Golden Buddha

by Clive Cussler

  The room was as silent as a tomb. Spenser turned to the rear of the room. The gray-haired man had vanished.

  “Two hundred going once,” the auctioneer said. “Going twice, fair warning.” He paused again. “Sold! Two hundred million, plus buyer’s premium, a stunning buy it is.”

  The room, which had been silent, now rippled with contained applause.

  Spenser stayed another half hour to arrange the crating and security to the airport, and by five that night he was flying east for delivery. For security purposes, Spenser had chartered a plane that could not be traced to the Macau billionaire who was his client. The company was full service—it would both transport him to Asia as well as facilitate the delivery of the artifact to its new home by armored car. He was almost home free.

  3

  SIX days after depositing the Cubans in San Juan, the Oregon had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Inside the control room, the seas beyond the bow were projected on a high-definition four-by-eight-foot screen. There was little to see. The sun was dipping in the west, and the Oregon was in an empty part of the Indian Ocean where few cargo ships steamed. Twenty minutes ago, Hali Kasim had caught a glimpse of a blue whale. Triggering the underwater sensors, Kasim made a record of the mass of the beast, then began to scan his data banks for a match.

  “She’s a new one,” Kasim said.

  Franklin Lincoln, the huge pitch-black man who was sharing duties in the control room, stared up from his game of computer solitaire. “You need to find a different hobby.”

  “It passes the time,” Kasim noted.

  “So does this,” Lincoln said, “and it barely uses any computer power.”

  A buzzer sounded, then the ship slowed and went dead in the water.

  From the north, a black amphibious plane approached, made a pass over the Oregon to check the direction of the wind by the flag on the flagstaff, then gracefully dropped into the water and taxied alongside.

  “The chairman has arrived,” Kasim noted.

  ONCE safely aboard the Oregon, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo made his way to his stateroom. Walking inside, he shut the door, tossed the bag containing his gray wig and fake beard on the bed, then kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt as he made his way to the head.

  Unlike most ships, where the bathroom facilities are almost an afterthought, his was large and opulent. A sunken copper tub with jets sat against the side of the hull, with a brass-lined rectangular porthole giving a view of the water outside. Angled next to the tub was a separate shower decorated with Mexican tile. Along the bulkhead toward the bow was a cabinet containing a copper sink, with drawers beneath.

  The floor was dark hardwood with thick cotton throw rugs. A recessed toilet was set back in the bulkhead across from the sink and a Philippine carved mahogany sitting bench graced one wall.

  Cabrillo stared at his image in the mirror above the sink.

  His blond crew-cut hair was in need of a trim and he made a mental note to schedule an appointment with the ship’s barber, who also doubled as a masseuse. His skin had a light pallor, the result of stress, he knew, and his eyes showed red from the strain. He was tired and his joints felt stiff.

  Sitting on the mahogany bench, he slid off his trousers and stared down at his prosthetic leg. The leg was the third he had owned since he had lost it in a naval battle with the Chinese destroyer Chengdo, when the Corporation had been covering a NUMA operation in Hong Kong. But it was a good one—it worked almost as well as the one he had lost.

  Rising, he walked over and began to draw a bath in the copper tub.

  While the bath filled, he shaved at the sink and brushed his teeth, then removed the prosthetic limb and climbed into the water. As he soaked, his thoughts drifted back….

  CABRILLO came from a family that had descended from the first explorer to discover California, but despite his Spanish surname, he looked more like a Malibu surf rat than a conquistador. He’d been raised in Orange County by an upper-middle-class family. California in the 1970s had seen wild times, filled with sex and drugs, but Cabrillo had never drifted that way. By his nature, he’d been both conservative and patriotic, almost a throwback. When everyone he knew was growing long hair, he’d kept his short and well groomed. When clothing tastes had run toward torn denim and T-shirts, his wardrobe had remained neat and presentable. But this had not been his own form of protest against the time, it was just who he was.

  And even today he was still a bit of a clotheshorse.

  In college he’d majored in political science, and had been an active member of his university’s ROTC program. So it was not a surprise when the CIA had offered him a job at graduation. Juan Cabrillo was just what they were seeking in new agents. He was bright without being bookish, stable without being boring, and flexible without being outlandish.

  Trained in Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, he’d proved a master at disguise and stealth. Inserted into a country, he could read the pulse of the people instinctively. Fearless but controlled, within a few short years he’d become a valuable asset.

  Then came Nicaragua.

  Teamed with another agent, he and his partner had been ordered to stem the growth of the pro-communist Sandinistas, and at first Cabrillo had made inroads. But within a year the situation had spun out of control. It was the oldest story in the world—too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Chiefs in Washington calling the shots, native Indians in Nicaragua paying the price. And when bombs had burst, the fallout had blown back in their faces.

  Cabrillo had been one of the fall guys, and he’d taken the hit for his partner.

  Now the partner, high up the ladder at the CIA, was repaying the favor. The man had been funneling jobs to the Corporation almost since their inception, but he’d yet to offer one with a potential payday this large.

  And all Cabrillo and his team needed to do was to accomplish the impossible.

  WHILE Cabrillo finished his bath and got dressed, Kasim and Lincoln continued their watch. By the time they were relieved at midnight, Kasim would log one more whale, Lincoln would have played thirty-two games of Klondike, and both men would have read three of the magazines that had been loaded aboard in San Juan. Lincoln tended to aviation periodicals, Kasim automobile digests.

  Quite frankly, there was little work for the two men—the Oregon ran herself.

  THIRTY minutes later—clean and dressed in tan slacks, a starched white shirt and a Bill Blass blazer—Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was sitting at the large mahogany conference table in the corporate meeting room. Linda Ross was across the table, sipping a Diet Coke. Eddie Seng sat next to Ross, flipping through a stack of papers. Mark Murphy was farther down the table, stroking a throwing knife against a leather strap. Murphy found the action relaxing and he tested the edge against a piece of paper.

  “How did the auction go?” Max Hanley asked.

  “The target brought two hundred million,” Cabrillo said easily.

  “Wow,” Ross said, “that’s a hefty price.”

  At the end of the table, in front of a bank of floor-to-ceiling monitors that were currently blank, Michael Halpert turned on a laser pointer, then pressed the remote for the monitors. He waited for Cabrillo, who nodded for him to start.

  “The job came from Washington to our lawyer in Vaduz, Liechtenstein: a standard performance contract, half now, half on delivery. Five million of the ten-million-dollar fee has already been received. It was washed through our bank in Vanuatu, then transferred to South Africa and used to purchase gold bullion, as we all agreed.”

  “It seems,” Murphy said, shaving off a sliver of paper with the knife, “that after all those machinations, we should just steal the Golden Buddha for ourselves. It would save us a hell of a lot of time and effort. Either way, we end up with the gold.”

  “Where’s your corporate pride?” Cabrillo said, smiling, knowing Murphy was joking, but making the point anyway. “We have our reputation to consider. The first time we screw a client, the word would get out. Th
en what? I haven’t seen any want ads for mercenary sailors lately.”

  “You haven’t been looking in the right newspapers,” Seng said, grinning. “Try the Manila Times or the Bulgarian Bugle.”

  “That’s the problem with stealing objects out of history books,” Ross noted. “They’re tough to resell.”

  “I know a guy in Greece,” Murphy said, “who would buy the Mona Lisa.”

  Cabrillo waved his hands. “All right, back to business.”

  A map of the world filled the main monitor, and Halpert pointed to their destination.

  “As a crow flies, it’s over ten thousand miles from Puerto Rico to this location,” he noted. “By sea, it’s a lot farther.”

  “We’re going to run up the costs just getting there,” Cabrillo said. “Do we have any other jobs lined up in that part of the world after we finish with this?”

  “Nothing yet,” Halpert admitted, “but I’m working on it. I did, however, require the lawyer to include a bonus if we deliver the object by a certain date.”

  “How much and when?” Cabrillo asked.

  “The bonus is another million,” Halpert said. “The date is March thirty-first.”

  “Why March thirty-first?” Cabrillo asked.

  “Because that’s when they plan to have the leader return to his people.”

  “Ah. Good. All right, so we have a total of seven days, three of which will be spent traveling. That gives us four days to break into a secure building, steal a gold artifact that weighs six hundred pounds, then transport it nearly twenty-five hundred miles to a mountain country that most people have only heard about in school.”

  Halpert nodded.

  “Sounds like fun,” Cabrillo said.

  4

  CHUCK “Tiny” Gunderson was dining on sausage and slabs of cheddar cheese as he steered the Citation X and watched the mountains that lay below. Gunderson carried nearly 280 pounds on his six-feet-four frame and had played tackle at the University of Wisconsin before graduating and getting recruited by the Defense Intelligence Agency. Gunderson’s experience with the DIA had enhanced his love of flying, which he’d transferred into his job later in the private sector. Right now, however, Gunderson was wishing he could have a bottle of beer with his lunch. Instead, he finished a warm bottle of Blenheim’s ginger ale to wash it all down. Checking the gauges every few minutes, he found them all in the green.

  “Mr. Citation is happy,” he said as he patted the automatic control switch and checked his course.

  Spenser made his way forward to the cockpit, knocked on the door and opened it. “Has your company made arrangements with the armored car to meet us at the airport in Macau?”

  “Don’t worry,” Gunderson said. “They’ve taken care of everything.”

  THE Port of Aomen was bustling. Sampans and trading barges shared the sea-lanes with modern cargo ships and a few high-performance pleasure crafts. The wind was blowing from land to sea, and the smell of wood cooking fires on mainland China mixed with the scent of spices being off-loaded. Twelve miles out in the South China Sea, and only minutes from landing, Gunderson received clearance for final approach.

  Spenser stared at the Golden Buddha strapped down on the floor across the aisle.

  AT the same instant, Juan Cabrillo was enjoying an espresso after a meal of chateaubriand, mixed vegetables, a cheese plate and baked Alaska for dessert. He held a napkin to his mouth as he talked from the head table in the ship’s dining salon.

  “We have a man on the ground in Macau,” he said. “He’ll arrange transportation once we have acquired the Buddha.”

  “What’s his plan?” Hanley asked.

  “He’s not sure yet,” Cabrillo admitted, “but he always comes up with something.”

  Seng was next to speak.

  “I’ve retrieved detailed maps of the port, streets and entire city,” Seng said. “Both the port and the airport are less than a mile from where we believe the Golden Buddha will be taken.”

  “That’s a good twist of luck,” Linda Ross said.

  “The entire country’s only seven square miles,” Seng said.

  “Are we planning to anchor offshore?” Mark Murphy asked.

  Cabrillo simply nodded.

  “Then I need GPS numbers for the entire country,” Murphy noted, “just in case.”

  Another hour would pass as the corporate officers hashed out details.

  “OM,” the man said quietly, “om.”

  The man who would benefit the most from the return of the Golden Buddha had no idea of the maelstrom of activity surrounding him. He was meditating in a tranquil rock garden outside a home in Beverly Hills, California. Now nearing seventy years old, he seemed not to age as did ordinary men. Instead, the passage of time had simply molded him into a more complete human being.

  In 1959, the Chinese forced him to flee his own country for India. In 1989, he’d received the Nobel Peace Prize for his continued work toward the nonviolent freeing of his homeland. In a world where a hundred-year-old house was considered historic, this man was believed to be the fourteenth incarnation of an ancient spiritual leader.

  At this instant, the Dalai Lama was traveling on the winds of his mind back to home.

  WINSTON Spenser was tired and irritable. He had not had any rest since leaving London, and the dreariness of travel and his age were catching up to him. Once the Citation X had rolled to a stop on the far end of the field, he waited while the pilot made his way to the door and extended the stairs. Then he climbed out. The armored car was only feet away, with the rear doors open. To each side of the vehicle was a guard in black uniform with a holstered weapon. They looked about as friendly as a lynch mob. One of the men approached.

  “Where’s the object?” he asked directly.

  “In a crate inside the main cabin,” Spenser said.

  The man motioned to his partner, who walked over.

  At just that instant, Gunderson climbed down the stairs.

  “Who are you?” one of the guards asked.

  “I’m the pilot.”

  “Back in the cockpit until we’re finished.”

  “Hey,” Gunderson started to say as the larger of the two men grabbed his arm and shoved him into the cockpit and slammed the door. Then the two men eased the crate onto a roller ramp to the ground. They pushed the crate on the ramp right into the truck. Two men couldn’t lift it. Once it was inside, the truck was pulled forward so they could shut the doors. One of the guards was locking the doors when Gunderson reappeared.

  “You can be sure this will be reported,” he said to the guard.

  But the guard just smiled slightly and walked forward to climb into the passenger seat.

  “A-Ma Temple?” the driver said out the window.

  “Yes,” Spenser said.

  The guard pointed to a dark green Mercedes-Benz limousine parked nearby.

  “You’re supposed to follow us in that.”

  Rolling up the window, the driver placed the armored car in gear and started driving.

  Spenser climbed into the limousine and set off in pursuit.

  THE armored car and the limousine carrying Spenser crossed the Macau-Taipa Bridge, went around the cloverleaf, passed the Hotel Lisboa and headed up Infante D. Henrique until the name changed and the road became San Mo La, or the New Road. On the west end of the island, they reached the intersection of Rua das Lorchas and headed south along the waterfront.

  The waterfront was like a scene from an adventure movie. Junks and sampans floated on the water, while the street along the water was crammed with shops displaying everything from plucked chickens to silver opium pipes. Tourists stood snapping pictures while buyers and sellers negotiated prices in the singsong staccato of Cantonese.

  At the fork with Rua do Almirante Sergio, the caravan veered slightly left, drove past the bus terminal, then entered the grounds of the A-Ma Temple. The temple was the oldest in Macau, dating from the fourteenth century, and it sat on a densely wooded hill
with a view of the water. The complex held a total of five shrines linked by winding pebbled paths. The smell of incense was in the air as Spenser climbed from the limousine and walked to the armored car. At just that instant, someone lit a coil firecracker to chase away the evil spirits. He instinctively ducked, staring up at the driver’s open window.

  “You okay, sir?” the driver asked.

  “Yes,” Spenser said sheepishly, rising again to his full height. “I need to step inside for a moment. If you will just wait here.”

  The driver nodded and Spenser walked up the path.

  Entering the A-Ma Temple, Spenser walked to a rear room he knew the leader of the monks used as an office, and knocked on the door. The door opened, and a shaven-headed man dressed in a yellow robe stood smiling.

  “Mr. Spenser,” he said, “you’ve come for your crate.”

  “Yes,” Spenser said.

  The monk rang a bell and two more monks appeared from another room.

  “Mr. Spenser is here for the crate I spoke about,” the head monk told them. “He’ll explain what to do.”

  A large donation to the temple had ensured that his decoy would remain here until needed. A well-placed lie would solve the rest.

  “I have a gilded Buddha outside I’d like to display for a time,” Spenser said, smiling at the monk. “Do you have a space to put it?”

  “Certainly,” the monk said. “Bring it inside.”

  Twenty minutes later the switch had taken place. The Golden Buddha was now hiding in plain sight. Thirty minutes and less than a mile away, the armored car made its final delivery of the day. After the guards were dispatched, Spenser stood with the Macau billionaire, staring at the object.

  “It’s more than I could have hoped for,” the billionaire said.

  But less than you think, Spenser thought. “I’m glad you like it.”