Emerald Buddha

Chapter 38

Reggie shook his head as he hung up the sat phone. He understood the logic, but his control officer clearly had no understanding of the logistics involved in putting the word out that he was on the hunt for the plane passengers. For one, he was in the middle of nowhere, and it would take him all day to make it anywhere close to civilization. For another, it wasn’t like you posted an inquiry on the web and waited for an email. The villages where members of the drug gangs might have contacts were remote, and any direct interaction with their representatives could be fatal.

But he had his marching orders. His trek into the jungle had been for nothing. He’d pushed himself to the limits of his endurance to reach the camp, only to fail to make it in time to join the foray to the plane. It had been midnight by the time he’d had the tents in sight, and he’d been surprised when he’d turned on his phone to discover that he had a missed call from HQ. When he returned it, he’d been told that the girl and her companion hadn’t been on the plane, and to stand by for further orders.

That had been in the wee hours of the morning. Now it was light, and he’d been handed another virtually impossible task.

Welcome to government work, he thought, as he eyed his stolen bike with a sour expression. His ass hurt from the seat, and every rut in the trail felt like a proctology exam gone horribly awry. Now he’d be pedaling all the way back to the nearest real town, which was… Tachileik. A good thirty miles on the world’s worst bicycle. Assuming he didn’t get gunned down for sport.

He looked back over his shoulder at the peak of the nearest karst formation and groaned quietly. Maybe a desk job wouldn’t be so terrible after all.

An idea occurred to him. He powered on the phone and called his control again. “Do we have anyone in Bangkok who could handle the urban part of this? I’m in position, in deep cover.”

“Not really. I mean, yes, of course we have people on the ground there, but this is a delicate situation. We were hoping to rely on your expertise. Can you not make it?”

“It’ll be this evening, more than likely, at the earliest.” He gave the man his coordinates and suggested he look at a map.

“Stand by.”

Reggie waited for five minutes while his precious battery power drained. He was about to hang up and hope for a return call when his control came back on the line.

“Negative. We want to keep this a closed circle. Do the best you can.”

“Roger that.”

Reggie disconnected and swore under his breath. Closed circle indeed. Easy for some faceless wonk to wave his hand and send Reggie into perdition. It wasn’t he who was trying to make it cross-country in Injun country.

He trudged over to the bike and, after pulling on his backpack, began wheeling the ungainly conveyance down the game trail, the nearest dirt road that he could safely ride it on many miles away.

Drake poked his head out of the tent as the sun climbed into the sky and spotted Joe chatting with Dick and Harry, whose green complexions spoke volumes about the aftereffects of inhaling a drug cocktail. The pair moved far slower than they had the prior day, whereas Joe’s gestures and voice were animated and crisp. In spite of being at least double their age, Joe couldn’t have looked better if he’d just gotten a massage and a facial.

Joe saw him and gave a cheery wave. “Yo! Youngblood. Time’s a-wasting.”

“Yeah. I see that,” Drake said as he stepped into the open. “You take another taste of the magic potion this morning?”

“See, that’s the kind of question that makes you seem like a small thinker. I was up before anyone, did my yoga, and ate. You’re mistaking being in touch with the world’s energy for something drugs can bring.”

“So you ate the roach?”

Joe offered an impish grin. “Waste not…”

“That’s what I thought.”

“How did it go?”

Drake eyed the two Shans. “You positive they don’t speak any English?”

“Look around, boy. Your secrets are safe.”

“We found the plane. Nobody was in it. Which is somewhat of a mystery.”

Joe nodded as though he’d expected the news. “Now what?”

“We continue in our search for the Emerald Buddha.”

“The what?” Joe finally registered surprise.

Drake ground his teeth — that was a stupid slip. “The ruins.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“I only got an hour or two of sleep. I don’t know what I’m saying,” Drake deflected.

“I heard you. First you mentioned anything about emeralds. Or a Buddha.”

“Can we just drop it? We’ll find the place and see what’s in it. End of story.”

“Little testy, aren’t we? You need a big shot of mellow-the-hell-out. So agro. Unbecoming in a youngster.”

“I really appreciate the life lessons, but maybe some other time? I feel like crap.”

Joe gave him a sly look. “I might have something that could pick you up.”

Drake gave him an incredulous stare.

Joe shrugged. “Hey. No biggie. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Regular corner drugstore, aren’t you?”

Joe smiled and moved back to Harry and Dick. Harry looked like he was about to vomit. Drake suddenly didn’t feel quite as bad, the Schadenfreude helping somewhat. He ducked back into the tent and almost collided with Allie.

“Oh. Sorry. Good morning,” Drake said.

“If you say so.”

“Ready to pack up and hit the road?”

“I suppose.”

Half an hour later they were filing through the jungle. Uncle Pete cleared the way with his machete, their good fortune in finding trails having fled when they’d left the camp. The way toward the valley was thick with vegetation, and the morning passed with slim progress as they hacked a path through the rain forest.

Lunch was a hushed affair while a cloudburst drizzled on them, offering a welcome cooling from the humid swelter. Joe and Uncle Pete consulted with Spencer on the best way to proceed, and by the time the rain abated, they’d agreed that Joe and Spencer would trade off leading the way for the afternoon, giving the little Thai’s tired arms a rest from wielding the machete.

After two hours, they arrived at a small clearing.

Allie pointed north. “There they are.”

In the near distance, two towering karst peaks, their rocky sides sheer as cliffs, rose into the azure sky from the surrounding jungle.

“The two sisters,” Drake said.

“And the valley between them.”

“My hunch is there isn’t going to be a Holiday Inn at the base, so let’s search for a spot to make camp once we’re in their shadow,” Spencer said, noting their position on his compass. “If we can find another game trail, we’ll be there in a few hours. Maybe even early enough to root around and locate our cave.”

They picked up their pace, inspired now that their objective was in sight, and were fortunate enough to find a swollen stream that led straight to the half-mile-wide gap between the two peaks. When they reached the entry to the valley, Drake’s watch read three thirty, so they had at least three solid hours of light to go before they’d need to pitch their tents.

Allie adjusted the worn straps on her backpack as they eyed the valley. “We’re looking for a cave. But after five hundred years, it might blend into the landscape or have caved in. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“You mean there isn’t going to be a big stone gate or something?” Drake asked innocently, and Allie smiled.

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” she replied, and then they began methodically scanning their surroundings, Joe and Spencer taking turns with the binoculars Joe had brought.

After fifteen minutes, nobody had spotted anything. Spencer shrugged and unsheathed his machete. “Looks like we do this the hard way. Any preference on where we start?”

Allie pointed to the nearest of the two peaks. “Any cave is likely to be close to the base, so I’d suggest we begin at the bottom of the right one and work around it, then go across to the other.”

“Fair enough,” Spencer said, and headed into the brush.

Two hours later they’d been over the entire base, spread twenty feet apart in a sweeping pattern to ensure they didn’t miss anything. The sun was low in the afternoon sky, and its blistering glare had faded to a diffused glow. Ghostly tendrils of ground fog began drifting through the peaks as the air cooled with dusk’s approach.

Spencer called over to them. “I think we’re done for the day. Let’s find a decent place to camp, and we’ll finish this tomorrow.”

They made their way down to the steep bank of the stream and found a flat area behind a thicket of bamboo fifteen yards from the water. Uncle Pete busied himself setting up the tents with Drake and Spencer, and Allie excused herself to freshen up at the stream before it got completely dark. Drake was finishing up driving the final tent post into the ground when Allie came hurrying toward them from the stream.

“I think I found something,” she said breathlessly, her face shiny from the heat.

“What is it?” Drake asked. Spencer raised his head, and then he and Uncle Pete moved to join them.

“There’s an outcropping of rocks on the far bank that looks unusual. It could be a cave entrance.”

“I’ll get some flashlights,” Spencer said, and went to the tent to retrieve them. When he returned, he handed one to Allie, and they all set out down the stream to the suspect area.

Sixty yards down the bank from their camp, she stopped and pointed. “That’s it. What do you think?”

They stared across the water at a mound of rocks overgrown with vegetation, with another pile next to it that looked cleaner — as though the stones had been placed there.

“Could be. Definitely suspicious. Maybe we can get across around here?” Drake said, eyeing the rushing water.

Spencer shook his head. “Looks too deep. It’s wider by our camp. Let’s cross there, and we can work our way back along that side.”

They made their way back to the wider, shallower part of the stream and stepped across, the water rising to their knees. Once on the far bank, they made their slippery way toward the outcropping as the last of the sun’s rays surrendered to the blanket of fog settling over the valley. When they reached the rocks, Drake flicked on his rugged aluminum flashlight and moved to the fresher-looking pile of stones.

“It’s definitely not a natural formation. Someone stacked these here,” Drake said. “Allie, hold the flashlights for us. Spencer, give me a hand. Let’s see if we can budge a few of these and find out what’s behind them.”

Allie moved beside Drake and took his light, and the two men selected one of the smaller rocks at the top as Joe and the pair of Shans looked on. “Ready? On three. One. Two… three!” Drake exclaimed, and they both heaved. A vein bulged on Drake’s forehead as he strained. The stone shifted and tumbled down the face of the slope with a crash, and then settled in the mud by the side of the stream.

“There’s a space behind them,” Drake said, peering into the gap. “If we get a few more out of the way, we should be able to squeeze through.”

Spencer nodded. “This one looks like it could be dislodged relatively easily. Allie, hand me a light. I can use it for leverage.”

She gave one of the lamps to Drake, and he wedged it into a crevice between the two stones and pushed. The rock inched forward with a scrape. Spencer joined him, and together they got it free. It rolled down and joined its mate by the stream, creating an opening barely large enough for a child to squeeze through.

“If we shift this one too, that should do it,” Allie said, motioning to another medium-sized stone.

“You heard the lady. Third time’s a charm,” Spencer said, and they both wedged their lights behind the stone and rocked it back and forth until it gave. It dropped into the opening with a thud, creating an aperture twenty by thirty inches.

“That ought to do it,” Drake said, and then switched his lamp on and directed it into the opening. “You want to take it from here, Allie? You’re the expert.”

Allie took a final look at the twilight fog and the near-dark of the remaining visible sky, and crawled up the rocks into the space beyond. Drake went next, followed by Spencer. Joe contented himself with watching from outside while Harry scrambled through, leaving Dick with Joe.

The cave was narrow at the front and widened as it stretched deeper into the slope. Allie’s beam was transfixed on a carving near shoulder level — the unmistakable visage of a smiling Buddha with some stylized figures beneath it. She reached out and ran her fingers along the stone. “This is Khmer. It’s very distinctive,” she whispered.

“Then this…”

“Unless there are multiple caves between the ‘two guardians’ with Khmer carvings, I’d say this is our spot,” she said, and swung her beam toward the far chamber created by the cave’s irregular walls. She took a hesitant step, and then another.

Drake swept his light around them, alert for scorpions or snakes — caves being a favorite hiding place. Allie edged nearer the chamber as Spencer and Harry brought up the rear, and together they moved into the second area.

She stopped abruptly at the threshold, her breathing shallow. When she turned to face them, she was white as a sheet.

“Looks like we’re too late. But that’s the least of our problems.”