Golden Buddha (26 page)

“You caught nothing,” the man said. “I was buying a piece of art, and a team of thieves scammed me. They're the ones you should be harassing, not me.”

“When did you arrive in Macau?” Rhee asked.

“A couple of hours ago,” the man replied.

“The last ferryboat was three hours ago,” Rhee said, “and the next does not leave for two more. In addition, there are no commercial airline flights from the hours of one a.m. until five a.m. Your story is obvious nonsense.”

“I have my own jet,” the man noted.

“Indeed. Where is it now?” Rhee asked.

“I have no idea,” the man said. “The thieves stole it.”

“How convenient,” Rhee said. “You understand: If you refuse to answer our questions, we can make this very uncomfortable.”

The billionaire's ire was rising fast. Any dealings with bureaucrats were usually limited to him telling them what he wanted to do. He was tired, slightly hungover and missing his hundred million dollars.

He looked right into Rhee's eyes.

“Listen, you asshole,” the man said. “My 737 was stolen from your airport, and inside was a briefcase containing one hundred million dollars in bearer bonds. I don't know what the hell has been happening tonight in this little pisspot of a country, but if you just unhook me from these handcuffs and let me use a telephone, I can clear this up in about ten minutes.”

Had Rhee listened to the billionaire, the 737 might have been tracked. Instead, the man's belligerent attitude doomed him. Rhee motioned to one of the officers holding the man's arms. “Take him to headquarters,” he said.

 

B
ARRETT
steered the Scarab into the sling, then Barrett, Cabrillo, Reyes and Nixon climbed up the boarding ladder while the deckhands secured the boat.

“Doing some operation time tonight,” Cabrillo said to Barrett. “Do you like it?”

“Not as easy as frosting a cake,” Barrett admitted, “but a lot more exciting.”

The four men walked through a hatch into the interior of the
Oregon
. Cabrillo motioned down the hallway. “You men go and clean up. I've still got some work to do.”

The men started down the hallway to their cabins.

“Hey,” Cabrillo said to the retreating men, “good job.”

Then he walked down to the control room and opened the door. Stepping inside, he began to unbutton his wet shirt, then turned to Hanley.

“Where are we at, Max?”

 

F
OUR
feet of space remained between the surface of the rising water and the top of the storm sewer. The batteries on the hard-hat lights were growing dim, the water was rising fast, and the men could no longer safely climb from the raft to steer the Golden Buddha along.

Meadows had lashed the rafts together, and he and Jones were on each side where the two rafts met, standing in a half crouch. As the rafts careened along, they attempted to alter their direction by pushing against the hard sides of the pipe with their legs.

“Junction coming up,” Hornsby shouted. “We need the left channel.”

At the V in the pipes just ahead, the fast-flowing water was being parted like the bow wake on a nuclear submarine. Chunks of debris littered the water, the roof of the pipe was dripping so hard they might as well have been outside, and the pair of rafts was accelerating almost beyond control.

Jones watched ahead and timed his action. As the rafts reached a spot twenty feet in advance of the V, he reached over with his leg and shoved against the wall. The rafts lumbered to the left side, and then were carried in the current past the junction.

“We made that one,” Jones shouted, “but if we get much more water in this pipe, we're going to have trouble on the next one.”

“If we don't get some help soon,” Meadows said, “we're going to need to cut the Buddha loose and try to save our own skin.”

“O
NE
at a time,” Detective Po said to the officer.

Using a screwdriver on his key chain, the officer opened the first can of paint and poured the contents through the open manhole into the racing water below. From the light of his flashlight, Po could see the purple paint mix with the water, then spread out. Placing the empty can to the side, the officer pried open a second and repeated the process. At just that instant, Po's cell phone rang and he stepped a few feet away and answered.

“Ling,” Sung Rhee said. “I want you to come to headquarters. We've captured a suspect.”

“Right, boss,” Po said.

 

“T
HE
authorities have decided to trace the flow of water in the storm sewers with paint,” Hanley said to Cabrillo.

Cabrillo was wiping his wet face and hair with a hand towel. Once he was finished, he tossed it onto a table and ran a comb quickly through his hair.

“If they did realize our men had escaped through the sewers, I was hoping that removing all the blueprints would slow down the pursuit long enough for our men to be extracted,” he said. “Looks like we need to implement one of the backup plans.”

Hanley pointed to a computer screen. “As you know, the outflow pipe we picked for the exit into the bay is the only one on the southwest point of the Southern Peninsula. The outflow runs between the Nam Van Lakes and enters the water just north of the island of Taipa.”

Cabrillo stared at the computer screen. The image of the storm sewers looked like a crooked tree with sagging limbs. The sewer his team would use to exit was the trunk at the roots.

“Have we been able to establish contact with them?” Cabrillo asked.

“No luck with Hornsby, Meadows and Jones,” Hanley admitted. “The portable radios they carry just don't seem to have enough power to penetrate the layers of soil overhead.”

“What about Murph and Kasim?”

“We've been trying,” Hanley said, “but the voice transmission is spotty. Data seems to be passing through, however—we are in contact by alphanumeric signals.”

“So we can type orders to the Zodiacs and they can respond?” Cabrillo asked.

“So far,” Hanley said.

Eric Stone interrupted the conversation. “Sirs,” he said, pointing to a screen, “the portable camera Halpert left near the manhole is showing something you might want to watch.”

Cabrillo and Hanley watched as the officer poured paint into the hole.

“Give me a simulation of how long that paint will take to reach our men,” Cabrillo said quickly.

Stone's hands danced over the keyboards, and a few seconds later the screen showing the sewer system began slowly to take on a red color. The men stood watching as the color advanced along the arteries of the sewer system. A counter in the corner of the screen timed the movement.

“Seventeen minutes until the paint reaches where we believe the men are now,” Stone said slowly. “Twenty-two until it reaches the water above Taipa.”

At just that instant, a printer off to the side whirled and a sheet was spit into the tray. Hanley walked over and picked it up. “The order just went through to the police boats and the two Chinese navy boats here in Macau. They are supposed to begin patrols immediately to scan for the colored water, then, when they find an outflow, remain there on station.”

“Start a timer,” Cabrillo ordered quickly. “We're in crunch time now. Make sure everyone is aboard and prepare the
Oregon
to sail. I want my team out of that storm sewer with the Golden Buddha and safely back aboard—then we need to vacate Macau by first light. With the Chinese navy on patrol, this ship is in jeopardy.”

“Broken Arrow?” Hanley asked.

“Confirm, Broken Arrow,” Cabrillo said.

“Put it out, Mr. Stone,” Hanley said.

Stone sounded the alarm. In a few minutes, the
Oregon
was a blur of activity.

 

T
INY
Gunderson was eating a salami sandwich and sipping on a glass of iced tea as he flew over the South China Sea. The brunette flight attendant, Rhonda Rosselli, was sitting in the flight engineer's chair. The door to the cockpit was open, and the blonde copilot, Judy Michaels, walked inside and slid back into her seat. She was dressed in a khaki flight suit and her face was freshly scrubbed.

“Tracy is changing and checking the equipment,” she said.

“Did I tell you, you did a great job?” Gunderson asked. “You both are most convincing ho's.”

“A master's degree in political science from Georgetown and four years with the National Security Council, and I'm sleeping with the enemy,” Michaels said.

Gunderson popped the last of the sandwich in his mouth, then brushed the crumbs off his hands. Washing the last bite down with a sip of iced tea, he spoke.

“I think you forget I seduced a Romanian countess a few years ago,” Gunderson said. “We do what we have to, to accomplish the objective.”

“I remember, Chuck,” Michaels said. “In fact, I seem to remember you rather enjoyed the assignment.”

Gunderson smiled. “So you didn't like yours?”

Michaels noted readings from the instrument panel on a clipboard. “The guy was a freak,” she said. “Capital PH, phreak.”

“Then it serves him right,” Gunderson said as he unbuckled his seat belt and slid from the pilot's seat, “that we swiped his plane.”

“On the controls,” Michaels said.

“I have to use the restroom,” Gunderson said to Rosselli. “Be right back.”

 

I
N
the dining room on the
Oregon
, Winston Spenser was sipping tea and worrying. Off to one side, at a separate table, a guard sat on silent watch. Juan Cabrillo entered the dining room, walked over to Spenser, and handed him a slip of paper.

“That's the account number of the bank in Paraguay,” Cabrillo said. “The transfer has taken place and the funds are available now. If the account is not accessed within one year of today, the funds will automatically bounce back to one of our banks. The second you make a deposit or withdrawal, however, within the next year the computer erases all traces of where the money came from or would go to.”

“Why one year?” Spenser asked.

“Because,” Cabrillo said, “in the financial shape you're in, if you don't touch the money in a year, it'll be because you're dead.”

Spenser nodded.

Next, Cabrillo handed Spenser a folder with a plane ticket. “Hong Kong to Dubai, then on to Paraguay, first class. It's the first available flight tomorrow morning.”

Spenser took the ticket.

“Here is ten thousand dollars in U.S. currency,” Cabrillo said, handing Spenser an envelope. “Any more will arouse suspicions.”

Spenser took the envelope.

“That concludes our agreement, Mr. Spenser,” Cabrillo said. “We have called a cab to take you where you want to go. It will be pulling up at the side of the ship in a few minutes.”

The guard stood up and waited for Spenser to rise. Cabrillo started for the door.

“Can I ask you a question?” Spenser said.

Cabrillo had just opened the door. He stopped, turned and nodded.

“This all seems a little too perfect,” Spenser said. “What's the catch?”

“You still have to make it to Hong Kong,” Cabrillo said as he walked through the door.

 

O
N
the
Oregon
's rear deck, George Adams waited as a landing pad on the fantail rose up to deck level. A hard rain was raking the deck and the winds were a steady twenty knots from east to west. He turned to Tom Reyes.

“Once the deckhand locks the lift in place, we need to rotate the whirlybird into the wind,” he said. “Then I'm going to need to make a hot takeoff into the wind.”

Reyes nodded and watched as another deckhand rolled a metal cart containing several boxes near the lift. The elevator operator signaled that the lift was locked, and Adams and Reyes walked over.

The Robinson R-44 helicopter was a medium-sized piston-engine craft with a top speed of just over 130 miles an hour. The weight was 1,420 pounds, the horsepower of the power plant 260, and the cost was about $300,000.

The two men attached ground-handling wheels, spun the ship around, then removed the wheels and handed them to the deckhand.

“We distributed the dye into plastic baggies like you ordered,” the deckhand noted.

Adams nodded and turned to Reyes. “Keep the box at your feet, but away from the foot pedals. I'll take us down as low as we can safely go, but the ride will be touchy because of the wind.”

“I understand,” Reyes said.

Adams did a quick walk around the helicopter, checking fuel oil and general condition, then motioned to Reyes. “Hop in,” he said, “and we'll get this show on the road.”

Once both men were in the seats, Adams reached down and ran through the preflight checklist. Once he was done, he screamed “Clear” out the window and engaged the starter. Once the engine had fired and the clutch was engaged, the rotor blades started slowly spinning, then gathered speed until the helicopter was shaking and vibrating. Adams watched the gauges closely, and when the engine was warmed and everything had settled down, he spoke through the headset microphone to Reyes.

“Hold on, Tom,” Adams said, “this will be like a giant jump.”

Neutralizing the cyclic, Adams quickly lifted the collective and the tiny bird left the pad. A second later, Adams eased the cyclic forward and the helicopter nosed over into the wind, rising and moving forward at the same time.

Clear of the
Oregon
, Adams flew directly into the wind. Heading offshore a distance, he then started to angle back toward Macau. Around the knee of his flight suit was a strap with a metal clip, and in the clip was a folded slip of paper showing the locations of the storm sewer outflows.

“There we go,” Adams said, spotting the dirty water where a pipe spilled into the bay.

Reyes reached down in the box, removed a baggie, slid the top open partway, and then tossed it out the small window opening in the passenger door. It tumbled through the ten feet from the helicopter to the water and began to spread out like blood from a rare steak.

In the distance, a police boat heard the noise from the helicopter but it could not make it out in the rain. Adams moved the helicopter up the line, salting the water on the east side of Macau. Then he steered around the end of the peninsula between Macau and Taipa to repeat the exercise.

 

D
ETECTIVE
Po parked in front of the headquarters of the Macau Police Department, then walked through the rain toward the front doors. In the east, the sky was lightening some, but the rain continued on unabated.

Entering the building, he rode the elevator up to Rhee's floor, then exited the elevator and walked down the hallway. Upon reaching the reception area, he instantly knew that there was trouble afoot. The U.S. consular agent, the mayor of Macau, a Chinese general and four reporters were clustered around a man dressed entirely in black.

“This isn't a case of shoplifting,” the man in black said loudly. “They've stolen a Boeing 737, for God's sake.”

It had been a case of blind luck for the software billionaire. Still refused a telephone call, he had been brought to headquarters to be questioned by Rhee in his office. As soon as they had entered the office, however, the billionaire had noticed a copy of
Fortune
magazine on Rhee's side table. His face was gracing the cover. Once he'd pointed that out to Rhee, things had begun happening fast.

The billionaire had turned from suspect to victim in seconds.

Po walked over and stood next to Rhee.

Po heard him whisper “Damn” as the elevator door opened again and Stanley Ho started down the hall.

“Have you found my Buddha?” Ho said as soon as he was within range.

“Who the hell is this?” the billionaire asked.

“I'm Stanley Ho,” Ho said in aggravation. “Who the hell are you?”

“Marcus Friday,” the billionaire said loudly. “You might have heard of me?”

“And you of me,” Ho said, affronted. “I'm one of
Forbes
's richest people.”

“I know all the people ahead of me on the list—you aren't one of them,” Friday retorted.