Golden Buddha Page 36

  Cabrillo was scanning the notes of Zhuren’s disclosures. He turned to Seng, pointed out a spot on the map, and then examined a satellite photograph of the area.

  “I want to lead this one myself,” he said slowly. “I’ll need a dozen men, air cover and some way to destroy the gas.”

  “Sir, I inventoried the hangar,” Gannon said. “There were a pair of fuel-air cluster bombs in the ordnance room.”

  “That should do it,” Cabrillo said.

  STANLEY Ho might own a mansion in Macau and bear all the earmarks of legitimacy, but the fact was that he was really only one step away from street-level thug. Once he realized that Winston Spenser had screwed him on the Golden Buddha, his every waking minute since had been used in scheming to settle the score. It was not just that Spenser had ripped him off—that was one thing. It was the fact that he had dealt with Spenser so many times in the past. That Spenser had smiled in his face, then stabbed him in the back. To Ho, that meant that Spenser had been toying with him, that all the art dealer’s good-natured ass-kissing and pandering had been merely a prelude to the big screw. Ho had been treated like a dupe—and he hated that most of all.

  Ho had personally gone down to the Macau immigration office to bribe the clerk. That had given him a list of everyone who had exited the country the day after the robbery. With that in hand, it had just been a case of eliminating all the improbabilities until Ho had gotten down to just three people. Then he had sent three men hired from the local triad leader to Singapore, Los Angeles, and Asunción, Paraguay. The first two had been washes; the parties had been observed and disqualified and the men were called back. Ho was starting to think that maybe he’d need to expand the search, that he had somehow eliminated Spenser from the first cut by accident. He was beginning to think this would take longer than he’d planned.

  Just then his fax started printing and a picture came across.

  Ho was staring at the photograph when his telephone rang.

  “Yes or no?” a voice with a rough Chinese accent asked.

  Ho stared a second longer, then smiled. “His hands and his head,” he said quietly. “Pack them in ice and overnight them.”

  The telephone went dead in his ear.

  PARAGUAY in general and Asunción in particular is more European feeling than South American. The massive stone buildings and extensive parks with fountains scream Vienna, not Rio. Spenser tossed some feed purchased from a machine nearby toward the pigeons, then wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

  The fact is, a man who commits a crime is never free—even if it seems he pulled it off.

  The abiding knowledge of his infraction is never far from his mind and it weighs on his psyche, and holding it inside only makes it worse. Only the sociopath feels no remorse—the events happened to another, if they ever happened at all.

  Spenser brushed the last of the feed from his hand, watched as the birds fought over the morsels, then stood up. It was late afternoon. He decided to return to his anonymous hotel and nap before going out for a late dinner. Tomorrow he would start looking for a house to rent and begin to rebuild his life. Tonight, his plan was to eat, sleep and try to forget.

  The art dealer was not a stupid man. He knew Ho would scour the earth for him.

  Right now, however, Spenser was just trying to put that all out of his mind. He had a few days at least, he thought, before the trail here might be detected, if it ever was. That would give him time to move out of the capital into the countryside. There, he would eventually make friends who could help warn him if people started poking around. And hide him, if they came too close.

  At this instant in time, however, his guard was down and he was weary. Tomorrow he could worry—tonight he would have a fine Argentine steak and an entire bottle of red wine. Crossing through the park, he started down the cobblestone street leading up the hill toward the hotel.

  The sidewalk was deserted; most people were taking their midday break. That gave him comfort. He was humming “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” as he strolled along. Halfway up the block, he saw the awning leading to the street from his hotel.

  Spenser was still humming when a side door onto the sidewalk swung open and a garrote was slipped over his head and he gagged over his verse.

  With lightning speed the triad killed and dragged Spenser inside a garden at the rear of a home facing the street. The occupants of the home were out of town, but that was of little matter to the killer—had they been unfortunate enough to be home, he would have killed them too.

  Four days passed before the remains of Spenser’s body were found. It was minus the hands and the head, but the arms had been carefully folded across his chest and the Canadian passport tucked into his belt.

  44

  TRUITT stared at the water as the turboprop made a final approach for landing at the Kiribati capital city of Tarawa. The water was a light sapphire color, with coral reefs clearly visible beneath the surface. Fishermen in small canoes and outboard-motored crafts plied the waters, while a black-hulled tramp steamer was tied alongside the dock at the main port.

  It looked like a scene out of South Pacific.

  The plane was not crowded, just Truitt, a single chubby male islander who had yet to stop smiling, and a load of cargo in the rear. The inside of the cabin smelled like salt, sand and the aroma of light mold that seemed to permeate everything in the tropics. It was hot inside the plane, and humid, and Truitt dabbed a handkerchief to his forehead.

  The pilot lined up for a landing on the dirt strip, then eased the plane down.

  A bump, the feeling of the brakes slowing the aircraft to a crawl, then a slow taxi to the concrete-block terminal building. Truitt watched out the window as the plane stopped in front of the terminal, then felt a rush of humid, flower-scented air as the pilot walked back and lowered the door. The islander climbed down first and walked toward a woman holding a pair of smiling children in her arms, while Truitt grabbed his overnight bag from the seat behind. Then he rose and walked down the steps. The presidents of Kiribati and Tuvalu were waiting.

  THE attorney hired by Halpert sat on the rear deck of the spacious mountain chalet. In the distance, across a meadow with a stone fence marking the borders and a haystack leaving no doubt as to the purpose of the land, a dark-haired man adjusted a portable propane-fueled heater, then sat down in a chair across the table.

  Marc Forne Molne, the head of government of Andorra, was kindly but direct.

  “You may relay to your principals that I sincerely appreciate the investment in my country—we always welcome finding a home for fine companies. However, the simple fact is this: Even if they had not chosen to base their operations here, our vote would have gone toward a free Tibet.”

  Molne rose again and adjusted the flame higher. “Opposition against tyranny and oppression is an Andorran legacy.”

  Molne brushed a drop of water from his hands. “You tell your men they have our vote. And you also tell them if they need anything else, they need but ask.”

  The attorney rose from his chair. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I will report back to them immediately.”

  Molne motioned with his hand and a butler appeared out of nowhere.

  “Show this man to my office,” he ordered. “He needs to use the telephone.”

  TWO hours later, Truitt had forged an agreement. A pair of trusts, one for each nation. Because the population of Kiribati was just over 84,000, they received $8.4 million. Tuvalu, with a population of 10,867, received $1.1 million. Another $5.5 million was dedicated for development of eco-tourism on the two chains of islands. To promote tourism, the two countries decided on a series of small island resorts where the natives would act as guides, scuba-diving masters and overseers.

  The planned stilt homes would be self-service. The tourists could clean their own rooms.

  Truitt caught the last flight out on Easter day.

  HANLEY was staring at a satellite image of Tibet as he spoke on the telephone.

/>   “You’re sure, Murph?” he asked. “He’s fit to fly?”

  “It was like magic,” Murphy said over the secure line. “Gurt looks better than before he was shot. He’s outside doing repairs on the chopper as we speak.”

  “Hold on,” Hanley said from the Oregon. “I’ll call off the cavalry.”

  Reaching for a scrambled radio, he called the rescue helicopter. “Stop where you are,” Hanley said, “and wait. If my fuel calculations are correct, you should have more than half tanks right now. Wait until you see the other Bell pass nearby, then follow her home to Gonggar.”

  “Understand,” the pilot answered. “What’s the ETA?”

  “They’re about an hour away,” Hanley noted, “but I’ll monitor the situation and report to you when they are near.”

  “We’re touching down now,” the pilot said, “and standing by.”

  IN Washington, D.C., hands-off was becoming handson.

  Langston Overholt sat in a room off the Oval Office, waiting for the president to reappear. Truitt had notified Hanley of his successful mission. Hanley had faxed the details to Cabrillo in Tibet. Once that was done, he had telephoned Overholt and reported the news.

  Overholt then made his way to the White House to report to the president.

  “For someone who was supposed to be outside the loop,” the president said, entering the room, “I’m as wrapped up in this as a kitten in a yarn ball.”

  It was early morning in Washington, and the president had been preparing for bed when he had been summoned. He was dressed in gray sweatpants and a blue T-shirt. He was drinking a glass of orange juice.

  He stared at Overholt, then grinned. “You must know I stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live.”

  “Don’t all politicians, sir?” Overholt asked.

  “Probably,” the president said. “It was always the rumor that it cost Gerald Ford the election.”

  “How did it go, sir?” Overholt asked.

  “Qatar was a gimme,” he said easily. “Me and Mr. al Thani are old friends. Brunei was not such a pushover. The sultan needed a few concessions—I gave them, and he agreed.”

  “I’m sorry we needed to involve you, sir,” Overholt said. “But the contractors were short of both men and time.”

  “Have you got the last vote?” the president asked. “Is Laos in the bag?”

  Overholt glanced at his watch before answering. “Not yet, sir,” he said, “but we will have it in about fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll instruct the ambassador to the United Nations to call for a special vote in the morning,” the president said. “If your guys can hold down the fort for six hours or so, we’re home free.”

  “I’ll notify them immediately, sir,” Overholt said, rising.

  “Good,” the president said. “Then I’m going to catch a few hours of shut-eye.”

  A Secret Service agent led Overholt down the elevator and into the secret tunnel. Twenty minutes later he was in his car and on his way back to Langley.

  THE white 747 cargo plane slowed to a stop at the end of the runway in Vientiane, then taxied over to a parking area and shut down the engines. Once everything was shut down, the pilot began the process of raising the entire nose cone in the air, opening up the immense cargo area. Once the nose was in the air, cargo ramps were attached to a slot in the open front of the fuselage.

  Then, one by one, cars were driven out onto the tarmac.

  The first was a lime-green Plymouth Superbird with a hemi-engine. The second, a 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 302 in yellow with the shaker hood, rear slats over the window and the quarter-mile clock in the dashboard. The third was a 1967 Pontiac GTO convertible, red with a black interior, red-line tires and air conditioning. The last was a 1967 Corvette in Greenwood green, with the factory speed package and locking rear differential.

  The man who carefully removed the cars from inside the 747 was of medium height with thick brown hair. As soon as the last car, the Corvette, was on the runway, he reached into the glove box, removed a letter, then climbed out and lit up a Camel filter.

  “You must be the general,” he said to a man approaching followed by a dozen soldiers.

  “Yes,” the general said.

  “I’m Keith Lowden,” the man said. “I was told to give you this.”

  The general scanned the letter, folded it and placed it in his rear pants pocket. “These all original?”

  “They are,” Lowden said. “The serial numbers all match.”

  Lowden then motioned to the general to walk over to the Superbird and started explaining the car, the documentation and the rare options. By the time Lowden had finished with the second car, the Boss 302, the general stopped him.

  “You want—” he started to say just as Lowden’s cell phone rang.

  “Sorry,” Lowden said as he answered. He listened for a minute, then turned to the general.

  “They want to know if it’s a deal,” he said, placing his hand over the telephone.

  The general nodded his head in the affirmative.

  “He said okay,” Lowden said.

  A second later he hung up the telephone and turned back to the general. “Now, what were you about to ask me?”

  “I was wondering if you had time to spend the night here in my country,” the general said, “so we might talk about the cars.”

  “I don’t know,” Lowden said, smiling. “This country have any beer?”

  “Some of the best,” the general said, smiling back.

  “Good,” Lowden said. “’Cause you can’t talk cars when you’re thirsty.”

  PO and his team were searching throughout Lhasa, but they had yet to turn up a single U.S. or European citizen. The six members of his team were all Tibetan, and Po didn’t care for them much. First of all, like most people, he hated traitors—and any way you sliced it, Tibetans that worked for the PSB had sold out to the Chinese. In the second part, the men appeared lazy; they did the questioning in a haphazard fashion and didn’t seem to be committed to finding the people Po was seeking. Thirdly, for being members of the country’s crack police service, they didn’t seem to have much training in police procedures.

  Po, for his part, had little choice, so he doubled his own efforts and hoped for the best.

  “THE son-of-a-bitches,” Cabrillo said angrily, “it’s like putting an atomic bomb in the Vatican.”

  Zhuren had just given them the site of the poison gas. It was in Potala, the home of the Dalai Lama, and one of the most sacred of structures in all of Tibet. The Chinese plan was evil, but ingenious. Potala sat on a hill outside of town; if one waited until the winds were right, you could blanket Lhasa in a matter of minutes.

  Seng nodded, then reached for his beeping radio. “Go ahead, Oregon,” he said.

  “Is Cabrillo there with you?”

  “Hold on,” Seng said, handing him the radio.

  “Juan,” Hanley said quickly, “we have the votes. All you need to do is keep it together for another few hours and help will be on the way.”

  “What’s the latest on the Russians?” Cabrillo asked.

  “They’re five hours from the Mongolian-Tibetan border,” Hanley said, staring at the large monitor on the wall, “give or take.”

  “Call and have them slow the tank column down,” Cabrillo said. “If they reach the border before the vote, we could have World War Three on our hands.”

  “I’ll do it,” Hanley said. “Now, what’s happening on the ground?”

  “I just found out the Chinese have one last trick up their sleeve,” Cabrillo said. “A doomsday gas.”

  “Do you know the location and type?” Hanley said.

  Cabrillo rattled off the chemical composition.

  “We’ll get to work here figuring out how to render the gas inert,” Hanley said.

  “Good,” Cabrillo said. “That frees me up to pinpoint the exact location.”

  “Somehow,” Hanley said, “I knew you were going to say that.”

 
; 45

  THE Oregon was surging into the Bay of Bengal in preparation for the team’s extraction. Word of the street fighting in Lhasa had reached the news media. Television crews, newspaper and magazine reporters, and radio teams were making final preparations to enter the country. To maintain the veil of secrecy necessary for the Corporation to conduct business, they needed to be away from Tibet before the reporters appeared.

  So far the plan had worked like clockwork, but there was still a wild card to contend with.

  The Russian ruse had successfully tied up the Chinese army far to the north, but the risk now was from the Chinese air force. If Beijing ordered squadrons of bombers and fighter planes to attack the country, the results would be catastrophic. The Dungkar forces had limited means to wage ground-to-air warfare. Carpet bombing of Lhasa would result in heavy losses.

  The only hope was if the news media could shine the beacon of truth on China.

  If the world could be shown via television that the Tibetans had overthrown their oppressors on their own and that the control of Tibet was in the hands of the people and their divine leader the Dalai Lama, then any bombing by China would be taken for what it was—a senseless act of brutality. The ensuing worldwide condemnation would be a burden even China could not bear.

  Hanley placed a call to Bhutan and ordered the C-130 to prepare to evacuate his team.

  “CLIMBER one,” Murphy said, “to Rescue.”

  Gurt was steering the Bell 212 above a mountain plain with jagged peaks to each side. Several miles in the distance, the rescue helicopter was visible on the ground. As Murphy watched through his binoculars, the rotor blade started to spin, then gain speed until it was just a blur.

  “Rescue One,” the radio squawked. “We have visual and will follow along.”

  Murphy watched as the helicopter lifted into a high hover, then slowly began to move forward. Passing to one side, Murphy craned his head to the rear and confirmed they were in formation behind and to one side.