The Lord of Opium Read online

  The hovercraft set down as delicately as a feather, and at once men in green scrubs ran out. They unloaded Matt and carried him to one of the outbuildings. In an instant he was moved from a cool, pine-smelling forest to a bed in a place filled with the odors of medicine and antiseptics. He tensed up. He couldn’t help it. Hospitals had never been good to him.

  An older man in a lab coat appeared and felt Matt’s head. “Por Dios, Cienfuegos! Why hasn’t anyone treated this boy?”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Rivas,” said the jefe. “We don’t have anyone left at the Ajo hospital except a nurse called Fiona.”

  Dr. Rivas gave a barking laugh. “Fiona! She’s no nurse. She was in charge of sterilizing equipment. She must have taken advantage of the situation and put on a uniform.”

  “You don’t say! She stitched up my arm.”

  “You’re lucky not to have gangrene,” said the doctor. “Well, let’s look at you, chico. Where does it hurt?”

  “Uh, Dr. Rivas. This is the new patrón.”

  The doctor flinched as though he’d been shot. “This child? How is it possible? Nobody told me.”

  “He was, uh, he was . . . ” Cienfuegos trailed off.

  “A clone,” Matt finished for him.

  A look of wonder crossed the doctor’s face. “This is the one I remember. I thought he’d been harvested.” He touched Matt’s head again very gently. “Let’s get you better before I go off on a tangent.” He opened Matt’s shirt and pressed his fingers on the boy’s chest. “Look, Cienfuegos. That’s classic. The skin is red as though scalded, and when I take my fingers away, you can see a white imprint for a few seconds. His lymph nodes are swollen. I’ll bet your throat’s sore, mi patrón. God, it feels strange to call a child patrón.”

  Matt smiled weakly. He wasn’t upset that the doctor had called him a child.

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked Cienfuegos.

  “Scarlet fever. I haven’t seen a case for years and certainly never expected it in”—he paused—“someone so heavily immunized.”

  “The patrón accessed the holoport twice and fine-tuned the border once in little more than a day,” said the jefe. “I thought that the scanner might have weakened his immune system.”

  “Interesting,” said Dr. Rivas. “You know, clones aren’t exactly like the original. The physical differences are small, but they’re there. The scanner might have thought he was an outsider for an instant. Well, I’d better stop nattering and do something.” He filled a fearsomely large hypodermic needle from a sealed bottle and swabbed Matt’s arm with alcohol. “This isn’t going to be pleasant, but the old ways are best with infections of this kind.”

  Dr. Rivas was correct. It was the most painful injection Matt had ever had, and he gritted his teeth to keep from groaning. “Very good,” the doctor said. “Now you try to rest. I’ll send someone with fruit juice and water. You’re to drink as often as you can stand it, and I’ll have the nurse pack you in ice bags until the penicillin takes effect.”

  Matt caught the doctor’s arm before he could leave. “Mirasol,” he said. Dr. Rivas looked at Cienfuegos.

  “It’s a long story,” said the jefe. “He has a pet Mirasol. Don’t worry. I know what to do.”

  “Mirasol,” said the doctor as the two men went out the door. “Is that some kind of bird or what?”

  * * *

  Matt recovered slowly and was allowed out of bed for short periods. “We can’t let our new patrón take chances,” Dr. Rivas said. He spent much time with the boy, and Matt enjoyed his company. The doctor didn’t treat him as some kind of ogre, and when he played chess he didn’t make stupid blunders to let Matt win. Mr. Ortega and Daft Donald always did. He didn’t make jokes about Mirasol, either.

  “You say she wakes up when you feed her baked custard. That’s interesting,” the doctor said one afternoon when they were drinking iced tea on a veranda. In the distance Matt could see the main part of the mansion, where an eejit was removing fallen leaves from a pond. Like most eejits, he wore a faded tan jumpsuit and floppy hat. Without the hat, the man might work in the sun until he died of heatstroke.

  Matt raised a pair of binoculars Dr. Rivas had given him for amusement and saw that the man was collecting the leaves one by one. He waded to the side with a single leaf at a time and deposited it in a basket. It was going to take a while to clear the pond.

  “Taste and smell endure longer than most memories. You can recall a whole scene from one such clue,” said the doctor.

  Matt nodded. He knew that the smell of wax from the holy candles Celia burned before the Virgin of Guadalupe was enough to bring back the little house he’d grown up in. “Have you ever heard of an eejit waking up completely?”

  “Never,” said the doctor, dashing his hopes.

  Mirasol sat nearby, her hands in her lap. Matt had given her a glass of iced tea, and she’d bolted it down so quickly he was afraid to give her more. “What if I found more of these clues?” the boy said.

  “The reaction disappears too quickly. You could keep feeding Mirasol until she weighed five hundred pounds, but that’s all you’d accomplish.”

  “I’ve asked Esperanza to find brain surgeons.”

  Dr. Rivas frowned. “It’s going to be difficult to convince anyone to come here.”

  “I could pay them well,” said Matt.

  “El Patrón paid them well too, before he poisoned them.” Dr. Rivas sent Mirasol for more iced tea, and Matt trained his binoculars on the eejit clearing the pool. Beyond them was an arbor covered with vines. Someone had hung up a hummingbird feeder, and the tiny birds swarmed around it like wasps. Below, half-hidden in leaves, was a child—or perhaps it was a statue. It was hard to see into the shadows.

  “Occasionally El Patrón spared educated Illegals. I was one.”

  “You?” said Matt, looking away from the arbor.

  “I crossed the border with my father, wife, and three small children, on the way to a glorious career at Stanford University. Or so I hoped. I had a degree in molecular biology with a minor in cloning. Yes, I said cloning. What a fool I was to think a whole family could elude capture! I had to barter my services for their lives.”

  Mirasol returned with a fresh pitcher and a plate of sandwiches. Matt wondered whether the sandwiches had been the cook’s idea or hers.

  “I started out as a lab technician, growing cells from various drug lords into clones. When I had proved my skill, I was given skin samples from El Patrón. The previous technician had been killed because he could no longer produce results, and I was no luckier. El Patrón’s samples were a hundred years old and no longer responded to treatment. Those that grew were deformed. One of my sons was turned into an eejit as punishment, and so I tried harder, invented new techniques, and finally, after repeated failures, I produced you.”

  Matt turned cold with shock. He had guessed where Dr. Rivas was going when he learned the man was an expert in cloning, but to hear it said so bluntly! To know that this man had selected a cell from skin so old and corrupt that it was little more than carrion was beyond disturbing. The priest had once called Matt unnatural, a soulless creature from the grave. Here was the proof!

  “You were a beautiful embryo,” said Dr. Rivas. “I watched you through a monitor. I talked to you, and almost as though you could hear, you turned and smiled. Embryos can smile, you know. Who knows what thoughts are passing through their heads? When you were harvested—”

  “Don’t!” Matt raised his hand to fend off the words.

  “I forget that we scientists are used to such things. It wasn’t so terrible—bad luck for the cow, of course, but she’d had a happy nine months drifting through a dreamworld of flowery meadows.”

  “She had a microchip in her brain,” said Matt. Somehow it made it worse to call the animal she. It made her seem more real.

  “When I held you in my hands it was as though you were my own child, the boy I had lost.” Dr. Rivas shaded his eyes and fell silent for a moment. “
Strange. The grief never goes away. My son was called Eduardo after me.”

  “What happened to him?” Matt forced himself to ask the question.

  “He works in the gardens. El Patrón made certain I knew where he was in case I had any thoughts of rebelling. That’s why I know the eejit operation can’t be reversed. I have spent years trying to do it with absolutely no success.”

  Mirasol was gazing pointedly at the sandwiches, and Matt responded by giving her two. That was surely communication, he thought. He’d become better and better at reading her body language. He winced at the messy speed with which she devoured them and leaned forward to wipe her mouth with a napkin.

  “She’s got you trained,” observed Dr. Rivas. “You were the best of the lot, the most intelligent, the most perfect.”

  “The best of what lot?” Matt said, although he knew.

  “The others were used for liver transplants and blood transfusions,” said the doctor, ignoring the question. “One, an infant, supplied a heart. It was too small, and the operation failed.”

  Matt tried to see Dr. Rivas as he’d been a few moments before—a kind, friendly man who had saved his life—and failed. “How could you do it?”

  “I had a family to protect. The others, except for you, were merely collections of cells.” Dr. Rivas shrugged. “You get used to being evil.”

  16

  DANCING THE HUKA HUKA IN NUEVA YORK

  Esperanza is trying to send a message,” said Cienfuegos, coming onto the veranda. “In fact, there’s at least two dozen people trying to contact us via the holoport.”

  “The patrón has to limit his contact with scanners,” Dr. Rivas said sternly. “Once every few days until he’s fully recovered.”

  Matt was eager to get out of the hospital wing and enjoy the fresh air and feel of grass beneath his feet. They passed the pool where the eejit was removing leaves and went up a sweeping staircase to a shadowed porch. Inside were halls even grander than those in the Ajo hacienda. The floors were inlaid with tiles—blue-and-white Chinese willows, geometrical designs from Morocco, flowers from Spain. One room even had a Roman mosaic. The floor-to-ceiling windows were draped with heavy silk curtains. Everywhere were the sounds of fountains and birds.

  “If there is Paradise, it is here, it is here, it is here,” murmured Matt. It was so delightful he wondered why El Patrón ever left it.

  But the room with the holoport was cold and businesslike. The portal itself was enormous—ten feet square—and the addresses were slowly cycling. Right now it showed an office in Sydney, Australia, with a red light blinking in the corner.

  “You can select an address by pressing this button.” Dr. Rivas demonstrated, and the screen immediately changed to show a multitude of icons.

  Cienfuegos cried “Hah!” in surprise. “¡Por Dios, Doctor! ¡Tiene bien puestos los calzones! You’ve got guts!”

  “El Patrón showed me the method,” said Dr. Rivas, smiling. “You can scroll through the icons by turning this wheel and choose one by highlighting it and pressing the button again. What you must not do, as I’m sure you know, is touch the screen.”

  “You’re telling me!” The jefe wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Will you look at all those flashing lights!”

  All over the screen, tiny red dots pulsed as drug dealers clamored for their supplies. Matt was bewildered. What if he merely ignored them? What if he cut off everyone’s opium, kept the border closed, and lived happily ever after?

  “I’ve selected the Convent of Santa Clara,” said Dr. Rivas. The familiar room appeared. It was empty, but on a back wall was pinned the altar cloth Sor Artemesia had been working on. The Virgin was surrounded by a halo like the sun, and her foot rested on the moon. Around the edge were red roses worked in silk.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Matt put his hand on the screen. Instantly his skin swarmed with crawling ants and his heart pounded. He tasted vomit. It’s me, he implored. You know it’s me. The screen dissolved into a tunnel swirling with mist. Matt sat back, sodden with sweat.

  “You’re all right,” said Dr. Rivas. The boy felt the doctor’s hands grip his shoulders. He smelled rain and the crisp odor that follows a thunderstorm. The mist cleared, and the doctor took his hands away.

  All was as it should be in the peaceful little room at the Convent of Santa Clara. Esperanza came straight in and started talking as though they’d only broken off contact a moment before. “It’s about time! You had me running all over New York for doctors while you’ve been living it up in Paradise.” Esperanza shook her finger at him, exactly as though he were a naughty child. “I’ve succeeded, not that you deserve it. I’ve got five of the world’s top brain surgeons. They demand a million dollars each up front and a thousand for every day they’re working. Are you listening?”

  “Yes,” said Matt, who was still overcoming the effects of the scanner.

  “He hasn’t been playing,” said Dr. Rivas. “He’s recovering from a severe case of scarlet fever.”

  “Eduardo?” asked Esperanza, squinting to make sure. “I thought you were dead with all the other medical staff.”

  “Mil gracias for your concern, Doña Esperanza,” the doctor said. “I’d like to help out with the operations. I probably have more experience than anyone.”

  “Suit yourself. It’s a fool’s mission, anyway.” The woman inserted a roll of paper into a cylinder like a fat thermos bottle. “I’ve written down the bank numbers and locations to send money.” She threw the bottle into the holoport.

  Matt jumped. It felt as though she was aiming straight at him, but, in fact, the cylinder moved as slowly as the bird had, and he had plenty of time to get out of the way. It fell out the other end and struck the floor with a metallic chime.

  “Don’t touch it,” warned Dr. Rivas. “Let it come to room temperature.”

  Matt saw that the cylinder was covered in ice crystals that were rapidly melting. Cienfuegos nudged it with his foot. “I didn’t know you could send things through the portal,” he said.

  “It isn’t recommended, but you can do it in an emergency,” said the doctor. “The cylinder insulates the paper against cold.”

  The wormhole meanwhile was swirling with mist. After a while it reestablished itself, and Esperanza was visible again. “The doctors will come through at San Luis after you’ve deposited the money,” she said. “Inside the cylinder is a list of animals and plants I want. We might as well start the ecological recovery while you’re diddling around with the eejits. Major Beltrán can do the collecting.”

  “I trained in agriculture. I’ll collect them,” said Cienfuegos.

  Esperanza waved a heavily ringed hand. “I don’t care who does it as long as I get results. If there’s nothing else—”

  “Wait!” cried Matt before she could cut the connection. “I want to see María.”

  Esperanza for once looked almost sympathetic. “You kids. She’s been nagging my ears off about you.” Matt’s spirits lifted. María hadn’t forgot him. “I suppose there’s no harm in it, but get this clear: You are not to tell my daughter what happened at El Patrón’s funeral.”

  “Why not? She has to find out sometime.”

  Esperanza held up her palms for silence. The heavy rings, the Aztec brooch pinned to her black dress, the large silver earrings framing her grim face made her look as uncompromising as a stone idol. “Listen to the voice of experience, chiquito. No one outside of Opium knows what happened at El Patrón’s funeral.”

  “What difference does that make?” asked Matt.

  “As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the Alacráns are still alive along with their friends and bodyguards. Glass Eye may have taken over the smaller drug states, but he doesn’t know how many enemies he has inside Opium. That makes him nervous.”

  Matt could see her reasoning. Glass Eye might want the territory, but he didn’t know what would happen if he tried to take it.

  “And let’s not forget the army of sicarios El Pat
rón has scattered throughout the world. They exist to assassinate his enemies, and as long as they think there’s a strong government in Opium, they’ll carry out orders. My sources say a lot of people aren’t sleeping well these days. What do you think would happen if they learned that Opium was ruled by one inexperienced child? You would get no more supplies on credit. Your bank accounts would be looted.”

  Esperanza gazed unblinking at Matt. Her will was iron, but so (and it came from some deep source he didn’t understand) was his. He would not be intimidated by her. But he had to admit her arguments made sense. “You think that María wouldn’t keep the secret,” he said.

  “Her heart is too soft for this world,” said her mother. “I blame Sor Artemesia for that. María cannot hide her feelings, and she is afflicted with an irritating honesty.”

  Matt privately thought that María had been lucky to be raised by the nun rather than her mother. “Very well,” he agreed. “Please call her for me.” Esperanza left the room.

  “Whew! Rather you than me dealing with her,” said Dr. Rivas. “She’s not going to leave you two alone, you know, not even at the opposite ends of a wormhole. At least we can give you some privacy. Come on, Cienfuegos.”

  “Give us a report later,” said the jefe, grinning wolfishly.

  The minutes passed. Matt opened the cylinder and read the list of animals Esperanza wanted: Squirrels, sparrows, pigeons, crows, and rabbits. These were so common it gave Matt a shock to think that they were extinct elsewhere. The door opened and María ran in.

  “Matt! Matt! I’ve missed you so much!” she cried. Immediately an arm shot out and grabbed her. “All right, Mother! I know I mustn’t touch the portal.”