Golden Buddha by Clive Cussler Page A

pitch-black night sky. The air was liquid with rain that fell in sheets. The wind was blowing in gusts without firm direction or purpose. For several minutes it would rake the Oregon amidships, then quickly change to blow bow on or stern first. The soggy flags on the stern were pivoting on their staffs as fast as a determined Boy Scout trying to light a fire with a stick.
    Inside the control room, Franklin Lincoln stared at the radar screen. The edge of the storm began petering out just before the ship passed the twenty-degree latitude line. Walking over to a computer terminal in the control room, he entered commands and waited while the satellite images of the Chinese coastline loaded.
    A haze of smog could be seen over Hong Kong and Macau.
    He glanced over at Hali Kasim, who was sharing the night shift. Kasim was sound asleep, his feet up on the control panel. His mouth was partially opened.
    Kasim could sleep through a hurricane, Lincoln thought, or in this part of the ocean, a cyclone.
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    A T the same time the Oregon was steaming east, Winston Spenser awoke, startled. Earlier in the evening he had visited the Golden Buddha at A-Ma. The icon was still in the mahogany crate, sitting upright, door opened, in the room where it had been taken. Spenser had gone alone; simple common sense dictated that as few people as possible know the actual location, but he’d found the experience unnerving.
    Spenser knew the icon was nothing more than a mass of precious metal and stones, but for some strange reason the object seemed to have a life force. The chunk of gold appeared to glow in the dim room, as if illuminated by a light from within. The large jade eyes seemed to follow his every move. And while its visage might appear benign to some—only that of a potbellied, smiling prophet—to Spenser the image seemed to be mocking him.
    As if he had not known it before, earlier in the evening Spenser had become certain that what he had done was not a stroke of genius. The Golden Buddha was not some canvas, dabbed with paint—it was the embodiment of reverence, crafted with love and respect.
    And Spenser had swiped it like a candy in a drugstore.
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    T HE Dalai Lama listened to the slow flow of water over the smooth stones while he meditated. On the far reaches of his mind was static, and he willed the disturbance to clear. He could see the ball of light in the center of his skull, but the edges were rough and pulsating. Slowly he smoothed the signals, and the ball began to collapse in on itself until only a pinpoint of white light remained. Then he began to scan his physical shell.
    There was a disturbance, and it was growing.
    Eighteen minutes later, he came back into his shell and rose to his feet.
    Eight yards away, sitting under a green canvas awning alongside the kidney-shaped pool on the estate in Beverly Hills, was his Chikyah Kenpo. The Dalai Lama walked over. The Hollywood actor who was his host smiled and rose to his feet.
    â€œIt is time for me to go home,” the Dalai Lama said.
    There was no pleading or disagreement from the actor.
    â€œYour Holiness,” he said, “let me call for my jet.”
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    I N the north of Tibet, on the border between U-Tsang and Amdo province, the Basatongwula Shan mountains towered over the plains. The peak was a snowcapped sentinel watching over an area where few men trod. To the untrained eye, the lands around Basatongwula Shan looked barren and desolate, a wasteland best left alone and deserted. On the surface, this may have been true.
    But underneath, hidden for centuries, was a secret known only by a few.
    A yak walked slowly along a rocky path. On his back was a black mynah bird that remained silent as he hitched a ride. Slowly at first, but growing in intensity, a light tremor rippled across the land. The yak began to shake in fear, causing the bird to take to the air. Digging his cloven hooves into the soil, he stood firm as the land trembled. Then