Translations: Este es el Galbraith del que te hablé.(This is Galbraith, the one I told you about). Hola, Jaguar. Quien es su amigo? (Hello, Jaguar. Who is your friend?), Pronto será lo suficientemente viejo para ayudar. Por ahora, el cuchillo es muy filoso. Quiero que conserve sus dedos. (Soon he will be old enough to help. For now, the knife is too sharp. I want him to keep his fingers.)

Notes: Thanks to Kat and her friend DH for giving me info about the process.

Olivero looked up from his plate as Connor strolled into the dining room. "Buenos dias, my friend. Did you sleep well?"

"Fine, fine." Ethan went to the sideboard and started to fill his plate from the dishes that were set there. "Say, Olivero, I haven't seen a spread like this since the last time I took Danny for a hunt weekend at some tarted-up inn in England."

"If we lack something you want, just tell me, Connor. Was Danny pleased with his breakfast?"

"Yeah," Ethan sat down and began eating. He chuckled. "Though he may be down here later pestering your kitchen staff." He slid a look at Olivero. "I think maybe Manuel is gonna help him work up an appetite."

Olivero sipped his coffee placidly. "I would not be surprised. I am sure that Manuel will be able to keep him amused while we are away."

"What exactly will we be seein' today, Olivero?"

"First I will show you some of the raw materials--the poppies and the coca plants."

"Good. It's always good to get a look at the source. You do both poppies and coca, Montana? I thought most people concentrated on one or the other."

Olivero shrugged. "I diversified early in my career. You see, Connor, I will be able to supply you with a variety of products. I have refineries that produce cocaine, I can supply morphine base, or I can refine the morphine into heroin. Once we become associated it may become more profitable to consolidate my efforts, but for now, I do quite well."

Fields, labs, we want it all, Olivero. You may not seem like much of a threat to some people right now, but once you get a wider distribution set up... You've shown how good you are at expanding. God knows where you'd be in five years. "Sounds fine."

Olivero had a Range Rover, brand new. It was almost showroom pristine, and Ethan had to wonder at its cleanliness. In this environment, with the lack of paved roads and the tendency toward mud, it couldn't be easy to keep a vehicle in good shape. That showed that Olivero paid attention to details, and was willing to go through some effort.

"First we will visit one of my poppy fields. This one is about an hour away. It has been a good producer, and there is a lab close to it, so you can see that side of it, too."

They discussed Connor's business as they drove. Ethan's intensive study paid off, and he was able to answer every question casually, without seeming to think about it. "My contacts in America aren't what I'd like them to be, but once I can assure them of regular bulk shipments, the big boys will be more willing to deal with me," he said.

They were traveling down a road that scarcely deserved such an exalted title. The grass had hardly been worn away, and the trees and bushes were so close that Ethan made sure to keep his hands inside to avoid getting scratched. Olivero slowed the jeep to a crawl. It can't be because of the track--he's been chugging along quick enough. It must be... ah.

A man stepped into the track before them. He had an AK-47. That weapon might have fallen out of fashion with the more technically advanced crooks in America, but it looked efficient enough from where Ethan was sitting.

Olivero stopped. "Sit still, my friend. This is only the one we can see. There will be at least one other at a hidden vantage point." Ethan nodded, keeping his hands carefully in view.

The man approached, weapon at the ready, his eyes darting from the car's occupants to scan the road behind them for others. When he got a close look at Olivero, recognition flitted across his face, but he did not lower the gun. "Hola, Jaguar. Quien es su amigo?"

"Éste es Galbraith, el que le dije alrededor."

"Ah, el Irishman." The man stepped aside and waved them on.

As they drove on, Olivero said, "I do not need much security this close to home. The authorities appreciate the fact that I provide work. Besides, without the smaller manufacturers, there is no squabbling."

Ethan understood this. The local authorities probably didn't have the manpower or finances to battle the drug problem. They might even consider Olivero to be helping them, since he policed his own area of interest, and kept down the bloodshed that inevitably occurred when rival groups fought for territory. There was probably a bit of graft going on as well. It was almost a way of life in some Latin American countries.

They turned a corner, and the scene that met Ethan's eyes was both shocking and stunning. He would never have suspected that only a few yards of close growing jungle had separated him from an open space that was almost the size of an American football field. The entire cleared space, aside from a small, bare patch that held a crude hut, was covered in brilliant poppies. The field was a blaze of orange-red, with a faint haze of yellow streaking it here and there when a breeze tipped the blossoms to show the inner parts of their petals. It was more beautiful than anything Ethan had ever seen at a botanical garden, but his aesthetic enjoyment was spoiled by the knowledge of the tragedy this beauty would yield. It was rather like admiring the picture of a gorgeous woman, only to be told that she had poisoned her husband and children.

There was a large, rickety table sitting in the sunshine before the shack. A man and woman sat before it on packing crates, working industriously at something. They looked up as the Range Rover came to a stop, and spoke to each other. The man got up and came over as Ethan and Olivero got out, but the woman continued with her task.

Olivero shook the man's hand, speaking to him in Spanish, indicating Ethan. The man nodded, then gestured at Ethan to follow him to the table. The tabletop was almost covered by pale, egg-shaped green pods, each about half as large as Ethan's thumb. The woman was picking them up and scoring them several times all around the pod with a wickedly sharp, curved knife. Almost immediately a whitish fluid began to ooze out, and she placed the scored pod in a large tin bowl.

"You see, Connor? They gather the seed pods, one from each poppy, then slice slits in them. That white sap is opium in its crudest form. It isn't of much value until it has been processed and refined. Soon the sap will turn darker and thicker, then they will remove it with a scraping knife and package it for transportation. They will form it into balls, bricks, or cakes and wrap it. I think Guardo here prefers to make it into flat bricks, because they are easier to stack, and he wraps them in leaves instead of plastic or waxed paper, because that way he does not have to pay for the material, and makes a greater profit."

Guardo pointed to his place at the table. There was a brick mold lined with leaves and half full of dark, fragrant opium paste. He took up a pod that was coated in brown, sticky paste and demonstrated how he removed it with a few quick but careful scrapes, then packed it into the mold.

As he did this, a boy of perhaps nine came out of the poppy field, carrying a canvas sack. He handed it to the woman, who emptied a fresh load of pods onto the table. The boy then took the bowl she had just filled and began to lay the oozing pods out neatly on a sheet that had been stretched on the ground.

Olivero indicated the boy, asking Guardo a question. The man shrugged. "Pronto será lo suficientemente viejo para ayudar. Por ahora, el cuchillo es muy filoso. Quiero que conserve sus dedos."

"He says that Tomaso cannot help with the actual gathering until he is a little older, and learns how to handle a knife." Olivero handed Tomaso a few coins, and received a sunny smile in return. Ethan tried not to stiffen or show apprehension when the other man ruffled the child's hair. There was no indication that Olivero was a pedophile, but he tended to take his pleasures as he found them, had no reluctance to use others, and seemed totally uncaring about how the world would react. It was a dangerous combination.

Ethan noticed a stack of several dozen leaf-wrapped bricks, placed neatly in another box. He pointed. "Will we be takin' that on to the lab, Vero?"

Montana shook his head. "No, Connor. I have people to do that. I do not transport--that is one reason why I wish to ally myself with you. I move my raw materials as little as possible around my home base. There are just too many factors that cannot be controlled."

When they left, Olivero took a cell phone from the glove compartment and spoke on it briefly. When he put it away he said, "We do not go to the labs without advanced warning. The security is much tighter there. Please do not wander away while we are there. A strange face..." Olivero smiled, "particularly one as pale as your own, would be suspect."

Connor couldn't be sure how far away from the field the lab was. Again they turned off the main road and spent some time squeezing their way through the jungle. There was no real clearing this time, and he didn't see the men with guns till after Olivero parked near the little shack made out of corrugated tin. Even then they were just vague, man-shaped figures with the metallic glint of weapons back in the jungle.

Another mestizo came out of the shack, and Ethan noticed that the man had a plastic-cone face mask (the kind worn by workers who had to deal with hazardous fumes) hanging around his neck, and a pair of safety goggles pushed up on his forehead. Olivero introduced him. "Connor, this is my good friend, Bartolo. He is the first one I ever taught how to cook the opium, and now he trains all my other lab men."

They shook hands. Ethan didn't like the thorough examination the stocky man gave him, and he liked even less the smirking look that he turned to Montana when he was through. But this one, at least, spoke English. "A pleasure, senor. I hear good things about you."

Ethan frowned at the innuendo in Bartolo's voice. "I'm gratified."

Bartolo glanced back at the jeep. "But you do not bring your friend?"

"Danny?" *What the fuck does he know about Daniel Ballard? Why would Olivero have discussed him?* "Danny doesn't care for strenuous activitity." The skeptical look on Bartolo's face made Ethan want to hit him.

"I want to show Connor the lab, Bartolo," said Montana.

"Ciertamente." Bartolo took a filter and pair of goggles just like the ones he wore from hooks on the shed wall, and handed them to Ethan. "If you please, senor."

"Are these necessary?"

"I must insist." Olivero had taken gear for himself from the wall, and was donning it. "The materials involved in this process are quite volatile, and exposure to them... It may not cause immediate death, but it is not healthy."

The interior of the shed was baking hot. There were several fifty-gallon metal drums, each perched over a gas heating element. Bartolo led them to one near the entrance. "You have timed your visit well. I am just now starting another batch, and the last one is almost ready for the next stage."

Ethan peered into the barrel. "What's this? It looks like water."

"It is water," said Bartolo blandly, "And it has just come to the boil. Now..." Bartolo put on a pair of heavy rubber gloves, then scooped a white powder from another barrel and dumped it into the water. He used a small wooden oar to stir it. "We add lime, then the paste." He began to unwrap jelly-like bricks of opium tar and slip them into the boiling water. "This will dissolve. The waste will sink, and the morphine will rise to the surface, like this."

He took them to another barrel. This one had a thick white scum on top. Ethan watched as Bartolo quickly skimmed it off with a skill that spoke of much practice. He poured the thick white fluid into another, much smaller container. "Now..." he picked up a bottle labeled AMONIACO. Even without the closeness of the Spanish word to the English, Ethan would have known what it was from the pungent aroma that seeped even through the filter. "We reheat it with ammonia, then filter it, and boil it again." He stirred the mix, then pointed to another stack of bricks waiting to be wrapped. These looked almost like brown modeling clay. "They have been dried in the sun, and are ready to be shipped."

"We sell some of this to help with immediate expenses, but it is much more profitable to continue with the process and make heroin." He smiled. "It is ironic, isn't it? Morphine was supposed to be a safe replacement for laudanum. Heroin was invented to treat morphine addicts." He laughed. "I wonder if they will come up with something more profitable still to combat the addictions of heroin and cocaine?"

The coca plants were not in a clearing, but rather spread out through a section of jungle where the trees and undergrowth was thinner. The plants were almost as pretty as the poppies, though not as showy. They had long, slender, pale green leaves, and creamy, star shaped blossoms.

In this case the flowers were ignored--the leaves were the crop. The shed for this lab was much larger than the other. Again they donned goggles and a mask before entering, and Ethan saw that the shack was divided into two rooms. The smaller, back room was filled with the ubiquitous 55-gallon drums. Olivero indicated them, saying, "You see that we keep our supplies away from the work area. The chemicals we use are even more dangerous than those we use for making the morphine." He shook his head. "I have lost several labs through carelessness. The ones responsible usually die in the explosion and fire. It saves me the trouble of killing the stupid pigs."

Ethan watched as liquid ether was poured over a barrel full of leaves. He was a nervous when they started the heater under the barrel, but he showed only cool interest.

Olivero continued talking, almost like a tour guide at any factory. "The first solvent I used was raw grain alcohol, but I would have made a greater profit just selling the liquor. We use liquid ether, unless it is too difficult to obtain. Anhydrous ether--the old anesthetic, you know? I don't like to use it. I had one man who did not put on his mask, and he passed out. There was no explosion, but the danger..." He shook his head. "He did not forget again, after the beating I gave him. We could use acetone, or nitrogen sulfate, but they smell bad. I prefer to draw as little attention as possible. And ammonium hydrous nitrogen... well, that is used for explosives to begin with."

Ethan was nodding. "But all these are poisonous. Don't they leave a dangerous residue? I'd think it would eat the lining right out of your nose if ya sniffed it."

"No, no. It is the same with heroin. It leaves here pure and safe, as long as the user is careful with his dosage. The danger is in what the others down the line use to cut it."

"Ah, sure. They use all kinds of shite, don't they? I've heard of 'em using baking powder, talc, and powdered sugar." He scowled. "There's even been a few vicious bastards who used rat poison."

"Our business sometimes attracts the less-than-stable. Most dealers do not want to kill off their customers, though. The most widely-used product is mannito."

Ethan frowned. "Mannitol?"

"You have probably tasted it yourself."

"No," Ethan said firmly. "I don't do drugs, I just move them."

Olivero laughed. "Connor, you would not need to sample your contraband! Mannitol is used as a sweetener, stabilizer, and bulking agent in foods. If you buy ice cream you have almost assuredly eaten it. It is used in many diet foods, as it is absorbed more slowly than other sugars. Diabetics would have little choice of foods if it were not for mannitol."

"Is that a fact? I'll have to tease Danny about that. He loves ice cream, and every now and then he goes on a diet kick and forces himself to eat those bloody substitutes till neither one of us can stand it. I get sick of his attitude and buy him a pint of Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey. He's fine after that."

Ethan was happy to get out of the lab. It wasn't the first time he'd ever been in one, but that was definitely the crudest one he'd ever seen. He didn't care how careful the workers were--he was fairly sure that the dump was scheduled to go up like a firecracker factory hit by a bomb.

Dusk was falling as they made their way back to Montana's estate. Ethan reflected that IM's assessment of the situation had been accurate. Olivero kept a close hand on his operation, and was responsible for picking most of the men in significant levels of the organization. If Montana was taken out of the picture, the system would fall apart soon. It seemed unlikely that anyone with a forceful enough personality and good enough connections would rise from the ranks to take over.

Except maybe Manuel, Ethan thought as they pulled up in front of the house. Olivero might not delegate all that much of the actual power to him, but the kid is sharp. He's bound to have learned everything about this operation, and he'll be familiar to the mid-level workers. He might be able to pick up the reins, especially if Olivero goes to prison instead of to Hell, and the others think Manuel has his backing.

Mulder came out of the house as they approached, followed closely by a grinning Manuel. Ethan eyed the frazzled looking man and said, "What is it, Danny? Ya look like you've been chased around the block."

"I feel like I've been through the fucking Boston Marathon, darling." He pointed at Manuel accusingly. "I am about to lock that little demon in a closet. I haven't had a moment to myself all day long."

"You've never complained about that before, Danny love."

"Not that!" snapped Mulder. "But tennis in this heat? I thought I was going to pass out. I would have passed out," he gave Manuel a suspicious look, "except that I had an idea of what would happen while I was out. Every time I turned around he was practically in my lap."

"He's fond of you, Danny. Come," he herded everyone toward the house. "We will have time for a shower before dinner. Manuel did not show you the gym, did he?"

"No, and I can't imagine why. I thought I'd seen everything, including the crawlspaces."

"In truth, I asked him not to." Olivero rested a hand on Mulder's shoulder as he steered him down the cool, dim hall. "That, Duncan, is a privilege I reserved for myself."