Golden Buddha (4 page)

“The equipment in the moon pool is all ready.”

“And the landing crew?”

“Standing by.”

“I just have time to get rid of these smelly clothes and get decent,” said Cabrillo, heading toward his cabin down a hallway hung with paintings by modern artists.

The crew cabins were concealed inside two of the cargo holds and were as plush as rooms in a five-star hotel. There was no separation between officers and crew on the
Oregon
. All were educated people, highly trained in their respective fields—elite men and women who had served in the armed forces. The ship was owned by its staff, who were stockholders. There were no ranks. Cabrillo was chairman; Hanley, president; the others held various other titles. They were all mercenaries, here to make a profit—though that did not necessarily rule out good works at the same time—hired by countries or large companies to perform clandestine services around the world, very often at great risk.

 

T
HE
man who left the cabin twenty minutes later did not look like the man who'd entered. The greasy hairpiece, scruffy beard and grimy coveralls were gone, as was the foul smell. So was the Timex, now replaced with a stainless-steel Concord chronograph. In addition, the man had dropped at least a hundred pounds.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo had transformed himself from the grimy sea dog Smith to his true self again. A tall man in his forties, ruggedly handsome, he stared through pixie blue eyes. His blond hair was trimmed in a crew cut and a western cowboy-style mustache sprouted from his upper lip.

He hurried down the corridor to a far door and entered a control room perched high inside a vast cavern in the hull amidships. The three-deck-high moon pool, as it was called, was where all the
Oregon
's underwater equipment was stored—diving gear; submersibles, manned and unmanned; and an array of underwater electronic sensors. A pair of state-of-the-art contemporary underwater craft byU.S. Submarines—a sixty-five-foot Nomad 1000 and a thirty-two-foot Discovery 1000—hung in cradles. The doors on the bottom of the hull slid open and water flooded in until it was level with the outer waterline.

The remarkable ship was not what she appeared from her exterior. The outer decks and hull were disguised to make her look like a rust bucket. The wheelhouse and the unused officers' and crew's quarters below were also kept in a slovenly condition to avoid suspicion from visiting port officials or harbor pilots.

Cabrillo entered the underwater operations room and stood before a large table showing three-dimensional holographic images of every street in the city of Santiago. Linda Ross, the
Oregon
's security and surveillance analyst, was standing at the table lecturing a group of people dressed in Cuban military fatigue uniforms. Linda had been a lieutenant commander in the navy when Cabrillo had sweet-talked her into resigning and joining the
Oregon
. In the navy she had been an intelligence officer on board an Aegis guided-missile cruiser before spending four years in Washington in the navy's intelligence department.

Linda glanced sideways at Cabrillo as he stood quietly without interrupting. She was an attractive woman, not a head turner, but most men still considered her pretty. She kept her five-foot-eight-inch, 130-pound body in firm shape with exercise, but rarely spent extra time on makeup or hairstyle. She was one smart lady, soft-spoken and greatly admired by the entire
Oregon
crew.

The five men and one woman standing around the detailed 3-D image of the city listened intently as Linda ran through the last-minute instructions, using a small metal rod with a light on the end to point out their objective. “The fortress of Santa Ursula. It was built during the Spanish-American War, and after the turn of the twentieth century it was used as a warehouse until Castro and his revolutionaries took over the country. Then it was turned into a prison.”

“What is the exact distance from our landing to the prison?” asked Eddie Seng, the
Oregon
's master of subterfuge and director of shore operations.

“Two hundred yards less than a mile,” answered Linda.

Seng folded his arms and looked thoughtful. “We'll be able to fool the locals with our uniforms going in, but if we have to fight our way back a mile to the docks while herding eighteen prisoners, I can't guarantee we'll make it.”

“Certainly not in the condition those poor people are going to be in,” said Julia Huxley, the
Oregon
's medical officer. She was going along on the raid to care for the prisoners. A short woman, large bosomed with a body suited for wrestling, Julia was the congeniality lady of the ship. She'd served as a chief medical officer for four years at the San Diego Naval Base and was well respected by them all.

“Our agents in the city have arranged for a truck to be stolen twenty minutes before you leave the prison. It's used for hauling food supplies to the hotels. The truck and a driver will be parked one block from the workers' maintenance shack situated on the wharf above your landing dock. He'll drive you to the prison, wait, and return you to the dock. From there he'll ditch the truck and ride home on his bicycle.”

“Does he have a name? Is there a password?”

Linda smiled slightly. “The password is
dos
.”

Seng looked skeptical. “Two? That's it?”

“Yes, he'll reply with
uno
, one. It's that simple.”

“Well, at least it's concise.”

Linda paused to flick a series of switches on a small remote control. The images of the city dissolved into a 3-D interior diorama of Santa Ursula Prison without its roof, revealing the inner rooms and cells and their connecting passageways. “Our sources tell us there are only ten guards in the whole prison. Six on the day shift, two in the evening and two from midnight until six in the morning. You should have no problem overpowering the two on the station. They'll think you're a military unit come to transport the prisoners to another secure facility. You're scheduled to gain entry at ten o'clock. Subdue the two on-duty guards and release the prisoners, then return to the submarine and make the ship by eleven o'clock. Any later and you jeopardize our escape out of the harbor.”

“How so?” asked one of Seng's team members.

“We're told the harbor defense systems are run through an operational test every night at twelve. We've got to be well on our way to sea before then.”

“Why not wait and go in after midnight, when most of the town is asleep?” asked a member of the landing force. “At ten o'clock, the local citizens will still be stirring around.”

“You'll cause less suspicion if you don't sneak around the streets before dawn,” she replied. “Also, the other eight guards are usually out on the town in the local bars until early morning.”

“You're sure about that?” asked Seng.

Linda nodded. “Their movements have been watched and clocked for two weeks by our agents in the city.”

“Unless Murphy's Law rears its ugly head,” said Cabrillo, “the release of the prisoners and the escape should go smoothly. The tough part comes when you're all on board and we have to sail out of the harbor. The minute Castro's harbor security forces see us pull up the anchor and turn down the channel for the open sea, they'll know something is wrong and all hell will break loose.”

Linda looked at Cabrillo. “We have the weaponry to knock them out.”

“True,” Cabrillo acknowledged. “But we cannot fire the first shot. If they strike the
Oregon
first, however, we'll have no choice but to protect ourselves.”

“None of us has been told,” said Seng, “who exactly are we breaking out of jail. They must be important or we wouldn't have contracted for the job.”

Cabrillo looked at him. “We wanted to keep it under wraps until we got here. They're Cuban doctors, journalists and businessmen who opposed Castro's government, all highly respected men and women. Castro knows they are dangerous if they are free. If they reach the Cuban community in Miami, they can use it as a base to instigate a revolutionary movement.”

“Is it a good contract?”

“Ten million dollars if we deliver them to U.S. soil.”

Seng and the others around the holographic display smiled. “That should add a tidy little amount to everyone's nest egg,” he said.

“Doing good for profit,” Cabrillo said with a wide grin. “That's our motto.”

 

A
T
precisely 8:30, Seng and his small force boarded the Nomad 1000 along with the two crewmen who would pilot the sub and guard it during the operation. The sub looked more like a luxury surface yacht than a submersible. Capable of running at high speeds on the surface with its diesel engines, it was battery powered beneath the waves. With a speed of twelve knots underwater, the Nomad could dive to a thousand feet. The interior was designed to hold twelve people comfortably, but Cabrillo had had her configured to carry three times that number tightly packed together, for missions such as this one.

The entry door was closed and sealed, and the craft, secured by a large sling, was lifted by a crane into the center of the moon pool. The operator looked into the control room and was given the descent signal by Cabrillo. Then, slowly, the large craft was lowered into the black water. As soon as she settled, divers removed the sling and were carried upward to the surrounding balcony by the crane.

“Radio check,” said Seng. “Do you read me?”

“Like you're in the same room,” Linda Ross assured him.

“Are we clear?”

“No ship movement and only three fishing boats are heading out to sea. At thirty feet, you should stay well below their keels and props.”

“Keep the coffee on,” said Seng.

“Bon voyage,” quipped Cabrillo.

“That's easy for you to say,” Seng came back.

A few moments later, the lights inside the Nomad blinked out and it vanished into the dark water of the harbor.

 

T
HE
pilots of the sub relied on their Global Positioning System to set them on an exact course for the section of the city docks that was their destination. Detecting the pilings by their laser monitoring system, they were able to slip between the stern and bow of two container ships unloading cargo and maneuvered their way amid the giant pilings. Once under the wharves and out of sight from anyone above, they surfaced and closed the remaining gap using a laser night-penetrating camera that magnified the city lights filtering beneath the pilings.

“Floating maintenance dock dead ahead,” announced the chief pilot.

There was no hard check of weapons or survival gear. Though they all carried concealed handguns, they wanted to look like a small security unit moving through town without any menacing designs on the citizens. Their only inspection was to make sure their uniforms looked neat and presentable. The combat members of the team had all been members of the Special Forces. They were under strict orders not to commit mayhem unless it was absolutely necessary in order to save lives. Seng himself had served on a marine recon team and had never lost a man.

No sooner had the Nomad gently bumped against the floating dock than Seng, followed closely by his team, exited the sub and headed up the stairs to a little house that sheltered the dock and maintenance workers' tools and small equipment. The door was easily unlocked from the inside, and Seng, with only a brief look to see if anyone was standing nearby, silently motioned everyone to follow him.

The lights of the cranes and the ships they were unloading lit up the dock like daylight, but luckily the exit door was opposite and the team formed in the shadows. Then, in a column of twos and marching in cadence, Seng led them to the end of the dock and around the warehouse.

His watch said 9:36. Exactly twenty-four minutes to arrive at the front gate of the prison. They found the truck nine minutes later, parked under a dim dock light beside the warehouse. Seng recognized it as a 1951 Ford delivery van that looked like it had passed the two-million-mile mark years ago. In the gloom he could make out lettering in a fancy red script on the side of the fourteen-foot cargo body. It read
GONZALES FOOD PURVEYORS
in Spanish. The driver was visible only by the glow of his cigarette.

Seng walked up to the open window, hand on his Ruger P97 .45 caliber automatic with suppressor, and said quietly,
“Dos.”

The driver of the truck exhaled a cloud of nonfiltered cigarette smoke into the cab and replied,
“Uno.”

“Pile in the back,” Seng ordered his team. “I'll ride in front.” He opened the passenger door and slid onto the seat. There was no conversation as the driver crunched the worn-out transmission into gear and drove off the dock into the city streets. Every other light on the boulevard running along the bay was dark, either because the bulbs had burned out and had never been replaced or to conserve energy. After a few blocks the driver turned onto a main street and headed up a slight grade toward San Juan Hill.