The Gate (23 page)

“Why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

“I am relaying a message for the Oyabun,” the man simply said.

“Anything else?”

“That is the message.”

“Go.”

Nishin left via the fire escape on the chance that the Yakuza might be waiting for him below. He hurried to the first pay phone he could find and called in what he had just learned to Nakanga.

SAPPORO, HOKKAIDO

WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 1997

1:05
p.m
. LOCAL

“The American government had an agent on board the North Korean trawler that was sunk,” Nakanga said. “He perished with the ship when it went down, but the man was aware of the North Koreans and the break-in at Berkeley, so we must assume that the American government knows something.”

Genoysha Kuzumi watched his chief sensei without expression or comment.

“The American’s name was Lake and he worked for a secret organization called the Ranch. His superior’s name is Feliks. I do not know whether that is a code name or not. This information was given to Nishin by the Yakuza. I do not know where they got their information from. We do have a file on the Ranch and a man named Feliks,” he added, but he didn’t seem overly happy about that piece of information.

Kuzumi looked at Nakanga’s hands. They were empty. He felt great irritation. “Where is the file?”

“There was just a file folder, Genoysha. There was nothing in it. It is among the old records. We do not know when it was started or what happened to the material in it.”

Kuzumi stiffened. Only the Genoysha could permanently remove material from the intelligence files and he knew that he had not done so. That meant it had been done before his time. Genoysha Taiyo must have hidden or destroyed the material. It also meant this went back many years.

Nakanga hurried on. “The second North Korean trawler will arrive in the vicinity of San Francisco after midnight, local American time. About eleven or twelve hours from now.”

“Why is it heading there?”

“I do not know, Genoysha. Perhaps to recover something from the sunken first trawler.”

I do not think so, Kuzumi thought. Not if it was equipped to search for radioactivity. There was much Nakanga did not know, that Kuzumi was getting from his own source. The American named Lake had not perished. The Koreans were on the trail of Genzai Bakudan itself. It was all bad news, but inside the dark cloud of this information there was something that thrilled Kuzumi: to think they had made it so close with Genzai Bakudan!

Kuzumi’s mind had been racing ever since receiving the news about 1-24. He cursed Taiyo even more. What had the man held back from him? The only thing Taiyo had ever told him about the second bomb was that it had been lost at sea en route from Hungnam to Japan. Obviously that was a lie.

Kuzumi stiffened. He could see clearly the first Genzai Bakudan, lying in the entranceway to the cave, ready for its journey to the dock. The second bomb right behind it.

He had done the final preparations on both bombs himself. The thought that sent chills up his spine was the realization that he had prepared the two remote detonators for the 1-24 bomb. One had been taken by an agent of the Black Ocean a week prior to the bomb’s departure. Kuzumi remembered the man now, and he remembered asking him where the detonator was going.

The man had not answered him other than to say that he was working under direct orders of the Genoysha. He had left the cave, the detonator in a black leather bag, such as that carried by doctors, and gone to the airfield to fly out. Kuzumi had never heard what had happened to that detonator. But now that he knew what had happened to the bomb, he knew what had happened to the detonator.

The bomb was designed to be towed by the midget sub to its location. It would then be left in place. They would have to wait on final orders for detonation and the proper timing. The crewman would either leave or die with the submarine, but he could not survive underwater for more than a day or so. There was enough air in a midget sub for that long. So they must have prepared another way to detonate the bomb at the target with the remote.

It was very plain to see now. It was what Kuzumi would do if he had to make such a choice. The remote detonator had been sent to America through the TO network and Kuzumi knew whose hands it had ended up in: Nira’s. Why had she not detonated it? Had it malfunctioned, or, as was more likely, had she been stopped from finishing the mission?

Was there more to her “suicide” than Taiyo had let on? What had happened? Had the Americans stopped her? Why was the file on this American organization missing? Kuzumi saw plots within plots and he saw the death of the woman he had loved a half a century before at the center of a typhoon of deceit. The question was: who had been the architects of all this? For the first time in his life, Kuzumi turned his head and looked at the painting of the Sun Goddess that hung behind the desk and he was uncertain.

Kuzumi’s fist slammed into the teak desktop, startling Nakanga, who had been waiting patiently for further orders. “Make preparations for travel,” Kuzumi ordered.

Nakanga inclined his head, indicating he understood the order. “Where am I to go, Genoysha?”

“You are going with me.” Nakanga’s head snapped up, his eyes wide in disbelief. “To San Francisco.”

“But, Genoysha! You cannot—”

“Prepare for travel.” Kuzumi’s voice left no room for argument. “We leave immediately. How long will it take us to arrive in San Francisco?”

“By our fastest jet, it will take us nine hours, Genoysha.”

“Then we may arrive before the trawler?”

“Yes.”

“Make the arrangements, quickly.”

Nakanga paused in the doorway. “And Ronin Nishin, Genoysha? What should his orders be?”

“He is to do nothing.”

“But what about the Korean ship? Should it not be stopped?”

“I have already made arrangements for that,” Kuzumi said. “Now, no more discussion. We must leave immediately.”

SAN FRANCISCO

WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 1997

8:23
p.m
. LOCAL

Lake had spent the rest of the day at Harmon’s apartment. They had a more slowly paced, but no less passionate, replay of what had happened in her office. They had not spoken until his portable had buzzed. It was a call from Ranch Central with orders to meet Feliks at ten on the Embarcadero. Lake had been waiting for the call. At that time he could unload the information about Genzai Bakudan and be done with it. If only it was that simple, he thought to himself.

“What are you going to do?” Harmon asked, her head resting on his chest, her fingers playing along his stomach.

“I have to meet him. He’ll chew my butt, get an update on everything, and then I’ll be out of here. He’ll have to deal with the little problem resting at the base of the south tower.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Lake said. “I might even be fired, in which case I guess I’ll have to look for a job.”

“I know a job you could have right now,” she said, her hand straying lower.

The phone call and impending meeting with Feliks had made an intrusion on the quick wall her presence had built up for him. Reality still was out there and things were happening. There were still all the unanswered questions.

“There’s something I need to check before I meet Feliks. Can you give me a lift?”

“Certainly.” She stood up and walked across the room. Lake watched her for a few seconds before he started pulling on his own clothes. Her body was neither voluptuous nor model-thin, but rather lean with smooth, long muscles flowing under the skin.

Lake had never met anyone quite like her. Her strange aura of purposefulness disconcerted him. He had not expected what had happened in the office, but it did not surprise him. Very rarely did he feel something when he encountered a woman, but on rare occasions there was a chemical attraction. He also knew that the stress of the past few days and the lurking danger of his mission had pushed both their emotional drives into hyper.

“Where are we going?” Harmon asked, pulling on a pair of jeans.

“A bar,” Lake said. “I want to play a hunch.”

She threw on a sweater and they walked out into the cool night air. She drove a red Chevy Blazer and Lake gave her directions. When they pulled up at their destination he could see that the Chain Drive was closed, police tape crisscrossed over the doorway.

“This doesn’t look good,” Harmon said.

“Don’t worry,” Lake said. “I’m not going in there. Wait here for me,” he added. “Keep the doors locked. I won’t be more than an hour.”

“Be safe,” she said.

Lake went around the back of the bar to an old set of wooden stairs. He climbed them and quickly picked the lock on the door at the top. Lake made sure the shade was pulled on the single window before turning the overhead light on. He was in a one-room apartment above the bar. There was no sign the police had been in there, indeed there was no sign anyone had been in here other than Jonas since the last time Lake had been up here, about four weeks ago to conclude a deal.

He looked around. A battered sofa sat at the foot of a double bed, both facing a TV. The coffee table was covered with Patriot literature. Clothes were scattered on the floor. A few empty beer bottles sat next to the sink.

Lake began searching the room as he’d been taught at the Ranch, working top to bottom in a clockwise, descending spiral, foot by foot. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but he was following his instincts. Someone had killed Jonas. Feliks had known about it within a couple of hours. Something wasn’t quite right and he hoped the room revealed a clue as to what that something was.

It did. It took Lake forty-five minutes to work down to the level of the outlets and he unscrewed them one after another. Removing the cover on the one underneath the window revealed that the connection box had been gutted. There were two items in there and Lake removed both. The first was a thick roll of money wrapped in plastic. The outside bill was a hundred and Lake estimated there were at least a hundred of those in the wad. He pocketed it.

The second item was a top-of-the-line cellular/satellite phone. Lake held it in his right hand as if he were weighing it. Then with his left he pulled out the Ranch-issue phone from his pocket. The two were identical.

*****

Nishin slowly hung up the phone. Do nothing? He did not understand. What about the second trawler? He had asked. Do nothing, Nakanga had hissed at him.

Nishin walked the streets, his eyes unfocused, his mind trying to accept his orders. Perhaps Nakanga did not understand the situation? Perhaps I did not explain it well enough, Nishin thought. Nakanga had sounded distracted and somewhat confused. Perhaps there is something else, going on that is causing Nakanga to lose perspective on this mission, Nishin reasoned.

Nakanga was his Sensei, but there was a higher authority that Nishin owed allegiance to. The Koreans must be stopped. That had been his orders when he had departed for this mission and if there was a second trawler, that one too must be stopped. The Genoysha himself had said that protection of the existence of the Genzai Bakudan program was of the highest priority.

Nishin had walked to the Japan Center without even being conscious of it while he had struggled with his new orders. He walked into the restaurant and encountered the same man standing in the small hallway.

“What do you want?” the man said when he saw Nishin.

“I must see the Oyabun,” Nishin said. “There is a matter of utmost urgency.”

The guard spoke into a cellular phone, then jerked his head. “Follow me.”

After going through the next door, Nishin was searched and relieved of his 9mm pistol. The man patting him down missed the ice scraper again. They went up the metal stairs to the roof.

Nishin could tell something was up. There was quite a bit of activity, with numerous men moving about. Okomo was talking to the captain of the tugboat, Ohashi, when , Nishin was brought before him. He found that curious. Perhaps Nakanga had already called here asking for help in stopping the trawler. “What are you doing here again?” Okomo asked. “My man gave you the information you needed.”

“There is another North Korean trawler headed this way,” Nishin said. “I assume Nakanga has called you and—”

“You assume incorrectly,” Okomo said. “However, we need you and it is most courteous of you to present yourself to us, rather than make us track you down.” He made a gesture and the guards on either side grabbed Nishin’s arms, immobilizing the nerve centers in his elbows. A third guard crossed his wrists over each other behind his back and slid two plastic cinches over his hands.

Nishin was confused by Okomo’s words and actions, but his training took hold. Nishin flexed the tendons in his wrists just as the man pulled the cinches tight, thus keeping the blood flow from being cut off and allowing him a little bit of mobility. What did the Oyabun mean by saying that he had fulfilled his role and that they needed him? Nishin wondered. He knew better than to ask though.

“Release me,” Nishin said. “You cannot cross the Black Ocean and not—”

“Shut up!” Okomo snapped. “I have no further desire to listen to your Black Ocean prattle. You are a very stupid man who has been brainwashed by those who are smarter than you. You are nothing but a tool and no longer a useful one at that. Do not give us any trouble because we only need your body, whether it is living or dead, it doesn’t matter to me, but it is easier to move alive.”

He waved a hand. “Take him to the boat. We will dispose of this Black Ocean trash appropriately—in the ocean, once he has completed his final task.” Okomo found that amusing and gave a quick bark of laughter.

“But where are you taking me?” Nishin struggled helplessly in the guards’ hands.

“To Genzai Bakudan, of course,” Okomo said.

“You know of the bomb!” Nishin was stunned.

“We not only know about it, we know exactly where it is,” Okomo said with satisfaction in his voice. “Move!” he snapped at the guards. “Get him to the boat!”

The two guards lifted Nishin off his feet.and hustled him off the rooftop.

“Are you sure it is from your organization?” Harmon asked, looking at the portable phone from Jonas’s apartment in Lake’s hands.

Lake took out his own and put them side by side on the console between the two of them. They were identical. “These are made to government specifications. They aren’t available on the civilian market because of their scrambler ability. It also has no serial number, which is a requirement of equipment that my organization uses.”

“And your organization is?” Harmon asked.

“It’s called the Ranch. I don’t really have time to get into that right now.”

“What does it mean that Jonas has a Ranch phone?” Harmon asked.

That was the question Lake had been asking himself and he didn’t like the potential answers. “I don’t know for sure,” he said, checking the number on Jonas’s portable. He looked at his watch. “We need to get to the meet. I want you to drop me off a couple of blocks away.”

“You don’t think it will be dangerous, do you?” she asked as she started the truck up.

“I don’t know what I think anymore,” Lake said. He was running the area of the meet through his mind. “Park at the South Beach Yacht Club,” he said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

They made the drive in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Lake was starting to put pieces together, various events that he had participated in since joining the Ranch and he wasn’t enjoying the picture his new perspective was showing him.

“How long do I wait?” Harmon asked as she pulled into the parking lot for the yacht club.

“Until I get back, or I call you on the portable, or two hours go by.”

“And if two hours go by and you haven’t come back and you haven’t called?” she asked.

“Go home and forget you ever met me,” Lake said.

“I can’t do that,” she said, stopping the truck.

“Then, remember me and remember me well,” Lake said.

Harmon grabbed his arm. “This isn’t the time for humor.”

“I’m sorry,” Lake said. He turned to her and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I don’t know what’s going to happen and I don’t want you to get caught up any further in this. No matter what, I’ll get back in contact with you. All right?”

“I suppose that will have to do. Be safe,” she added, giving him one last kiss.

Lake wasn’t certain what to say in turn, so he returned the kiss, then jumped out of the truck and began walking swiftly to the north. As his feet hit pavement, he pushed thoughts of Peggy waiting for him out of his mind and began to focus on what was coming up.

As he got closer, he had the distinct feeling that he was being watched, something that had not happened last time when he had met Randkin here. Of course, Feliks would not have come here alone. Security personnel were standard whenever the number one man at the Ranch went traveling, but it didn’t make Lake feel any more comfortable. The up ramp for the Bay Bridge loomed directly overhead. Several piers beckoned off to the right and Lake could hear the gentle lap of water on rotting wood and concrete. Where there wasn’t pier, there was a concrete retaining wall built at the water’s edge.

“You’re late.” The familiar voice echoed in the dark.

Lake turned to the shadows across the street and Feliks appeared out of them, a darker shape, his white hair standing out. He wasn’t alone. Two men wearing long black raincoats flanked him. They walked up to Lake as if to sniff him, then took up flank position, about ten feet off on either side. Feliks took Lake’s right arm in his hand and nudged him toward a deserted pier. “This way.”

Lake allowed himself to be guided. They walked along until they were out of sight of the Embarcadero. The sound of traffic overhead on the Bay Bridge sounded loud above their heads.

“I’m very disappointed in your recent performance,” Feliks said. He pulled out his cigarette case and lit up. Lake noted that he ignored offering him one and remained quiet.

“You have broken quite a few rules and shown poor judgment,” Feliks continued.

“Is there a point to this?” Lake said.

“I want whatever information you have about this Genzai Bakudan situation that you haven’t given me,” Feliks said.

“I briefed you fully on the phone,” Lake said. The two guards had shifted position, both making sure they would have clear shots of Lake without Feliks being in the way. Each had his right arm under his coat, no doubt resting on the handle of a weapon as Lake had been taught at the Ranch school.

“Oh, come, come,” Feliks said. “You know I am not stupid so do not treat me that way. Your story was full of holes. I want those holes filled. For example, who got you the information about the Japanese fleet during World War II? How did you figure out where Cyclone and Forest were?”

“I went to the library and looked it up,” Lake said.

Feliks was now just a shadow with a glowing red tip in the center of his face. “I thought I could count on your loyalty.”

“I am loyal,” Lake said. “My oath is to defend the Constitution and this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” He remembered swearing that oath for the first time on the parade field at Annapolis so many years ago as a young seventeen-year-old plebe. Even at the Ranch, despite the cynicism and covert angle, they worked under the same oath. Or, Lake amended his thoughts, at least they were supposed to.

“The Constitution and the country,” Feliks repeated.

“Very nice. You also are legally bound to obey orders. So again, tell me all the parts you left out of your report to me.”

“I’ve told you all,” Lake said.

“You’re lying,” Feliks said. “You don’t lie well. Oh, I know you can keep your cover well and lie within the confines of a mission, but when it comes to doing it on your own, you just can’t cut it.”

“I suppose you can,” Lake shot back.

“When I feel it is necessary and serves the higher good,” Feliks said.

“Who determines the higher good?” Lake asked. He felt like he was walking on ice, pushing his foot ahead slowly and testing whether it could take his weight.