by Mayer, Bob
*****
Nishin was as frustrated as Lake, but for a very different reason. For the third time the American arms dealer had interfered. The North Koreans had whatever they had come for and were safely back on their ship. From his perch, Nishin could see guards walking the deck of the trawler, Ingrams hidden under their coats.
He knew the Genoysha would not be pleased. He had failed. Nishin very seriously contemplated boarding the ship on his own and recovering the box, but his duty passion was tempered by the bitter training he had experienced. The odds were that he would be killed and then the mission would most certainly be a failure. The ship was not yet at sea; there was hope yet.
Nishin knew he needed help and there was only one place he could get it. With great reluctance he climbed down off the crane.
TUESDAY, 7 OCTOBER 1997
9:10 a.m. LOCAL
The campus looked very different in the light of day. Lake felt old as he walked among the crowds of students strolling to and from class. He had exchanged his bloodstained clothes of the previous evening for a fresh pair of jeans, a bulky white sweater with a turtleneck, and a faded sports jacket over the sweater. The Hush Puppy rode comfortably under his arm inside the jacket.
He also felt the irritable presence of the satellite phone in his coat’s inside pocket. He hadn’t called Feliks with the results of the previous evening, which he knew would not go over well. The report of the two dead unidentified Korean men had been on the third page of the San Francisco paper this morning and Lake knew it was a short matter of time before someone at the Ranch connected the bodies, the MAC-10s found near them, and the stolen Bronco II.
On another front, Lake believed Araki was an agent of the CPI, but even if Araki wasn’t, Lake felt confident he could deal with the man. He also believed that Araki had not told him the full story, but that was to be expected. Lake hadn’t told Araki everything he knew either. The thing that bothered Lake about this situation was that what he did know was greatly overwhelmed by what he didn’t know.
North Koreans; Japanese secret societies; a Japanese special government agent; the Patriots’ lurking presence in the San Francisco underworld—all these things troubled Lake. Beyond the fact he didn’t know what most of those people were up to, he didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing in most cases. Motive was the most critical factor in trying to outthink one’s enemy, and he didn’t know that either. He hoped he could gain some answers here.
Just inside the west entrance a large board showed the campus layout, with a large “you-are-here” arrow orienting Lake. He retraced the route they had taken last night in his head and found the building he was looking for: Wellman Hall. It housed the history department, which fit with the type of documents the Koreans had stolen. Before he went there, though, Lake made a detour to the library and spent a half hour doing some reading. Then Lake walked to Wellman Hall and went in the large double doors in the center. A glass case held a listing of all the offices in the building and Lake studied it.
There were only names, no areas of study listed, so Lake headed for the main office of the history department. Opening the door, he was greeted by a student behind the desk. “Can I help you?”
“Do you have someone here who is working on material dealing with the Japanese Imperial Navy in World War II?”
The student frowned. “I really don’t know. Dr. Harmon might be able to help you. She’s the Twentieth-Century Pacific Areas Study specialist.”
“And where might I find Dr. Harmon?” Lake asked.
“Room one forty-two.”
“Thank you.” Lake exited the office and walked down the corridor. Room 142 came up on his right and he lightly rapped on the opaque glass that made up most of the top half of the door. There was no answer, so he tried the handle. It turned and he cautiously stepped in. He was in a small foyer, about six feet long. A door was to either side of him, one half-open, the other locked. He could hear someone talking to his right, behind the half-open door. Lake peered around the corner as he tapped on the doorframe.
Lake paused. A woman was seated behind a massive wood desk which was covered with mounds of paper. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, with long thick black hair cascading over her shoulders and bright green eyes that fixed him in the doorway as she talked on the phone. Lake prided himself on telling a person’s ethnic background at a glance, but he wasn’t sure with Harmon. He thought she might have some Asian blood based on her facial features, but her skin was dark, as if she had Mediterranean ancestors in her past. Whatever the combination was, it was unique and intriguing. Beyond her looks, Lake picked up a definite sense of purpose and competence, which he found a little surprising. He was used to that feeling when around others in the covert community—men and women who had something extra, beyond the norm, knew they had it and didn’t have to tell anyone.
“I’ll get back to you,” she said, her voice low and firm. She put the phone down and stood. She was tall, perhaps two inches shorter than Lake, and slender. She wore a gray pants suit and no jewelry. “May I help you?”
“Are you Dr. Harmon?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Lake,” he said, extending his hand. She took it with a firm grip, then let go.
“Is that a first name or a last name?” she asked, sitting back down.
“It’s just a name,” Lake replied, a bit off-guard.
Harmon laughed, the sound coming from deep in her throat, and Lake slid a couple of inches off his emotional center of gravity. “What can I do for you, Mr. Lake?” She pointed at a chair facing the desk and Lake gratefully sank into the leather.
“I’m interested in information concerning the Imperial Japanese Navy during the last year of World War II.”
“For what reason?” Harmon asked, steepling her fingers.
“I’m writing a book,” Lake said, “about fleet operations that year.”
“For what purpose?” Harmon asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Why are you writing a book about the operations of the Japanese fleet in 1945?” Dr. Harmon amplified. “By that time in the war, most of the Japanese fleet had been destroyed. That which wasn’t destroyed was hiding in port, trying to avoid the onslaught of the American carrier forces.”
“To be more specific,” Lake said, “I’m interested in one ship in particular. The Yamamoto went down in April 1945.” Lake was using the information he had in the forefront of his brain from the side trip to the library. “It was the greatest battleship of the war, larger than either the Germans’ Graf Spee or the Bismarck, yet little has ever been written about it.”
“Little has been written about the Yamamoto,” Harmon said, “because it didn’t do too much damage and its end was rather unglorious. As you well know,” she added.
“Yes, but I’m still interested in the topic,” Lake said.
“Well, we do have quite a bit of material from the Imperial Naval archives,” Harmon said. “It was gathered by U.S. Naval Intelligence at the end of the war and brought back to the Naval Air Station at Alameda. It sat there unopened for decades until I went over and started looking through it about eight years ago. I forwarded some of it to the National Archives. Some of it I brought here when they shut the air base down four years ago and were going to just destroy it. I took as much as I had room for.” She reached behind her and pulled a thick three-ring binder off a bookcase.
While she looked in it, Lake checked out the rest of the office. There were the usual diplomas on the wall behind her. He noted that several of the official papers were written in Japanese. There was a picture of Harmon standing alone with Mount Fuji in the hazy distance behind her. Another of a much younger Harmon with a man who appeared to be her own age at the time and an older woman taken in a park. The old woman was seated on a bench, Harmon and the other man behind her, a hand on each shoulder. The man was outfitted in a military dress uniform. A Marine. Lake noted that.
“I’m not sure if I hav
e anything specifically related to the destruction of the Yamamoto,’’ she added as she flipped open the binder. “But on the other hand, I haven’t been able to go through one-tenth of what I recovered from Alameda. This binder has the index for what I have gone through and filed.”
“Well,” Lake said, backtracking on his flimsy cover story, “the material I’m looking for doesn’t necessarily have to all deal with the Yamamoto. I’m also interested in any Japanese naval operations near what is now North Korea.”
Harmon paused in her reading. She closed the binder and rested her hands on top of it. “I don’t think you’re writing a book. I’ve written a couple of books myself and been published. One thing I know is that an author has to have a very clear idea of the theme of his work, especially when writing a historical work. I think you’re just fishing for some specific information which may or may not have anything to do with writing a book. If you would be more honest with me, perhaps I could help you better.”
If I was more honest, Lake thought, you might not help me at all. UC-Berkeley was not exactly the place of choice for a government agent to go looking for information. However, he didn’t feel that he should so easily place Dr. Harmon into an antigovernment position. After all, there was the picture of her with the Marine.
“Where do you keep your material?” Lake asked.
Harmon looked at him, her eyes boring into his for several long seconds. “You haven’t answered my question. This university pays my salary to teach and do research. It does not pay me to answer questions for any person who happens to walk into my office. Do you have any identification that you can show me, Mr. ‘It’s-just-a-name’ Lake? What do you do for a living?”
Lake slumped in the leather seat, feeling the back of his head touch the headrest. He’d been doing undercover work for a long time now and he’d assumed many different personas. He didn’t have the time to be very creative here, nor was he backstopped by the Ranch on any cover he might come up with that would make Harmon cooperate. He looked once more at the picture over her shoulder where she was with the Marine and decided to gamble. An old hand at the Ranch, teaching him covert operations, had told him that when in doubt, the truth always worked the best. Especially if the truth couldn’t be verified by the person you told it to. Then all they had was a story.
Lake steepled his fingers. “Okay. Here’s the situation. I’m actually an agent working for the government under deep cover. Last week I stopped some terrorists trying to release a biological agent to infect the city of San Francisco. Last night I followed some foreign agents to this campus and they broke into this building. They left carrying a box with some materials in it. The man carrying the box was killed—not by me, but by someone associated with the Black Ocean Society from Japan, which you might have heard of—and he dropped the box. The other men, North Koreans, escaped with the box, but I was able to retrieve a few documents they left behind.” Lake reached under his sweater and pulled out a few pages which he handed across the desk to Dr. Harmon.
Harmon didn’t look at the documents. She stared at Lake. “I’m supposed to believe that?”
“If you don’t believe that,” Lake replied, “then believe my story about writing a book. I can assure you one of them is true.”
“How come there weren’t a whole bunch of police here this morning? How come I haven’t heard of this man being killed?”
“Because they all used silencers and I took the body away,” Lake said. “Did you read in the paper or hear on the news about two men being killed on the Bay Bridge last night?”
Harmon nodded.
“Those two were Koreans. They tried stopping me from following them here.”
“You killed them?”
“One of them,” Lake answered. “The other was killed by this fellow from the Black Ocean.”
“This is unbelievable,” Harmon said, shaking her head. “I’ve seen more plausible stories than this on TV.”
Lake sat still, letting her make up her own mind.
“You don’t seem like you have the greatest sense of humor,” Harmon finally said. “I don’t know you well enough to know about your imagination.” She glanced at the documents. “These look like they’re from the records I’ve got here.” She tapped long fingernails on the paper. “What government agency?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Lake said. “But I can tell you it’s not the CIA, FBI, or associated with the military.”
“And why should I help you?” Harmon asked. She held a hand up. “And please don’t give me any patriotic speeches. I saw you looking at the picture. That’s my younger brother. He’s stationed in Okinawa and it was one of the saddest days in my life when he joined the Marine Corps, but he seems to like it and his life. But it’s not mine. So I ask you again: Why should I help you?”
“Because it’s interesting,” Lake said. “There’s a puzzle here and it involves material you have. I need to solve this puzzle and I think you would find it intriguing to help me solve it. It might be fun.”
“Fun?” A half-grin crossed Harmon’s face. “That’s the last reason I thought you’d give me.” The grin disappeared. “But if people have died, as you say, wouldn’t it also be dangerous?”
“They got what they wanted here,” Lake said. “There’s no danger to you.”
Part of the grin came back. “Okay, I’ll play along for a little bit, Mister Secret Agent Man. I’ve got nothing to lose and this will make a good story to tell at a party. What do you need to know?”
“Have you ever heard of the Black Ocean Society?” Lake asked.
“Yes, I’ve heard of the Black Ocean Society. Anyone who has made any in-depth study of Japanese history in this century has heard of it.” She put the documents down. “Now, why do you expect me to believe your story?”
Lake shrugged. “I don’t have expectations of other people because I don’t control them. I only have expectations of myself. I’ve told you the truth; what you choose to do with it is up to you.”
“Why would North Koreans break in here? What were they looking for?”
“I was hoping you could help me with that,” Lake said. “That’s what I’m here for. Perhaps if we went to where you keep these documents, we can find out what they took.”
Harmon stood. “Follow me.”
They didn’t have far to go. Lake was right behind her as she pointed at the other side of the small foyer. “This door doesn’t appear to have been broken open,” she commented.
“Excuse me,” Lake said. He pulled an ATM card out of his wallet and pushed it in between the door and the frame. Sliding it down he pushed the latch back and the door swung open.
“Point taken,” Harmon said.
She flipped a light switch and a set of metal stairs going down appeared. Her low-heeled shoes clattered on the metal as she went down. At the bottom, there was another door, this one with no lock. She pushed it open and turned on another switch. It lit fluorescent lights on a low ceiling.
Rows of metal racks rose from the pitted concrete floor to the ceiling. Cardboard boxes filled the shelves.
“We’re in the basement,” Harmon said. “This used to be the coal room. When they modernized the building about fifty years ago, this room was abandoned. I opened it up five years ago for storage. I’m sure I’m violating some fire code, but I have to make do with what is available.”
Lake looked around. “How would someone know this room existed? That records of the Japanese fleet would be kept here?”
“I’ve published quite a few articles on the subject,” Harmon said, “which was why I thought you were a legitimate researcher at first. Anyone who does any sort of checking would find out that I have access to all this. In the academic world we don’t hide our sources. By the way,” she added, “I would like to know which government agency you represent?”
“A multijurisdictional task force,” Lake answered. He looked down. He could see boot prints in the concrete, coal, and plaster dust on the floo
r. “The North Koreans made those last night.”
Harmon looked at the marks. “Which jurisdiction of the multi do you come from?” she pressed.
“You are insistent, aren’t you?” Lake replied.
“Please don’t answer my question with a question,” Harmon said. “When a student does that, I give them so much grief they never do it again. It’s the sign of a mind that refuses to make a commitment to an answer, be it right or wrong.”
Lake was following the footsteps in the dust. The Koreans had gone down every aisle. He was looking for an empty space on the shelves. Some of the boxes were labeled on the end with dates. He was passing 1943 at the present moment. “I am the multi,” he said. “I’m so multi, I don’t exist.”
“If you’re so supersecret,” Harmon said, “why did you tell me that you were an agent?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Lake replied. “You have a name”—he smiled—”just a name, and you know my face. That and fifty cents gets you a cup of coffee.”
“You told me what happened and what is going on with the Koreans,” Harmon said. “You also told me that you killed someone last night. Isn’t that supposed to be secret, too?”
Lake paused where several booted feet had paused. He had just walked past several dozen feet of 1944. “Hell, Dr. Harmon, I don’t know what’s going on, so I have no problem telling you. You figure it out or you tell someone who can figure it out, more power to you. Of course by then it will all be too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“I don’t know,” Lake said, “but I suspect my North Korean friends will be setting sail for home this evening. If I don’t find out why they were here before then, there’s not much I can do about it.” He pointed. “Was this the way you left it?”
A dozen boxes had their tops ripped off, loose papers were scattered on shelves.
“No.”