And for what? A small, poor mountain country China had illegally occupied?

The reward didn’t equal the risk. Jintao needed to find face—and he needed it fast.

8

WINSTON Spenser took his pen to paper to tally his ill-gotten gains. The 3 percent commission on the original $200 million sale of the Golden Buddha was $6 million. This was hardly a small sum. In fact, it was just over five times Spenser’s income last year—but it was a drop in the bucket compared to the money he was about to collect for selling it again.

In the first place, against the $6 million commission check, he had the cost of the decoy. The fabricators in Thailand had charged nearly a million for that. In the second place, the company he’d had hired in Geneva to transport the Golden Buddha to Macau and provide armored-car service to A-Ma had charged too much, a flat fee of $1 million for their services, while Spenser had quoted the billionaire a cost of one-tenth of that so as not to arouse suspicion. Bribes now, and in the next few days, when Spenser was planning to transport the original out of Macau and into the United States, would run him another million or so. As a result, right at this instant, for all practical purposes, Spenser was broke.

The art dealer had tapped all his available savings and business lines of credit to fund his nefarious operation—if he didn’t have the commission check lying before him on the table, he’d be in trouble. If Spenser had not been completely certain he had a buyer for the Golden Buddha, he might be worried. Tearing the slip of paper from the pad, he tore the note into tiny pieces, tossed the pieces in the toilet and flushed. Then he poured himself half a glass of Scotch to calm his trembling hands. It had taken Spenser a lifetime to build his reputation—and if his crime was known, it would be gone in seconds.

Money and gold can make men do strange things.

THREE-QUARTERS of the way across the globe and sixteen time zones distant, it was almost midnight, and the Silicon Valley software billionaire was passing his time making changes to his newest yacht. The blueprints for the massive 350-foot-long vessel had been created on a computer, designed on a computer and refined on a computer. Each individual piece could be highlighted and changed, all the way down to the screws that attached the thirty toilets to the deck. Right now, the billionaire was playing around with the furnishings and upholstery, and his ego was running rampant.

The computer would generate a full-bodied hologram of him to welcome guests to the main deck salon, and that had been a cool touch, but at this instant he was deciding what font would be best for his initials, which were to be sewn into the fabric on all the couches and chairs. A few years ago, he’d bought himself a minor British title that had come complete with a coat of arms, so he inserted the script he’d selected into the emblem, then overlaid that onto the fabric. A cameo of my face might look better,he thought, as he stared at the royal crest. Then people could sit on my face.The idea brought a smile; he was still smiling when his Philippine houseboy entered the room.

“Master,” he said slowly, “I’m sorry to bother you, but you have a long-distance telephone call from overseas.”

“Did they say their name?” he asked.

“He said he was a friend of the fat golden one,” the man said.

“Put him through,” the billionaire said, smiling, “at once.”

THE time was just before four in the afternoon in Macau, and while he waited for the software billionaire to come online, Spenser was fiddling with a voice alteration device that he had placed over his satellite telephone. He had placed a new battery in the device and the tiny light was blinking green, but still he questioned if the scrambler would work as advertised.

“Yo,” the billionaire said as he came on the line. “What have you got for me?”

“Are you still interested in owning the Golden Buddha?” a mechanical-sounding voice asked.

“Sure,” the billionaire said. At the same time, he input commands into the computer hooked to his telephone to counter the effects of the scrambler. “But not at two hundred million.”

“I was thinking”—the man’s voice was scrambled, but then the computer did its magic and the voice cleared—“a price of one hundred million.”

A British accent, the software billionaire thought. Talbot had told him a British dealer had made the successful bid for the Buddha, and maybe he had acquired it for a British collector—but that made no sense. No one would buy something for $200 million, only to offer it a few days later for half that. The dealer must have pulled the old switcheroo—or he was offering a fake.

“How do I know what you are offering is real?” the software billionaire asked.

“Do you have someone who can date gold?” Spenser asked.

“I can find someone,” the billionaire said.

“Then I’ll send you a sliver of metal along with a videotape of me removing it from the bottom of the artifact. The gold used in the Buddha was mined in—”

“I know the history,” the billionaire said, cutting him off. “How are you going to send the sample?”

“I’ll FedEx it this evening,” Spenser said.

The billionaire reeled off an address, then asked, “If it checks out, in what form will you want payment?”

“I’ll accept a wire transfer of American dollars to an account I’ll specify at the time of the transfer,” Spenser said.

“Sounds reasonable,” the billionaire said. “I’ll set it up tonight. One more thing, though,” the billionaire added. “I just hope you’re better at stealing than you are at picking electronics. Your choice in voice-alteration equipment is second-rate—your accent is as British as beans on toast, and that gives me a pretty good idea of who you are.”

Spenser stared at the flashing green light in disgust, but said nothing.

“So just remember,” the billionaire finished, “if you try and screw me—I can be real unpleasant.”

“FULL stop,” Hanley ordered.

The Oregonhad crossed the outer edge of the harbor just after 11 A.M. and picked up the pilot. Several containerized ships leaving port had slowed their progress, and the trip to a mooring buoy in the water just off the main portion of the port had required most of the next hour. The time was just before noon when the vessel was finally secured.

Cabrillo stood next to Hanley at the helm and stared at the city, which encircled the harbor. The pilot had just left, and he watched the stern of the boat retreating.

“You don’t think he noticed anything unusual?” Cabrillo asked.

“I think we’re okay,” Hanley answered.

The Corporation’s previous ship, the Oregon I, had been involved in a sea battle off Hong Kong a few years before, which had resulted in them sinking the Chinese navy vessel Chengdo. If the Chinese officials figured out this was the same crew that had sunk their multimillion-dollar destroyer, they’d all be hung as spies.

“Truitt arranged for us to receive our cover cargo the day after tomorrow,” Cabrillo said, scanning the sheet of paper on a clipboard that listed the operational plans. “You’re going to love this—it’s a load of fireworks bound for Cabo San Lucas.”

“The Oregondelivering fireworks,” Hanley said quietly. “It seems so fitting.”

THE executive jet terminal in Honolulu was plush without being ostentatious. It was cool inside, the air conditioning maintaining an even seventy degrees. The smoked-glass windows gave the lobby a clear view of the runways, and Langston Overholt IV passed the time watching a series of private jets appear in the night sky and then touch down and taxi over to the refueling area near private hangars. Overholt never saw the passengers of the jets; they were either met by limousines or large black SUV’s on the tarmac then transferred to their locations, or they stayed aboard while the jets were refueled and continued on their journies. Pilots or copilots came and went—stopping for weather briefings, to use the restrooms, to grab a cup of coffee or a pastry from a pantry to the side of the lobby—but for the most part it was quiet in a mid-evening lull. Overholt rose from the couch, walked over to the pantry and poured a cup of coffee, then was removing a banana from a fruit basket on the table when his telephone vibrated.