Of course, they do not make love on opium. She shows him how to prepare the pipe, as the old crone in the village where she bought it had shown her, and after a few puffs his mind takes a quite different direction. After five pipes he is in a trance which lasts eight hours. When he comes round he decides that opium is definitely his new recreational drug of choice. It is incredible: a lot more civilized than crack and therefore more suitable for one’s middle years. He has spent eight hours in a fascinating dream world where he lay on the king-size bed from his Manhattan apartment, except that the bed floated in a dynamic, light-filled space and Magnus was able to travel to different stars and back at will, on his magic bed.

While Magnus is in his opium trance next day, Samson Lee calls on the special cell phone McKay bought for that purpose. Lalita tells Lee that McKay has gone out for the day. Lee speaks to her in Thai and tries to convey, in coded language McKay would understand, that the war is won on all fronts. The bodies of twenty-three horribly tortured and mutilated Columbians have been found by Thai police, following a tip-off, somewhere on the border with Mayanmar; at the same time, someone who shall be nameless told the DEA of the exact location of the Escaverada family’s main jungle factory. He tells her to tell Magnus to watch the international news or buy a newspaper. In any event, McKay must get the next flight to New York, Lee has some urgent matters for him to attend to.

Lalita watches CNN at a shop in the village and sees how a massive haul of cocaine has been retrieved from a certain factory known to be the property of the Escaverada family, who have all been taken into custody except for those who died in the battle, which happens to be most of them: a combined Columbian government and U.S. operation had mobilized more than five hundred men. However, the godfather, Pablo Escaverada, is still at large; indeed, according to intelligence he has been traveling overseas for some time, running his operation by cell phone and e-mail.

Lalita was able to tell, from tone and manner, what kind of Thai-Chinese Samson Lee must be. She now has no doubt that Magnus is in reality Pablo Escaverada, a business partner of Lee for sure, on the run from international law enforcement. Lalita doesn’t tell McKay about Lee’s call when he comes round.

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