Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,62

zone. And by having crops at different stages of maturity, Hagar has a steady supply of fresh cannabis.’

Warren nodded. ‘Eli’s lost a lot of regular custom, because Hagar’s shit is better quality. And now we know why.’

Fay went down her backpack. She pulled out two rolls of extra-strong bin liners and hurled the first one at Ning.

‘Look for product,’ Fay said, as Warren caught the second roll of bags. ‘Drying leaves, mature plants and seed, in that order of importance.’

‘What’s wrong with smaller plants?’ Warren asked.

‘They’re worthless. They’re not potent enough to smoke until they come into flower and they’ll die before anyone gets a chance to replant them.’

‘What are you doing?’ Ning asked, as Fay grabbed a bar stool.

Fay smiled. ‘All these pumps and computers must have cost Hagar a fortune. If I smash it all up, the younger plants will die and he’ll have to start growing again from scratch.’

The humid air and lush green plants had a serene air. Ning didn’t feel like she was in the middle of a robbery as she moved through a couple of growing areas filled with young plants. The networks of tubes and troughs gave a soothing vibe of trickling water, disturbed occasionally by the whirr of an electric pump.

The third room Ning entered was full of larger plants and all the lights were out. She didn’t have a torch, so she used her mobile screen for illumination. Ning realised she’d reached the back of the building, so she cut left through a rubber-sealed door that made a strange sucking sound as she opened it.

The light and heat in this room were less intense. Instead of high humidity, the air seemed to suck all moisture out of Ning’s lungs and the plant aroma was so strong that it stuck to her mouth and throat.

Instead of plant beds, there were deep wooden cabinets fitted with mesh-bottomed drawers. Each drawer was layered with a couple of centimetres of marijuana leaves, ranging from just picked green, to much drier leaves that crumbled when you touched them.

Ning was no expert, but she decided it would be best not to mix up leaves in different stages of the drying process. It seemed the gardeners used bin bags too, because Ning was able to stretch the mouth of a black bag over a wire frame screwed to the wall. She then began pulling out the lightweight drawers and tipping the contents inside.

Within a few minutes she had a pile of empty drawers up to her shoulder and a black bag filled with some of the driest leaves. She squeezed out as much air as possible, knotted the bag, then reached inside her crash helmet and double-tapped her ear to open up her com system.

Ning had used the com on all of her missions, but she still found it creepy having a mission controller’s voice seeming to come from inside her own head.

‘You OK?’ James asked.

‘All going smoothly,’ Ning whispered. ‘Just thought you’d want an update.’

‘Excellent,’ James said. ‘I’m two minutes away if you need me.’

Ning was about to say goodbye when the rubber seal on the door made a ripping sound. She glanced back and was relieved to see that it was only Fay.

‘You found the drying room,’ Fay said happily. ‘Warren’s got two rooms full of flowering plants to harvest. The only downer is, there’s no sign of any finished product.’

‘This is gonna take a while,’ Ning said, as she waved her hand towards cabinets with well over a hundred drying drawers.

‘Chill,’ Fay said, as she looked at her watch. ‘There’s no shift change till morning.’

*

Four hours after they’d arrived, Ning grabbed a set of van keys from a hook in the CCTV room, then reversed the striped Transit van up to the bowling club’s rear fire doors. As Fay and Warren ran around inside the building, dragging bin bags stuffed with dried cannabis leaves and mature plants up to the doorway, Ning opened the van’s back doors and dragged a big bag of garden tools and half a dozen empty fertiliser drums out of the rear compartment to make space.

Ning picked up a couple of bags of dried leaves and was surprised to feel water splashing her legs as she lobbed them deep into the van.

‘How’d they get wet?’ Ning asked.

‘I slit loads of tubes, smashed up the computers and left all the pumps running,’ Fay explained. ‘It’s getting soggy in places.’

‘Just make sure you don’t stack wet bags on top of dry leaves,’ Ning