"Just like we planned," Hanley agreed.

"Now all we need to do is find the secret compartment inside the Golden Buddha," Cabrillo said, "and see if its contents are still intact."

SUNG RHEE CAUGHT sight through the window of the four men approaching his office. They did not look happy, and the aide did not bother to knock before swinging the door open. Rhee rose from his ; desk as the aide stood aside and allowed the admiral to enter.

"We managed to get air bags under the hydrofoil to keep her afloat until a salvage ship can tow her back," the admiral said without preamble, "but my men tell me repairs will require close to six months."

"Sir--" Rhee started to say.

"Enough," the admiral thundered. "I have one ship out of commission and our only frigate and fast-attack corvette disabled and dead in the water. You set me up--and you will pay."

"Sir," Rhee said quickly, "we had no idea . . . the ship to all ap-

pearances was merely a decrepit cargo vessel."

"The ship was far from that," the admiral said loudly. "She shot the side out from under the hydrofoil as if it was a routine exercise. We still don't know what happened to the other two ships."

Just outside the door, the admiral's aide was whispering into a satellite telephone. He poked his head into Rhee's office.

"Admiral," he said quietly, "Beijing's on the line."

c HUCK "TINY" GUNDERSON smiled at Rhonda Rosselli and held out one of the bearer bonds. "So," he said, "here's the deal.

Tracy, Judy and I need to make an unscheduled midair exit. Once '

are safely out, you can untie the pilots."

"You're abandoning me?" Rosselli asked pointedly. "All that ta about me joining your team was a lie?"

Gunderson pulled a thick cigar from his flight-suit pocket and sli it under his nose. Then he bit off the end and lit it with a solid gol lighter. He puffed the stogie to life. "I never lie to a pretty girl," he said smiling, "and I'm always right."

"Then what's the deal?"

Gunderson slipped the bearer bond into a plastic envelope and sealed it inside with the others. "The bond I showed you will be mailed to your home address once I reach land. That's your payment for a job well executed."

"What do I say when we land?" Rosselli asked.

"I'd tell them everything," Gunderson said, "except about the bond.

That should remain our little secret."

"Just tell them?" Rosselli said incredulously.

"Why not?" Gunderson said. "I was careful not to relay any information that can incriminate my group. My team will make sure that the United States emba.s.sy is notified in whatever country the plane lands. Just spill your guts and they'll let you go in a few days. Once you get back to California, someone that works with me will make contact in due time."

"So I won't see you again?" she asked.

"You never know," Gunderson said as red-haired Tracy Pilston walked over.

"Our ride is only a few miles ahead," Pilston noted, "and we're both ready to fly the coop."

"Did you take her down?" Gunderson asked.

Pilston nodded. "We're to receive a signal, so we can time the jump."

Gunderson removed two parachutes from a storage compartment where a Corporation team member had hidden them when the 737 was 294 295.

in her hangar in California. He helped strap one on Pilston's back, then strapped on the other. Removing a sack containing goggles, he handed one over to Pilston.

"We'll alert Judy," he said quietly, "and exit from the rear."

"Go forward," Gunderson said to Rosselli. "Tell Judy it's time, then f stay in the c.o.c.kpit."

"Won't everything be sucked out the rear?" Rosselli asked.

"We're not pressurized," Gunderson said, "so it won't be that bad-- I wouldn't try walking around, however. Just stay in the c.o.c.kpit, and after the egg timer goes off, raise the rear door and untie the pilots."

"Okay," Rosselli said as she went forward, opened the c.o.c.kpit door and reported the news to Michaels.

"Understood," Judy Michaels said.

Then she checked the speed once more, made sure the autopilot was operating, then pushed the lever to lower the rear door. The door began to lower slowly and the alarms on the dashboard began to beep. Twisting a cheap plastic egg timer, Michaels slid past Rosselli.

"Keep the door closed, and when that timer chimes, you know what to do."

Rosselli nodded.

"Nice meeting you," Michaels said as she slipped out the door.

Racing down the aisle, Michaels stopped for Gunderson to check her parachute. The farther the rear door lowered, the more wind raced through the fuselage of the 737. Magazines rustled, and any loose items inside fluttered in the wind. Gunderson watched as a silk kimono filled like a sail and shot out the rear. Then the trio made their way to the rear, where the steps were now pointing straight below the tail of the 737.

"What do you think they'll do to Rhonda?" Pilston asked.

"Not much they can do," Gunderson said as he adjusted his goggles and helped Michaels into position to jump.

"I think she's sweet on you," Pilston said as she moved into place next to Michaels.

1."There's something about," Gunderson said, "an Aqua-Velva man."

At that instant, the signal was received from the satellite to his alphanumeric pager. The pager began to vibrate. Gunderson took one lady under each arm. Then he ran off the end of the ramp and, once he was clear, pushed them away.

PLODDING THROUGH THE South China Sea, the helmsman on the Kalia Challenger noticed the sky was finally clearing. He noticed it because the sky overhead was suddenly filled with a pair of Chinese antisubmarine aircraft as well as a single long-range heavy-lift helicopter.

The Kalia Challenger had originally been built in 1962 for the United States Line as one of an eleven-ship cla.s.s of express cargo cruisers.

Later sold to a Greek shipping concern, she plied the seas on a regular schedule from Asia to the west coast of the United States.

At just over five hundred feet with a seventy-foot beam, the vessel featured derricks on the upper deck for loading and unloading of cargo.

Her lower hull was a rusty red with a black band along the gunwales.

She was a work ship who had served a long and useful life, and the wear and tear showed. Still functional, though dated, she was possessed of one major flaw.

>From a distance, to an untrained eye, she resembled the Oregon.

She was far out in international waters when the antisubmarine aircraft dropped the first depth charge. It landed a hundred yards ahead of the bow and exploded with a cascade of water that reached eighty feet into the air.

"Heave to!" the captain shouted.

The alert reached the engine room, and the Kalia Challenger slowed, then stopped in the water.

It would be nearly an hour before a Chinese boarding party climbed across her decks.

The illegal stop was never explained.

CLIV.E CUSSLER.

296.

DELBERT CHIGLACK STARED up at the sky in amazement. He had seen some incredible things in the fourteen years he had worked on offsh.o.r.e oil rigs: strange sea creatures that defied explanation, unidentified flying objects, weird weather phenomena. But in all the years I he had drilled offsh.o.r.e, he had yet to see a trio of parachutists come from nowhere and attempt to land on his rig. Gunderson, Michaels and Pilston had leapt from the 737 at an alt.i.tude of fifteen thousand feet, just above a cloud layer that hid the airplane from view. Sucking on oxygen bottles as they made their descent, they had floated around near the target before directing their parachutes in arcing corkscrews until they lined up above the helicopter pad on the offsh.o.r.e rig.

The rig was twenty miles off the coast of Vietnam, eight hundred miles from Macau, and owned by Zapata Petroleum of Houston, Texas.

George Herbert Walker Bush owned the company--and someone from Virginia had asked him for a favor.

Tracy Pilston landed nearly dead center on the X in the center of the pad, Judy Michaels only six feet away. It was Chuck Gunderson I who had the worst landing. He alit on the side of the elevated pad. The breeze tugged at his parachute before he could cut it away, and had Del Chiglack not grabbed him, he might have gone over the side.

Once his chute was free and Chiglack had yanked him back from the edge, Gunderson smiled and spoke.

"My friends called," he said. "I believe we have a reservation for three."

Chiglack spit some snuff juice into the wind. "Welcome aboard,"

he said. "Your ride will be here soon."

"Thanks," Gunderson said.

"Now," Chiglack said, "if you and the ladies will come inside, I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

297.

BACK IN THE control room, Hanley turned to Cabrillo. "We just received word from Tiny," he said. "They arrived safe and sound with the bonds. They're awaiting a ride home."

Cabrillo nodded.

"You look beat," Hanley said. "Why don't you catch a few hours'

sleep and let me hold down the fort."

Cabrillo was too tired to argue. He rose and started for the door.

"Wake me if you need me."

"Don't I always?" Hanley said.

Once Cabrillo was walking down the hall to his stateroom, Hanley turned to Stone. "Truitt will be here in a few minutes to relieve you.

Take four hours and get some sleep."

"Yes, sir," Stone said.

Then Hanley accessed the computer next to his seat and began to read the plan again.

LANGSTON OVERHOLT SLEPT all the way to Paris. The Challenger jet he was riding inside was registered to a company named Strontium Holding PLC, which was allegedly based in Basel, Switzerland. In reality, the jet's tires had never touched Swiss soil.

The Challenger CL-604 had been purchased from a broker in London using CIA funds and outfitted with advanced electronics at a shop in Alexandria, Virginia, near Boiling Air Force Base. The large Canadian-made business jet seated ten people, had a cruise speed of 487 miles per hour and a range of 4,628 miles.

The distance from Virginia to Paris was just over 3,800 miles, where the jet was refueled and provisions were loaded aboard. The second leg of the trip, Paris to New Delhi, would cover 4,089 miles. The first leg of the journey required eight hours to complete; the second leg was made with a favorable tailwind and took just over seven hours. Within an hour of receiving word from Cabrillo at 6 a.m. Macau time that the Corporation was in possession of the Golden Buddha, Overholt had left I 298.

U.S. soil. Virginia time had been 6 p.m. Good Friday. By the time the Challenger touched down, the time changes and flight time made it 9 a.m. Sat.u.r.day.

The trip by turboprop to Little Lhasa in northern India took just over two more hours, so it was almost exactly noon on Sat.u.r.day when Overholt finally met with the Dalai Lama again. The revered leader of Tibet had made it clear that if there was to be a coup d'etat, it needed to take place on Easter Sunday, March 31, exactly forty-six years after his being forced into exile.

That gave Overholt and the Corporation twenty-four hours to make a miracle happen.

CARL GANNON HAD been earning his keep the last several days.

After procuring the truck in Thimbu, Bhutan, and plotting a route into Tibet, he had received a shopping list of tasks from the control room on the Oregon. As the Corporation's head scrounger, Gannon was used to accomplishing the impossible. To obtain what was required, Gannon would have to use the vast network of contacts he had carefully nurtured over the years.

The funding would come from the Corporation's bank on the island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean, and the Oregon had made it clear that time, not cost, was the object. Gannon loved it when he received directives like this. Using a laptop computer linked to a cell phone, he began typing in a stack of telephone numbers, codes and pa.s.swords from memory at seventy words a minute.

Eighty Stinger missiles were bought from a friendly Middle Eastern nation, with delivery arranged to Bhutan using a South African com-I pany that had never failed to comply. Eight Bell 212 helicopters with

extra fuel pods from an Indonesian company that specialized in offsh.o.r.e oil work arrived to deliver the load of missiles and small arms. Eighteen mercenary pilots from throughout the Far East were recruited, sixteen to fly, two extras in case someone got sick. Fuel pods, food for all the 299 partic.i.p.ants, and a series of hangars manned by Philippine Special Forces guards were secretly arranged.

Gannon's last item was the strangest. The Oregon wanted to know if he could procure a large but slow-moving plane in Vietnam. That, and a winch with a hundred feet of thin but strong steel cable that could be mounted on the floor of the plane. It took Gannon a couple of telephone calls, but he found a 1985 Russian-built Antonov AN-2 Colt owned by a Laotian company that had a logging contract with the Vietnamese government. The big biplane, with a wingspan of fifty-eight feet, a cruise speed of only 120 miles an hour and a stall speed of 58, could best be described as a flying pickup truck. The large interior was mainly cargo s.p.a.ce and she could carry nearly five thousand pounds of payload.

The winch he bought new from a dealer in Ho Chi Minh City on a company credit card.

After finishing the arrangements for the plane and winch, Gannon slurped the last drop from a bottle of Coca-Cola and dialed the Oregon on the satellite telephone. He waited as the number beeped and popped while the signal was scrambled.

"Go ahead, Carl," Hanley said a minute later.

"I've got the plane, Max," he said, "but you didn't ask for a pilot."

"One of our guys will be flying," Hanley said.

"It's a Russian Antonov," Gannon noted. "I doubt we have someone typed in this model."

"We'll download some manuals off the Internet," Hanley said.