Clive Cussler: Golden Buddha

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.

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 sugarcane 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 passed 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 assured him.

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 documents 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 rehearsed 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 passageways 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 massively 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 passageway. The ceiling was very high, but the space 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 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 documents. 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 massive door swung open silently and smoothly. Sergeant Macco stood at attention and snapped a salute.