away. They ate in silence, until she, returning from the contemplative state into which she had fallen, felt it was time for rest.

Let’s go to sleep, she suggested. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow.

The room provided to Daniel was tiny. In it, there was only an old wooden bed flanked by a bedside table. As he laid down and tried to warm the blankets with his body, a wave of nostalgia transported him to the stone house in the Andes where he had lived as a child, and where he had shared a bed with his brother Arturo as they tried to resist the cold. The memory seemed to paralyze him, and in an attempt to escape it, he concentrated on the faint snowfall visible through the room’s only window. He had never imagined that this absurd war would take him so far away from home.

The next morning, after breakfast, they crossed the forest that separated the cabin from the greenhouse. Finding the snow difficult to walk on, Daniel promised himself that he would buy suitable clothes if he ever returned. The coat he had on did nothing to insulate him at such low temperatures. Before leaving the cabin, Marja had offered Daniel a pair of women’s stockings to protect himself from the cold, which he had rejected out of pride. Now, he regretted not accepting them.

A few meters from the greenhouse they began to hear the faint hammering of the heat pump they had installed together during the prior summer. Upon entering the shed, Daniel could see the pile of fertilizer that Marja brought, and next to it, the small sled she had used to haul it through the forest. Both took off their coats before crossing the few meters that separated the shed’s door from the entrance to the glass greenhouse. Inside, the climate was tropical.

The greenhouse was divided into four plastic compartments, one for each strain, which were all nearly identical in appearance. Daniel could not help but feel a sense of nervous excitement rise inside of him as he looked, aware that at least one, or perhaps all, could end the war.

Pierre helped me sow them. He stayed here all week until he was sure they would survive. He also left me a copy of instructions for the growing process, Marja explained.

He should not have come. It was an unnecessary risk. I told him I would transport the plants from his lab, Daniel replied, annoyed.

It was his idea, and I wanted to meet him, Marja said, undeterred.

Daniel did not know what to think. Such a delicate task should never have been undertaken without at least consulting him.

How did you introduce the plants to Finland? he asked.

Pierre sent the boxes to a friend of his at the University of Helsinki – who knows nothing about botany – and from there we brought them in my car.

Marja was surprised that Daniel had not asked already. Only then did she realize how worried he was about Pierre’s involvement.

The rest of the day was spent reviewing Pierre’s instructions and preparing soil mixtures with fertilizers for the upcoming stages of cultivation. The greenhouse was perfectly organized by the time they finished. Marja checked the automatic controls, which she used to monitor the greenhouse remotely. She only came to see the crops on weekends, and was not worried about neighbors, since there were none for miles around. All the cabins and cottages nearest the greenhouse were abandoned during winter months.

Before leaving, Daniel took a moment to stare at the plants. They were still small, and each group was labeled: Magnolia I, Magnolia II, Magnolia III, and Magnolia IV. The labels were a personal touch, but they brought no peace of mind; if police ever found the greenhouse, they would bring a botanist to determine what kind of plants these were and it would only be a matter of seconds before the expert reported that in the middle of the Finnish steppes, at twenty degrees below zero, someone was growing coca.

3

Two years ago, the debt collector had been tortured for over an hour in that desolate place in the mountains of Lima, but El Negro, head of the Clan González, had not yet decided whether to kill him.

Swear to God, it was not me who took your money. You can keep my apartment, my car, whatever you want, but do not kill me. I’ll do whatever you ask! said Cholo Tuto, begging for clemency.

The collector was only in his twenties. El Negro had seen many men like him get rich in a short time. He knew the kind of person in front of him; a man able to do whatever it took to get out of trouble. The question El Negro had was not whether the collector had stolen – something he was already sure of – but whether the thief could still be useful if kept alive.

The business was simple: for every customer there was a distributor and a collector. The merchandise and money were never mixed, and that consistency helped guarantee the success of every transaction. Both the distributor and the collector were essential, and it was increasingly hard to find reliable people to fill those roles when the cocaine started to weigh in pounds. The high risk of the job required daring personalities to perform it, which also represented a liability. In the grip of untethered ambition, these daring personalities became attack vectors for the larger organization. When this happened, it was necessary to cut them out immediately, before money, product, or worst of all, respect, went missing.

For a moment, he thought about what El Puma would have done. El Negro, who knew himself to be a brute, had grown up in the shadow of El Puma, who more than once had berated him about the former’s lack of finesse. He would always remember what El Puma told him that time he started a war in the streets of Lima against a partner who had betrayed him:

There’s an old saying, González: if you are flexible, you will bend, but if you are too stiff, you will break.

And break he did. The war resulted in prison for many of El Negro’s men, and the death of a brother-in-law. In the end, the money, freedom, and life lost served no purpose; when things got complicated in this way, producers like El Puma had no choice but to sell cocaine to both gangs and try to take merchandise directly to other countries, opening the door to even more competitors in other cities.

Back in the mountains, El Negro looked at the collector with contempt. He seemed little more than a child but had already served multiple prison sentences. Finally, he told himself that the thief was not worth keeping alive, and with a nonchalant gesture, instructed one of his men to dispatch him.

Coming from behind, the sicario slid his knife across the collector’s throat, then, almost euphorically, stabbed his victim repeatedly. Even El Negro, who had witnessed many such executions, was surprised by the sudden brutality.

As they returned to the city, El Negro’s thoughts went back to El Puma, and convinced himself that with certainty, his former mentor would have made the same decision.

4

On Wednesday morning, Daniel left his apartment in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona to head to his office in the industrial area of Prat. He checked his voicemail while driving, discovering one from Efraín.

«Are you in town? I arrived yesterday from La Paz. Call me to meet!»

Efraín, a left-leaning political activist, was friendly and outgoing, but his relationship with Daniel had been complicated from the start. On meeting the Peruvian, he had assumed that they could discuss and bond over issues of development in Latin America. That was until he learned that Daniel was an executive working for a multinational pharmaceutical company, which in Efraín’s opinion was synonymous with acting as a representative of neoliberalism and doing business at the cost of the environment. Despite their political differences, over time, they became exceptionally good friends. In fact, Efraín was one of the few who knew how Arturo died.

Daniel decided he would call him that afternoon, and then began mentally reviewing his last conversation with Marja. The most important matter they talked about was the defense appeal of Anna, Marja’s younger sister, sentenced to fifteen years in a Lima prison for drug trafficking. According to the lawyer, Daniel had explained, there was a chance that the sentence could be reduced to ten years. They then had discussed the most dangerous stage of the operation: introducing the new strains into the coca growing regions. The next step was to figure out how it could be accomplished. Daniel had mentioned that Efraín, whom Marja had not met, could help them, although he was not sure how involved Efraín would be willing to get.

The last image that came to his mind was that of Marja saying goodbye. With one hand she had pushed the scarf away from her mouth so that Daniel could see her smiling, while waving the other in a sign of farewell. The blizzard ruffled her golden hair in the light of the car’s headlights. Even covered in the winter coat, Daniel found her strikingly beautiful. That image accompanied him all the way back to the airport, throughout the last few days of his travels, all the way up to this very morning. He would have liked to keep imagining it still, but knew that the high stakes of the operation warranted his complete focus. The war was killing everything, he thought as he parked his car.

5

That night, to Daniel’s surprise, Efraín arrived at the apartment punctually.

Wow! It seems that capitalism treats you nicely, Efraín said as he gave his friend a hug. You’re always in a suit these days. How are you doing? Have you been traveling a lot?

Daniel took off his jacket and immediately set out to uncork a bottle of wine.

On Monday I was at our headquarters in Paris, and on Tuesday I had a couple of meetings in Brussels. Arrived last night, but today I had to be at the office early. You know, the usual, Daniel replied, without mentioning his flight to Helsinki.

One of these days that kind of schedule is going to take its toll, Efraín warned him seriously, well aware of his friend’s stressful rhythm of life.

Daniel ignored him as he poured wine for both of them.

Briefly, they discussed Efraín’s last trip to Bolivia, where he would return in a couple of weeks to continue his non-profit work. Then, the younger man was no longer able to control his curiosity.

I have to say, your call this afternoon has me pretty intrigued. And I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that we’re sitting here, when there are plenty of bars around.

Daniel hesitated for a moment. Once he told Efraín about the operation, there would be no going back.

I wanted to stay here so that I can speak with peace of mind about a very delicate subject. It’s something you may be able to help me with. But before I explain it, I need to be sure that if you decide not to get involved, you’ll be willing to forget we had this conversation.

You’re not kidding, are you? Efraín asked, surprised.

No.

Efraín drank a sip of wine.

So, if anyone were to find out what we’re going to talk about tonight, could we end up in jail or in the morgue?

Yes.

You sure don’t know how to start a subject delicately. I have no idea how you manage in the business world, Efraín said sarcastically, trying to inject a tiny dose of humor into the suddenly tense