complex. They expanded their customer base, sometimes traveling abroad; soon they were dealing with foreign governments, terrorists, revolutionaries, paramilitary organizations, religious leaders, and random wackos in places all over the world, such as Idaho.
In the marketplace of international arms sales, Ivan and Leonid developed a reputation for flexibility and customer service. Unlike their larger competitors in the arms trade, particularly the American government, Ivan and Leonid didnât put you through a lot of red tape, and they would go the extra mile to locate that hard-to-find item. For example, when a Jamaican Marxist group called the Peopleâs United Front was looking to trade a large quantity of high-grade marijuana for an attack submarine, Ivan was able to broker a complex deal involvingâin addition to the Soviet navyâthe government of Paraguay, a Chicago street gang named the Cruds, and the Church of Scientology. The deal culminated, six months later, in the delivery of a semi-reconditioned World War II-era Russian sub, the Vrmsk , which the Peopleâs United Front renamed the Mighty Sea Lion . As it turned out, the Peopleâs United Front had considerably more zeal than nautical expertise, and the Mighty Sea Lion , while attempting a dive on its first revolutionary missionâan attack outside Kingston Harbor on the new Disney-built luxury cruise ship Goofy âsank like an anvil. But this did not reflect badly on Ivan and Leonid. They were in sales, not training.
By the late 1990s, with the Russian economy melting down, Ivan and Leonid decided to move their operation abroad, and they settled on South Florida. They had visited the area when they had worked on the submarine deal, and they liked the warm weather. They also liked the seaport and airport, which were very hospitable to the international businessperson; if you dealt with the right people, you could bring in almost anything, including probably live human slaves, without having to answer a bunch of pesky questions from Customs. Guns were easy. Ivan and Leonid always got a kick out of going through the airport security checkpoint, seeing surly personnel in bad-fitting blazers grimly scrutinizing the Toshiba laptops of certified public accountants, while, in the cargo tunnels a few feet below, crates containing weapons that could bring down a building were whizzing past like shit through a goose.
So Ivan and Leonid, now calling themselves John and Leo, became the proprietors of the Jolly Jackal. They found it amusing to be, once again, in the field of recreational beverages. And the bar was good cover for their real business: Random people could come and go at all hours, and nobody official cared what was going on, as long as John and Leo paid off the various municipal inspectors. The only downside to owning a bar, they found, was that people sometimes came in and actually wanted to buy drinks. But Leo was able to keep that to a minimum via a combination of poor service and occasionally hitting patrons with his bat.
Miami turned out to be a great market: It seemed as if everybody here wanted things that went bang. You had your professional drug-cartel muscle people, who needed guns that shot thousands of rounds per minute to compensate for the fact that their aim was terrible. You had your basic local criminals, who wanted guns that would scare the hell out of civilians; and your civilians, trying to keep up with your local criminals. You had your hunters, who, to judge from the rifles they bought, were after deer that traveled inside armored personnel carriers. You had your âcollectorsâ and your âenthusiasts,â who lived in three-thousand-dollar trailers furnished with seven-thousand-dollar grenade launchers. You had an endless stream of shady characters representing a bewildering variety of revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, counter-counterrevolutionary and counter-counter-counterrevolutionary
In the marketplace of international arms sales, Ivan and Leonid developed a reputation for flexibility and customer service. Unlike their larger competitors in the arms trade, particularly the American government, Ivan and Leonid didnât put you through a lot of red tape, and they would go the extra mile to locate that hard-to-find item. For example, when a Jamaican Marxist group called the Peopleâs United Front was looking to trade a large quantity of high-grade marijuana for an attack submarine, Ivan was able to broker a complex deal involvingâin addition to the Soviet navyâthe government of Paraguay, a Chicago street gang named the Cruds, and the Church of Scientology. The deal culminated, six months later, in the delivery of a semi-reconditioned World War II-era Russian sub, the Vrmsk , which the Peopleâs United Front renamed the Mighty Sea Lion . As it turned out, the Peopleâs United Front had considerably more zeal than nautical expertise, and the Mighty Sea Lion , while attempting a dive on its first revolutionary missionâan attack outside Kingston Harbor on the new Disney-built luxury cruise ship Goofy âsank like an anvil. But this did not reflect badly on Ivan and Leonid. They were in sales, not training.
By the late 1990s, with the Russian economy melting down, Ivan and Leonid decided to move their operation abroad, and they settled on South Florida. They had visited the area when they had worked on the submarine deal, and they liked the warm weather. They also liked the seaport and airport, which were very hospitable to the international businessperson; if you dealt with the right people, you could bring in almost anything, including probably live human slaves, without having to answer a bunch of pesky questions from Customs. Guns were easy. Ivan and Leonid always got a kick out of going through the airport security checkpoint, seeing surly personnel in bad-fitting blazers grimly scrutinizing the Toshiba laptops of certified public accountants, while, in the cargo tunnels a few feet below, crates containing weapons that could bring down a building were whizzing past like shit through a goose.
So Ivan and Leonid, now calling themselves John and Leo, became the proprietors of the Jolly Jackal. They found it amusing to be, once again, in the field of recreational beverages. And the bar was good cover for their real business: Random people could come and go at all hours, and nobody official cared what was going on, as long as John and Leo paid off the various municipal inspectors. The only downside to owning a bar, they found, was that people sometimes came in and actually wanted to buy drinks. But Leo was able to keep that to a minimum via a combination of poor service and occasionally hitting patrons with his bat.
Miami turned out to be a great market: It seemed as if everybody here wanted things that went bang. You had your professional drug-cartel muscle people, who needed guns that shot thousands of rounds per minute to compensate for the fact that their aim was terrible. You had your basic local criminals, who wanted guns that would scare the hell out of civilians; and your civilians, trying to keep up with your local criminals. You had your hunters, who, to judge from the rifles they bought, were after deer that traveled inside armored personnel carriers. You had your âcollectorsâ and your âenthusiasts,â who lived in three-thousand-dollar trailers furnished with seven-thousand-dollar grenade launchers. You had an endless stream of shady characters representing a bewildering variety of revolutionary, counterrevolutionary, counter-counterrevolutionary and counter-counter-counterrevolutionary
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