Golden Buddha (Oregon Files 1)

5

LANGSTON Overholt IV sat in his office in Langley, Virginia. His hips rested in a tall leather chair sideways to the desk. In his hand was a black racquetball paddle, its handle wrapped with white cloth tape stained by sweat. Slowly and methodically, he hit a black rubber ball two feet in the air and then back down to the racquet. Every fourth hit, he flipped the racquet over to change sides. The rhythmic action helped him think.

Overholt was thin without being scrawny, more lean and sinewy than bony. One hundred and sixty-five pounds graced his six-foot-one-inch frame, with skin stretched tight over muscles that were long and squared rather than rounded and plump. His face was handsome in a rugged way, rectangular in shape, with hard edges abounding. His hair was blond, with just a touch of gray starting to appear at the temples, and he had it trimmed every two weeks at the CIA barbershop inside the compound.

Overholt was a runner.

He’d started the practice as a senior in high school, when the craze had swept the country, fueled by the Jim Fixx book The Complete Runner. Throughout college and graduate school he’d kept up the practice. Marriage, joining the CIA, divorce and remarriage had not slowed down his obsession. Running was one of the few things that relieved the stress of his job.

Stress was Overholt’s other constant.

Since joining the CIA in 1981 fresh out of graduate school, he’d served under six different directors. Now, for the first time in decades, Langston Overholt IV had a chance to make his father’s promise to the Dalai Lama a reality, while at the same time repaying his old friend Juan Cabrillo. He was wasting no time in moving his plans forward. Just then, his telephone buzzed.

“Sir,” his assistant said, “it’s the DDO, he’d like to meet with you as soon as possible.”

Overholt reached for the phone.

THE weather in Washington, D.C., was as hot as Texas asphalt and as steamy as a bowl of green chili. Inside the White House, the air conditioners were set as high as they would go, but they just couldn’t drop the temperature below seventy-five degrees. The president’s home was aging, and there was just so much adaptation you could make to an old building and still retain the historical structure.

“Has there ever been an official photograph of the president sitting in the Oval Office in a T-shirt?” the president joked.

“I’ll check, sir,” said the aide who had just led the CIA director inside.

“Thank you, John,” the president said, dispatching the man.

The president reached across the desk and shook the director’s hand as the aide closed the door to leave the men alone. The president motioned for him to be seated.

“These aides I have are sharp as tacks,” the president noted as he sat down, “but short on a sense of humor. The kid’s probably checking with the White House historian as we speak.”

“If it was anyone,” the director said, smiling, “I’d guess LBJ.”

When you’re seventeen years old and you know the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the spy game seems pretty cool. When you later become president, you really have a chance to see what happens. Time had not diminished his enthusiasm—the president still found the intelligence game fascinating.

“What have you got for me?” the president asked.

“Tibet,” the director said without preamble.

The president nodded, then adjusted a fan on his desk so that the breeze swept evenly across both men. “Explain.”

The CIA director reached into his briefcase and removed some documents.

Then he laid out the plan.

IN Beijing, President Hu Jintao was studying documents that showed the true state of the Chinese economy. The picture was grim. The race to modernization had required more and more petroleum, and the Chinese had yet to locate any significant new reserves inside their borders. The situation had not been such a problem a few years earlier, when the price of oil had been at twenty year lows, but with the recent price spike upward, the higher costs were wreaking havoc. Adding to the problem were the Japanese, whose thirst for oil had led to a price competition the Chinese could not hope to win.

Jintao stared out the window. The air was clearer than usual today—a light wind was blowing the smoke from the factories away from central Beijing—but the wind was not so strong as to blow away the soot that had landed on the windowsill. Jintao watched as a sparrow landed on the sill. The bird’s tiny feet made tracks in the powder. The bird fluttered around for a few seconds, then stopped and peered in the window and looked directly toward Jintao.

“How would you cut costs?” Jintao said to the bird, “and where do we find oil?”

6

THEOregon swept past the Paracel Islands under a pitch-black night sky. The air was liquid with rain that fell in sheets. The wind was blowing in gusts without firm direction or purpose. For several minutes it would rake the Oregon amidships, then quickly change to blow bow on or stern first. The soggy flags on the stern were pivoting on their staffs as fast as a determined Boy Scout trying to light a fire with a stick.

Inside the control room, Franklin Lincoln stared at the radar screen. The edge of the storm began petering out just before the ship passed the twenty-degree latitude line. Walking over to a computer terminal in the control room, he entered commands and waited while the satellite images of the Chinese coastline loaded.

A haze of smog could be seen over Hong Kong and Macau.

He glanced over at Hali Kasim, who was sharing the night shift. Kasim was sound asleep, his feet up on the control panel. His mouth was partially opened.