“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

THE Oregonswept 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 Oregonamidships, 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.

Kasim could sleep through a hurricane, Lincoln thought, or in this part of the ocean, a cyclone.

AT the same time the Oregonwas steaming east, Winston Spenser awoke, startled. Earlier in the evening he had visited the Golden Buddha at A-Ma. The icon was still in the mahogany crate, sitting upright, door opened, in the room where it had been taken. Spenser had gone alone; simple common sense dictated that as few people as possible know the actual location, but he’d found the experience unnerving.

Spenser knew the icon was nothing more than a mass of precious metal and stones, but for some strange reason the object seemed to have a life force. The chunk of gold appeared to glow in the dim room, as if illuminated by a light from within. The large jade eyes seemed to follow his every move. And while its visage might appear benign to some—only that of a potbellied, smiling prophet—to Spenser the image seemed to be mocking him.

As if he had not known it before, earlier in the evening Spenser had become certain that what he had done was not a stroke of genius. The Golden Buddha was not some canvas, dabbed with paint—it was the embodiment of reverence, crafted with love and respect.

And Spenser had swiped it like a candy in a drugstore.

THE Dalai Lama listened to the slow flow of water over the smooth stones while he meditated. On the far reaches of his mind was static, and he willed the disturbance to clear. He could see the ball of light in the center of his skull, but the edges were rough and pulsating. Slowly he smoothed the signals, and the ball began to collapse in on itself until only a pinpoint of white light remained. Then he began to scan his physical shell.

There was a disturbance, and it was growing.

Eighteen minutes later, he came back into his shell and rose to his feet.

Eight yards away, sitting under a green canvas awning alongside the kidney-shaped pool on the estate in Beverly Hills, was his Chikyah Kenpo. The Dalai Lama walked over. The Hollywood actor who was his host smiled and rose to his feet.

“It is time for me to go home,” the Dalai Lama said.

There was no pleading or disagreement from the actor.

“Your Holiness,” he said, “let me call for my jet.”

IN the north of Tibet, on the border between U-Tsang and Amdo province, the Basatongwula Shan mountains towered over the plains. The peak was a snowcapped sentinel watching over an area where few men trod. To the untrained eye, the lands around Basatongwula Shan looked barren and desolate, a wasteland best left alone and deserted. On the surface, this may have been true.

But underneath, hidden for centuries, was a secret known only by a few.

A yak walked slowly along a rocky path. On his back was a black mynah bird that remained silent as he hitched a ride. Slowly at first, but growing in intensity, a light tremor rippled across the land. The yak began to shake in fear, causing the bird to take to the air. Digging his cloven hooves into the soil, he stood firm as the land trembled. Then slowly the disruption passed and the earth stilled. The yak resumed his journey.

Within minutes, the fur on his legs and lower body was covered with a haze from a mineral that over countless generations had made some men rich and others go mad.

VICE President of Operations Richard Truitt was still awake. His body clock had yet to adjust and his night was still Macau’s day. Logging on to his computer, he checked for messages. One had been sent by Cabrillo a few hours before. Like every e-mail he received from the chairman, this one was short.

Confirmation received from the home of George. All systems go. ETA 33 hours.

The CIA was still in and the Oregonwould arrive in less than two days’ time. Truitt had a lot of work to complete in a short span. Calling down to the hotel’s twenty four-hour room service, he ordered a meal of bacon and eggs. Then he walked into the bathroom to shave, shower and pick his disguise.

7

JUAN Cabrillo finished the last bite of an omelet filled with apple-smoked bacon and Gorgonzola cheese, then pushed the plate away.

“It’s a wonder we all don’t weigh three hundred pounds,” he said.