Golden Buddha

38

THEOregon docked off Ho Chi Minh City. The team that would enter Tibet was transported by shore boat to land. Then they were driven in a Vietnamese air force truck to the airport, where the C-130 sat waiting. The total Corporation force would number a baker’s dozen.

Six men—Seng, Murphy, Reyes, King, Meadows and Kasim—would be tasked with the offensive operations. They would link up with the Dungkar already inside the country and direct them in the proper targets to hit first. Crabtree and Gannon, who were already in Bhutan awaiting the team’s arrival, would handle supply and logistics. Adams and Gunderson would fly, while Lincoln was in charge of setting up and operating the Predator drones. Huxley was tasked with setting up a medical facility to treat anyone wounded or injured.

The thirteenth member was Cabrillo. He would arrive after he finished his pair of meetings.

To the untrained, the mission looked like suicide: a dozen or so against a force that was close to two thousand. Odds of one hundred and fifty-plus to one. It looked like a bloodbath in the making. A trained observer, however, would be praying for the Chinese troops. First, one had to consider the Dungkar, the shadowy underground Chinese opposition thought to number in the thousands in Lhasa. When unleashed, the Dungkar would burn with a fever that only comes when fighting an enemy on home soil. Second was the element of surprise. The Chinese were not planning for a concentrated and expertly executed coup d’etat in the next twenty-four hours. The third was the most basic. It is almost a certainty that a well-planned offense will defeat an unplanned defense every single time.

That was where the Corporation excelled.

Already, most of the Chinese forces inside Tibet were heading north in a helter-skelter deployment that had left little time for planning and even less for preparation. The troops left around Lhasa were not the cream of the crop; they were the leftovers—the administration clerks, mechanics and painters, plodders and planners. The officers were not combat trained, would not be knowledgeable about their individual soldiers’ strengths and weaknesses, and would lack a complete picture of where all the parts fit together.

Right now in Tibet, the army was a jigsaw puzzle without a design.

KASIM walked from the truck and approached the C-130 radio operator. “What have you got from inside?” he asked.

“We have another plane circling out of sight of the Chinese deployment, capturing their signals and bouncing them here,” the operator said. “Right now, most of the communications pertain to laying fuel dumps on the road north. The tanks are outrunning the fuel supply.”

“Have you heard from the tail?” Kasim asked.

The operator, a Chinese American formerly employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency and now attached to the CIA proprietary airline supplying the C-130, scanned his notes. “As of nineteen thirty Zulu time, the rear of the convoy had passed through Naggu.”

“They’re making good time,” Kasim noted. “At this speed, they will pass through Amdo before eleven P.M. and then another two hours or so and they will make the border with Tsinghai Province.”

The operator stared at a classified satellite photograph and compared it with a detailed Defense Mapping Agency map. “The pass at Basatongwula Shan will slow them some; it’s riddled with steep mountains and tight turns. The altitude is almost sixty-one hundred meters.”

“Twenty thousand feet,” Kasim said. “That’s high. The border’s about two hundred fifty miles from Lhasa,” Kasim noted, “and our reports state these are the older Type Fifty-nine tanks. That gives them a range of two hundred seventy miles on a tank of diesel, or about a hundred more if they have the external fuel tanks mounted.”

The operator nodded. “I’ve been watching the progress. The Type Fifty-nine on a road can top out around fifty kilometers an hour or thirty-plus miles an hour. Normally, however, they cruise at something like twenty miles an hour.”

“What are you saying?” Kasim asked.

The operator smiled and reached for a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one from the pack, lit it with a Zippo lighter, then took a drag. Blowing out the smoke, he answered.

“What I’m saying is that these boys are running at nearly full speed no matter what the cost in fuel usage. They will need to stop in Amdo and fill the tanks so they can make the pass. Then they’ll have a run downhill that will take them to Kekexili for the next stop.”

“So when they reach there sometime around breakfast Easter day,” Kasim said, “they will be four hundred miles from Lhasa, with a twenty-thousand-foot pass in between them and us.”

“Sounds about right,” the operator said.

“Thanks for the help,” Kasim said.

A line of Vietnamese air force airmen carried the last of the crates aboard the C-130. Hanley stood off to the side, talking to the Vietnamese general in charge of the arrangements. Kasim watched as Hanley handed the man an envelope, then the two shared a laugh. Hanley shook the general’s hand, then walked over to the C-130.

“Mr. Hanley,” Kasim said, “I have a plan.”

THE Gulfstream G550 carrying Cabrillo and the Golden Buddha landed at Amritsar, India, and Cabrillo and the icon were flown in a helicopter the rest of the way to Little Lhasa, near Dharamsala in the northern Himachal Pradesh region of northern India.

The aide quickly ushered him in to his meeting with the Dalai Lama.

“Your Holiness,” Cabrillo said as he entered and bowed his head slightly.

The Dalai Lama stood silently, staring at Cabrillo for a full minute. Then he smiled.

“You are a good man,” he said at last. “Langston told me—but I needed to be sure for myself.”

“Thank you, sir,” Cabrillo said. “These are the papers that we recovered from inside the Buddha,” he said, handing them to the Dalai Lama’s aide. “I’ll need them transcribed before my meeting with the Russians.”

“Copy them and translate them into English,” the Dalai Lama ordered his aide. “Mr. Cabrillo will need to leave again shortly.”

The Dalai Lama motioned to a long couch, where Overholt was already seated. Cabrillo sat on the end and the Dalai Lama slipped between the two men. “So explain the plan,” he said.

“I believe the Russians will support your bid to regain your country. They will offer the muscle to deter the Chinese from making an assault once we gain control of Lhasa, in return for the rights to develop what you claim those documents represent: the vast oil reserves of the Himalayas.”

“Their location’s known only to us,” said the Dalai Lama. “In those documents. So—your president got them to the border by offering them the aid package,” the Dalai Lama said, “but to fight, they need more.”

“Exactly,” Cabrillo said.

“And you?” the Dalai Lama asked. “Your company? What were you hired to do?”

“We were hired to steal the Golden Buddha and to pave the way for your return. Once you are back inside Tibet, our obligation would, by the contract wording, end.”

“So I would be left—how do you say it?—high and dry,” the Dalai Lama said.

“Hard to say,” Cabrillo admitted, “and this has bothered me and my associates.”

“Why?” the Dalai Lama said. “Are you not mercenaries? Once your obligation is over, don’t you just blend into the night?”

Cabrillo thought for a minute how to answer this question. He paused and thought as the Dalai Lama waited. “It’s a little more complex than that, Your Holiness. If we did what we did just for money, we would have all retired by now. It’s more involved than that. In the past, most of us worked for one government agency or another, and we were compelled by Congress, or public opinion, to do things we knew or felt were wrong. We don’t do those things anymore. We were formed to make a profit, that’s for sure, but as much as we like the money, we are also cognizant of the chances that arise for us to somehow right the wrongs of others.”

“You are speaking of Karma,” the Dalai Lama said. “Something I am most aware of.”

Cabrillo nodded. “We have decided that to leave you alone to fight the Chinese would be wrong. The solution came to us when we realized the significance of the papers inside the Golden Buddha.”

“And I assume your company will profit from such a deal?” the Dalai Lama asked.

“Is that bad?” Cabrillo asked.

“Not necessarily,” the Dalai Lama said, “but explain more.”

Ten minutes later, Cabrillo was finished.

“I’m impressed,” the Dalai Lama said, “now let me explain mine.”

Another five minutes passed as the Dalai Lama spoke.

“Brilliant,” Cabrillo said when the Dalai Lama had finished.

“Thank you,” the Dalai Lama said, “but to sway the vote will take funds—will you bear the cost?”

“We made a little money on a side deal,” Cabrillo said, thinking of the $100 million in bearer bonds. “So the costs are not a problem.”

Overholt had remained silent as the two spoke. Now he interjected. “If you can pull this off,” he said eagerly, “the president will kiss you.”

“Mr. Cabrillo,” the Dalai Lama said, “this gives us both an opportunity to keep the bloodshed down, while at the same time offering our actions a legitimacy that is indisputable. If you can make this happen, I will agree to your deal as offered.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness,” Cabrillo said.

“Good luck, Mr. Cabrillo,” the Dalai Lama said. “May Buddha bless your mission.”

After a short meeting with Overholt, Cabrillo collected the translated pages and maps, then climbed back in the helicopter and was flown back to Amritsar. President Putin had been promised the meeting would be worth the effort. Cabrillo would not fail to deliver.

JUST after midnight, the C-130 carrying the members from the Corporation landed in Thimbu, Bhutan, and the plane was surrounded by a dozen Philippine Special Forces soldiers. Off to the side, the eight Bell 212 helicopters were aligned in a row, with ten feet separating each ship.

A large domed hangar was nearby, with the door open and light spilling out onto the runway. Carl Gannon walked from inside and extended his hand to Eddie Seng. “They tell me you’re in charge until the chairman arrives,” he said. “Let me show you around.”

The others followed Seng and Gannon inside the hangar. “I’ve managed to scrounge up radios and have established a link with the Oregon,” he said, pointing to a wooden table with a computer and a stack of papers. “The latest data is on top.”

Alongside the table were several corkboards displaying maps of Tibet, satellite weather images and other documents. A chalkboard was erected on an easel, where Seng could make notes and draw the plans, as well as a large plastic-covered map showing the city of Lhasa that was taped to a piece of plywood and sat atop another table.

Off to the side, milling around an area with a large coffeepot, small refrigerator, and cardboard boxes containing food, were the eighteen mercenary pilots. Murphy made his way to the coffee, poured a cup and greeted an old friend. “Gurt,” he said, “you old dog.”

Gurt, a mid-fifties blond-haired man with a crew cut and a gold tooth in front, smiled.

“Murphy,” he said, flashing the tooth, “I thought this might be something you’d be involved in. It had the smell of a Corporation operation.”

The men continued visiting while Seng flipped through the information Gannon had amassed. Five minutes later, he called everyone to sit in the rows of folding wooden chairs arranged in front of the boards. The pilots ambled over and took seats behind the Corporation crew. Seng glanced at the assembled group before speaking.

“For those of you who don’t know me,” he said easily, “my name is Eddie Seng. Please call me Seng and not Eddie so there is no confusion. I will be commander in charge of this operation until the time that our chairman, Juan Cabrillo, arrives in the theater.”

The group nodded.

“The breakdown of flight operation will be as follows. Six of the helicopters will be tasked with offensive operations, one for the chairman when he arrives, one for medical. We will draw the assignments out of a hat on who is assigned to what, to be fair. Each of the helicopters will carry one member of our team, and the pilots will be required to fly this person anywhere he requests. Gentlemen, we will potentially be under fire and in harm’s way for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. If this is not what you signed up for, let me know now so you can be replaced. If not, I want you to understand that as pilots you will be answering to the team member aboard. If you hesitate or refuse to comply with a request, you will be replaced by one of our team that is qualified in helicopter operations, and you will forfeit your second half payment. Any questions?”

Gurt raised his hand. “When do we receive our first half?”

“Ah…a real pilot,” Seng said. “The answer is, as soon as we are finished here. Everyone okay with that?”

Heads nodded.

“If you have personal property or letters to loved ones or wish us to transfer the funds to another party if something happens to you,” Seng noted, “please see either Gannon or Crabtree.”

Gannon and Crabtree raised their hands.

“Now, are there any other business matters before I explain the operation?”

The hangar was silent.

“Good, then,” Seng said. “Here’s the plan.”

THE Gulfstream G550 was at forty-one thousand feet racing toward Moscow as Cabrillo talked over a secure satellite telephone to the Oregon. “Go over them again,” he said as he scrawled notes on a yellow pad. “Okay, I’ve got them.”

The line was silent as Cabrillo studied the list.

“And Halpert set up the main corporate entity in Andorra.”

“Correct,” Hanley said.

“Lucky break,” Cabrillo said, “but then, by looking at this list, the Dalai Lama is a lucky one too. If this had been scheduled last year, I don’t know if we could have pulled it off.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Hanley said.

“Here’s how I see it,” Cabrillo said. “Of the fifteen members of the United Nations Security Council, we have three of the five permanent members: the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia. China is obviously not going to vote our way, and France is currently trying to sell whatever they can to the Chinese, so they’ll probably vote with them so as not to upset any deals they have in progress. The remaining ten will be tricky—we need to pull six out of the ten to give us the nine we need for the resolution. Let me go over it with you. Afghanistan we’re not going to get—even with the U.S. involvement a few years ago, there are still too many pockets of anti-Buddhist revolutionaries for their leaders to risk voting with us. Sweden is and will always be pacifistic, at least at the start, as will Canada. Cuba receives too much aid from China to risk voting our way, not to mention they almost always vote the opposite of the U.S.”

“Sounds about right,” Hanley said.

“That leaves us Brunei, Laos, Qatar, Andorra, Kiribati and Tuvalu.”

“Correct,” Hanley said.

“It’s blind luck that we have two tiny South Pacific nations on the Security Council at the same time,” Cabrillo said.

“It’s like a couple of years ago, when Cameroon and Guinea were both members at the same time,” Hanley said. “It happens.”

“Each country in the United Nations has one vote,” Cabrillo said, “but this is the first time I really considered the impact.”

“Same here,” Hanley said.

Cabrillo thought for a moment. “I know the emir of Qatar,” he said. “If we offer him a favor later, he’ll order his people to vote the way we want. What have we got coming up?”

Hanley thought for a moment. “Nothing right now, but that can change. The last time he went in with us, he made something like eighty million. If we call in the past favor and dangle something ahead, you got the vote.”

“You’re right,” Cabrillo said. “I’ll take care of dealing with him.”

“Good,” Hanley said. “Laos should be easy. They’re Buddhist, and the general wants his car.”

“Offer him several,” Cabrillo said.

“Where are we funding this from?” Hanley asked.

“We’re going to try to use around half of the hundred million windfall for everything.”

“Easy come easy go,” Hanley said. “Brunei should be ours. The country is fifteen percent Buddhist and the sultan can’t risk alienating his constituents.”

“Plus we saved his brother’s life a couple of years ago,” Cabrillo added.

“Andorra,” Hanley said, “what about them?”

“Good thing Halpert set up the new company there,” Cabrillo said. “What’s their GDP?”

Hanley scanned through an almanac and found the information. “It’s around one point two billion.”

“Once the oil comes online,” Cabrillo noted, “we’ll be bringing another twenty percent to the table. If someone explains that to their ambassador, he’d be stupid not to see his way to giving us their vote. Money talks—plus this is the right thing to do, anyway.”

“I agree,” Hanley said.

“That just leaves the little guys,” Cabrillo said. “Kiribati and Tuvalu.”

“Kiribati’s GDP is sixty million,” Hanley said. “Tuvalu’s is even less. It’s something like eight million split up over ten thousand citizens. Put two to a room, and one of the major Las Vegas hotels could house the entire country.”

Cabrillo was silent for a moment.

“Call Lowden in Colorado and have him start buying cars for the general. Next, send Halpert to Andorra to explain the impact our company will have on their economy. I’ll take care of the emir of Qatar and the sultan of Brunei.”

“And the little guys?”

“Truitt’s free, isn’t he?” asked Cabrillo.

“Yes, he is.”

“Get him on a jet with a stack of bearer bonds.”

“You want him to buy the votes?” Hanley asked.

“Exactly.”