Success, Opulence and Power by Hebru Young (best novel books to read .TXT) 📗

time of day. There are a lot of things to consider when dealing with drug heads. Some of them sleep through most of the morning from being up all night. Some of them might be scoping out the motel as we speak to make sure that our setup is for real and not a sting. There is also the fact that there will be people who will not buy from us. Even though we have very good product and we’re only a stone’s throw from drug-heads that live in the area. So, patience Edwardo, patience,” Raphael said.

Soon after he said that, there was a knock on the door. It was the security guy posted outside the door. He brought in the first customer, who told Raphael he’d been told to come there if he needed anything. The guy was a crackhead and mentioned that word on the street was that he could get pure white from the motel. Edwardo had his hand behind his back, ready to pull the gun out if Raphael felt it was necessary. The security guy patted down their customer but didn’t find anything. Raphael gave Chris the nod, and he got out two twenty-dollar bags and handed them to the customer. It was done—their first sale.

The boys were now officially drug dealers, and their confidence grew. Shortly after that, customers were pouring in. People were turning up every ten minutes, buying as much as two hundred dollars of drugs in one deal. At one point, someone turned up with some jewellery and watches, wanting to trade them for cocaine. Raphael sent them away. He figured the jewellery was stolen, and if it was, then selling the jewellery for cash would cause problems.

Raphael’s contact turned up to buy the heroin. Again, the security guy patted him down to check for a wire and weapons but found nothing. The security guy also checked the bag the guy brought with him but found it only contained money. Raphael’s contact expressed his disappointment with the search, but Raphael stated that it was just business. He said that it wasn’t only his call—everyone there wanted to feel safe, and he agreed that everyone who came to the room would be searched.

Raphael nodded at Alex, who carried the brick of heroin to the table. The heroin, along with the remaining baggies of cocaine, were hidden underneath the floorboards in the bathroom and the floorboards were then covered by a bath mat. Raphael’s contact tested the drugs and saw they were high quality. He pulled out the cash and handed it to Raphael, who decided he was going to inspect and count the cash. It was $42,000—they had only sold a quarter of that amount in cocaine in the hours they had been there. Raphael knew that moving the cocaine would take longer, but he was sure they would be able to sell everything in one day. Raphael told his contact that another brick of heroin would be ready the following Saturday.

The cocaine was gone by 4:30 that afternoon, and it was time to close up shop. Raphael had been stashing the money in a plastic bag inside the mattress. He retrieved the money, and the boys watched as he counted it. They each ended up with $13,125, the most any of them had ever made for a day’s work—not even Raphael had made that amount in a single day. Eddie and the boys put their cash in their backpacks. They paid the security guys, and the boys refunded Raphael for the motel room. Eddie handed the gun back to Raphael, and they all got back into the car, heading for North Walnut Grove.

Chapter 26

The AU

Where: Dahiru’s private airfield, The African Union, Nasarawa, Nigeria

When: 1635 hours, Saturday, November 9, 2041

Currency: AU credits

The African Union comprised all the countries in Africa, excluding the Democratic Republic of Congo. All the other African countries agreed to a new treaty shortly after the UNEA formed their union. The leaders of the DRC had their own plans and didn’t want anything to do with the rest of Africa. Congo’s corrupt leaders, as well as the people close to them, had been running the country as they saw fit, stripping the land of its natural resources. They shared the spoils among themselves, while the rest of the country suffered in poverty.

The rest of Africa had seen enough corruption, poverty, hunger, and general instability, and they were ready for a change. The collective pooled its resources and generated enough revenue to pay off its loan from the World Bank just four years after forming the union. My friend Dahiru was already a successful businessman, but it was during the transition to the new union that he amassed much of the wealth he has today.

We landed at Dahiru’s airfield, and after circling the runway, we headed to his private hangar. He had four other hangars he leased to VIP friends and clients; these hangars came with the bare minimum in terms of comfort. His own hangar included a lounge with a bar and grill, bathroom, pool table, music, and so on. He had four or five people running the place twenty-four/seven. The staff at the hangar lounge was made up of three ladies and a couple of guys. Nasarawa’s population was about seventy percent Muslim, so the staff were all dressed in Islamic attire.

As we stepped out of the jet, we were greeted by a scorching heatwave. Fortunately, this had only affected me for a couple of seconds before my suit’s cooling system kicked into overdrive. All my suits were equipped with a thermal-control system that consisted of electro-thermal conductive gels and nano-fibre-optic wires. A chemical reaction was triggered whenever the gels were charged by an electrical current. The temperature emitted from the gels was based on a couple of factors: the external temperature and the combination of an integrated thermometer as well as my