Golden Buddha Part 2

AT 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 a.s.sured 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.

THE 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 26 27.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 b.u.mped 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.senger 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.

Cuba's second largest city, Santiago was in Oriente Province and had been the island's capital in the seventeenth century. Surrounded by hills with coffee and sugar-cane plantations, the city was a maze of narrow streets, with small plazas and buildings of Spanish colonial architecture bearing hanging balconies.

Seng remained silent, concentrating on scanning the side streets and studying the numbers on his portable GPS to make certain the driver was heading in the right direction. The streets were mostly empty of traffic, except for fifty-year-old cars parked along the curbs, and the sidewalks were filled with people simply out for an after-dinner stroll or sitting in bars that reverberated with loud strains of the Cuban beat.

Many of the stores and apartments above had paint that was faded and chipped, while others were coated in vivid pastel colors. The gutters and sidewalks were clean, but the windows looked like they had rarely seen a cleaner and a squeegee. For the most part, the people looked happy.

There was much laughter and occasional singing. No one gave the truck a second look as it pa.s.sed slowly through the main downtown section of the city.

Seng spotted a few men in uniform, but they seemed more interested in talking with women than watching for a foreign intrusion. The driver lit up another foul-smelling cigarette. Seng had never smoked, and he leaned further against his door and turned his face through the open window, lifting his nose in disgust.

Ten minutes later the truck reached the front gate of the fortress prison. The driver pulled past and stopped fifty yards down the road.

"I will wait here," he said, in almost perfect English. They were the first words he had spoken since the dock.

Seng read him like a book. "Educator or doctor?"

"I teach history at the university."

"Thank you."

"Don't be long. The truck will look suspicious if it sits here past midnight."

"We should be out before then," Seng a.s.sured him.

28.29.Seng climbed out of the truck cab and peered up and down the street cautiously. It was empty. He rapped softly on the cargo doors. They opened and his team dropped out and joined him on the brick-surfaced street. Together they marched as a unit up to the front gate and pulled the bell cord. A ringing could be heard in the guard's office behind the gate. In a few minutes, a guard came wandering out, rubbing his eyes and temples. He had obviously been asleep on duty. He was about to tell the intruders to go away when he recognized Seng's uniform and insignia as a colonel's and he feverishly opened the gate, stood back and saluted.

"Sir, what brings you to the fortress this time of night?"

"Colonel Antonio Yarayo. I was sent by the Ministry of State Security with this team to interrogate one of the prisoners. A new investigation has turned up a suspected United States spy operation. We believe they have information which could prove useful."

"Pardon me, sir, but I must ask you for the proper papers."

"As a good soldier, Sergeant," said Seng officiously, "well you should." He handed the guard an envelope. "Why aren't there more guards on duty?"

"There is one other who watches the prisoners' cells."

"Hmm. Well, I see no reason to stand out here all night. Take me to your office quarters."

The guard immediately ushered them into a barren office that contained only a desk and two chairs. A photo of Castro, taken when he was a young man, hung alone on one wall.

"Who is the officer in command here?" asked Seng.

"Captain Juan Lopez."

"Where is he?"

"He has a girlfriend with a house in the city. He will be back at nine o'clock tomorrow."

"How very convenient," Seng said as if bored. "What is your name?"

"Lieutenant Gabriel Sanchez, sir."

"And the name of the other guard on duty in the cells?"

"Sergeant Ignez Macco."

"Please check the doc.u.ments so we can get on with it."

The guard sat down at the desk and pulled some paper out of the envelope. Seng moved behind and removed a small gun from his pocket as Sanchez stared blankly at a pair of comic books. He looked up.

"Colonel, I don't under--"

That was as far as he got before Seng shot a tiny dart filled with a tranquilizer into the nape of his neck. Sanchez looked at Seng oddly before slumping unconscious over the table.

Seng threw a roll of duct tape to one of his team. Every move was so well rehea.r.s.ed that he did not have to give orders. Two men took the tape, bound the unconscious guard, searched his pockets--finding an unusual round key--and then stuffed him in a closet. Another man went to work carefully rendering the security alarms and communications equipment inoperable.

As they rushed through the pa.s.sageways and tunnels and down stone steps to the cells below, Seng knew where he was within a foot, thanks to the holographic image of the fortress that he had committed to memory.

There was no desperate hurry, but they could not afford to throw away time. He could see now why only a few men guarded the entire facility. The walls were ma.s.sively thick, and there was only one entrance in and out of the dungeon cells far below street level. The only way a prisoner could escape was the way the team from the Oregon had come--from the outside. A string of lightbulbs lit the pa.s.sageway. The ceiling was very high, but the s.p.a.ce between the walls was very narrow.

The steps finally ended at an enormous steel door with the thickness of a bank vault. A TV camera stared ominously at Seng and his men. This was the tricky part, he thought, as he inserted the odd-looking key into the steel lock. Seng prayed that the key would do the job without a code being demanded.

His fear was confirmed when he turned the key and a buzzer could 30 31.be heard from the other side of the door. A minute later a voice called through a nearby loudspeaker, "Who goes there?"

"Colonel Antonio Yarayo, State Security, with an interrogation team to question the traitors."

There was a pause. Seng didn't wait for a reply.

"Open up. I have the authority and necessary doc.u.ments. Lieutenant Sanchez would have accompanied us, but he said he was not allowed to leave the front gate unguarded. Sergeant Ignez Macco, is it?" Seng held up the envelope. "If you have any questions, I have your service record in my hands."

"But sir," the voice of Macco pleaded, "if the door is opened before eight o'clock in the morning, alarms will go off in the state security office at Fort Canovar."

"I ordered Lieutenant Sanchez to turn off the dungeon alarm," Seng bluffed.

"But sir, he cannot do that. The door is on a separate system that is wired to the security commandant's office in the city. It cannot be opened until eight o'clock in the morning."

It was one more obstacle to overcome, but not totally unexpected.

Seng was betting that the security officers would think the alarms were malfunctioning and call the fort to check it out before sending a squad of security police.

Macco fell for it. A few seconds later, the big steel lock clacked and the bolts that extended from the door into the framework could be heard withdrawing from their slots. Then the ma.s.sive door swung open silently and smoothly. Sergeant Macco stood at attention and snapped a salute.

Seng wasted no more time on niceties. He aimed the tranquilizer gun at Macco's throat and squeezed the tiny trigger. The guard's eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the stone floor like a sack of sand.

The dungeon was not a state-of-the-art prison. The rusting iron cell doors had been hung in the late nineteenth century and still required the large antique key chained to Macco's belt. Seng ripped the key and its ring from the guard's belt and began opening the first doors. As soon as the door was swung ajar, Julia Huxley rushed into the cell to check the condition of its inhabitant. Seng's team helped by a.s.sisting the shocked prisoners, who feared the worst, into the dungeon's pa.s.sageway.

"Five are in no condition to walk up the stairs and onto the street,"

said Julia. "They'll have to be carried out on stretchers."

"Then we'll haul them on our backs," replied Seng. "We don't have enough bodies to carry five stretchers."

"These poor devils think we're going to execute them," said a tall, ruggedly built team member with red hair in a buzz cut.

"We haven't got time to explain!" snapped Seng. He knew that the security officials downtown were wondering why the dungeon alarm in Santa Ursula had been triggered at this time of night. They were certain to call and find the phones down. How soon they would send a squad of men to check was anybody's guess. "Julia, you round up those who can move on their own two feet. The rest of you men carry the ones too weak to walk."

They moved off, almost having to drag the poor, suffering Cubans out of the dungeon and up the stairs, every team member with a Cuban over one shoulder, their free arms braced around other prisoners who could barely manage the steps. Julia brought up the rear, supporting two women and whispering encouraging words whose meanings could only come through in her soothing tone--she knew only enough Spanish to order a margarita.

Climbing the winding stone steps was a torturous exertion for the weakened prisoners, but there could be no turning back. Any capture now meant certain execution. They struggled up the steps, chests rising and falling, lungs gasping for air, hearts pounding. Men and women who had long ago given up hope now saw an opportunity to live normal lives again, thanks to these crazy people who were risking death to rescue them.

32.33.Seng could not afford the time to sympathize with their plight, or look into their gaunt faces. Any thoughts of compa.s.sion were fleeting.

Sympathy could come once they reached the safety of the Oregon.

He concentrated on pushing them all toward the main gate, keeping his mind cold and logical.

At last the front of the column reached the guard's office at the gate.

Seng stepped cautiously out onto the brick street. There was no whisper of sound or any sign of vehicles or people. The truck was right where they'd left it.

The team carrying those too weak to walk were huffing and puffing now and soaked in sweat from the tropical humidity. Warily, Seng studied the darkened street and buildings through his laser night binoculars.

The area was clear. Satisfied, he hustled everyone through the gate and shoved them roughly in the direction of the truck.

He rushed back into the office and checked the guard. He was still unconscious. He also spotted a red light on a console beside the desk.

The alarm had indeed been activated when they'd opened the dungeon door. The phone began to ring, and he picked it up and snapped in Spanish, "Uno momenta!"

Then he set the receiver down and dashed out the door.

The rescue team and the freed prisoners were crammed into the cargo bed of the truck like j.a.panese workers during rush hour. The driver shifted the weary old transmission into gear with a brief metallic grind, and the truck leaped forward. The streets were as before, the auto traffic thin, while Cubans were enjoying a balmy evening outside on their balconies, sitting at chairs and tables on the sidewalks or drinking in the cantinas, dancing and singing.

Seng c.o.c.ked his ear out the window and listened for any sound of alarms or sirens. There came only the strains of music in the night air.

The harshest sound came from the truck's m.u.f.fler, which seemed to be coming loose from the engine header pipe. The rattle of the exhaust soon drowned out the city noise. He saw Cubans glance at the truck and then turn away. Loose exhaust pipes and rusted-out m.u.f.flers were common on the old cars that traveled the streets of Santiago. The city's inhabitants had more entertaining thoughts on their minds.

The truck driver drove maddeningly slow, but Seng knew better than to push him. A truck casually taking its time through town would arouse no suspicion. After what seemed an hour, but was only fifteen minutes, the driver pulled up alongside a warehouse dock and stopped. A quick look up and down the deserted dock and Seng began goading everyone toward the maintenance shed. The five-minute journey to the shed was uneventful.

Their luck still held. The only activity was centered on the two cargo ships unloading their big containers. Though still apprehensive, Seng finally began to relax. He motioned them through the door of the maintenance shed and down the wooden stairs. In the darkness he saw the vague shape of the Nomad sub's pilot, standing on the floating dock and helping the Cubans on board. The other pilot was down below, packing them tightly inside the narrow confines of the Nomad's main cabin.

When Seng and Julia Huxley, the last to board, climbed onto the sub's upper deck, the pilot quickly cast off the mooring lines, looked up briefly and said, "You made good time."

"Get to the ship as fast as this craft can take us," Seng replied. "We couldn't help setting off an alarm. I'm surprised Cuban security forces aren't already breathing down our neck."

"If they haven't tracked you here," said the pilot confidently as he closed and sealed the hatch, "they'll never guess where you came from."

"At least not until the Oregon's found missing from her a.s.signed anchorage."

In seconds the sub was dropping beneath the surface of the dark water. Fifteen minutes later it surfaced inside the moon pool of the Oregon. Divers attached the hook and cable of the big overhead crane, and the Nomad was lifted delicately until it was even with the second deck and moored to the balcony. Huxley's medical team was waiting 34 along with several members of the ship's crew to help the Cubans to the Oregon's well-equipped hospital.

The time was three minutes past eleven.

A thin man, his hair white before his time, recognized Cabrillo as an officer and walked unsteadily up to him. "Sir, my name is Juan Tural.

Can you tell me who you people are and why you rescued my friends and me from Santa Ursula?"

"We are a corporation, and we were contracted to do this job."