The Gate

CHAPTER 4

“I got your message,” Lake said to Jonas. A group of men wearing camouflage pants, brown T-shirts, and hats with various Patriot logos on them were sitting at a table on the main floor of the bar, arguing loudly and drunkenly about what had happened years previously in Waco and Ruby Ridge and the last year in Montana. There was no disagreement about ideology, just the basic manly desire to be more outraged than the fellow sitting next to you. If they’d been talking about the World Series it would have been no big deal, but they were talking about bombs and guns and hate, and that made it more than just idle talk.

Lake had heard it all so many times before and he’d even said it all when required. The party line was easy. He assumed that was why it was a party line. Check your brains at the door, no thinking required. But somebody was doing some thinking, that was for sure, as events of the previous week on the Golden Gate Bridge had shown him.

“I got a list of exactly what they want,” Jonas said, echoing the message that he’d given Lake over the phone. They were seated in their usual booth. Lake had met Jonas thirteen months ago after he’d begun working the west coast. The Ranch had access to all FBI and aTF. records and from those Lake had managed to get a very good idea of where to go and who to see. The other agencies couldn’t arrest a lot of the people in their files because the evidence wouldn’t stand up in court. The Ranch could use the people in those files to run their operations and did so without a second thought.

Lake had used Jonas as a broker in three weapons deals so far and since Jonas hadn’t been arrested and the weapons were still out on the street, he had the man’s conditional trust. That was something a normal federal agent couldn’t do.

“That was quick,” Lake said.

“They’re rookies at the game and they’re in a rush,” Jonas said. He frowned. “But I wouldn’t want to double cross them. These slopes are hard-looking people. Almost” Jonas paused.

“Almost?” Lake prompted.

“Almost like they’re military types. Soldiers.”

“Probably are ex-military,” Lake said.

Jonas frowned. “No, I get the feeling like they’re still military, like they’re a unit that’s trained together. Like you’d feel being around a Special Forces A-Team. Plus, the weapons they want are unique.” “Why do they want the weaponry?”

Jonas gave Lake a look. “Come on, you know I ain’t about to ask them that. Like I said, though, they’re in a hurry and because of that I did tell them they’d have to pay more.”

“How’d you get a hold of them?” Lake asked. He knew Jonas didn’t like the question, but he needed as much information as he could get.

“They told me they would call back and they did,” Jonas said.

“How’d they get a hold of you in the first place?”

Jonas frowned. “I don’t know and I didn’t fucking ask them. You want this deal or not? You aren’t the only dealer in town.”

“Let me see the list.” Lake took the Post-it note from the other man and scanned it. He saw what Jonas had meant by “unique.”

“Can you do that?” Jonas asked.

“Ingrams with suppressors are hot items,” Lake said. He looked up. “When do they want it?”

“Monday. They said they’d get back to me with a time and place.”

“I’ll have it Monday. Tell them eight hundred for each Ingram. That’s six thousand four hundred; five hundred a suppressor, four thousand; and a thousand per each six magazines, since I’m going to have do subsonic rounds. Total, sixteen thousand, four hundred.”

“My commission is ten percent,” Jonas noted. He slapped a bundle of money down on the table. “Earnest money. Five grand.”

Lake tucked the list into his breast pocket. He peeled a thousand off the roll, handing it to Jonas. “Okay, charge them twelve thousand beyond the down payment and you keep another grand when we finalize the deal.”

Jonas nodded and leaned back in the bench.

Lake’stared at him, waiting.

Jonas slapped his forehead. “Oh, yes. Your gun.” He reached down under the table and pulled up a paper bag. He started to slide it across, but froze as the door to the bar opened and three men walked in, dressed in black pants and windbreakers. “Shit,” Jonas muttered, leaving the bag sitting in the center of the table, between him and Lake. “Federal Task Force. They’re not supposed to come here. I’m fucking protected.”

The three men sauntered around the table of Patriots and came straight to the booth. “Hey, Jonas,” the leader said, leaning over the table. “What do you have in the bag?” He was a large man, hard-eyed in the way cops who’d spent a long time on the street were.

“It’s mine,” Lake said, pulling the bag over to his side. He checked out the other two agents: younger, college types who were following the other’s lead out of respect for his experience and age. Lake could sense the high testosterone level coming off the three agents. They were pumped and ready for action.

One of the younger men stepped up. He wore expensive glasses which didn’t match the black outfit. “And who the fuck are you?”

“Who wants to know?” Lake’s voice was flat.

The leader’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t intervene, waiting to see how both sides played it out.

“Federal Task Force,” Glasses said, holding up an ID.

“I can buy one of those in any surplus store in town,” Lake said. “And you have a foul mouth for a peace officer.”

“The badge is real,” Glasses said. “You want me to imprint my number on your fucking forehead,” he added, holding the badge close to Lake’s face.

Lake didn’t move. “I’m not impressed.”

“What’s in the bag?” the leader cut in.

“My dick,” Lake said. “Want to play with it?”

The Patriots at the table burst out laughing. They began making oinking noises.

“I’ll put your dick in the goddamn bag.” Glasses put his badge away and pushed up against the edge of the booth inside Lake’s personal space. He was too close, a result of poor training, Lake idly thought.

“Do you have a warrant?” Jonas had finally recovered.

The leader was tired of the game and he knew, as Lake knew, that Glasses had made a mistake. “Open the fucking bag, asshole.”

Lake sighed as he slowly stood, his shoulder brushing lightly against Glasses’s chest. “I don’t think so.”

The leader went for his piece instinctively and Lake’s movements went into hyper-speed. Glasses didn’t know what hit him as Lake’s left hand hit his chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs and toppling him backward. Lake was moving, following the strike, his right hand extended, grabbing the leader’s gun hand as it cleared the shoulder holster. He squeezed hard and the gun dropped back inside the jacket, the man hissing with pain. Lake’s left hand slammed the man’s jaw, teeth smashing together with a sound heard throughput the bar, wiping the surprised look off the face. The leader went down, out cold.

The third agent was frozen at this unexpected turn of events. Lake spun, the back of his right foot catching the man on the side of the head and dropping him. The first man he had hit was still trying to catch his breath. Lake stepped over him and knelt on his chest. “You serve the people,” he hissed. “We don’t serve you.” He pulled the man’s gun out and tossed it away, then stood. “Next time, watch your language.” Lake sharply tapped him on the side of the head with his hand, middle finger knuckle extended, and he was out like a light.

Lake reached into his pocket and peeled off three thousand dollars. He slapped them on the table in front of Jonas.

“What did you mean you were protected?” Lake asked.

Jonas was staring at the three agents, then slowly swiveling his large head to look at Lake. “You’re fucking crazy, man.”

“What did you mean about being protected? From the feds?” Lake asked again.

“I got friends,” Jonas said vaguely: “Special friends who make these guys look like nothing.”

One of the other agents was beginning to stir and Lake decided he would have to delve into things at another time. “Later,” he said to Jonas as he picked up the bag and headed to the door, leaving those still conscious in stunned silence. As he walked out the door a couple of the Patriots began cheering and clapping. The smart ones followed Lake out the door and disappeared into the darkness.

Lake walked steadily, heading east, then north, for several miles, the pavement flowing under his stride until he hit the Embarcadero.. The cool night air coming off the water slowly seeped into him, throttling back the adrenaline flowing in his veins. He could have gotten the Hush Puppy from the Ranch supply without any problem, but getting it from Jonas helped his position with the man. Ideology aside, most people looked more favorably upon those they could make some money off of once in a while. Plus Lake wanted a gun that the Ranch didn’t know he had. He couldn’t explain that desire, but he had learned a long time ago to trust his instincts. Lake followed the waterfront street until it passed under the ramp for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

A figure came out of the dark, wrapped in a long raincoat. “I don’t have much time. I have a plane to catch.”

“Nice to see you too,” Lake said. Randkin was the science expert for the Ranch. He was a short, compact man who moved nervously. He had long blond hair and wire rimmed glasses that framed a pinched face. Randkin always looked to Lake like he was constipated. He imagined having to work at the Ranch with Feliks looking over his shoulder all the time contributed to that.

Randkin ignored the barb. “There was a virus in the glass jar. But it wasn’t lethal.”

That was Lake’s first surprise of the evening. “What?”

“It would have made a bunch of people sick. Maybe even killed a few people here and there who had other physical problems, but it was basically a non-lethal virus. That’s why Feliks sent me to meet you.”

Lake rubbed his forehead. “I killed three men over that virus.”

“You didn’t know that it wasn’t lethal,” Randkin said. “No reason to. Your wet work was justified.”

“That’s not the worry,” Lake said. “What concerns me is that maybe this was a test-run and I shot up my only link in the chain. Maybe somebody wanted to see if it was possible to get some dumb-shit Patriots to do this sort of thing.”

“Feliks did express some concern about the same thing,” Randkin dryly noted. “But there might have been another purpose to the entire episode.”

Lake had been considering the situation. “To make the attack public and point the finger at the Japanese without causing a major disaster, but hinting at one.”

“Correct.”

“And the Patriots would love that,” “Lake noted.

“Not just the Patriots,” Randkin said. “The automobile industry. The entire Republican Party. The American Legion. Wall Street. There’re a whole lot of people in this country right now that are just itching for an excuse to go after the Japanese. The sanctions Clinton started and this administration picked up have backfired and we aren’t winning this trade war. The Japanese aren’t winning either, which in a way makes it worse all around. The Tokyo market crash last year shows that, but the man on the street doesn’t care about what’s happening in Japan. He only cares about what’s happening in his home burg.

“So we know it was a setup,” Randkin concluded. “We just don’t know who was behind it.”

“And Feliks wants a name,” Lake said.

“Correct. Feliks also is concerned about the third man. We checked him out. Fingerprints weren’t on record. His image isn’t on record either. We don’t have a clue who he is. Genetics indicates he has Japanese ancestry. That doesn’t jive with a Patriot operation. You never saw this guy before?” Randkin asked, holding out a morgue photo of the man from the boat.

“I told Feliks that,” Lake said, taking the photo.

“Feliks told me to double-check.”

“You’ve double-checked,” Lake said “Hey, don’t jump my case!” Randkin looked around nervously. “Hey, Feliks is upset about something. Some weird stuff is going on, so everyone’s a little uptight.”

“What kind of weird stuff?” Lake asked.

“If I knew, it wouldn’t be weird,” Randkin said. “I just wouldn’t want Feliks after my ass. Some of the stuff I’ve heard about him…” Randkin paused, then shrugged. “Anyway, one more thing about our friend there,” he said.

“Yes?” Lake asked irritably. He didn’t like being drip fed and Randkin’s vague comments bothered him.

“He had a tattoo removed shortly before this operation.” Randkin handed over another photo. It showed a large patch of pink skin on the man’s upper right arm.

“Any idea what the tattoo was of?” Lake asked.

“No, but the fact it was removed could—”

“I know what it could mean,” Lake snapped.

“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Randkin sniffed. “Feliks is very concerned about this whole situation.”

“Why?”

Randkin blinked. “What do you mean why?”

“I’ve been working for Feliks for a long time,” Lake said, “and on cases that looked bigger than this. He never showed as much interest as he is in this one.”

“A biological agent attack on San Francisco is serious,” Randkin said, as if speaking to a two-year-old.

Lake wasn’t happy. There had been no need for Feliks to be in San Francisco the other night and there was no need for Randkin to be here to give him information that they could just as easily transmit to him over the phone. Then there was Randkin acting strange.

“What about the Internet?” Lake asked. “Anything on the recruitment message that hooked Starry and Preston?”

“We’re running it,” Randkin said. “There’s so much crap that’s been on the Internet in the Patriot part of the Web that it’s taking longer than I thought it would. As soon as we get it, we’ll send it to you.”

Then what are you doing here, Lake thought. “Get this in the works,” Lake said, handing him the weapons list. “I need it in my drop by tomorrow evening.”

“A lead on the van people?”

“Maybe.”

“Feliks won’t accept a maybe.” Randkin looked at the piece of paper. “And he won’t give this hardware away to just—”

“I stand on my record,” Lake cut in.

“You may, but I have to go back to Feliks and I don’t want your record standing on my shoulders when the ship goes down.”

“The people who want those weapons are Asian,” Lake said, noting that he’d given Randkin his surprise of the evening. “Japanese? Going to — the Patriots for guns?”

“I don’t know,” Lake said. “I’ll know when I see them and give them their guns. Maybe they have tattoos on their upper-right arm. How the fuck do I know until I get the guns? I got the order through a Patriot cutout, which is kind of different by itself. So maybe there’s something here.”

Randkin fingered the note, then put it in his pocket. “You didn’t have to be so hard on those feds. They were just doing a job. They didn’t know they were bait in your game to keep your cover floating.”

“Maybe they’ll treat citizens like citizens next time they go on the street.”

“Yes, and maybe next time they’ll bust someone’s head.”

“Lots of maybes in the world,” Lake said. He walked back off to the south, his mind full of troubled thoughts.

The phone rang, shattering the silence of the room. Nishin stared at it. No one knew he was in here. Perhaps a wrong number. It rang six times, then stopped^ He went back to doing elevated push-ups, feet up on the bed. He was working out the soreness accumulated on his last mission. The pain felt good.

The phone rang again. Nishin stopped and hopped to his feet. He walked over to the cheap table next to the bed and stared at the ancient black instrument. On the fourth ring he picked it up and held it to his ear without making a noise.

A voice spoke in Japanese. “Senso to Kyonsanshugi. By Takeo Mitamura.” The phone went dead and Nishin slowly lowered it back onto its cradle.

He taped the Plexiglas knife to his stomach, then strapped the Brown High Power on, putting a short blue windbreaker on over the gun. The AUG was in its case and he took that with him. The rest of his meager belongings went into a gym bag. He wiped down the room. By the time he was done there was no sign he had ever been there. He jammed a chair up against the door. Someone would really have to want to get in to open that door. It might gain him a couple of days.

He took the fire escape down to the back alley. Six blocks away, he checked into another flophouse, reserving a room, for a week. He went upstairs, deposited the AUG case and the gym bag, then left, this time by the back staircase.

His new hotel was three miles from the Japan Center and he made it almost twice as long by zigzagging and occasionally doubling back on himself.

He knew where the Yotoku Miyagi bookstore was, but he approached it slowly. He sat, for a half-hour a block away, watching customers going in and out. Finally he went into the store. The young woman from the previous evening was not there. An older man stood behind the counter. Nishin gave him the book title and author in Japanese.

The old man nodded. “Yes, sir. We have your special order. It just came in.” He reached under the counter and handed Nishin a hardbound book. The old man pulled a receipt out from the inside cover. “It is already paid for.”

Nishin thanked the man and tucked the book under his arm. He took an even more roundabout route back to his new nest. By the time he arrived it was getting dark. He locked himself into the room and finally took a look at the book. It was old. The copyright information said it was published in 1950 by a press in Tokyo.

The book was only the wrapping, though. Tucked inside was a map of San Francisco. Nishin scanned it. A pier on the northeast side of the San Francisco peninsula off the Embarcadero was circled in red.

Nishin put the map in his shirt pocket. He opened his gym bag and pulled out a sweater. It was foggy out and would get chilly before dawn. He put the sweater on, re strapping the shoulder holster on over it, then the windbreaker. The phone startled him. He stared at it, then reluctantly picked it up.

A voice on the other end laughed, then spoke briefly in Japanese. “This is my city, remember that.” Nishin recognized the voice: it was Okomo, the Oyabun of the San Francisco Yakuza. The phone went dead.

Nishin put the phone down. Before he picked up his gym bag and the AUG case, his hand strayed to his stomach and tapped the knife strapped there.

A half a mile away the same man who had been on the roof the previous night had Nishin’s travels of the day overlaid on a computerized map of San Francisco. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of his white rental van, a laptop computer wedged up against the steering wheel. He started the engine when the computer told him Nishin was moving again.

A freighter and a fishing trawler were docked in the berth that had been circled. Nishin knew which was his target immediately. The freighter flew a Panamanian flag, the trawler the flag of South Korea. He found a large crane that looked like it wasn’t used much and climbed up to the control booth so that he could over watch the trawler. It made perfect sense that the North Koreans would infiltrate using a fishing boat flying the South Korean flag as their cover.

Now it was a waiting game and Nishin had never lost a wait. First, though, he needed to check in. He went to a pay phone and called in a report to Nakanga, then he returned to the crane.

The man in the van also waited as the sun came up. Nishin didn’t move from his perch. The man had seen the bag and metal case Nishin carried, which indicated he wasn’t going back wherever he’d come from. The man typed commands into his computer tracker. It was now set on alert. If Nishin moved it would come alive and beep him. He headed back to his hotel room.

Nakanga had just reported to Kuzumi that Nishin had located the North Koreans on their ship. Kuzumi did not acknowledge the report. If it was spoken in his presence, he heard it. Acknowledgment was a waste of time and energy. It was a trait he had used since first graduating the university over six decades ago. His Sensei departed the room, leaving him in peace.

Kuzumi’s office was on the top floor of the temple. There were no windows and the walls were hung with tapestries, muting the hard armored walls underneath. Kuzumi’s desk was a massive semicircular piece of highly polished dark teak. On the wall to the left were a bank of TVs tuned in to various channels around the globe. The sound on all of them was currently muted. A small box on the left side of the desk controlled all the TVs and a computer sat there awaiting his instructions. Several phones were on the right side of the desk. Behind the desk, a three-drawer file cabinet squatted beneath a large painting. The painting depicted the same tattoo that was on Kuzumi’s chest, in startling, brilliant colors.

It had been a long day for Kuzumi’. There were always deals to be made, information to be absorbed, people to be dealt with, plans to be made. The last was always the most difficult. Kuzumi often felt like those chess champions who played in a large room against multiple opponents, moving from table to table, remembering the setup of each one. Except his stakes were much higher than simply losing a game. Kuzumi dealt in life and death and fortunes and the future of his country.

The Black Ocean was a legitimate organization most of the time, although Kuzumi saw the law as simply a set of rules the government had to abide by, not the Black Ocean. If he had to break it, so be it. He answered to a higher authority than words’ written by men in a book.

The Black Ocean controlled a vast amount of industry and land, both in Japan and overseas. What caused the government to cast a suspicious eye on it and the other secret societies was the fear of history repeating itself and the simple fact that the societies represented power. Any government, with half a brain would keep an eye on the powerful organizations that existed within its borders and weren’t directly under its control.

Kuzumi had become Genoysha in 1968. He had done so primarily because of his strength in the scientific and manufacturing field. He was one of the key architects, through the Black Ocean, in helping rebuild Japan from its wartime wreckage into the powerful economic juggernaut it currently was. Kuzumi being chosen by Genoysha Taiyo to be his successor was an indication of the appreciation of the role he had played in Japan’s economic rebirth. Always before, the Genoysha had been selected from among the field operatives. A man of unquestioning loyalty and proven ability to fight for what the Society stood for. Kuzumi’s field record was weak, but Genoysha Taiyo had done his job correctly, seeing the direction that Japan was heading in and picking the right type of leader the organization needed to change with the times. When the cancer that had been eating his insides finished Taiyo in 1968, it was Kuzumi’s destiny to get the tattoo of Genoysha of the Black Ocean.

Kuzumi had wielded the power for the past thirty years, keeping the Black Ocean on a narrow path between the government, the people, the influence of other countries, and the Yakuza. There was no doubt he had succeeded so far in that he had much more influence among those other groups than they had with him. The Society controlled more wealth than many countries. It employed more people than most major corporations, although many of those who worked for it were unaware of the exact nature of their employer. But wealth and power was not the ultimate goal of the Society. The glory of Japan, and beyond and above Japan, the Sun Goddess and Emperor were.

Japan was the center of the world and as such all events must turn in the direction that benefited the islands. The Black Ocean and the other societies existed because the government and the people often lost their way and a steady hand behind the scenes was needed. It was Kuzumi’s job to exercise that steady hand here and abroad.

That thought drew his mind to the west. San Francisco. The name of the city brought conflicting emotions. He turned his wheelchair to the file cabinet behind him. The metal it was constructed of was the same used to line jet engines, impervious to heat and blast. The lock could only be activated by his retina placed up against a scanner at his eye level on top of the cabinet. Anyone else attempting to open the cabinet would set off a thermal charge on the inside, destroying the contents.

Kuzumi leaned his forehead against the scanner and the laser flickered across his eyes. With a loud click, the locks withdrew. Kuzumi opened the bottom drawer and drew out a small, intricately carved wooden box. He turned back to the desk, the box in his lap. He turned the small clasp and opened the lid. Tenderly he drew out a black-and-white photograph that lay on top of other documents. The picture had been folded and the paper was worn around the edges.

He had not looked at this for over twenty years. He blinked, then refocused his eyes. There was a very young woman standing with a baby in her arms. Behind her the Golden Gate Bridge arched over the water. The woman appeared to be part Caucasian, part Japanese, the blend mixing together to form an exotic beauty. She was tall and slender, the Western-style dress clinging to her body. Her hair was jet black and very long with edges of it framing her waist. Her skin was dark and her eyes coal black. The slant to them wasn’t strong enough to pass in Japan but too far to pass as white in the West. Today he knew she would be considered beautiful, perhaps a model, but back then she was simply a half-breed.

“Nira,” Kuzumi whispered, slowly putting the photograph down on his desk. Nira Foster. The name was strung like a harp string inside of him. A string that he had long ago thought he had put away by sheer force of will. Over half a century before that string had played hard and loud.

It was her beauty that Kuzumi had not been able to resist at first. That she was Dr. Lawrence’s primary undergraduate assistant made her that much more attractive. She knew all that Lawrence did. Kuzumi had used that as a justification to get closer to her, not admitting the real reason, even to himself for a long time. That she had returned the attraction had not surprised him. She was half-Japanese and in those days there was much prejudice against Asians in California. She was also a budding physicist and Kuzumi represented the cutting edge of international study. He’d been published and she’d read his articles even before he’d arrived. He was three years older and had traveled the world. And, most importantly, he was the first true Japanese she had spent much time with.

Nira’s father had been a petty officer in the American Navy. She didn’t know her mother. Her father had dumped her in the care of a convent when she was two. She’d seen him several times over the next, decade when he happened to be in port, but then he’d disappeared and she’d never heard from him again. He had never told her about her Japanese mother or where she had been born. There were no records at the convent other than the papers her father had signed to get her into it.

She’d done well on her own and the nuns had given her a good enough education to get a scholarship to UCBerkeley, but there was a glass ceiling waiting for her and * she was smart enough to know it. Her ethnic background and her gender limited her options in the United States. That intellectual awareness didn’t temper her pain and anger, though.

Their first talks had been of atoms and particles and cadmium and all the other subjects that made up the burgeoning science they both were immersed in, Kuzumi could not recall when the talk had changed. He did remember the first time they had slept together. For two reasons. First, of course, was the experience itself, passionate and exciting beyond anything he had experienced before. But of more consequence was the fact that in his next message to be sent back to the Society through the Japanese Embassy pouch, he reported that he was involved with her, as was required by his standing orders.

He had been half-afraid he would be ordered to stop the relationship. What happened was worse. His instructions were to continue, build it, make it stronger. Then he was to recruit her. Kuzumi knew he would have to return to Japan soon to begin work on Genzai Bakudan. The Society wanted Nira to stay at UCBerkeley and keep an eye on Lawrence and his work. They knew that Lawrence would undoubtedly be part of any atomic project the Americans developed and being an American citizen Nira was the perfect spy. Because of her father’s abandonment, she hated the United States deep inside and it wasn’t hard for Kuzumi to tap into that. He told her stories of a Japan she’d never seen and the different life she’d have there. They kept the relationship a secret so that there would be no stories of her liaison with Nishin to filter back to the FBI.

At first it had been easy to work Nira as an agent and to be her lover. Another part of the job coupled with certain distinct advantages. But the more he spent time with her and talked, the more Kuzumi realized he wasn’t being honest or fair with Nira. He knew her Caucasian blood would keep her from being racially accepted in Japan. In fact, to be honest, he had to admit that she was treated better in the United States than she would be back in the Islands. And there was no doubt she could not study atomic physics in Japan. There were no women in the higher scientific fields. She would have to be a wife, but no true Japanese man would take her as wife because of her Western blood.

Kuzumi knew he could not take her back when he left and the orders of the Black Ocean reinforced that. She understood. As she understood everything about her situation. Her understanding disconcerted Kuzumi for a while until he realized it was because she was acting like a man would. Accepting reality stoically and with a sense of duty.

But she was still a woman, Kuzumi reminded himself. He should have remembered that. He looked at the picture again and the child in Nira’s arms. He had left in the fall of ‘39, unaware of her condition. And she did not even tell him in the letters she sent, forwarded through the spy network the Society had tapped into. He was informed by his Sensei in the Black Ocean. They kept track of all their people and Nira could not hide the birth and the child from the spies who. spied on the spies.

By then Kuzumi was wrapped up in Genzai Bakudan. As Nakanga had briefed Nishin, the government and military in Japan had not been impressed with the potential of the atom that Kuzumi had put into his report upon his return to Japan in 1939. But the Genoysha Taiyo had given him the go-ahead with all the resources of the Black Ocean to support him. “We do not have the time to wait on those fools,” had been Taiyo’s explanation. “They drive the country to war but they realize not how to negotiate the path. You have seen the beast we must fight. The United States will not break as easily as the General Staff thinks. We must have a weapon that will break them.”

Kuzumi had to agree with that. Crossing the breadth of the United States by way of New York to San Francisco coming from Germany he had been numbed by the sheer vastness of the country. The industrial might and the numbers that the country could throw against Japan were chilling. But Kuzumi had understood something even more profound, something he had not shared with anyone. His relationship with Nira had shown him something, a paradox. Although Nira was not treated as equal, she was American. All Americans had come from other places at various times. To believe that the national psyche could be encapsulated so easily into a caricature of a weak-willed white man as the military would like was foolish. Kuzumi believed there was much more to the people across the great ocean, and he knew that to defeat them Japan would need more than it presently had.

Kuzumi was working at the Rikken, the national laboratories, when his Sensei told him of the birth of his son. In the same telling, he had been informed that nothing would be done. Nira was to stay in San Francisco and continue her duties. Kuzumi was to continue with Genzai Ba kudan. And the boy, the boy was just a baby for now and not a factor to be considered yet.

Those were the exact words: “Not a factor to be considered yet.” Kuzumi ran a liver-spotted finger across the picture. Nira had named him James and kept her American family name. James Foster. Strange for a child so clearly of Japanese ancestry. Her unmarried status piled another boulder on top of the many she had to shoulder. But she continued to work at UCBerkeley and she continued to spy for the Society. And Kuzumi, well, he received this one photo at least in the beginning.

Genzai Bakudan. Nira. San Francisco. Kuzumi pressed his hands against the arms of his wheelchair. What were the Koreans up to? What had they discovered and what were they looking for? How had they found the cave? What had they learned about San Francisco and what were they looking for there?

This whole thing was making Kuzumi search memories he had long hoped had disappeared from his mind. A light blinked to his right. A line to his high-ranking contact in the Parliament. Another fire to be put out, probably something to do with the trade war being waged with the United States.

Kuzumi put the picture away and picked up the phone.