Golden Buddha

bidding on a weekend trip to a spa at a local charity auction instead of tendering a bid in the amount of a small country’s yearly budget. The man was obviously qualified—the auction company would have made sure of that—but who was he?

One hundred twenty from a German pharmaceutical magnate.

“One twenty, now one thirty.”

Talbot again, waving his paddle like a landing semaphore.

The bidding began to stall at $140 million, bid again by the gray-haired man. Spenser turned again and felt a touch of apprehension. The man was staring directly into his eyes. Then the man winked. A chill ran down Spenser’s spine.

He turned to the side, where he could see Talbot talking animatedly into his telephone. He could sense then that the Silicon Valley billionaire was flagging.

“Tell him,” Spenser whispered in his phone, “it’s slowed at one fifty, with maybe one more bid still forthcoming.”

“He wants to know if you’ve bid yet.”

“No,” Spenser said, “but they know I’m here.”

Spenser had bought from the auctioneer many times; the man had been watching him like a hawk. Any smile, flinch or gesture of his would be taken as a bid.

“He asks that you bid two hundred,” the aide relayed, “and blow them out.”

“Acknowledged,” Spenser said.

Then in almost slow motion, he placed two spread apart fingers to his lips.

“The bid is two hundred million,” the auctioneer said emotionlessly.

A raise of fifty million when the auctioneer was begging for ten.

“I have two hundred million in the room,” the auctioneer said quietly, “anyone in for two hundred ten?”

The room was as silent as a tomb. Spenser turned to the rear of the room. The gray-haired man had vanished.

“Two hundred going once,” the auctioneer said. “Going twice, fair warning.” He paused again. “Sold! Two hundred million, plus buyer’s premium, a stunning buy it is.”

The room, which had been silent, now rippled with contained applause.

Spenser stayed another half hour to arrange the crating and security to the airport, and by five that night he was flying east for delivery. For security purposes, Spenser had chartered a plane that could not be traced to the Macau billionaire who was his client. The company was full service—it would both transport him to Asia as well as facilitate the delivery of the artifact to its new home by armored car. He was almost home free.

3

SIX days after depositing the Cubans in San Juan, the Oregon had rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Inside the control room, the seas beyond the bow were projected on a high-definition four-by-eight-foot screen. There was little to see. The sun was dipping in the west, and the Oregon was in an empty part of the Indian Ocean where few cargo ships steamed. Twenty minutes ago, Hali Kasim had caught a glimpse of a blue whale. Triggering the underwater sensors, Kasim made a record of the mass of the beast, then began to scan his data banks for a match.

“She’s a new one,” Kasim said.

Franklin Lincoln, the huge pitch-black man who was sharing duties in the control room, stared up from his game of computer solitaire. “You need to find a different hobby.”

“It passes the time,” Kasim noted.

“So does this,” Lincoln said, “and it barely uses any computer power.”

A buzzer sounded, then the ship slowed and went dead in the water.

From the north, a black amphibious plane approached, made a pass over the Oregon to check the direction of the wind by the flag on the flagstaff, then gracefully dropped into the water and taxied alongside.

“The chairman has arrived,” Kasim noted.

ONCE safely aboard the Oregon, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo made his way to his stateroom. Walking inside, he shut the door, tossed the bag containing his gray wig and fake beard on the bed, then kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt as he made his way to the head.

Unlike most ships, where the bathroom facilities are almost an afterthought, his was large and opulent. A sunken copper tub with jets sat against the side of the hull, with a brass-lined rectangular porthole giving a view of the water outside. Angled next to the tub was a separate shower decorated with Mexican tile. Along the bulkhead toward the bow was a cabinet containing a copper sink, with drawers beneath.

The floor was dark hardwood with thick cotton throw rugs. A recessed toilet was set back in the bulkhead across from the sink and a Philippine carved mahogany sitting bench graced one wall.

Cabrillo stared at his image in the mirror above the sink.

His blond crew-cut hair was in need of a trim and he made a mental note to schedule an appointment with the ship’s barber, who also doubled as a masseuse. His skin had a light pallor, the result of stress, he knew, and his eyes showed red from the strain. He was tired and his joints felt stiff.

Sitting on the mahogany bench, he slid off his trousers and stared down at his prosthetic leg. The leg was the third he had owned since he had lost it in a naval battle with the Chinese destroyer Chengdo, when the Corporation had been covering a NUMA operation in Hong Kong. But it