Golden Buddha

TWO in the morning and the trio in the tu

That was not as much of a problem as it might seem. Right now, the main threat was drowning. Hornsby stared ahead to where a large tile pipe was spilling its contents into the main sewer. What had begun as a trickle from the offshoot pipes had grown into angry torrents of water. The pipe ahead was raging with such force that the stream of water was slapping against the far wall of the main sewer like the torrent from a broken fire hydrant.

“From that point forward,” Meadows said, “we lose the bottom half of the sewer to water.”

Already the water was knee-deep, and the farther the men had gone, the more it had risen. Now they were at an impasse. From here to the end of the line, the water would be too deep to walk through. “Let’s inflate the rafts,” Jones said wearily.

Hornsby opened one of the duffle bags and removed a pair of folding rafts. Taking a high-pressure air supply from inside the bag, he attached it to a raft and turned the switch. The raft unfolded and quickly became rigid. Two minutes later, Hornsby turned off the inflator.

“We need to place the Buddha in one raft,” Hornsby said, “and the three of us in the other.”

“Weight problems?” Jones asked.

“Each raft can carry a maximum of seven hundred pounds,” Hornsby said. “Since none of us weighs under a hundred pounds, he’ll need to ride alone.”

Meadows was unpacking the second raft. He laid it out and attached the inflator. As it was filling with air, he spoke. “What do you think?” he asked his partners. “Should we let the Buddha lead or follow?”

Hornsby thought for a moment. “If he’s behind, the weight might push us into something.”

“But if he leads,” Jones said, “we can let go of the lead rope if we get into trouble.”

Meadows stared at the rapidly filling pipe just ahead. “There will not be much steering required,” he said, pointing to the rising water. “I think we’ll all just go with the flow.”

“Then he leads,” Hornsby said as he grabbed one end of the Buddha to wrestle it onto the raft, “and we just go along for the ride.”

“Hear, hear,” Meadows said.

“Makes sense to me,” Jones added.

26

“TALBOT?” Spenser said. “You’re part of this?”

Hanley walked over to Spenser and stood as the art dealer examined him. At least he seemed to be passing the visual test—Spenser was waiting for him to answer.

“Win…ston Spen…ser, you old…,” Hanley croaked.

He sounded like a cheap P.A. system in a run-down school. Hanley moved the small device from his voice box and spoke in his normal voice. “Kevin,” he said, “come take a look at this—I thought I had it dialed in right.”

Nixon walked over and flipped the device over. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked a small toggle switch over two notches. “You had the delay used for telephone transmissions engaged, boss,” Nixon said. “Try it now.”

“Hi, Winston,” Hanley said. “Long time no see.”

Spenser stared at the man and shook his head. Had he not seen the device malfunction, he might have been all right—as it was, everything that had happened to him was rushing back in a flood. Now these people had created some kind of robot. Who knew what they might do next?

“Mr. Talbot,” Spenser managed to say.

“I think you fixed it, Kevin,” Hanley said.

Spenser stood mute.

“Okay, everyone, listen up,” Cabrillo said, “it’s almost time.”

DETECTIVE Ling Po stared at the mass of melted metal. The support beams of the float had been twisted into grotesque shapes by the intense heat of the fire, and they were wrapped around the remains of the motorcycles like the blackened tentacles of an octopus. A handler with a dog was poking at one side of the wreckage.

“Sir,” the handler said, “the dog is not signaling any human remains.”

“Does that mean there are none?” Po asked.

“Usually, it would need to be an extremely hot fire to fully turn a corpse to ash. Anything less than that he’ll smell.”

Po glanced at the wreckage. It had melted the asphalt of the road, and parts of the metal support beams were imbedded into the roadway. There was no way to tell with any certainty what was underneath.

“Hook a chain to the end,” Po said, “and drag it with one of the trucks. I want to see what’s under there.”

A fireman ran to remove a chain from the storage compartment on his truck. A few minutes later he had one end secured to the wreckage and the other end to the truck’s bumper. Slowly, the fireman eased the truck forward and the wreckage was wrestled from down in the asphalt. After dragging it a few feet north, the fireman stopped his truck.

“It that far enough?” he shouted out the window to Po.

“Perfect,” Po said, staring at the manhole cover.

Bending down, Po tried to lift the cover, but he had no luck. Another fireman removed a tool from the truck and slid it into the small opening on the manhole cover, then pried it open. He slid the cover a few feet away. Po removed a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it down into the hole.

“Bingo,” he said.

Reaching for his cell phone, he dialed the number for headquarters.

“Sir,” he said, “I think I know where the A-Ma Temple Buddha went.”

THERE are a total of sixteen places in Macau where the storm runoff exits into the bay. Seng and his team were pulling up to the only one that mattered. After securing the Zodiacs to some rocks alongside the grate, Seng walked over and examined the metal shield. The square screen was made of tubular stock, with the openings measuring some two feet by two feet, or large enough to allow any trash to pass through. It was co

“It’s becoming a river in there,” Huxley said finally.

Seng threw a strip of bright yellow plastic in the stream and then timed the movement. He stared at the second hand of his watch intently. Once the piece of plastic was fifty yards out in the I

“The water’s flowing about ten miles an hour,” he said, “but you know that’s going to increase.”

“Piece of cake for the Zodiacs,” Murphy said.

Seng nodded.

“As long as we don’t run out of headroom,” Kasim said, “we should be able to collect our boys and be back on the Oregonin an hour or so.”

Seng started walking back to the Zodiac. “Okay, you two,” Seng said, “drive on in and collect the team. Julia and I will be providing security, just like we pla

“Be back shortly,” Kasim said as he climbed behind the wheel.

If only it’d be so easy.

27

CABRILLO took an erasable marker and drew on a board placed on one of the benches.