The Gate (13 page)

“Well,” Lake said, backtracking on his flimsy cover story, “the material I’m looking for doesn’t necessarily have to all deal with the Yamamoto. I’m also interested in any Japanese naval operations near what is now North Korea.”

Harmon paused in her reading. She closed the binder and rested her hands on top of it. “I don’t think you’re writing a book. I’ve written a couple of books myself and been published. One thing I know is that an author has to have a very clear idea of the theme of his work, especially when writing a historical work. I think you’re just fishing for some specific information which may or may not have anything to do with writing a book. If you would be more honest with me, perhaps I could help you better.”

If I was more honest, Lake thought, you might not help me at all. UC-Berkeley was not exactly the place of choice for a government agent to go looking for information. However, he didn’t feel that he should so easily place Dr. Harmon into an antigovernment position. After all, there was the picture of her with the Marine.

“Where do you keep your material?” Lake asked.

Harmon looked at him, her eyes boring into his for several long seconds. “You haven’t answered my question. This university pays my salary to teach and do research. It does not pay me to answer questions for any person who happens to walk into my office. Do you have any identification that you can show me, Mr. ‘It’s-just-a-name’ Lake? What do you do for a living?”

Lake slumped in the leather seat, feeling the back of his head touch the headrest. He’d been doing undercover work for a long time now and he’d assumed many different personas. He didn’t have the time to be very creative here, nor was he backstopped by the Ranch on any cover he might come up with that would make Harmon cooperate. He looked once more at the picture over her shoulder where she was with the Marine and decided to gamble. An old hand at the Ranch, teaching him covert operations, had told him that when in doubt, the truth always worked the best. Especially if the truth couldn’t be verified by the person you told it to. Then all they had was a story.

Lake steepled his fingers. “Okay. Here’s the situation. I’m actually an agent working for the government under deep cover. Last week I stopped some terrorists trying to release a biological agent to infect the city of San Francisco. Last night I followed some foreign agents to this campus and they broke into this building. They left carrying a box with some materials in it. The man carrying the box was killed—not by me, but by someone associated with the Black Ocean Society from Japan, which you might have heard of—and he dropped the box. The other men, North Koreans, escaped with the box, but I was able to retrieve a few documents they left behind.” Lake reached under his sweater and pulled out a few pages which he handed across the desk to Dr. Harmon.

Harmon didn’t look at the documents. She stared at Lake. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

“If you don’t believe that,” Lake replied, “then believe my story about writing a book. I can assure you one of them is true.”

“How come there weren’t a whole bunch of police here this morning? How come I haven’t heard of this man being killed?”

“Because they all used silencers and I took the body away,” Lake said. “Did you read in the paper or hear on the news about two men being killed on the Bay Bridge last night?”

Harmon nodded.

“Those two were Koreans. They tried stopping me from following them here.”

“You killed them?”

“One of them,” Lake answered. “The other was killed by this fellow from the Black Ocean.”

“This is unbelievable,” Harmon said, shaking her head. “I’ve seen more plausible stories than this on TV.”

Lake sat still, letting her make up her own mind.

“You don’t seem like you have the greatest sense of humor,” Harmon finally said. “I don’t know you well enough to know about your imagination.” She glanced at the documents. “These look like they’re from the records I’ve got here.” She tapped long fingernails on the paper. “What government agency?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Lake said. “But I can tell you it’s not the CIA, FBI, or associated with the military.”

“And why should I help you?” Harmon asked. She held a hand up. “And please don’t give me any patriotic speeches. I saw you looking at the picture. That’s my younger brother. He’s stationed in Okinawa and it was one of the saddest days in my life when he joined the Marine Corps, but he seems to like it and his life. But it’s not mine. So I ask you again: Why should I help you?”

“Because it’s interesting,” Lake said. “There’s a puzzle here and it involves material you have. I need to solve this puzzle and I think you would find it intriguing to help me solve it. It might be fun.”

“Fun?” A half-grin crossed Harmon’s face. “That’s the last reason I thought you’d give me.” The grin disappeared. “But if people have died, as you say, wouldn’t it also be dangerous?”

“They got what they wanted here,” Lake said. “There’s no danger to you.”

Part of the grin came back. “Okay, I’ll play along for a little bit, Mister Secret Agent Man. I’ve got nothing to lose and this will make a good story to tell at a party. What do you need to know?”

“Have you ever heard of the Black Ocean Society?” Lake asked.

“Yes, I’ve heard of the Black Ocean Society. Anyone who has made any in-depth study of Japanese history in this century has heard of it.” She put the documents down. “Now, why do you expect me to believe your story?”

Lake shrugged. “I don’t have expectations of other people because I don’t control them. I only have expectations of myself. I’ve told you the truth; what you choose to do with it is up to you.”

“Why would North Koreans break in here? What were they looking for?”

“I was hoping you could help me with that,” Lake said. “That’s what I’m here for. Perhaps if we went to where you keep these documents, we can find out what they took.”

Harmon stood. “Follow me.”

They didn’t have far to go. Lake was right behind her as she pointed at the other side of the small foyer. “This door doesn’t appear to have been broken open,” she commented.

“Excuse me,” Lake said. He pulled an ATM card out of his wallet and pushed it in between the door and the frame. Sliding it down he pushed the latch back and the door swung open.

“Point taken,” Harmon said.

She flipped a light switch and a set of metal stairs going down appeared. Her low-heeled shoes clattered on the metal as she went down. At the bottom, there was another door, this one with no lock. She pushed it open and turned on another switch. It lit fluorescent lights on a low ceiling.

Rows of metal racks rose from the pitted concrete floor to the ceiling. Cardboard boxes filled the shelves.

“We’re in the basement,” Harmon said. “This used to be the coal room. When they modernized the building about fifty years ago, this room was abandoned. I opened it up five years ago for storage. I’m sure I’m violating some fire code, but I have to make do with what is available.”

Lake looked around. “How would someone know this room existed? That records of the Japanese fleet would be kept here?”

“I’ve published quite a few articles on the subject,” Harmon said, “which was why I thought you were a legitimate researcher at first. Anyone who does any sort of checking would find out that I have access to all this. In the academic world we don’t hide our sources. By the way,” she added, “I would like to know which government agency you represent?”

“A multijurisdictional task force,” Lake answered. He looked down. He could see boot prints in the concrete, coal, and plaster dust on the floor. “The North Koreans made those last night.”

Harmon looked at the marks. “Which jurisdiction of the multi do you come from?” she pressed.

“You are insistent, aren’t you?” Lake replied.

“Please don’t answer my question with a question,” Harmon said. “When a student does that, I give them so much grief they never do it again. It’s the sign of a mind that refuses to make a commitment to an answer, be it right or wrong.”

Lake was following the footsteps in the dust. The Koreans had gone down every aisle. He was looking for an empty space on the shelves. Some of the boxes were labeled on the end with dates. He was passing 1943 at the present moment. “I am the multi,” he said. “I’m so multi, I don’t exist.”

“If you’re so supersecret,” Harmon said, “why did you tell me that you were an agent?”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” Lake replied. “You have a name”—he smiled—”just a name, and you know my face. That and fifty cents gets you a cup of coffee.”

“You told me what happened and what is going on with the Koreans,” Harmon said. “You also told me that you killed someone last night. Isn’t that supposed to be secret, too?”

Lake paused where several booted feet had paused. He had just walked past several dozen feet of 1944. “Hell, Dr. Harmon, I don’t know what’s going on, so I have no problem telling you. You figure it out or you tell someone who can figure it out, more power to you. Of course by then it will all be too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“I don’t know,” Lake said, “but I suspect my North Korean friends will be setting sail for home this evening. If I don’t find out why they were here before then, there’s not much I can do about it.” He pointed. “Was this the way you left it?”

A dozen boxes had their tops ripped off, loose papers were scattered on shelves.

“No.”

“What’s missing?” Lake asked.

Harmon had carried her binder with her and she opened it, checking it against the shelves. “Most of the boxes I only labeled by date. I didn’t have a chance to cross- reference the majority by message and document type.” She was counting to herself and Lake remained silent. “Forty-five dash sixteen is missing,” she finally said.

“Which is?”

“A box containing Imperial Navy documents from August and September 1945.”

That fit with the papers Lake had recovered from the lawn the previous evening.

“So,” Harmon said, “why do the North Koreans want documents concerning the Japanese Imperial Navy from August and September 1945?”

“You tell me,” Lake said.

“I don’t know what was specifically in the box,” she said, leading him toward the door. “Therefore I can’t extrapolate based on data I don’t have.”

“In other words, you don’t have a clue,” Lake said.

“Do you?” she shot back as she locked the door.

“Not yet. Why do you have all these documents?’’ Lake asked.

“I have a Ph.D. in history and I teach here,” Harmon said as they re-entered her office. She sat back down behind her desk and Lake reclaimed the leather chair. “My area of specialty is Pacific Studies, mid-twentieth century. The biggest event of that time period was World War II. Every academic has to find their niche. Some pick their niche then go around accumulating source material. I had the general area and when I found out there was a treasure trove of source material about the Japanese navy during World War II so close at Alameda, it didn’t take a sledgehammer for me to see what area I should specialize in.”

“Since all we know is a rough time period,” Lake said, “why don’t we focus on that?”

“August 1945 was the end of the war,” Doctor Harmon said. She closed her eyes and ticked off each item as she said it. “The key events of that month in the Pacific were the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; on the eighth of August the Soviet Union declared war on Japan; numerous conventional air strikes were conducted against Japanese mainland targets, primarily the cities of Tokokawa, Yawata, Hikari, Nagoya and Toyama with the last air raid coming on the fourteenth of August; the U.S. and British fleets conducted air strikes from carriers in the vicinity of Tokyo; on the fourteenth of August the Emperor made a broadcast to the people telling them that they must ‘bear the unbearable’; the fifteenth of August is what we call VJ Day; by the eighteenth of August the Russians overran most of Manchuria; and on the twenty-seventh of that month the Allied Fleet anchored in Tokyo Bay in preparation for the surrender which was signed on the second of September.”

She opened her eyes. “As far as the Japanese fleet goes, there wasn’t much happening that month.”

Lake leaned back in the chair, feeling the comfort of the soft leather. He knew Feliks would have a cow if he found out Lake was talking to a civilian like this. But he found talking was helping to clear the fog all the events of the past week had put over everything. “Let’s try to connect the dots. This is 1997. You’ve got the North Koreans, the Black Ocean Society, and the Japanese government all looking for some document concerning Imperial Fleet operations in August or September 1945. A document that is so important that several people have already been killed trying to recover it.”

He was watching Harmon’s face and he noticed something he’d noticed before when he’d mentioned the Black Ocean Society: a flicker of recognition. Lake waited while the doctor picked up a letter opener in the shape of a samurai sword and lightly ran the edge of her thumb along the blade.

“There is something,” she said. “Or perhaps I should say there may be something.”

“Yes?”

“When you mentioned the Black Ocean Society and North Korea, something I’d read about once clicked. It’s kind of outrageous, but your story right now is kind of outrageous so ...” Her voice trailed off.

“Tell me,” Lake prompted.

Harmon stood. “I’ll have to show you what I’m talking about.”

“Where are we going?” Lake asked.

“The library.”

They walked in silence across the campus, each lost in their own thoughts. Lake felt a buzz in his pocket as they neared the library. “Excuse me,” he said to Harmon as he pulled his phone out. He hoped it wasn’t Feliks calling for an explanation of the last several days. It wasn’t. He recognized Araki’s voice: “Nishin has left his surveillance post.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m staying with the ship,” Araki said. “I believe Nishin must return here.”

“Any sign the ship is leaving?”

“They’ve filed with the harbormaster to depart between 2000 and 2200 this evening.”

“All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Lake said. He pushed the off button.