Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 4, April 1980

Chung Lee frowned gave his round face a pained expression. “Dr. Scott today is in Kaohsiung, our other port city,” he said. “She is making final shipping arrangements for the Golden Buddha there. She is sorry not to honor your arrival with her presence.”

“Did you say she?” Shayne asked. “Dr. Scott is a woman?”

Chung Lee nodded. “A most beautiful woman in western eyes. I’m sure you will agree.”

Mary Su Lin asked, “You mean Dr. Feldman didn’t tell you?”

“No, he didn’t. In my rush to get away, we spoke on the phone for only a few minutes.”

“It’s Dr. Stephanie Scott,” Mary Su Lin told Shayne. “You might remember that she was a rather prominent campus activist in the 1960s. She’s a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.”

Shayne shook his head. “There were too many to remember them all.”

“Please come,” Chung Lee said. “A car is waiting.”

Shayne, with Mary Su Lin’s arm tucked under his elbow, followed the Chinese through the crowded terminal to a side door. Two husky Chinese with shaved heads, in chauffeur’s livery, took their baggage and loaded it into the trunk of the black Mercedes.

Shayne noticed both men were armed but, in a foreign country, thought nothing of it.

The jammed city streets fascinated Shayne. It wasn’t the sort of first glimpse at an Oriental city he expected. With its gleaming high-rise buildings and smart shops, Tapei could have been any other new western city if it weren’t for the signs in incomprehensible Chinese.

He became so much a tourist, as a matter of fact, that he didn’t notice the Mercedes was moving through thinner traffic as it neared the edge of the city.

“Is this your first visit to our island?” Chung Lee asked Shayne.

“As a matter of fact it is,” Shayne told him.

Mary Su Lin touched his arm. “The International Hotel didn’t used to be this far from the air terminal, Mike.”

The car was spinning along a wide road that skirted the mountains, and rice paddies stretched away on either side of them.

“Where are you taking us?” Shayne asked their guide.

Chung Lee smiled. “You and Dr. Su Lin are honored guests of the Red Brigade, Mr. Shayne.” He extended his hand. “You will please give me the weapon you are carrying.”

Shayne considered the odds.

The chauffeur not driving had an arm hooked over the back of the front seat and a machine pistol in his other hand.

“Your weapon please,” Chung Lee said.

IV

“What is happening?” Mary Su Lin asked Shayne.

“We’ve been suckered and shafted,” he told her in an even voice that had a bite. Carefully removing his Colt .45 from the shoulder holster, he passed the weapon to Chung Lee. “This is one hell of a welcome to Taiwan! What sort of game are you and the goons up front playing?”

“It was the Manchus who stole the Hsinkao Shan Golden Buddha from the people of China,” Chung Lee told him. “The Red Brigade will return it to its rightful owners, the People’s Republic of China. Unless the Nationalists do this, and promptly, you and Dr. Su Lin will be executed.”

Mary Su Lin’s hand found Shayne’s, but she said in a cool voice, “Your grasp of Chinese history, Mr. Chung, leaves something to be desired.”

“You, a woman, choose to enlighten me?” Chung asked in a sarcastic voice.

“Someone should,” Mary Su Lin told him. “I know more than you do about Oriental objects of art. It was Cheng Ch’eng-Kung who commissioned the Golden Buddha to honor his favorite wife who was Buddhist. That was here on Taiwan in 1664 and when the Manchus invaded the island it was hidden in a mountain cave. Later the shrine on Hsinkao Shan was rebuilt and the Golden Buddha restored to his rightful place, only to be hidden again during the Japanese occupation. Your Red Brigade should try to keep their facts straight, Mr. Chung.”

“Does that straighten you out?” Shayne asked Chung. “Chairman Mao, if he was still alive, would be ashamed of your ignorance.”

Chung Lee’s mouth was a straight line and anger glinted in his eyes but he said, “No matter. Whatever is Chinese belongs to the Chinese people who followed Chairman Mao instead of that traitor, Chiang Kai Shek.”

“Communist rhetoric isn’t easy to understand, Mike.” It was Mary Su Lin’s turn to be sarcastic. “To put it simply, what belongs to them is theirs and what belongs to you is also theirs.”

The black Mercedes was laboring up a steep slope in the mountain road, vertical cliffs on either side. At each sharp curve the car’s tires spit gravel over the sheer drop on their right. They were climbing so fast Shayne fished a stock of gum from his pocket to ease the popping of his eardrums.

“Where does Dr. Stephanie Scott fit into this clever little plot of yours, Chung?” Shayne asked the Chinese. “Is this kidnapping for ransom her bright idea or did you think it up all by yourself?”

Chung Lee stared straight ahead, Lips pursed, and refused to answer Shayne’s question.