“It’s good news for the country overall, but it needs a deeper dive for our purposes.”
“I’m all attention, Reed.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been following this, but over the last eighteen months, fentanyl and related deaths have plummeted in this country. And over the last six months or so the decline has really accelerated.”
“Thatisgood news. Do you know why?”
“Lots of reasons. Some really depressing, like so many have died there aren’t that many users left. But on the positive side treatments have helped, as have counseling and public awareness campaigns. Making Narcan free and widely available has also been a real boost. Lots of people who would be dead aren’t.”
“That is really great to hear.”
“And young people, thank God, aren’t using drugs like older generations did. And those that do are doing it smarter. Smoking instead of injecting, for example, and not using it alone so there’s someone to bring them back from the dead if they OD. Related to this development, China has started to be the supplier for cursors and precursors as opposed to the finished fentanyl. We believe China has begun exporting the raw materials to the Steers organization, probably to evade detection and to also allow themselves plausible deniability. Smoke-and-mirror sort of things.”
“But when they put all the stuff together you still get a drug that can kill people.”
“The other reason, which has been borne out by testing of seized shipments of pills, is that the use of pure fentanyl in pills coming into this country has fallen through the floor.”
“What are they using instead? I mean, don’t they need some drug like fentanyl to make the product work and give addicted people the jolt their brain tells them they need?”
“They do. And what we’ve been finding lately is the presence of animal tranquilizers like Xylazine and Medetomidine. Now, they are toxic to humans but they are also not as immediately lethal as fentanyl. Still gives the user the pop they want, but the risks of death are less. And law enforcement in this country has been putting the squeeze on Mexico and China to get fentanyl out of the illegal drug supply chain, with mixed results. It’s still there, but not as much as before. Now we’re seeing more complicated street cocktails with less fentanyl. The Mexican cartels still churn out meth and cocaine and make a lot of money off that, but they don’t give you the pop that the synthetics do. But the synthetics are ever evolving. When we think we have a handle on what’s out there, they throw new, more powerful ones into the mix. It’s like Whac-A-Mole, only with deadly results.”
“So fatalities are going down. But you said the Chinese controlled that market and they want to use it to destroy this country from the inside out. That’s why you recruited me.”
“That hasn’t changed, according to our sources, even with the law enforcement squeeze I talked about.”
“Well, stop beating around the bush. If China still wants lots of dead Americans, but the drugs aren’t as deadly, then something has changed. What?”
“Apparently, Victoria Steers has. Over the last fourteen months or so drug trafficking that we suspect is tied to her operation has heavily invested in labs in Mexico and Central America, as opposed to ones in China and Southeast Asia. That’s where we are seeing the less lethal synthetic opioids and animal tranquilizers being used to make the pills. It could be that she is addressing the cartel’s concerns of killing their own clients or it could be something more. Do you know anything about that?”
Nash thought he might. “Around that time she left Hong Kong for an extended period. I mean, well over a month. When I asked one of her protection detail where they had been he wouldn’t tell me, but later I saw one of them had a box of Padrón cigars.”
“From Nicaragua, right. And one of her jets landed in Guadalajara and Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, and León and Managua in Nicaragua around that time.”
“But clearly the Chinese don’t want less lethal drugs out there. So what’s going on?”
“We believe Steers has gone rogue and the Chinese are not happy about it.”
“Was that why the attempt was made on her life?” speculated Nash.
“Could very well be. The Chinese have been working hand in glove with the Steers org for a long time. Well before Victoria took over.”
“Well, considering her mother was a Chinese spy, that makes sense.”
“But why the change with Steers now? Any ideas, Walter?”
Nash thought about some things that alone didn’t mean much, but together might mean a lot. “Let me dig into that before I give you an answer.”
“Fair enough. Now, you emailed me about the box with your daughter’s things?”
“Yes, including a ring we gave Maggie for her high school graduation.”
“But why would she keep that stuff? I mean, it’s evidence!”
Nash had given that a lot of thought too and had never arrived at a good answer. “I’ve been with Steers for long enough to discover that she is. . .a complicated person, Reed. Far more complex than I initially thought. Like I told you before, I believed she had shot someone right in front of me, but turned out it was a setup to fool me.”
“Right, Lynn Ryder. You messaged me about that before.”
“But she sells drugs around the world, and I know peoplehavedied on her watch, including three people who worked at companies I acquired while I was at Sybaritic.”