The voice at the other end of the line wanted a lamb. Might Frank Randle have an intact male animal that he was willing to sell? "Yes, ma'am," he replied. "I do." The caller explained that she was a liaison officer at Fort Benning, an army base about 40 miles from Mr Randle's farm. She told him to expect a customer. Soon a black Mercedes, windows tinted, turned off the road that traverses his shallow Alabama valley, with its beautiful creek, and pulled up to the farmhouse. Two enormous, shaven-headed bodyguards wearing black suits and Uzis strapped to their hips got out. Mr Randle selected a lamb and bound its legs. The flunkies placed it, baaing, in the limousine's boot. Finally the car's rear window rolled down, just enough for a hand-belonging, it afterwards transpired, to a Saudi prince-to proffer a $100 bill, a suitably royal sum for a single creature.
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