The Gate

CHAPTER 14

Lake shook like a dog, spraying water all over the concrete sidewalk. He jogged down the street, as much from a need to rush as to keep warm. He came to the corner across from the Yacht Club and came to an abrupt halt. Peggy Harmon’s Blazer was gone. Slowly he walked across the street to the spot where it had been parked. There was no broken glass, no sign of a struggle, nothing to indicate why she had left.

Lake looked about. Had the police come by? Feliks’s men? But there was no reason they should know anything about her or that she would be parked here. Unless I was followed, Lake realized. He didn’t think he had been and he had checked continuously, but he had no doubt that the Ranch could probably put surveillance on him that he couldn’t spot.

Lake shook again and less water came off this time. He reached into his coat and pulled out the Ziploc ‘bag holding his portable phone. He punched in the number for Jonas’s portable. After it rang eight times without answer he reluctantly pushed the send again and dialed Peggy’s home number. He didn’t expect an answer and he didn’t get one. Then he tried her office. Slowly he pushed the power-off button.

Lake spoke to the empty parking lot, feeling as abandoned as the empty tar. “Damn, Peggy, I hope you’re all right.” He’d gotten her into this and now he didn’t even know where she was to get her out of it.

Turning the phone back on, Lake dialed the cellular number that Araki had given him. Again the phone rang with no answer. “Damn,” Lake muttered. He wished now that he’d told Araki where the bomb was. At least then the Japanese would take care of it. He dialed in a different number and got the Ranch automated switchboard. He punched in a three code extension. This time the phone was answered. “Randkin here.”

“Randkin, it’s Lake. I have a question for you.”

“Reference?” Randkin was all business. Lake knew he was used to being asked all sorts of strange technical questions at strange hours.

‘ The atom bombs we used in World War II at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Lake began, then stopped to think how he could phrase the question.

“Little Boy and Fat Boy,” Randkin filled in. “Excuse me?” Lake was shaken out of his thoughts.

“That’s what they were called. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, then Fat Boy on Nagasaki.”

“Okay,” Lake said. He knew he didn’t have much time. He was surprised his phone hadn’t been cut off by Feliks yet, but he figured that the man had a lot on his mind at the present moment. “If one of those type atomic weapons had not been used, say it was stored somewhere for all these years, would it still be capable of functioning?” “What do you mean stored?” Randkin asked.

“You know, just put somewhere and left.”

“Have you found something we should know about?” Randkin asked.

“Just answer the damn question,” Lake snapped.

“Well, those were actually two very different types of bombs,” Randkin said. “Little Boy was a uranium fission bomb while Fat Boy was more advanced, using plutonium.” “I don’t want to build one,” Lake said, looking about the deserted streets. “Just tell me, would one still be functioning after all these years? Would it go off if you pushed the right button?”

“Maybe,” Randkin said.

“Maybe?” Lake repeated. “What are the odds?”

“That’s hard to say. There’s so many variables. The biggest question I would have is what is the firing mechanism? Electrical or explosive? If it’s electrical, then—”

“I don’t know what the triggering mechanism is,” Lake cut in. “So you’re telling me it’s possible such a bomb could go off if fired?”

“Those early bombs were made very simply,” Randkin said. “There’s not much—”

“Yes or no,” Lake cut in.

“Yes.” There was a pause. “You’ve found one, haven’t you?”

“Not yet,” Lake said, snapping shut the portable and putting it back in the Ziploc bag.

Standing perfectly still, Lake closed his eyes and thought. Priorities. Options.

“Fuck you, Feliks, I don’t think you know shit,” Lake muttered as he slowly opened his eyes and looked to his right at the boats berthed in their slips at the Yacht Club. He spotted what he was looking for three lines over. A thirty-four-foot boat, capable of taking the heavy swell of the ocean with its powerful engines. More importantly, it had an entryway and ladder off the rear that scuba enthusiasts had built into boats for ease in entering the water.

Lake hopped on board and checked the cabin. As he had hoped, he found a set of scuba tanks and a regulator stowed in one of the lockers below decks. He checked the bleed and the tanks were about two-thirds full. He carried them up on deck and set them down.

The ignition was easily hot-wired. Lake untied the lines and stowed them as the engine warmed up. He peeled off his clothes until all he was wearing was the wet suit he’d had on underneath. The stainless-steel Hush Puppy was strapped to his shoulder. A double-edged commando knife was on his hip, while a dive knife was on his right ankle.

Pushing the dual throttles ahead, Lake eased out of the berth and made his way into San Francisco Bay. He could see the lighted arc of the Bay Bridge above and ahead. As soon as he was clear of the docks, he edged north five hundred meters from the shore until he could see the pier he had jumped off of. There were several vehicles parked there with the lights on. Lake killed the engine and rolled on the swell, all lights off, waiting. Finally, he could hear car engines start and a convoy left the pier and headed north along the Embarcadero.

Lake restarted the boat and pushed the throttle wide open. The bow slowly settled down and the boat hissed across the water at forty knots as he kept pace.

Nishin was tied to the right side of the tugboat’s bridge by a length of chain looped through the cord tying his hands together. He had about a foot of slack from the steel piping that made up the handrail for the stairs on that side of the bridge.

A dozen Yakuza armed with automatic weapons were scattered about the prow of the tug. Ohashi was on the bridge, his hands on the controls, Okomo by his side. The engine was running but the boat wasn’t moving. They were still tied to the pier by one rope, waiting.

A red Chevy Blazer pulled up and a woman got out. Nishin watched as she stood on the edge of the pier next to the gangplank, not looking down at the tug, but back along the dark length of concrete. He couldn’t make out much about her except she was tall and slim.

A pair of headlights cut the darkness, silhouetting the woman. A limousine pulled up to her position. She opened the back door and Nishin twisted, trying to see who was getting out. He could make out a figure shrouded in black. He stood on his toes, and then the side of his head exploded. AH he could see was red as he dropped to his knees, kept from falling off the boat by the chain.

“If I want you to look, I will tell you,” Okomo hissed in his ear. “If I want you to breathe, I will tell you.” The old man’s gnarled hand grabbed Nishin’s chin and twisted his head. “Do you want to know why I even have your worthless carcass on board?”

Nishin tried to blink blood out of his eyes. “You fear the wrath of the Black Ocean, you pig.”

Okomo laughed. “You are so stupid. I have you here because you have a transmitter in you. We picked it up when you came calling the first time at my headquarters. We do not only check for weapons, we check for electronic transmissions when you walk through the corridor just before the stairs. At first we thought you were trying to record our conversation, but when my electronic experts analyzed the data, they said it was a beacon.” He shook Nishin’s head. “Did you know you were bugged?”

Nishin was stunned. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. It is inside you. We scanned you the second time you came. It is located in your left buttock. That is why you are here. Because we want whoever bugged you — and we think it is your own people in the Black Ocean — to follow us. We do not fear the Black Ocean. In fact, the more of the Black Ocean that comes here, the better. We want everyone to be here for the end.”

Okomo let go of the chin. “You had best start praying, Ronin. Pray to your Sun Goddess because you do not have much time left.” Okomo walked away to greet the visitor who had gotten out of the limousine.

Nishin shook his head, ignoring the pain, blinking, trying to get the blood out of his eyes. He curled in a ball around the railing and slowly he reached under his shirt until the fingers of his right hand closed on the ice scraper taped there. With small rocking motions he began to free the scraper.

“Ahead one quarter!” Kim Pak ordered. All lights were out on board the trawler, a violation of international sea law, but Pak knew that his ship’s presence here in United States waters was-already a violation of law and there would be many more laws, American and international, broken before this night was over.

The fog was coming in and for that he was grateful. He could hear the foghorn on the Southeast Farallon from his right rear. He could also just make out the lights on the top of the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge directly ahead, but there were tendrils of fog beginning to reach up that high also.

Pak took another sounding to his right front and checked the chart. He identified Mile Rock, a lighthouse foghorn poised on top of a single rock sticking out of the ocean and, checking it against the sound from the Farallons, he plotted himself five miles out from the bridge. There were no other ships showing on his radar, which was not at all unusual for this time of night. Normal entry into the port was made in the daytime.

A quarter mile off the port stern another ship shadowed the Han Juk Sung, unseen by eyes because of the fog and by radar because of its shape. It had been there ever since the trawler had passed through the outer banks. As the North Korean trawler slowly moved forward, its shadow stopped keeping pace and rapidly moved forward, water spraying off of the twin hulls. The ship made little noise though other than the sound of water rushing by.

Pak spotted the trailing ship first and that was the last thing he ever saw. The inverted V shape of the hull was new to him, but the lack of any lights and the black coating over the skin of the ship told him that this wasn’t a chance encounter. As he yelled a warning, a bright light flashed out from the apex of the V and Pak’s warning changed to a shrill scream of pain. His eyes burned as if acid had been thrown in them.

Pak collapsed to his knees, both hands over his damaged eyes. Other crewmen who had been caught by the burst of high-intensity laser also were blinded and in agony. Those who weren’t blinded caught on quickly and looked away from the source of the light which allowed the stealth ship to slide up next to the Han Juk Sung unopposed. Men clad in black and armed with silenced submachine guns fired grappling hooks across the small space between the two vessels, immediately grabbing onto the ropes and climbing across. They wore special night-vision goggles to be able to see in the dark and protect them from the laser.

The man wielding the laser on top of the stealth ship continued to visually suppress the Koreans until the assault party was on board, then he shut it down. Next to him, the captain of the ship and Araki watched and listened to the attack with satisfaction. It was all over within thirty seconds. It was a much simpler and more efficient assault than that by the Yakuza on the first trawler.

Every Korean on board was dead. The chart and all records of radio transmissions were seized and brought back. The commandos opened the sea valves, and for the second time in as many days, a North Korean intelligence ship went down off the Golden Gate.

Araki and the captain looked at the chart from the trawler. The intersection of lines at the south tower of the Golden Gate caught their immediate attention.

“This is where they were headed,” the captain said.

“Take us there,” Araki ordered.

The captain obeyed without question and the stealth slipped forward in the fog as the last of the trawler disappeared under the waves.

Lake eased up on the throttle until the engines just purred, pushing the boat through the water. He was within four hundred yards of the Coast Guard station, southeast of the Golden Gate. The convoy was pulling into the station.

The fog was pouring through the ocean gap between Marin County and San Francisco, but it was still clear where he was. He shut down the engine and cocked his head listening. Car engines were turned off and doors began slamming. A voice was giving orders. There was an eighty-foot cutter tied up to the dock and lights began going on aboard the ship as men carried gear up the gangway. Lake waited patiently as he heard the sound of the cutter’s engine begin to rumble.

The Coast Guard cutter slowly began moving away from the pier. Lake started his own engine. Wherever Feliks was going, he was going also. He would soon find out how much Feliks knew about the fate of Genzai Bakudan.

Eighty miles from the Pacific Coast, the specially designed and constructed tilt-jet plane that the Black Ocean used for high-priority covert missions was coming in over the wavetops at six hundred miles an hour.

In appearance, the jet looked like the experimental American V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey, with the major difference being that instead of propellers on the wings there were two jet engines. This allowed the tilt-jet to fly at airplane speeds, twice the speed of the Osprey. Like the Osprey, it could hover and land like a helicopter when its wings were rotated from the horizontal through the vertical.

The tilt-jet was being developed by a company controlled by the Black Ocean under a Japanese government military contract. It was highly classified and still supposedly in the “testing” stage, but the Black Ocean had been flying this prototype for the past two years. Its unique features made it most valuable for entering foreign countries where there were no prying customs officials.

In the rear, Kuzumi had spent an anxious flight, his mind going over all that he had been told by his various sources, trying to make sense of it. The fact that it didn’t make sense convinced him that his decision to come to America to personally take charge was the correct one. The stakes with Genzai Bakudan on the table were simply too great.

“We will be landing here,” Nakanga said, holding a map in front of the Genoysha. The point he indicated was in the Presidio at the south end of the Golden Gate.

Kuzumi remembered the place from his days at UCBerkeley. “That is a military post,” he said. “It is now a national park,” Nakanga said. “It will be deserted at night. I have not been able to get in contact with Ronin Nishin to meet us—” He paused as Kuzumi held up a hand and took the map from him.

“I will make arrangements for our meeting. It is not Nishin who I wish to speak to.”

Nakanga frowned but didn’t say anything. “Yes, Genoysha.”

“We must not be discovered,” Kuzumi warned.

“We are under the airport radar. We will not be detected.” Nakanga paused. “Sir, with all due respect, I believe I should know what is happening in order that I might serve you better. Who are we meeting?”

Kuzumi looked up from the map. “You will serve me by doing as I order.”

Chastened, Nakanga left the rear cabin to go back up front.

“Hurry,” ordered Okomo, “we must beat the Koreans to the bridge so we can lie in wait.” “We will get there before them,” Captain Ohashi calmly said. “It is right ahead. Prepare your men.”

Okomo yelled out to the Yakuza gathered on deck and two of them began putting on wet suits and scuba tanks.

Still curled up off the edge of the bridge, Nishin continued to work feverishly to free himself. His hands were bleeding from cuts he had inflicted upon himself from the ice scraper. It was awkward holding the handle with just the edge of the fingers in his right hand and he nicked skin as much as he hit rope.

He had not seen any more of the woman and the figure in black. They must be in the room below the bridge. The tug was churning through the water, the deck plates vibrating from the thrust kicked out by the powerful engines. He could feel the chill air blowing across his skin, and looking down he could see the dark water of the harbor almost ten feet directly below.

“There is the south tower!” Ohashi said as he slowed the tug and turned the wheel.

The tower disappeared into the fog, the roadway 210 feet above not visible. Above that, the tower rose to over 746 feet above the surface of the water. Below the surface, the tower extended down over 100 feet into the mud and then bedrock.

At water level, the tower was perched upon a concrete and steel pier surrounded by a circular concrete fender. The pier base was over 65 feet thick. The concrete fender around it was 155 feet high, going from the bedrock below to 10 feet above the surface of the water. When the bridge had been constructed in the ‘30s, the fender had been built by first extending a pier from the south shore, over a thousand feet away to the proposed location. Divers were sent down and blasted through 20 feet of mud into the bedrock.

The wall was built up to its present height, then the water inside was pumped out, allowing the engineers to build the pier base inside the hollow and now dry interior. The tower was then built onto the base. A reinforcing iron frame and rock fill had been placed around the pier base after the tower had been completed and then water had been let back in to allow the entire thing to settle.

The Yakuza tug was dwarfed by the size of the pier base and fender. Warning lights flickered along the top of the fender, telling ships to keep away. The tug’s engines had to fight the swift current to keep steady, just a few feet away from the pitted concrete wall.

As Nishin continued to work on the rope, he wondered how the Yakuza knew the tower was where the Koreans would head. He also wondered who had put the bug in him. It indeed could have been done by the Black Ocean to keep track of him. Certainly they had the opportunity during his training to do such a thing. But he was also afraid it might have been done by someone else.

Regardless, he could wait no longer. The massive tower was just off the port side of the tug now. Everyone on the bridge was focused on that side as the two men were done putting their scuba tanks on. The first of the two slid over the side and into the water, holding a powerful light in one hand and a six-foot-long hooked piece of metal in the other. Nishin saw the purpose of the piece of metal as the man hooked into a crevice in the concrete ship fender to hold himself in place against the strong current.

The first diver had disappeared under the swirling water and the second one hooked into place. Suddenly Nishin understood where they were going and why they were going there and that kicked in an extra jolt of strength to his sawing.

The last strand of rope parted under the plastic point of the scraper. Nishin swiftly stood, grabbing the chain and sliding it through so that he was free.

“Hail” One of the Yakuza on the bridge spotted him and came running. Nishin slammed the. ice scraper into the man’s chest, pulled it back out, turned, and dove from the bridge to the water below, gulping in a deep breath as he went down.

He hit the surface and went under. Nishin finned hard, feeling the hull of the tugboat with his free hand, the scraper in the other. He could feel the current tearing at him and he knew he had only one chance to survive. He followed the curve of the hull, feeling barnacles attached to the metal tear at his free hand as he remained oriented.

The keel of the boat slipped by. He put both feet against the side and pushed off toward the hulking presence of the tower fender. He smashed his head into concrete, then scrambled his free hand along the pitted surface, tearing fingernails, searching for a hold.

His fingers slipped into a vertical crack and he was no longer moving, ten feet below the surface of the water. There were lights being played along the water above him and he imagined-the Yakuza there had their weapons trained all around the boat, waiting for him to surface. He twisted and looked about, tucking the scraper into his waist. He could see the underwater glow of light from one of the lamps to his left and slightly down. Nishin’s lungs were burning as he pulled himself down and in that direction.

Nishin spotted the top diver, just ten feet below him. He was uncertain whether he could make it but he had no choice. Hands pouring blood from cuts and scrapes he pulled himself down with every ounce of energy left in his body! The diver was unaware of his presence as Nishin closed the gap.

Nishin pulled out the scraper from his belt, turned head down in the water and pistoned the last part of the distance with his legs. He looped his left arm around the man’s neck as he jammed the point into his back repeatedly.

An explosion of bubbles from the man’s mouthpiece and blood from the wounds filled the water. The man couldn’t let go of the metal hook or he’d be swept away, but by not letting go he couldn’t defend himself against Nishin. By not solving that Catch-22 in time the diver died. Nishin dropped the ice scraper and grabbed the hook with that hand. Then he ripped the regulator out of the slack mouth and took a deep breath, tasting the man’s blood on the mouthpiece and not caring. He gasped in several mouthfuls of air.

Nishin pulled the tanks off the man’s back. He also took the man’s mask, putting it on and then clearing it with air from the regulator as he’d been taught. The light was dangling by a safety cord from the limp wrist and Nishin appropriated that. Then he took off the man’s weight belt and, with difficulty, strapped it around his own waist. He also took the man’s dive knife. Before he tucked the knife under the weight belt, Nishin slammed it into the man’s chest twice, once in each lung. He then pulled the dead diver to his chest to make sure all the air was out of them. When he let go, the body floated away at neutral buoyancy.

Looking below, Nishin could see the first diver was a faint glow about twenty to thirty feet away in the murky and pitch-black water, unaware of the struggle that had just occurred above him. Using the hook, Nishin began to follow him down.

“He was swept away by the current,” Captain Ohashi said.

Okomo cursed. The body of the Yakuza Nishin had killed was still lying on the floor of the bridge, a pool of blood underneath him. There had been no sign of the Black Ocean man surfacing. Yakuza lined the rails, weapons at the ready.

Ohashi pointed out to the west. “He will die many miles out to sea. No swimmer can fight this current.”

Okomo spit. “All right. Pull us away. Let us leave this open for the next ship, whoever that might be, to park.”

The tugboat slowly slid away into the fog, crossing the Gate directly under the unseen span of the bridge until it was just offshore, where the northern tower was built on the edge of the land. Hiding in the shadow of that tower, they would remain unseen by radar, yet be close enough to get back to the southern tower when necessary.

Nishin soon found the rhythm of sliding the hook down a couple of feet and pulling himself after it, then repeating the maneuver. He found it so well that soon he was only a few feet above the first diver who appeared as nothing more than a dark figure in the cone of light put out by Nishin’s light.

As he got closer Nishin decided on a course of action. He slid his hook down and then over the diver’s when it was paused. That locked the man in place. He looked up and Nishin smashed the butt of his knife into the other man’s mask, shattering the glass. The man flailed about, blinded. Nishin slipped the knife under his arms and slashed his throat. Blood squirted out into the light of the lamp.

The man let go of his hook and tried to kick for the surface, but Nishin reached out and grabbed hold of his weight belt, keeping him in place. Blinded and dying, the man offered little resistance. When there was no more movement, Nishin insured that the diver’s hook was jammed in place in a crack in the concrete, then he slipped the other end under the diver’s weight belt, holding him in place. Then he continued his journey down.

Occasionally he could see steel bars sticking out of the concrete or loops of metal where the workers sixty years ago had made an underwater scaffold. His entire world consisted of the slightly curving concrete wall in front of him and the inky blackness all around. Nishin could hear his breathing and he forced himself to slow the rate down. He had no idea how deep he was and he tried to remember what he had been taught in the fast and furious dive classes he’d been given as part of his training. He’d never had to use the training before, but he did remember that there was a definite limit to how deep he could go and how quickly he could resurface. He had to assume that since the two Yakuza had planned on going down here with the same equipment, that it was safe for him so far.

He spotted something and froze, then relaxed. The bottom, a brown, dirty spread of streaked mud pressing up against the concrete fender. Nishin went down the last few feet and stood, his feet sinking into the ooze. From the way his bubbles were blowing away, the current was not quite as swift here, but it was still strong.

Nishin looked left, then right. Which way? He chose to the right. Using the hook to keep himself from being washed away, he made his way around the base of the fender, his feet kicking up swirls of mud that were quickly swept away.

He made forty feet when he saw something ahead. With each step, the shape materialized out of the dark — a short blunt metal cigar-shape, half covered in mud. A conning tower was in the center bearing the rising sun of Imperial Japan. The sub was canted over on its right side, pressed up against the tender at a sixty-degree angle.

Nishin’s feet clanged on metal as he clambered up the steel slope of the forward deck. He could see the cable for the submarine’s anchor stretched into the mud. Another cable came off an eyebolt on the deck and was looped around an exposed steel rod from the tender.

Nishin reached the conning tower, but his gaze was drawn to the rear of the sub where two steel cables led back into the darkness. He adjusted the light and in the glow he saw a rectangular metal object at the end of the two cables. The mud was pressed up against the bottom half, but the top half was kept free of debris by the strong current. There was no mistaking the Japanese script written on the steel: genzai bakudan.