Golden Buddha

  “Okay, men,” he shouted over the noise of the engines, “I’ll tell you when and where to direct the fire. For right now, we’re just taking a little flight.”

  That sounded simple enough—but not one of the Tibetans had ever been inside a plane before.

  ON board the Oregon, Hanley stood above the microphone and talked in a clear voice.

  “I just sent word to your contact,” he said. “Watch for red strobes as your signal.”

  “Same spot as we had first planned?” Murphy asked.

  “Yes,” Hanley said. “Now as far as Gurt is concerned, we talked to Huxley. You need to apply direct pressure to the wound as soon as possible.”

  “Do you have us on satellite surveillance?” Murphy asked.

  “Yes,” Hanley said, staring at the screen. “You’re about five minutes from the rendezvous point.”

  “We’ll report back once we land,” Murphy said.

  The radio went dead. Hanley dialed Seng and waited while it rang.

  BRIKTIN Gampo checked to make sure the strobes were flashing, then stared up at the sky. The clouds were low, almost a fog, but from second to second they would shift, revealing patches of open air. In the distance he could hear a helicopter approaching. He walked back inside, stirred a pot of tea on the stove, then went back out to await the arrival.

  “I see one,” Murphy said, pointing.

  In the last few minutes, Gurt’s face had turned ashen. Murphy could see beads of sweat on his forehead, and his hand controlling the helicopter was shaking.

  “Hold on,” Murphy said, “we’re almost there.”

  “I’m starting to see black on the edges of my eyes,” Gurt said. “You might need to guide me on where to land.”

  THE sound of the cargo plane lifting off was loud. Eddie Seng was forced to yell into the telephone. “How bad is it?” he asked Hanley.

  “We don’t know,” Hanley said, “but we should dispatch someone now—the flight north takes a couple of hours. If the support is not needed, we can call it back.”

  “Got it,” Seng said.

  Then he walked toward the makeshift clinic to see if Huxley had found anyone trained in nursing to fly along. Five minutes later, he had a helicopter refueled, a Tibetan soldier with a limited nursing background, and supplies in the air.

  “YOU’RE close enough, Gurt,” Murphy said, “and you’re about twelve feet above the ground.”

  Gurt started to descend, then vomited across the dashboard of the Bell. “In case I can’t, when that gauge reads green,” he said, wiping the sleeve of his flight suit across his mouth, “flick these three switches down. That will shut down the turbines.”

  Six feet above the ground in a slow descent, Gurt paused and hovered for a second, then took her the rest of the way to the ground. As soon as the helicopter settled on the skids, he slumped over in the harness and sat unmoving.

  Murphy started to unsnap him from the belt as he waited for the helicopter to cool, then turned the engines off and waited for the rotor to stop spinning. Then he quickly climbed from his seat and raced around to the pilot’s door. With Gampo’s help, they carried Gurt inside the tent.

  Then Murphy began to cut off his flight suit with a knife.

  The cloth was saturated by blood and the wound was still leaking.

  “SIR,” the pilot of the Gulfstream said, “we’re on final approach.”

  Cabrillo stared out the window. Smoke was still rising from the burning wreckage at the far end of Gonggar Airport. The sun was over the horizon and he could just catch sight of Lhasa sixty miles distant. Staring up the aisle, through the open cockpit door and out the windshield, he could see a lumbering silver plane some seventy feet above the runway climbing out and away. On the ground were several trucks driving down the road away from the airfield.

  They were a hundred feet above the runway and two hundred yards downwind. Two minutes later, the tires touched the tarmac with a squeal. The pilot taxied off the runway near the terminal and stopped. The turbines were still spinning when Cabrillo climbed out.

  CHAIRMAN Zhuren had tape across his eyes and his wrists were taped behind his back. The dark-haired man that had burst into his bedroom was pulling him quickly along. Zhuren could hear a noisy crowd of people nearby. Then distant gunfire rang out from a few blocks away.

  The thumping of a distant helicopter grew louder.

  King watched through the scope as Reyes led Zhuren through the crowd. He could see Reyes ordering the Dungkar soldiers with him to clear the people away from the landing zone. Turning, he glanced from his perch a few blocks away to where the armored personnel carriers were approaching. Crowds of Tibetans were trying to stop them but they were being felled by bursts of machine-gun fire. The lead APC was coming down a narrow street, with Tibetans fleeing from the front. He watched as it ran over the fallen body of a Tibetan freedom fighter. It flattened the body like a frog on a train track.

  Reaching into his bag, he removed a belt of ammunition containing armor-piercing rounds and slid them into the .50. The helicopter was just about to touch down when he started firing.

  Ten shots in seven seconds. Ten more for good measure.

  The lead APC ground to a halt. The ones to the rear stopped also.

  The sound of the helicopter was loud in Zhuren’s ears. He felt himself being pulled from inside and pushed from outside into a seat, then he felt someone slide in next to him. He sniffed the air. It was the dark-haired man, the man who had yanked him from safety into the unknown.

  The helicopter lifted off.

  “They will hover above us and we’ll climb inside,” King said to his Dungkar assistant.

  “Mr. Sir,” the Tibetan said, “can I stay?”

  “What’s your plan?” King asked.

  The Tibetan pointed to where his countrymen were swarming over the disabled APC.

  The helicopter was almost to the rooftop. King reached into his satchel and removed a black cloth bag. “These are hand grenades,” he said. “Do you know how they work?”

  “Pull the metal thing and run?” the Dungkar said, smiling.

  “You got it,” King said, “but keep your people back when you use them—these will shred a human like cheese in a grater.”

  The helicopter was above the rooftop and lowering down. The Tibetan grabbed the bag and started for the ladder down.

  “Thank you, sir,” the Dungkar soldier shouted.

  “Good luck,” King shouted as a pair of hands from inside the helicopter reached for him and he stepped up onto the skid, then ducked down and climbed inside.

  “How’s things?” Reyes shouted after the door was closed and the helicopter had turned back toward Gonggar Airport.

  “You know what they say,” King said wearily. “We do more before lunch than most people do all day.”

  43

  “MR. Seng,” Cabrillo said, “excellent job so far.”

  A cold wind was blowing from the north. It bore the scent of forests and glaciers, aviation fuel and gunpowder. Cabrillo zipped the leather jacket he was wearing tighter around his neck, then reached in his rear pocket and removed a carefully folded white handkerchief and dabbed his nose, which was running.

  “Thank you, sir,” Seng said. “Here’s the most current situation report. Murphy and the contract pilot managed to get the charges placed and cause the avalanche at the pass. Any Chinese armor is now effectively immobilized. Even if they decided to ignore the Russian advance and try to return to Lhasa now, their only route would cost them at least forty-eight hours of transit time, and that is if the weather holds.”

  “Problems with that operation?” Cabrillo asked.

  “The contract pilot, one Gurt Guenther, was hit by small-arms fire,” Seng said. “The extent of his injuries is unknown.”

  “You’ve dispatched backup?”

  “A relief helicopter with Kasim aboard is en route,” Seng said, “but they made it to the fuel stop and managed to land, so Guenther might not be to
o critical. The way it stands now is that if Murphy’s team can fly themselves out, we can call back Kasim.”

  “Good,” Cabrillo said. “We might just need him here.”

  “Speaking of the weather,” Seng said, “we are going to catch a late spring storm this afternoon, then it will clear for tomorrow and the next few days. The estimate is two to three inches of snow, and for the temperature to go below freezing before a slow warming trend.”

  “The weather has the same impact on us as on the Chinese,” Cabrillo said, “but it is a possible advantage for the Dungkar forces. We’ll score it in Tibet’s favor.”

  From far in the east came the sound of an approaching helicopter. Cabrillo stared in the distance and tried to make out which type it was.

  “That’s one of ours, sir,” Seng said. “It contains Reyes, King and Legchog Zhuren.”

  “Excellent.”

  The two men started walking closer to the terminal. Zhuren would end up there soon enough.

  “We have managed to field an attack helicopter liberated from the Chinese and piloted by Mr. Adams. Also a cargo plane we modified into a gunship with Gunderson at the controls, as well as the rental Bells and the Predator.”

  “An excellent air armada for the newly resurrected Tibetan military,” Cabrillo said.

  “Everything else in the plan has taken place at the correct time,” Seng said, “but there is one problem that has arisen. I discovered it when questioning a captured Chinese lieutenant.”

  “What?” Cabrillo asked.

  “Because the Chinese troops in Tibet have always been outnumbered,” Seng said, “if they were overrun—and I mean a Broken Arrow situation, no hope at all—the plan called for them to gas the Tibetan rebels with an airborne paralyzing agent.”

  “The drums must be marked with some symbols,” Cabrillo said. “We’ll just call Washington and receive recommendations for how to disable it.”

  “That’s the problem,” Seng said loudly over the sound of the helicopter hovering to land. “The lieutenant doesn’t know where it was stored. He only knows it exists.”

  Cabrillo reached into his coat pocket and removed a Cuban cigar. Biting off the end, he spit the plug to the side, then reached for a Zippo lighter with the other hand and did a single-hand light. He puffed the cigar to life before speaking.

  “I have a feeling, Mr. Seng, it’s going to be a long day.”

  MURPHY was angry. Gampo had left him alone in the tent with a weak and bleeding Gurt. If this was the way the feared Dungkar reacted to blood, they’d lose this war before it ever started. The Oregon was sending help, but even at the fastest cruising speed the Bell could fly, that would be hours away. Gurt, his friend and fellow warrior, was growing weaker by the minute. His skin was an ugly gray and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

  Just then the flap of the tent was pulled back and Gampo entered.

  He was carrying a handful of long-bladed grass clippings in one hand and what looked like a wet dirt clod in the other, and under his chin was a chunk of meat from some unspecified beast.

  “Where the hell did you go?” Murphy said.

  “Stir the fire in the stove,” Gampo said quietly, setting down the grass and mud, “then add these to the fire,” he added, removing a leather pouch with powdered minerals inside. “We need a good amount of smoke inside the tent. Once you have that done,” he said, pointing to the meat, “cook that in with the tea and make me a meat broth.”

  Murphy stared at Gampo as if he were crazy.

  But the Tibetan was already busy cleaning and bandaging Gurt’s wound, so Murphy did as he was told. Two minutes later, the tent was filled with a smoke that smelled somewhat like cinnamon cloves washed in lemon. Three more minutes and Gampo stood upright and stared at Murphy. Then he motioned to help him prop Gurt up. The grass and mud had dried into a pair of oblong bandages front and rear. They adhered to his skin like plaster of paris laced with glue. Gurt’s eyes began to flicker open and he drew a few deep breaths.

  “Give him the broth of the bear,” Gampo said. “I’ll go gas up your flying ship.”

  JUST across the border of Russia and Mongolia, General Alexander Kernetsikov was breathing deeply of the diesel-smoke-tinged air. After leaving Novosibirsk, his tank column had blown through the Altai Region like a top-fueler down a drag strip. Kernetsikov was riding in the lead tank with his head out of a forward hatch. He was wearing a helmet with a headset so he could communicate with his other officers, and a uniform with enough ribbons to decorate a Christmas tree. In his mouth was an unlit Cuban cigar. In his hand was a GPS that he was using to track the column’s speed.

  The distance to the Tibet border was five hundred miles. They were traveling at thirty-five miles per hour.

  Kernetsikov stared overhead as a flight of fighters crisscrossed high in the air above. Then he called his intelligence officer over the radio to learn what was new. The weather was due to change to snow sometime in the next few hours. Other than that, all was the same.

  IN Macau, Sung Rhee was reaching the end of his patience.

  Marcus Friday had learned that his plane had been found and had ordered it to return to pick him up and fly him out of the city. Stanley Ho was still angry about the theft of his priceless Buddha. The later discovery that the one Friday had recovered was fake just added to his rage.

  After the Chinese navy had realized that the cargo ship they had illegally stopped on the high seas had nothing to do with the incident in Macau, they had broadened their circle of observation and tracked the Oregon to Vietnam.

  Po had made a few calls to a friend he knew in the Da Nang police department and learned that a C-130 had left Da Nang for Bhutan. A few more calls and some wired bribes had led him to a rumor that the group that had stolen the statue was on their way to Tibet.

  Po was a Chinese police officer and Tibet was a Chinese region, so Po had decided to follow the trail. Flying from Macau to Chengdu, he had arrived on the last flight in Gonggar yesterday evening. By the time he’d arrived at the office of the Public Security Bureau, Tibet’s police force, it was closed. So he’d checked into a hotel and waited for morning.

  This morning was chaotic in Lhasa, but he’d managed to meet with the chief of police and requisitioned half a dozen men to help his investigation before the street fighting escalated. By now, he’d figured out which of the band members had been the ringleader. The memory of Cabrillo’s face on the tape from the single security camera that had worked had burned a hole in his brain that only death or insanity would erase.

  Po set out to see if he could find his target—he had no idea of the impending war.

  As Po and the other policemen loaded into a large six-passenger truck to scour Lhasa, the Chinese military officers were beginning to realize the gravity of the situation. They started to assemble to exert control over the city and crush the rebel forces.

  The Dungkar started their plan in motion as well.

  TIME was of the essence and Cabrillo had none to spare. For a man that had been yanked from sleep, bound and transported south to the airport under guard, Legchog Zhuren was surprisingly belligerent. Cabrillo had first tried to appeal to Zhuren’s sense of goodness, asking him just to explain the procedure for the poison gas and where the stockpiles were located, but Zhuren had spit in his face and puffed up his chest.

  It was obvious that goodness was not a quality Zhuren cherished.

  “Tape him,” Cabrillo said.

  Up until this second, Cabrillo had tried to show respect by allowing Zhuren to simply sit in the chair in front of him—now it was time to learn what he needed, and for that the Chinese leader would need to be secured. Seng and Gannon wrapped his arms and legs with duct tape and secured him to the chair.

  “Prepare the juice,” Cabrillo said to Huxley.

  “What are you—” Zhuren started to say.

  “I asked you nice,” Cabrillo said, “to help me save both the Chinese in Tibet as well as the Tibetan nationals
. You didn’t seem to want to cooperate. We have a little serum that will help to loosen your tongue. Trust me, you’ll tell us everything, from your first conscious memory to the last time you had sex. The only problem is this:

  We cannot always get the dosage right. Too much and we erase your memory like a wet cloth across a chalkboard. Usually we gradually increase the dosage to try and avoid that—but you’re a prick, so I think we’ll bypass that step.”

  “You’re lying,” Zhuren said in a voice showing fear.

  “Ms. Huxley,” Cabrillo said, “twenty cc’s in the lieutenant’s arm, please.”

  Huxley walked over to where the Chinese army lieutenant was still bound to his chair. She squirted some of the liquid in the air until she had the correct amount, then with her other hand wiped an alcohol swab across his upper arm, then plunged the needle into a vein. Cabrillo watched the second hand of his watch as fifteen seconds passed.

  “Name and where you were born, please,” Cabrillo said.

  The lieutenant rattled off the information like his tongue was on fire.

  “What is the total troop strength inside Lhasa?”

  “There were eighty-four hundred approximate troops,” the lieutenant said. “Just over six thousand were sent north toward Mongolia. That leaves around twenty-four hundred. Of those, some two hundred fifty were sick or injured. The remaining troops are Company S, Company L—”

  “That’s enough,” Cabrillo said.

  “I don’t mind,” the lieutenant said, smiling. “We have the following armor. Four T-59—”

  “That’s fine,” Cabrillo said.

  Zhuren stared at the lieutenant in horror.

  “Ms. Huxley,” Cabrillo said slowly. “Prepare one hundred cc’s.”

  Zhuren started talking and it was nearly a half hour before he finished.