The Gate

CHAPTER 15

“Negative radar contact,” the young rating called out from his chair on the left side of the bridge.

Captain Carson, the Coast Guard officer in charge of the U.S.S. Sullivan, looked over at the man who had identified himself as Agent Feliks. Upon boarding, the man had flashed both a badge and a set of documents indicating he was a very-high-ranking federal officer and that Carson was to obey his every order. “Course, sir?”

Carson, being a cautious man, had called his higher headquarters to check on the papers and received verification. Apparently this Feliks fellow was high up in the dark world of government intelligence. Carson had had DBA, CIA, and FBI operatives on board the Sullivan at various times, so he didn’t find this so odd. The Coast Guard was the branch of the government assigned with policing the nation’s waterways and coastlines, so whenever any other government agency needed to operate in that area, they called on the Coast Guard.

It had taken Sullivan twenty minutes to gather a crew together and get the ship ready. They had pulled out of the Coast Guard station five minutes ago and would cross under the Golden Gate in another couple of minutes.

“There’s a North Korean trawler out there,” Feliks said. “We need to track it down and my men will board.”

Carson looked down at the dozen men dressed in black, wearing body armor and carrying machine guns that crowded his forward deck. His own crew was at battle stations, the forward five-inch gun manned and ready, along with four .50-caliber machine guns located about the ship. “My radar man reports negative contact,” Carson said.

“It’s out there,” Feliks insisted. “We had positive satellite contact up until the fog rolled in an hour ago.” He put the tip of a finger on the chart on the table in the center of the bridge. “Right here.”

“It’s not there now,” Carson said. “We’d pick it up.”

“Then it’s hiding.”

Carson looked across at his executive officer, then back at Feliks. “You can’t hide from radar on the surface of the ocean, sir.”

“Could it have turned and gone out of range?” Feliks asked.

“If it was here,” Carson touched the chart, “an hour ago, then it would still be in range of our radar even if it turned around and headed west at flank speed.”

“Then it’s around here somewhere. What if they’re hugging the shore?” Feliks asked.

“They might be able to hide in shore clutter, but…” Captain Carson didn’t complete the sentence. He had long ago learned to let these visitors on his ship make their own decisions and take responsibility. The minute he gave an opinion, responsibility started to shift.

“It’s out there,” Feliks said with certainty.

“Yes, sir,” Carson replied.

“Then let’s get out there and find it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two hundred yards behind the Sullivan Lake could just barely see the stern running lights of the Coast Guard ship through the fog. He could hear foghorns all around, blasting out their warning at different notes and pulses so they could be identified.

He flipped open the navigational book for the West Coast that was in a small drawer next to the controls and flipped through it. He found what he was looking for: there was a foghorn on the south tower and north tower of the Golden Gate. He read the code for the south tower: two short blasts, one long, three short. Repeated every thirty seconds.

Lake cocked his head and listened. Finally he heard it, almost due south. He was near the bridge, and even as he realized that, he could hear the echo of traffic on pavement above his head. He couldn’t see the bridge, but from the noise he knew he was directly below it. And that meant the Sullivan was heading out to sea.

“You don’t know shit, Feliks,” Lake said for the second time this evening. He spun the wheel of his boat hard left and turned south.

Adjusting for the strong seaward current, he headed toward the foghorn on the south tower. Within a minute he spotted the warning lights on the tower fender. Lake circled around the massive concrete fender. There were no ships.

There was a metal ladder leading up to the top of the fender for servicing the lights and foghorn. Lake eased up to the ladder, then quickly jumped up on the prow of the boat and tied it off. The current immediately swung the boat around and pressed it up against the concrete, ruining the paint job as the swell slammed it back and forth. That was the least of Lake’s worries right now. He grabbed the scuba gear and began rigging. He was glad that the dive locker also contained a head lamp that strapped on above the face mask. Last, but not least important, Lake took the Hush Puppy out of its holster. He inserted a muzzle and chamber plug into the gun, waterproofing it.

Fully equipped, Lake walked to the rear of the boat and opened the dive gate. He walked off and into the water. He was instantly pressed up against the fender and, like a mountain climber in reverse, he began climbing down, his fingers searching out holds in the surface, his feet pushing him down. It was disorienting work being upside down, but Lake kept his focus close in, using his rising bubbles and the slight curve of the fender to keep himself oriented.

A hundred feet below, Nishin was shivering, sitting in the cold metal interior of the midget sub. It wasn’t just the cold water that was knee deep on the inside that caused his condition. The mummified body of a disemboweled man was directly across from him in the cramped space of the sub. On the body’s chest was the tattoo of the Black Ocean and the dagger still sticking out from his stomach where it had finished its diagonal cut, had a handje carved with Black Ocean symbols.

Nishin had entered the sub through the conning tower, which was simply a double hatch. He’d opened the top hatch to find the inside of the tower flooded and another hatch at his feet. He’d closed the top hatch, then opened the bottom, the water falling inside. He’d carefully lowered himself into the darkened interior. He’d checked the air and found it breathable after all these years. The suicide of the only crewman helped explained that — he had not waited for his air to turn bad.

The inside was small, about eight feet long by four wide and five high and crowded with instruments. The midget subs weren’t designed for comfort and could hold a maximum crew of two. The rear half of the submarine was taken up by the engine. The angle the sub rested at canted everything inside at sixty degrees from horizontal. There were rudimentary controls near the front and two metal seats. There was no window, just a small periscope.

Nishin propped the underwater light on a shelf. He looked around for any record of what had happened. Why had the submarine stopped here and why hadn’t the bomb been detonated? He could see a metal box in the corner near the body that had warnings all over it. He picked it up. There was a metal cover that he opened. A faded red knob rested underneath, set into a long slot. The Japanese word next to the knob said SAFE. The word at the bottom read FIRE. It was the remote detonator for the bomb. There was a dial with a listing of a range frequencies. Nishin closed the cover.

Searching further, Nishin found the ship’s log jammed on top of a metal box next to the body. Opening it, Nishin immediately went to the last entry. Written in shaky Japanese it explained what he had found:

Nishin looked up at Hatari. He had committed hara kiri in the traditional manner, pushing the knife in, then slicing across his abdomen. To do it required tremendous strength of will. To do it alone, on the chance that the wound would not be immediately fatal and not having a person acting as second to behead you in that case, took even more courage. Nishin bowed his head toward his long-ago comrade and said a prayer to the Sun Goddess. Then he noticed that there was a folded page further in the log. He turned to it and uncreased the page. In the slant of the characters and’ the angry way the pen had been pressed into the page, Nishin could tell the mood of the man who had written it.

I could not kill myself right away. I wanted to wait, to experience the final moment when the bomb explodes. Yet it has been eight hours since I arrived here. I have been betrayed! I have tried the detonator. It does not work” I opened up the back. It is not functional! Perhaps the frequency they gave me is the wrong one. They did not trust me. Why? Why?

It is as I feared. I had heard rumors that the Genoysha was negotiating with enemies of Japan. With the Russians at least. Maybe with others. What was my purpose in bringing this weapon here if I was not to set it off? That question bothered me as I crossed the ocean and I thought of the second detonator. But I trusted in the Sun Goddess, the Society, and the Genoysha. But I am here now, at the target, with a detonator that cannot work. I have been betrayed!

If you find this, then know that I die alone and I die bravely. Braver then those who sent me here. I curse them!

Nishin read that page, then reread. He looked at the detonator and checked the screws on the back. It was obvious from the way the metal was scratched that it had been opened.

Now it was Nishin’s turn to question his mission. Why had he been sent here to stop the Koreans and then told to do nothing when the Koreans were coming again? Why had the Yakuza turned on him? Why did he have a tracking device inside of him? How did the Yakuza have so much information?

As he sat down against the cold wall of the sub, across from Hatari’s body, Nishin was no longer praying. He was thinking.

Lake came across the body of the diver hooked onto the metal pole. He looked at it for a second, noted the stab wounds, then continued.

A mile and a half to the west of the Golden Gate, the Sullivan and the stealth ship slid by each other less than eight hundred meters apart, neither aware of the other’s presence. On the bridge of the stealth, Araki was watching the small computer screen on his ever-present laptop.

“The reading is weak,” he said. “Distorted.”

The captain of the stealth had tracked homing devices before and was familiar with all the possible readings. “That is because the man you are seeking is underwater.”

“Get me there,” Araki ordered. “Prepare the swimmer delivery vehicle and my dive gear. Now!”

The captain looked at the digits on the clock above the control panels. “Sir, if we are to make—”

“Do as I order!” Araki yelled.

The captain was not happy, sailing about blindly in the fog. He could not turn his own radar on because it would cancel out the ship’s invisibility. Reluctantly, he ordered the engine room to increase thrust.

In the shadow of the north tower, Okomo and Ohashi had watched the Sullivan go by on their radar screen. There had been a slight image just after that, as if a small boat was out there but it had quickly disappeared.

Okomo checked his watch. His divers had another half hour of air. Then he was going to have to go back for them regardless of whether anyone else showed up or not. He went to the floor below the bridge to inform his passengers of that.

Just to the south of the drama being played out on and in the waters of the Golden Gate, the tilt-jet was slowing as the wings rotated from horizontal to vertical. Looking out the window, Kuzumi could see that they were very low over the ocean, perhaps thirty feet up. He could see a line of white in the darkness ahead: breakers hitting the shore. Kuzumi could tell that Nakanga was very nervous. Kuzumi had not filled him in on what was going to happen, but he knew there was very good reason why that was so. It was because Kuzumi didn’t know what was going to happen. He was playing this by ear. He just wanted to be within earshot to do something once he did find out what was happening.