Success, Opulence and Power by Hebru Young (the unexpected everything .txt) 📕

to have stuck. This is really good. It means that we can focus on the other charges,” Joe said.

“What’s next on the agenda, Joe?” I asked.

“The firearms charge. I am a bit worried about this one. I have a feeling that an undercover enforcer might be involved,” said Joe.

“You think?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Joe replied.

“Let’s have a look at that photo again,” I said.

Joe passed the photo to me.

“It was a new shipment of assault rifles, and I wanted to see the merchandise for myself, that’s how they ended up getting me in the shot. Wait, the angle of this photo… I know who did this. Alex, the driver from that day, the guy that was going to drive the guns across state. The angle in this picture could only have been taken from where he was standing, he must have been wearing a body micro-camera of some sort. The camera must have been offline, and if it was that would explain why our signal sniffer didn’t pick it up. How long had he been with us? Is he even still around?” I asked.

“I’ll make a call, leave that with me,” Alex said.

“In the meantime, the evidence is already out there. What can we do about it, Joe?” I asked.

“At the end of the day, it’s only a picture. Look at the expression on your face and the pointing gesture, it doesn’t appear that you were happy with what you were looking at. We can put a spin on it. The story would be that during routine quality inspection, you were expecting to see a particular product in Edom Group’s armoury line, only to discover the illegal firearms instead. You instructed the driver to notify the NLEU and turn in the weapons to them. We’ll also claim you initiated an internal investigation to find whoever was responsible and hand them over to authorities.” Joe said.

“You think that will work?” I asked.

“There is a good chance that it will. I mean, it is standard practice for company presidents to sometimes inspect their inventory.” Joe replied.

“Could you please quantify this ‘good chance’ you are suggesting?” I asked.

“I’d say an eighty-five percent chance of beating the charge. It’s down to me to convince the jury.” Joe replied.

“I guess that’s not too bad, all things considered,” I said.

“I just got off comms with our guys. The driver vanished a while ago.” said Alex.

“And no one thought to raise this? We should be better than this. We’ve always been careful with the people we employ. How did we not know this guy was an undercover enforcer—Chris, Alex?” I asked.

“We run all the necessary checks before taking people on. The enforcers can be resourceful, they can create profiles for their undercovers, similar to how we cultivate identities. I’m sure when we ran all the checks, the driver’s profile passed.” Alex replied.

“Fair enough. Spread copies of the guys picture around, I want him dead. If he’s not around to testify, we’ll have an even better chance to beat the case,” I said.

It felt great to find out the narcotics charge would eventually be dropped. The firearms charge was still a problem—a major one. The guns in question were Russian engineered submachine guns and long-range assault rifles. This kind of weaponry was only available to the Russian army. There was no weapons trade agreement between Russia and the UNEA; there was no agreement with Ukraine either. This provided an opportunity for us, and we were able to broker a deal with the Russians that allowed us to buy their weapons at a price that still hit a reasonable profit margin. We had been smuggling Russian weapons into the Nations for years without a single incident—until this fiasco.

This was one of sixty or seventy shipments since we brokered the deal. I was present on the day of delivery, because I wanted to check out the new upgrade to the weapons. The new weapons were equipped with improved trigger stability, upgraded laser-tracking and a new target-lock system. There was also the holo-display which indicated the number of rounds contained in a magazine at any given time. Other upgrades included a heat warning indicator, an oil level indicator, a cooling system, and a faster and more accurate fingerprint reader. Synthetic oil would be periodically dispersed from an attached cartridge, allowing the oil to be distributed to chambers within the weapon, reducing jams by ninety-nine percent. Another cartridge contained a bio-gel that when heated by gunfire would convert into a cooling fluid dispersed throughout the weapon. The display that showed the bullet count also displayed the heat, gel, and oil levels. Weapons had evolved over the years.

These Russian weapons had become a problem in the streets across the Nations and were prevalent in drug-related gang wars. It had become a major issue for law enforcement because a few enforcers had died of gunshot wounds from these very weapons. The main reason why the Nations never had a weapons deal with Russia was down to the fact that the UNEA manufactured its own weapons. The Nations manufacturers did not want the competition. They had travel agreements and other charters in place, but Russia and the Nations weren’t allies.

We had been discussing the case for a while and I was starting to get a bit hungry and needed a break.

“Okay, I am famished. Anyone else hungry? I think we should order something for delivery from the Big Fish, but I’m easy, I don’t mind if we order from somewhere else,” I said.

“Hey, how about Sergio’s? I’m in the mood for spaghetti and meatballs.” Alex said.

“Ha-ha! Of course you are, Alex, some things never change.” I replied.

“Hey, I’m no good to anyone when I don’t eat. It slows me down, you know.” Alex said.

“Ha-ha. Okay, Sergio’s it is,” I said.

We decided to take a break and continue