Текст книги "Golden Buddha"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Clive Cussler
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2

THE burgundy Falcon 2000EX left Heathrow at just after six in the morning, arriving in Geneva around half past nine Swiss time. The jet aircraft cruised at Mach.80 with a 4,650-mile range; it cost $24 million. Winston Spenser was its sole occupant.

After arriving at Geneva International Airport in Cointrin, Spenser was met by a chauffeured Rolls-Royce that delivered him to the hotel. There, he was immediately taken to a suite without having to register. Once in his room, Spenser took a few minutes to freshen up. Standing in front of the beveled-edge mirror, he stared at his image. Spenser’s nose was long and patrician, his eyes pale blue and distant and his skin in need of a tan. Neither his cheeks nor his chin were very defined. Truth be told, his image always appeared to be slightly out of focus, as if lacking character. His was not the face of a man others would follow. It was the face of a high-priced minion.

When he finished his examination, he placed his expensive cologne back in a Burberry toiletry bag, then left the room to get a mid-morning meal. The art auction he was in Geneva for was due to start soon.

“WILL Mr. Spenser require anything else?” the waiter asked.

Spenser stared for a moment at the remains of his meal and said, “No, I think that will be all.”

The waiter nodded, removed the plates, then took a brush from his apron and whisked up the few crumbs on the table. Then he silently retreated. No bill was presented, no money changed hands. The cost of the breakfast and the gratuity would appear on the room charge, which Spenser would never see.

In the far corner of the dining room, Michael Talbot stared toward Spenser. Talbot, an art dealer from San Francisco, had crossed paths with Spenser before. Three times in the last year the stodgy Britisher had outbid Talbot’s clients, for Spenser’s own clients seemed to have unlimited resources.

Talbot could only hope today would be different.

Spenser was dressed in a gray suit over a sweater vest, a blue polka-dot bow tie around his neck. His black laceup leather shoes were highly polished, as were his fingernails, and his neatly styled short hair was flecked with gray, as befitted his age, which Talbot estimated at close to sixty years.

Once, when Talbot had been in London on business, he’d tried to visit Spenser’s shop. There was no telephone number available, the small stone building had had no name outside, and aside from an unobtrusive video camera above the buzzer, it could have been suspended in time from a hundred years before. Talbot had pushed the buzzer twice, but no one had answered.

Spenser sensed Talbot staring his way but only glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Of the other seven men Spenser had determined had an interest in the artifact he’d come to purchase, the American would probably bid the highest. Talbot’s buyer was a Silicon Valley software billionaire with a penchant for Asian art and argumentation. The billionaire’s belligerency could only help Spenser. The man’s ego might take him beyond his set price, but as the competition stiffened, he traditionally became angry and dropped out. The new rich are so predictable, Spenser thought. He rose to return to his room. The auction was not until 1 P.M.

“LOT thirty-seven,” the auctioneer said with reverence, “the Golden Buddha.”

A large mahogany crate was wheeled onto the podium and the auctioneer reached for the clasp holding the door closed.

The audience of bidders was small. This was a highly secret auction and the invitations had only gone out to the select few who could afford to pay for art masterworks with somewhat shady histories.

Spenser had yet to bid on anything. Lot twenty-one, a Degas bronze that he knew had been stolen out of a museum twelve years ago, had appealed to him, but the bidding had gone higher than his South American client had authorized him to pay. More and more, Spenser was weaning himself away from clients on a budget, even if the stop price ran into the millions. The auction today was the first step in his plan for retirement. The auctioneer opened the door to the crate at the same time that Spenser pushed a button on the miniaturized satellite telephone in his vest pocket. He spoke into the tiny microphone clasped to his lapel.

“Please tell your employer they have the object on display,” he said to an aide thousands of miles away.

“He asks if it is everything you’d hoped,” the aide asked.

Spenser stared at the massive gold statue as a hush fell over the crowd.

“Everything and more,” Spenser said quietly.

A few seconds passed as the aide relayed the information. He said, “At all costs.”

“It will be an honor,” Spenser said as he thought back on the history.

THE Golden Buddha dated from 1288, when the rulers of what would later become Vietnam commissioned the work to celebrate their victory over the forces of Kublai Khan. Five hundred and ninety-six pounds of solid gold mined in Laos had been formed into a six-foot likeness of the Enlightened One. Chunks of jade from Siam had formed the eyes, while a ring of Burmese rubies wound around the neck. Buddha’s potbelly had been outlined in sapphires from Thailand and his belly button was a large rounded opal that glowed iridescently. The icon had been given as a gift to the first Dalai Lama in the year 1372.

For 587 years, the Golden Buddha had remained in a monastery in Tibet and then accompanied the Dalai Lama into exile. While being transported with the Dalai Lama on a trip to the United States for display, however, it had disappeared from the airport in Manila.

President Ferdinand Marcos had always been the prime suspect. Since then, the ownership had always remained cloudy, until suddenly it had mysteriously reappeared for the auction. The seller’s identity would remain an enigma.

While it was almost impossible to place a value on such a rare artifact, that was exactly what was about to happen. The preauction estimates had conservatively placed the value at between $100 million and $120 million.

“WE will start the bidding at fifty million U.S. dollars,” the auctioneer said.

A low starting point, Spenser thought. The gold alone was worth twice that. It was the history, not the beauty, that made it a priceless piece of art. Must be the weak world economic climate, Spenser concluded.

“We have fifty million,” the auctioneer said, “now sixty.”

Talbot raised his paddle as the bid hit eighty.

“Eighty, now ninety,” the auctioneer said in a monotone.

Spenser glanced across the room at Talbot. Typical American, ear on a satellite telephone, paddle in his hand, as if he were worried the auctioneer would miss his signal.

“Ninety, now a hundred,” the auctioneer droned.

The hundred bid was from a South African dealer Spenser knew. The dealer’s patron had made his fortune in diamonds. Spenser admired the woman—they’d shared a glass of sherry more than once—but he also knew her patron’s habits. When the value exceeded what he felt he could sell it for later, he’d drop out. The man loved art, but he only bought at his price and if he could someday make a profit.

One hundred ten million came from the rear of the room. Spenser turned to stare at the bidder. The man’s age was hard to determine, but if Spenser had to hazard a guess, he’d pick the low side of sixty, based primarily on the bidder’s flowing gray hair and beard. Two things were odd, though. Spenser knew practically everyone in the room at least by sight or reputation, but this man was an unknown. And he seemed totally unconcerned, as if he were bidding on a weekend trip to a spa at a local charity auction instead of tendering a bid in the amount of a small country’s yearly budget. The man was obviously qualified—the auction company would have made sure of that—but who was he?

One hundred twenty from a German pharmaceutical magnate.

“One twenty, now one thirty.”

Talbot again, waving his paddle like a landing semaphore.

The bidding began to stall at $140 million, bid again by the gray-haired man. Spenser turned again and felt a touch of apprehension. The man was staring directly into his eyes. Then the man winked. A chill ran down Spenser’s spine.

He turned to the side, where he could see Talbot talking animatedly into his telephone. He could sense then that the Silicon Valley billionaire was flagging.

“Tell him,” Spenser whispered in his phone, “it’s slowed at one fifty, with maybe one more bid still forthcoming.”

“He wants to know if you’ve bid yet.”

“No,” Spenser said, “but they know I’m here.”

Spenser had bought from the auctioneer many times; the man had been watching him like a hawk. Any smile, flinch or gesture of his would be taken as a bid.

“He asks that you bid two hundred,” the aide relayed, “and blow them out.”

“Acknowledged,” Spenser said.

Then in almost slow motion, he placed two spread apart fingers to his lips.

“The bid is two hundred million,” the auctioneer said emotionlessly.

A raise of fifty million when the auctioneer was begging for ten.

“I have two hundred million in the room,” the auctioneer said quietly, “anyone in for two hundred ten?”

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 Oregonhad 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 Oregonwas 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 Oregonto 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 Oregonran 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. Then 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 Timesor 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.”

“Now we celebrate,” the billionaire said, smiling.

Silver platters of delicacies littered the long cherrywood table in the palatial dining room of the man’s estate. Spenser had passed on the monkey meat, as well as the sea urchin, and settled on poultry in a peanut sauce. Still, the spicy side dishes were wreaking havoc with his travel-weary stomach, and he just wished the night would end.

Spenser sat at the far end of the table, the owner at the head. A total of six concubines were seated, three to a side, in the middle. After a dessert of wild berry mousse, cigars and cognac, the man rose from his seat.

“Shall we take a soak, Winston?” he said, “and allow the ladies to do their job?”

The man had no idea he would possess the faux Golden Buddha for less than a week.

And Winston Spenser had no way to know he had less than a fortnight to live.