Страница 2 из 90
If he survived the test, he’d be several thousand dollars richer. If not, he’d be alive just long enough to taste the blood in his throat as his lungs dissolved, like a sheet of paper thrown into a fire.
Fifty-year-old Be
His two guards, both tall, beefy, bearded men with long hair, huge beer bellies, Doc Martens ass-kicker boots, and black leather vests, could never hope to make the run, so they were already a safe distance away, smoking dope and drinking beer. Both were full-fledged Satan’s Brotherhood motorcycle gang members, wearing their “colors”-the leather vests with the Brotherhood logo and the upper rocker that read “Brotherhood” and the bottom rocker that read “Oakland” on the back, and Satan’s Brotherhood tattoos on their left arms. Most of the gang members were among the most dangerous of America’s outlaw bikers, the ones rejected or stripped of their membership in other gangs such as the Hells Angels or the Outlaw Bikers or the Brothers. They were avowed racists, even neo-Nazi; although they dealt drugs to all races and ran black, Asian, and Hispanic women in their whorehouses and strip clubs, they never associated with anyone other than other whites. There were more Satan’s Brotherhood members in the United States than Hells Angels or any other biker gang, but fewer of them in prison. The reason for this was simple: They vowed never to be taken alive by the police.
When Be
Methamphetamine, born of so many dangerous and toxic chemicals that it is impossible to believe it could ever be safely handled, is one of the nation’s fastest-growing abused drugs. By the time it has been cut with pyridoxine, or vitamin B6, available at any health-food store, its street value has jumped to ten to twelve thousand dollars a pound. Ingested-usually mixed with coffee or booze-or snorted, it produces a gradual high and a sense of heightened energy, sexual potency, and awareness that lasts anywhere from two to twelve hours, followed by a very relaxed weariness that continues for one to three days. If smoked or injected, the stimulant effect is sharper and more pronounced, producing the “rush” that gives the user a sense of enormous power, limitless energy, and a feeling of complete invulnerability. The Brotherhood and other outlaw motorcycle gangs had gotten very rich selling the drug in the western United States.
Be
Be
Be
Be
Now, more than twenty years and countless batches later, Be
He carefully checked that all of the fittings and hatches on his reactor were secure-introducing oxygen through the tiniest leak anywhere in the hydrogen gas line to the pressurized reactor tank can produce an explosion and fireball that would look like a small thermonuclear mushroom cloud. Then he checked the pressure inside the reactor. Still dropping, which meant that the chloropseudoephedrine was still accepting hydrogen. Another hour or so, and it would be done. Another few hours to wash the meth with ether, then dry it in a dryer made from a few janitor’s buckets and mop squeegees, and he’d have collected about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars’ worth of crank. His two bikers were nowhere to be seen-probably sleeping off the beer-so he stepped away from the hydrogenator toward the tree line for a smoke break.