Emerald Buddha

Chapter 54

Drake cracked his eyes open as Spencer’s voice whispered to him in the darkness of his tent. “Someone’s on the move down by the stream.”

Drake looked at the time — two a.m. He sat up and nodded to Spencer’s outline and then crawled to the opening. A thick layer of fog blanketed the area, so dense that he could barely make out Joe and Spencer crouched motionless, listening. Drake strained to hear and was rewarded by the sound of rustling from the cave mouth. Minutes went by, and metal on stone drifted to them, followed by the thunk of rock shifting.

Joe murmured to Drake, “Someone’s going into the cave.”

Drake nodded. “Good. Maybe they’ll take their stuff and leave.”

“Doesn’t seem like we’ll have to wait long to find out.”

Allie’s head poked from her tent and Drake held his finger to his lips. Her eyes narrowed and she moved to his side. They listened as the sound of men laboring beneath them floated through the mist, and Allie leaned her head against Drake’s shoulder and snuggled closer.

They stayed like that until dawn, by which point all signs of life had quieted from the cave. Joe rose, gun in hand, and headed down the slope. The others remained still until he reappeared.

“They’re gone. Looks like they came for their dope. Makes sense if it’s Red Moon — they probably lost everything at the factory, so all that’s left is whatever they have stashed.”

“How big a gang were they?”

“Hard to know for sure, but I’d guess at least five hundred active members, not counting all their contacts in the border towns.”

“That’s not that big,” Drake said. “I mean, the Shans number in the tens of thousands, right?”

“Right, but this area is an easy one to dominate because of how remote it is. So it doesn’t take that many men to protect it — and the Shan power base is way further north, which is why they let Red Moon have it in the first place. Not worth fighting over.”

“What will they do now that they lost their production facility?” Spencer asked.

“Some will probably try to start new gangs, but most will just join up with whoever the new master of the area turns out to be,” Joe replied. “If it’s the Shan, great. If the Myanmar Army, super. The hill tribes are flexible in their loyalty. They have to be.”

“But they’re gone for now?” Allie asked.

“Looks that way. All the dope’s cleared out. The only things left are a few guns and some grenades — and they probably have more than they can carry already. They didn’t bother to replace the stones right, so it looks like they’re done with the cave. At least for now.” Joe paused. “They came in the dead of night because they’re afraid of being spotted moving during the day. That tells me they won’t be back while it’s light out, if at all. So I’d say we’re in the clear.”

“Are you sure?” Drake asked.

“See? Negativity flowing from you. You’ve got to change your evil ways, young man.” Joe grinned. “I’m as sure as we can be about anything. Then again, I was sure we had enough road to land on, so it’s an imperfect world.”

“What if they find the plane?” Spencer asked.

“What if they do? It’s a long ways away. They’ll probably assume it’s another smuggler who ran into trouble and had to ditch. Happens all the time. They’ll just strip the plane of anything they can sell and move along.” Joe crouched down. “I’d give it an hour just to make sure they don’t come back, and then have at it.”

Time crawled by, and when they didn’t hear anything more, they broke camp and moved down the hill to the cave. Allie and Spencer fished out their LED lights and scanned the interior while Joe and Drake maintained a vigil outside. When it was obvious that they were alone, they climbed through the gap to where the pallet sat empty. Allie moved to the back wall and tapped on it with her pry bar before gesturing at the base.

“See? Right angles. It sounds solid, but that’s probably because they carved limestone blocks to wall it off.”

“So where do we start?” Drake asked.

“Let’s try the bottom.”

Spencer joined them, and they scraped at the rock, which came away in chunks. Within minutes it was clear that Allie was right — the outline of a large block appeared beneath what now was obviously mortar created from local stone dust. They continued working through the morning, and by the time the fog had pulled back, a large section of man-made wall was exposed.

Spencer and Drake worked at the most promising block with their pry bars, but the stone was so brittle it broke off in chunks. They continued chiseling away at it and broke through just before noon. Widening the gap sufficiently for a human to crawl into the space beyond took only a few minutes, and when they sat back, sweating from the effort, Allie moved forward with her light and shined it into the cavity.

“Look at this,” she whispered. Drake moved next to her and peered into the opening. “It’s a door.”

“Look at the seal on the handle. Clay and rope. It’s never been broken.”

“Pretty elaborate. Why wall it off like this?”

“I’d guess to avoid detection.”

Joe joined them. “Well? Not like we’ve got all day. Are we rich?”

“Remains to be seen,” Spencer said, and looked at Allie. “After you. It’s your discovery. You were right about the wall.”

Sudden movement in the antechamber drew their attention to a corner, and Allie drew back at the sight of the flared hood of a king cobra, its eyes glinting in the unexpected light, weaving slightly and hissing as it prepared to strike.

“That can’t be good,” Spencer whispered, but Joe just shook his head.

“Poor thing’s probably scared.”

“Poor thing?” Drake said.

“We’re all made from the same stuff. You just need to be respectful of it, and it shouldn’t hurt you. Show no fear, but honor it,” Joe assured him.

“Honor the deadly snake. With positive vibes, no doubt,” Drake said.

“Let me by. I’ll show you.”

“Are you nuts?” Allie asked, and then bit her tongue.

Joe chuckled. “Depends on who you ask.”

They moved aside, and Joe fished a flashlight from his pack and scrambled through the gap. The snake reared back as he entered, and Joe stared at it, holding its gaze. He bobbed his head as he muttered something in Laotian. The cobra’s eyes followed the movement, and Joe slowly held his gun out until the barrel was almost touching the snake.

Allie gasped as he pushed the creature’s head aside with the muzzle and grabbed its body near the tail and then rose, holding the squirming six feet of angry reptile before tossing it to the base of the wall. The cobra slithered away and disappeared through a hole.

Joe grinned at them. “See? Honor it, and it won’t hurt you.” He motioned to Allie. “Come on. But be careful when you open the door. Could be a whole room full of the critters.”

Allie reluctantly climbed into the six-foot-square area, her light focused on the snake hole. She took a deep breath and shined the beam on the seal. The orange clay bore a seated Buddha stamped into the molding, affixed to an ancient leather cord that was wrapped through a handle and secured to a peg driven deep into the wall. She tried to pull the peg free, but it wouldn’t budge. She knelt in front of the seal and studied it carefully before flipping her pocketknife open. “Take a picture of it before I cut it,” she whispered to Drake, who snapped several, the flash blinding in the small space.

“Got it,” he said, and she nodded and slid the blade under the cord. The material crumbled to dust at the touch and dropped to the stone floor. She nodded to Joe and reached for the handle, and then stopped as her gaze drifted to the area above it.

“Stand back,” she said.

“Why?” Joe asked as he did so.

“See the irregularity in the ceiling?” she asked, directing her flashlight beam at the suspect area.

“Yes.”

“I’m thinking the Khmers might have been trickier than we give them credit for,” Allie said. She rooted in her backpack and found a coiled nylon rope. She tied a slipknot to the handle, inspected the crude hinges, and stepped away from the door. “Ready? Drake, can you set the camera to video and shoot this in real time?”

“Way ahead of you,” Drake said. The device was already blinking an indication that it was filming.

“Okay. Here goes nothing.”

Allie pulled on the cord, but the door didn’t budge. She gave it another jerk, but still nothing happened. Spencer’s head appeared in the opening. “Pass it to me. Let me give it a try.”

He wrapped one end around his waist and then leaned his body weight against it. The door groaned and began to shift, and he drove his legs against the wall to get additional leverage.

The ancient wooden slab swung wide, and a tumble of stones dropped from above, any one of them large enough to crush a human skull like a walnut. Dust filled the space, and Joe and Allie coughed. Allie held her sleeve to her mouth to breathe through, and Joe did the same with the bottom of his crusty T-shirt.

Joe’s flashlight beam cut through the haze and flashed against something beyond the door. In spite of the sediment cloud, Allie moved forward, her lamp shining on the floor, the memory of Joe’s close encounter of the cobra kind still vivid. Drake moved through the opening behind them and reached her in three quick strides, a bandanna held over his nose and mouth, his gun still in the cave, the camera in his other hand.

“Your instinct was right. You could have been killed,” he said, eyeing the scattering of stones.

“I thought it was too easy,” she said, blinking as the dust settled.

They walked together to the doorway and stood at the threshold. Allie swept the chamber beyond with her light and smiled, her eyes bright with excitement. “Looks like we did it.”

“I’ll never get tired of this part,” Drake said, and they stepped into the room together, Joe following them as Spencer remained by the gap in the wall.

Carvings adorned every surface in the cave, and piles of gemstones and gold icons were piled in cubbyholes sculpted from the raw stone. Hammered gold and ruby emblems leaned against the bases of the walls, and fistfuls of ancient gold coins were overflowing from long-deteriorated sacks. At the far end of the chamber, in a position of obvious honor, sat a green Buddha draped in a gold cloak, its jeweled eyes twinkling in the light. Allie stepped forward and Drake filmed as she stopped in front of the statue.

“It’s… it’s breathtaking,” she whispered.

Drake nodded silent agreement. Joe stepped forward and eyed the treasure.

“There must be thousands of coins,” he murmured.

“Yes. But the Emerald Buddha was clearly the most revered of the stash,” Allie said as she regarded the statue.

Joe moved closer and reached out a trembling hand to touch the icon, but froze when Spencer’s voice hissed from the doorway.

“Better get back out here. We’ve got company.”

Joe whipped around and was halfway to the gap when the still of the cave was shattered by the deafening bark of Spencer’s rifle.