The Gate (29 page)
She turned to Kuzumi. “And the Black Ocean. I wanted you here, too, although I did not know you were the Genoysha, Kuzumi. Through my underworld sources I alerted the North Koreans to the location of the cave in Hungnam you told me about. I fed them information to keep them going, like dogs on a leash after you destroyed the cave. I directed them here to steal those documents. Documents my daughter has studied for many long years to find out if the 1-24 really made it here and if the midget submarine had actually launched. She only found that out last year. Since then I have been planning this reunion.”
“Your daughter?” Lake said.
Nira kept her attention on Kuzumi. “Yes, my daughter. I remarried after the war. An American. He was a good man and I needed him to keep my place in society even as I used the contacts I had made working for the Black Ocean to work my way into the Yakuza of San Francisco. I am the Oyabun!”
“You may be Oyabun, but I’ve got a couple of platoons of men headed in this direction right now,” Feliks said. “So I think—”
“I do not care what you think,” Nira snapped. “I am in charge here.”
“Says who?” Feliks asked.
Nira turned to Kuzumi. “The frequency for the detonator for Genzai Bakudan?”
Kuzumi had those numbers imprinted in his memory. He told her.
Nira held up a hand and in it was a small metal box. Lake recognized it as a twin to the one in the submarine. She turned a dial on the front. “I had the special code transmitted and now I have the proper frequency. I control Genzai Bakudan.”
“That thing won’t go off,” Feliks said, but Lake could hear a little bit of uncertainty in his voice.
“I think you’d better call Randkin and check on that,” Lake said. “When I asked him, he said there was a good chance the bomb would work.”
Feliks looked about, then settled on Nira. “What do you want?”
“The truth,” Nira said. “I knew one of you would have it.” She pointed at Kuzumi. “Obviously he is ignorant of what happened since he was a captive in Russia at the end of the war and Taiyo told him nothing but lies. So you must know the truth.”
Feliks shook his head. “What good would that do now? It’s all worked out for the best. Let it go.”
“It is my life!” Nira shouted, startling everyone with such a powerful voice in such an old body. “My life. My son’s life.” She snapped her head around to Kuzumi. “James is dead, isn’t he? Or was that another lie fed me?”
“I am sorry to tell you that our son is indeed dead,” Kuzumi said.
Nira turned back to Feliks. She held up the remote. “Tell me what treachery was wrought at the end of the war.”
“It was not treachery,” Feliks said, stung by the word. “What was done was done in the mutual best interests of my country and yours,” he added, nodding toward Kuzumi. “Taiyo was a very smart man. You tried to make a deal with the Russians. Give them Genzai Bakudan in exchange for their alliance against us in the Pacific. The Russians laughed at you and took Hungnam by force even before they declared war.
“Then you turned to us. You had one Genzai Bakudan after you blew the one at Hungnam. You knew we had the bomb—make that bombs. Hell, we really didn’t need the atomic bomb, we were hitting you with enough conventional ordnance that there would be nothing left of the infrastructure of Japan by the end of the year.”
Feliks’s voice carried over the sound of the waves hitting the rocks and echoed off the stone walls above them.
“Your Emperor wanted peace, but the military didn’t want to surrender. He needed a way out. We had the bomb. You had the bomb. One of the agents the Black Ocean used here in the states, a Spanish man, approached me with the word about Genzai Bakudan. At first, I think Taiyo thought we would be willing to negotiate something more than the unconditional surrender the Allies were demanding if we knew you had an atomic weapon.”
Feliks laughed. “He was quickly disabused of the notion, especially since Roosevelt had just died and the war in Europe was over. So it was time for plan two. My superior who headed the Ranch at that time went to Truman and told him about Genzai Bakudan. And that it was en route to attack some Allied target. This was right after Truman was briefed on the Manhattan Project.”
Feliks paused, as if thinking of how to say what he was telling them. He shrugged. “So we struck a deal. We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, you assured us Genzai Bakudan would not be detonated.”
“What kind of deal was that?” Nira demanded, her shock representative of what Kuzumi and Lake felt.
“It was a deal that saved Japan from being leveled,” Feliks shot back angrily. “Do you know what would have happened if that thing”—he pointed at the jetty—”had gone off? Yeah, you would have taken out the Golden Gate Bridge and then what? You didn’t have any more and we knew that. You think the United States would have said. Gee, we’re sorry after five years of war and let’s have a truce? Didn’t you see how we reacted to Pearl Harbor? If you had detonated Genzai Bakudan, it would have been genocide. There wouldn’t be a Japan today. There’d be just a bunch of lifeless lumps of land in its place.”
“And Nagasaki?” Kuzumi asked. “Was that part of the deal too?”
“That was your problem. The Emperor still couldn’t get the military hotheads under control. So we helped him convince them.”
“That is why the frequency this was set on,” Nira said, “was the wrong one.”
“Correct,” Feliks said. “Taiyo kept that frequency as the final control over Genzai Bakudan.”
“And why they tried to kill me and get the detonator back,” she added, almost to herself.
“Right.”
“All these years,” Nira said. She looked at Kuzumi. “You knew none of this?”
Kuzumi shook his head. “I was in Russia. When I returned I was told that the 1-24 which carried Genzai Bakudan had been scuttled at sea and you were dead.”
Nishin spoke for the first time. “The detonator in the submarine was on the wrong frequency, too. Hatari thought he was betrayed.”
Kuzumi spread his hands. “I did not know.”
“But you did,” Nira said, staring at Feliks. She raised her empty hand and pointed at Feliks.
“It was necessary,” Feliks said. “It was the right...” He never finished the sentence as a black hole suddenly appeared in the center of his forehead. The back of his skull exploded out and the body flipped back onto the gravel. The two Ranch guards were also shot, their bodies crumpling under the impact of several rounds each.
“It was treachery all around,” Nira said. “There was no honor in it.” She reached out the same hand that had signaled Feliks’s death to Kuzumi and took his hand. “I am sorry that we have lost all these years.”
At the jetty Lake glanced at Nishin. Lake walked forward to Nira and Kuzumi. “What now?”
Nira’s face still held some of the beauty it had once glowed with. She smiled and handed Lake the detonator. “It is all yours. Peggy told me that you were a man that could be trusted. Do what you will with the bomb. Sink it at sea like it should have been long ago.” She turned to Kuzumi. “We must leave. It will be dawn soon and people will be coming.”
Kuzumi nodded. “Come with me?” he asked her.
Nira tapped her daughter on the shoulder. “Take the men back. I will get in contact with you later.” She took Nakanga’s place and pushed the wheelchair toward the tilt-jet, whose engines were starting up.
“Come with us, Nishin,” Kuzumi called out.
Nishin had walked forward with Lake. The Japanese looked at Lake and shrugged. “It is all I know,” he said.
Lake simply nodded. Nishin followed the couple, in step with Nakanga.
Lake looked at Harmon. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tape recorder. “You might want Feliks’s words. They might help you get reinstated.”
Lake took the tape recorder. “You should have told me the truth. I told you the truth about me.”
“My mother and I didn’t know the truth,” Harmon said. “We had to find it out.”
“So you lied to get to the truth?” Lake shook his head. “All of this,” he added, gesturing at the tilt-jet taking off, Feliks’s body, the Yakuza tug, the Coast Guard helicopter that was also taking off. “All of it happened because of lies.”
“What are you going to do?” Harmon asked.
Lake felt very tired. “The first tourist boat will be out here shortly. Maybe Feliks’s men are coming. The Coast Guard pilot probably has called the police by now.
“I’m going to wait,” Lake said. “I’m going to give the bomb to the park police. And I’m going to give them the tape.”
“You’re going to cause a lot of trouble if you do that,” Harmon said.
“All this happened because no one wanted the trouble the truth would cause. Seems like the lies don’t do much better than the truth.”
“And you?” she added in a different tone of voice.
“And I’m going away,” Lake said. He met her eyes for a long minute, then turned and walked away toward the tied-up SDV. Harmon stood still, then quickly walked toward the tub, her men following her.
Soon there was no one but Lake left alive on the island. He strolled over to Feliks’s body and reached into his jacket. He pulled out the old OSS cigarette case.
When the first police boat reached the island, Lake was on his second smoke.
THE END
by Bob Mayer
"Heart-racing, non-stop action that is difficult to put down."-Mystery News on Bodyguard of Lies
"Thelma and Louise go clandestine."-Kirkus Reviews on Bodyguard of Lies
“ . . .delivers top-notch action and adventure, creating a full cast of lethal operatives armed with all the latest weaponry. Excellent writing and well-drawn, appealing characters help make this another taut, crackling read.” Publishers Weekly
“Fascinating, imaginative and nerve-wracking.” Kirkus Reviews
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THE GREEN BERET SERIES
“Mayer had me hooked from the very first page.” Stephen Coonts
