“Got it. Good luck.” Chiavelli looked at him a moment, understanding passing between them, and he ushered Thayer toward the limo.
As they climbed into the front seat, Thayer’s voice became shy. “Did you ever meet my son, Dennis? What can you tell me about him?” The captain’s answer was lost with the closing of the doors.
The Uighers finished camouflaging the limo. With weapons, flashlights, and maps, Asgar led them off onto a path filled with shadows and dark trees and plants that brushed against them. The fecund scent of growing things was all around them. One of the Uighers had been to the grotto, and he gave his opinions, which Asgar translated for Jon. Avoiding the usual routes, they climbed uphill single file, trying not to stumble on loose stones or fall against rocks into the brush.
As the trail flattened, Jon said, “Asgar, when we get near the Sleeping Buddha, we’ll stop just above and to the side. We’ll use the vegetation for cover.”
“You give the orders this time, my friend.”
“We’ll take positions where we can see anyone who comes down from the entrance steps as well as whoever stops in front of the Buddha. My intelligence agrees with what Dr. Thayer said — there are a lot of places to hide among the statues and carvings. That’s going to make our job even harder. Spread your men out so we can watch as much of the grotto as possible.”
“Sounds like a bit of a challenge,” Asgar said dryly. “How long do we have?”
“No way to know. The ” may end up being at dawn after all.”
“Daylight won’t be kind to us. If you’re planning to get the manifest out of China, we’d jolly well better be halfway to the border by sunrise.”
“I expect everything to blow up long before then. Daylight won’t be kind to them either.”
They lapsed into silence. The group kept their voices low and their footsteps careful as their path headed downhill. As Thayer promised, a riot of vegetation surrounded them. Above, the moon illuminated the tops of trees and bushes and created black, impenetrable shadows beneath.
Ahead waited the Sleeping Buddha, where Jon would face Feng Dun and Li Kuonyi once more, and where, one way or the other, the mission would end.
Chapter Forty-One
The communications technician turned from his radio controls. “It’s the Shilo, sir. They want our exact position now and our estimated position in ten hours.”
It. Commander Frank Bienas leaned over the radioman. “Send our present fix. I’ll work out the estimated. But tell them ten hours won’t cut it.”
Bienas sat down and went to work on the chart. The radioman sent the exec’s message to the approaching cruiser and leaned back to wait for the response. He stretched in his seat, nearing the end of his watch and aching from the long hours they had been putting in. Bienas continued to plot the Crowe’s projected course and finally sat back, too, shaking his head.
The radioman was listening on his earphones. He called over his shoulder, “Shilo says ten hours is the best they can do to get here.
They’re pouring on all they’ve got already.”
“You tell ‘ by then we’ll be in the Gulf, and that’s way too chancy.
They need to be here in under six, or they might as well go home and bake cookies.” Worried, he announced, “Anyone wants me, I’m on the bridge.” He made his way up and out to the dark deck and on up to the bridge, where Commander Chervenko had taken charge an hour ago.
When Bienas entered, Chervenko’s night binoculars were directed toward the distant running lights of The Dowager Empress. “She’s picked up a knot in the last hour. Like a dog smelling home.” “The Shilo says ten hours,” Bienas reported.
Chervenko did not turn or lower his binoculars. “Brose did the best he could. Trouble was, the Fifth Fleet’s too far south, and we’re moving away from them. They’ll never reach us in time.”
“Not much they could do we can’t anyway,” Bienas decided, sounding tough and optimistic.
“Except be twice as formidable.” The skipper was realistic. “What’s the sub doing?” “Holding steady. Hastings says he’s picking up what sounds like prepping for attack. There’s activity in the forward torpedo room.”
“They know we’re close to showdown time, Frank. We can’t let the Empress get into the Persian Gulf. We’d be vulnerable to land-based air attack, torpedo boats, you name it, and no telling who’d get enthusiastic and want to join the act. Tehran might decide their interests were involved, too, and then we’d have one hell of a swell party.”
Bienas nodded grimly. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the commander, staring out through the night at the running lights ahead as both ships sailed steadily closer to confrontation.
“There it is.” Asgar’s voice was low but full of uncharacteristic awe.
He and Jon stopped among the thick canopy of trees and heavy underbrush.
They had come to an opening slightly above and to the side, on the same flank of the mountainside as the carvings. Although they could not see the full scope of the thousands of pieces of rock art that extended hundreds of meters, the painted Sleeping Buddha itself and the statues around it spread before them in a breathtaking panorama, glowing in the candle-wax moonlight.
The other Uighers stopped to stare, too. The giant Sleeping Buddha reclined on his right side in the center of the horseshoe-shaped cliff.
Its back sunk into the cliff, the Buddha was more than a hundred feet long and almost twenty feet high, a rendition of Prince Sakyamuni sleeping the sleep of the Enlightened as he entered Nirvana. Puny next to him, life- sized statues of Bodhisattvas and period officials wearing hats stood in a stone stream so close they could touch him. Protected from the weather only by the rock overhang that David Thayer had described, the timeless Sleeping Buddha was in full, spectral view.
Where they had stopped was a good place to set up watch. Jon and Asgar dispersed the Uighers into the undergrowth and found positions for themselves near each other, to make issuing orders easier. Under a tree, they began the wait, which could be long or short. In either case, Jon kept his excitement under control. He had been close to taking the manifest before, and each time he had failed. He would get no other chance. He dismissed a shiver of anxiety and studied the display of carvings, memorizing it, so if either group arrived and hid, he would have the panorama firmly in mind. He could afford no more mistakes.
Other carved figures in various niches stretched around the stone crescent. Stone statues guarded the dark openings of caves. Low, painted steel fences separated most of the carvings from the public, which would arrive tomorrow morning. No one was around, not tourists, not vendors, not spiritual seekers, not police. The darkness stirred only with a light wind, small animals rustling away, and night birds flapping into hiding.
“When do you think someone’s going to appear?” Asgar kept his voice hushed. “Morning’s not so far away.” “No idea. As I said, the meeting was to happen by daylight, but my instincts tell me they’ll show up long before then.”
“Better be before the tourists.”
“I hope so. But Li Kuonyi and Yu Yongfu might want the cover of crowds.
Still, they must realize by now that Feng Dun will kill anyone in his way to get the manifest, so crowds won’t be much help. No, they’ll expect something underhanded from Feng, which tells me they’ll arrive early. Early enough to be here before Feng, so they can set a countertrap.”
But despite Jon’s carefully thought-out assessment, he was wrong. Less than a half hour later, there was movement at the top of the stone stairs on the other side of the Sleeping Buddha. Jon focused his night-vision binoculars. There were five men, three of whom Jon recognized from Hong Kong and Shanghai — part of Feng Dun’s gang. All were armed with what looked like British assault rifles. But Feng was not among them.
“Damn,” Jon breathed.
