The Lord of Opium(128)

Matt put the technicians in charge of the eejits. “I’ll send people who can explain later,” he said. “There’s been a national disaster. Get these people food and send them to their shelters to rest.”

“Are we at war? Look! There’s a rocket!” cried one of the eejits. A fireball streaked across the sky. Then another and another.

“It’s a meteor shower,” said a technician. “A nice one too.”

The stirabouts at the observatory hadn’t been drained of their power, and Cienfuegos was loaded into one of them. He groaned and spat blood. Matt flew the craft, and Listen curled up by the jefe.

“Dr. Angel,” the little girl said suddenly. “I bet she’s trying to blast her way through that secret door.”

“She doesn’t have to. I opened it for her.” Matt swooped up as gently as possible to avoid jarring Cienfuegos.

“You did? Were there jewels and gold inside?”

“There was enough gold to satisfy a hundred Dr. Angels. There was a room made out of amber and a diamond throne that once belonged to the shah of Iran.”

“Wow! I bet that made her happy.”

“Very happy. She and Dr. Marcos and all the soldiers ran inside. The soldiers filled their pockets with gold coins.” Matt could see the lights of the hospital ahead and a crowd of eejits milling around. He landed outside the emergency room. He got out and ordered them to carry Cienfuegos inside. Listen ran in front to find a doctor.

Fortunately, like the technicians, the doctors had noticed little difference when their microchips were deactivated. And since they had been recently hired, they weren’t disturbed by the passage of time. They hurried the jefe to the operating room and began working on him at once. “¡Por Dios! Do you see what he’s wearing under that jumpsuit?” one of them cried.

“We’ll have to cut it off,” another said.

“You’d need bolt cutters,” said the first doctor, and in the end they had to ease it over Cienfuegos’s head. It was a silky vest, now bloodstained, and when it was removed a clatter of bullets fell to the floor. “That’s what saved him,” the doctor said.

They sent Matt and Listen to another room to wait. Matt knew he should go outside and try to restore order, but he was too worried. They sat in the room where he’d seen the dead soldier and where Dabengwa’s men had ambushed him. “Is Glass Eye dead?” Listen asked.

“Yes,” said Matt.

“Good. I didn’t like him.” She thought for a moment. “What about Happy Man?”

“He’s dead too.”

“So the only ones we have to worry about are Dr. Angel and Dr. Marcos.”

“I think they’ll be happy with the contents of the secret room,” said Matt. By now they would have discovered that the door was closed. The soldiers would fire their weapons at the wall—much good it would do them—and then their flashlights would fail. They would be alone in the dark with the pok-a-tok players.

“You can see him briefly, mi patrón,” said a doctor at the door of the operating room. “He’s heavily sedated, but he seems to have an amazing resistance to drugs.”

“He would have,” said Matt.

He and Listen stood by Cienfuegos’s bed and saw, from his eyes, that he recognized them. “He thought you were dead, but I knew you weren’t,” said Listen.

The jefe smiled.

“That’s the most amazing bulletproof vest,” said a nurse who was sitting by the bed. “I’ve heard of them, but this is the first one I’ve seen.” She pointed at the garment soaking in a bucket. “It’s pure spider silk, stronger than steel. They say it’s harvested from giant African spiders and that little girls are trained to reel it out as it’s produced.” The nurse shuddered. “The jobs some people have!”

They left, to allow Cienfuegos to recover, and the doctor explained his injuries outside. “Mostly broken ribs. The bullets didn’t get through, but the force of the blows must have been terrific. There’s some damage to the liver, and a broken rib pierced a lung. Fortunately, his heart is unharmed. He’ll be laid up for a long time.”

The gardens were filled with eejits—or ex-eejits, Matt reminded himself. Paisanos, he would call them. Fellow countrymen. He supposed he should address them, but he was too exhausted. Instead, he gave orders to the nurses and lab technicians to see to their needs. He would tackle the problem in the morning.

“I’m really tired,” said Listen, trotting by his side.

“Me too, but there’s something we have to do before we can rest,” Matt said. For once she didn’t complain about the long walk. They were both too anxious to see their friends. Matt lit the path by the stream with Tam Lin’s flashlight, and they saw the gleam of rabbits’ eyes as the creatures hopped out of their way.