Golden Buddha (Oregon Files 1)

“From that point forward,” Meadows said, “we lose the bottom half of the sewer to water.”

Already the water was knee-deep, and the farther the men had gone, the more it had risen. Now they were at an impasse. From here to the end of the line, the water would be too deep to walk through. “Let’s inflate the rafts,” Jones said wearily.

Hornsby opened one of the duffle bags and removed a pair of folding rafts. Taking a high-pressure air supply from inside the bag, he attached it to a raft and turned the switch. The raft unfolded and quickly became rigid. Two minutes later, Hornsby turned off the inflator.

“We need to place the Buddha in one raft,” Hornsby said, “and the three of us in the other.”

“Weight problems?” Jones asked.

“Each raft can carry a maximum of seven hundred pounds,” Hornsby said. “Since none of us weighs under a hundred pounds, he’ll need to ride alone.”

Meadows was unpacking the second raft. He laid it out and attached the inflator. As it was filling with air, he spoke. “What do you think?” he asked his partners. “Should we let the Buddha lead or follow?”

Hornsby thought for a moment. “If he’s behind, the weight might push us into something.”

“But if he leads,” Jones said, “we can let go of the lead rope if we get into trouble.”

Meadows stared at the rapidly filling pipe just ahead. “There will not be much steering required,” he said, pointing to the rising water. “I think we’ll all just go with the flow.”

“Then he leads,” Hornsby said as he grabbed one end of the Buddha to wrestle it onto the raft, “and we just go along for the ride.”

“Hear, hear,” Meadows said.

“Makes sense to me,” Jones added.

26

“TALBOT?” Spenser said. “You’re part of this?”

Hanley walked over to Spenser and stood as the art dealer examined him. At least he seemed to be passing the visual test—Spenser was waiting for him to answer.

“Win…ston Spen…ser, you old…,” Hanley croaked.

He sounded like a cheap P.A. system in a run-down school. Hanley moved the small device from his voice box and spoke in his normal voice. “Kevin,” he said, “come take a look at this—I thought I had it dialed in right.”

Nixon walked over and flipped the device over. He took a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked a small toggle switch over two notches. “You had the delay used for telephone transmissions engaged, boss

,” Nixon said. “Try it now.”

“Hi, Winston,” Hanley said. “Long time no see.”

Spenser stared at the man and shook his head. Had he not seen the device malfunction, he might have been all right—as it was, everything that had happened to him was rushing back in a flood. Now these people had created some kind of robot. Who knew what they might do next?

“Mr. Talbot,” Spenser managed to say.

“I think you fixed it, Kevin,” Hanley said.

Spenser stood mute.

“Okay, everyone, listen up,” Cabrillo said, “it’s almost time.”

DETECTIVE Ling Po stared at the mass of melted metal. The support beams of the float had been twisted into grotesque shapes by the intense heat of the fire, and they were wrapped around the remains of the motorcycles like the blackened tentacles of an octopus. A handler with a dog was poking at one side of the wreckage.

“Sir,” the handler said, “the dog is not signaling any human remains.”

“Does that mean there are none?” Po asked.

“Usually, it would need to be an extremely hot fire to fully turn a corpse to ash. Anything less than that he’ll smell.”