The Gate bo-1

by Bob Mayer

  That had been the first time Lake had ever killed or used a Hush Puppy. Kneeling in the dark, feeling Rick’s hulking presence at his side, the older man whispering out a three count and both firing at the same time. The two guards crumpling to the ground, their brains splattered against the cinder-block wall behind them. There was no time then to think or feel about it. That would come later, and by the time later came there was much more to think and feel about.

  “We went into the building fast. It was one story, only three rooms. The target was sleeping in the back room.” Lake’s voice, had gone flat. He was reciting it just as he had in the debriefing. “He was just sitting up when we kicked open the door to his room. We both fired and killed him. We immediately left the building.

  “Everything had gone exactly as planned up to that point. Then it went to shit. The hole in the fence must have been found. We had tied it back together with fishing line so it wouldn’t be so obvious, but one of the sentries must have spotted it. Then they had followed our trail to the cache site. There were six men standing right where we’d left the rebreathers. They weren’t exactly expecting us to come up. They were too excited over finding the gear. We weren’t expecting them to be standing there. It was one big jug-fuck.” Lake shook his head. “We came tearing down this ravine and there were these guys. Rick just started shooting and I followed suit. They fired back and it was like World War III. We hit four of them and the other two went to earth right on top of our gear. We heard other guards yelling in the distance and these two guys were guiding them in.

  “Rick grabbed me. He yelled in my ear for us to forget the gear and head for the beach. So we did a left-face, scrambled up the slope of the ravine, and then made our way shoreward in the next ravine. The guys back at the cache site were still shooting; we could see their tracers flying through the sky.

  “We came to the fence, except not at the point where we had cut the hole. That was about two hundred meters farther up the beach and we could see flashlights up there. So we used our wire cutters and went to work where we were. But by that time the sentries were out in force. A squad came up the fence from the south and spotted us. They opened fire and hit Rick in the initial burst. He went down. I fired over his body and made the bad guys take cover.”

  Lake finally paused in his story and looked at Harmon. She was perfectly still, as if any movement on her part might derail his memories, but he was into it now. He felt the gun in his hand, jerking from the recoil as he fired at muzzle flashes. Rick lying at his feet, the sound of surf pounding, the crack of bullets flying by. If there had been any other expression on her face, any movement on her part, he knew he couldn’t go on. But there was something about her that drew him in and the story out.

  “Rick was alive. I grabbed him and pulled him away from the fence, then I used a satchel charge to blow it. No more time for niceties. I just pulled the activating cord and threw it at the fence. It blew and there was a gap. I grabbed Rick and threw him over my shoulders.”

  Lake didn’t add that Rick demanded that Lake leave him. That the older man had insisted that he be left behind to cover Lake’s withdrawal. That he knew his wounds were too severe to make it back to the sub. For the first time since he had joined his SEAL team, Lake had ignored his senior NCO.

  “I ran across the beach.” Lake shrugged. “I don’t know why I wasn’t hit. I wasn’t exactly setting a world record in the fifty-yard dash with Rick on my shoulders. I hit the water still running. When I was waist-deep I realized I was in a little bit of a predicament hauling Rick. I quickly took the safety lines from around my waist and hooked it into his, but I couldn’t swim like that. So I looped it around my neck.”

  Lake touched his scars. “I finned with my legs and pulled with my arms as hard as possible to get out of range from the shore. By then the rope had dug in to my skin so far I couldn’t get it out so I just kept it there. I swam for six hours to get to the rendezvous site.. My biggest concern was that the blood from Rick’s wounds and my neck would attract sharks.”

  He didn’t add in the agony of the rope ripping into the flesh and then the salt water washing over it with each stroke. The rope buried into the torn and swollen flesh, sliding back and forth just a little bit each time. The shifting from swimming on his back to his stomach then back again to use different muscles, each move tearing new flesh around his neck.

  “The sub was at the rendezvous spot even though we were late. They surfaced and pulled us in.” Lake let out a deep breath. “Rick was dead.”

  When Lake didn’t say any more for a minute, Harmon finally spoke. “I’m sorry.”

  “I kind of knew he was dead shortly after leaving the beach,” Lake said. “He was too hard core of an old cuss to just be towed along like I was doing. I didn’t ever stop to check, though.”

  “But…” Harmon’s voice trailed off.

  “But why. didn’t I leave him if he was dead?” Lake asked.

  Harmon nodded. “He must have slowed you down. What if the submarine had not waited and left your pickup point?”

  “I couldn’t abandon him dead or alive,” Lake said flatly. He pointed at the box on the desk. “Enough chitchat. Let’s get back to work.”

  “I had to know,” Harmon said. She stood and walked behind him. Her hands reached up and she lightly touched his neck, her long fingers tracing the knotted flesh.

  “Know what?” Lake was caught off guard, still feeling the resonating effects of telling her what had happened so many years ago and the unexpected pressure of her hands.

  “Know who you were. Are,” she amended.

  “Why?”

  “Always the questions,” she said with a low laugh. She withdrew her hands and walked back around the desk and tapped the paper in front of her. “So I could decide if I should tell you what Cyclone and Forest stood for.”

  Lake slowly sat down and waited.

  “I have an earlier Japanese message,” Harmon continued. “It tracks the American Task Force 54 in January and February of 1945. IF 54 had six battleships, five cruisers, and sixteen destroyers in it, so the Japanese were very concerned as to its whereabouts. In the. beginning of 1945 it was at both Cyclone and Forest, according to these decoded messages sent out to the Japanese fleet commanders. Since / know from history where Task Force 54 sailed to and from in those days, I know what Cyclone and Forest stand for.”

  Lake continued to wait. The mood in the basement had changed. It was growing colder and darker.

  “Cyclone is Ulithi, as we guessed. Task Force 54 sailed from there to conduct a preliminary bombardment of Iwo Jima between the sixteenth and eighteenth of February. The battleship Tennessee was damaged in the action.”

  Lake’s mind was racing one lap ahead. “So Forest is Iwo Jima!”

  Harmon doused that with one word. “No.” She was looking down at the piece of paper in front of her.

  “Well?” Lake finally insisted.

  -“Task Force 54 sailed from Forest before arriving at Cyclone or Ulithi. Forest is the Japanese navy code word for San Francisco.”

  SAPPORO, HOKKAIDO, JAPAN

  WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 1997

  3:20 A.M. LOCAL

  San Francisco. Kuzumi was not surprised at the piece of paper Nakanga had carried in from the intelligence section. It had not taken them long to go back and dig up the code words.

  It made sense. San Francisco was the most important port on the American west coast. Most of the war supplies and ships that were thrown into the war against Japan flowed out of the Golden Gate in 1945. But there were other very important factors to be considered when looking at that city.

  San Francisco from April through June of 1945 had been host to the inaugural meeting of the United Nations. If Japan wanted to strike back at the world that was bearing down on the Empire, there was no more symbolic target than San Francisco. Even by late August there still were representatives from almost every country other than the Axis powers present in San Francisco working under the f
ledgling auspices of the UN to develop a new world order.

  Nira had to have known. That was the first thought that popped into Kuzumi’s head. Was that why she killed herself? When the mission failed, as it obviously did? With her husband declared dead, her child killed in the blast at Hiroshima, and the final mission of the Genzai Bakudan a failure, had she finally given up? Kuzumi thought about it for a few moments and decided it was most likely what had happened. It was what he would have done. He silently mouthed a prayer to the Sun Goddess for his dead lover and his dead son.

  And why had Genzai Bakudan failed? Even though he now knew I-24’s final destination, he still didn’t know where I-24’s journey to that final destination had been interrupted Where did the ship and the bomb rest? Kuzumi could still see the second bomb as clearly as if it were yesterday.

  Unlike the American bombs, the Genzai Bakudan had been rectangular shaped. Having decided that they could never make one light enough and small enough to be carried by an airplane, the engineers under Kuzumi’s direction had seen no need to develop it with a traditional bomb shape. The rectangle had worked best. It had been over eight feet long by five on each side. They had waterproofed the second one and set it for remote detonation using a radio controller on a specific frequency and amplitude. It had weighed in at over eight thousand pounds when completed.

  They had packed enough batteries around the detonator that— Kuzumi stiffened in his chair. They had packed enough batteries that if the submarine was resting on the ocean floor in cold water, there still might be enough juice left for the detonator to fire.

  But could it still work after all these years? Would the uranium have decayed past the functional point? Would the metal case have sprung a leak? His scientific training answered each question as it came up. Kuzumi knew the bomb would still be functional unless-He thought about the journey the ship had taken. Most likely the bomb would be sitting in such deep water that the entire casing had been crushed by water pressure. The Pacific was the deepest ocean in the world, and if the journey had been interrupted anywhere between Hungnam and San Francisco it would be lost forever. That is what he had been told had happened to the 1-24.

  Yes, Kuzumi decided, the Koreans were fishing and their quarry was buried beyond the current capability of any present technology to recover even if it was found.

  But then why did he feel so uneasy?

  CHAPTER 11

  SAN FRANCISCO

  WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 1997

  11:30 A.M. LOCAL

  “So where’s 1-24 now?” Harmon asked. They were in her office, having departed the dark basement after finding what they were looking for and putting everything back in place.

  The audacity of the Japanese plan was still sinking into Lake’s mind. “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “It must have gone down between Hungnam and here,” Harmon said. “I guess we’ll never know what happened to it. One of those mysteries of history.”

  “What makes you so sure it went down, Doctor?” Lake asked.

  “Call me Peggy,” she said. “I think we know each other well enough to dispense with the formality, although you weren’t exactly formal or informal when you came in here with your name.”

  Lake nodded. “All right, Peggy. What makes you so sure it went down?”

  “Well, no one reported it captured,” Harmon said. “I think we would have heard if a Japanese sub had been captured with a nuclear weapon on board.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” Lake said. “Bigger things than that have been covered up.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s stay with the problem we have,” Lake said. “I think an atomic bomb is big enough for us to deal with right now. I think it is possible that the sub was captured. The last message-was dated what, the tenth of August, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So when did the war end?”

  “VJ Day was celebrated on the fifteenth of August. That’s when Emperor Hirohito made his broadcast saying that the Japanese people must bear the unbearable.”

  “Okay.” Lake walked to the world map tacked to the wall on the side of the room. “Do you have a calculator?”

  Harmon handed one over.

  “The 1-24 departed Hungnam around the third of August according to those messages, heading for Ulithi.” He started punching into the calculator. “They would have to sail south down to the east China Sea. Then they get a message diverting them from Ulithi to San Francisco. Start heading due east at flank speed.

  “Let me think. A World War II sub; say ten knots surfaced, about the same on batteries submerged. Distance”-his fingers were flying over the keys—“we’re talking over six thousand miles. Let’s say six thousand, five hundred miles from Hungnam to San Francisco. On the tenth they would have been …” He grabbed a pen and started writing. “Sixty-five hundred miles is about fifty-six hundred nautical miles. Moving at ten knots, you make two hundred and forty nautical miles every twenty-four hours. On the tenth they were sixteen hundred nautical miles out. About here.” He tapped the map. “On a line between Guam and Iwo Jima and on course for Ulithi.

  “So they get the third message and change course slightly and head due east. On the fifteenth they are another twelve hundred miles east, near Wake Island. Still twenty eight hundred nautical miles from San Fran. Another eleven or twelve days of sailing ahead. They would have reached here about the first or second of September.”

  “The peace was signed on board the Missouri on the second of September,” Harmon noted.

  “So I think it’s very likely that the 1-24 surfaced and surrendered to Allied forces somewhere around Wake Island in the middle of August.”

  Harmon shook her head. “They would never have surrendered.”

  “Okay, then, they committed hara-kiri, or whatever it’s called, and dove to the bottom of the Pacific when they found out the war was over and they’d lost,” Lake said.

  “That’s much more likely than surrender, especially considering the cargo they were carrying,” Harmon said.

  “Well, at least we know it didn’t make it here,” Lake said.

  “How do you know that?”

  “There was no big boom in San Francisco Harbor in 1945 last I studied my history.”

  “Maybe it didn’t work,” Harmon said. “Maybe it’s at the bottom of the harbor.”

  “The one in Hungnam worked. At least that’s the information you showed me,” Lake said. “I would assume this one would have worked. Thus it never made it here.” Lake pointed at the file folder that had contained the original messages to 1-24 that was sitting on her desk. “You say there are no further messages to 1-24 after they were ordered to divert to Forest, which we now know is San Francisco?”

  “I didn’t find any.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

  Harmon shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, don’t you think someone high in the Japanese command would have realized that they had a sub with a nuke on board heading to blow the crap out of San Francisco while they’re in the middle of suing for peace? Don’t you think someone would have said, well, whoa, wait a second, let’s call that bad boy back?”

  “I do think that would be logical,” Harmon said. She tapped the folder. “But there’s no further message to the 1-24.”

  “Very odd,” Lake said. “The submarine most likely was operating under radio listening silence, but that only means they wouldn’t transmit. They would have still been able to receive messages at night when they ran on the surface recharging their batteries.”

  Lake felt his pocket buzz. He wished they had stayed in the basement. Feliks was the last person he wanted to talk to right now. He pulled his portable out and flipped it open. “Lake.”

  He recognized the voice on the other end immediately. “Araki here. I have been trying to get a hold of you for the past hour. Why do you not answer your phone?”

  “I was underground,” Lake said
.

  “Underground?”

  “Why were you trying to get a hold of me?” Lake asked.

  “It is not over. I have received some information from my headquarters,” Araki said. “They intercepted a message from Pyongyang to another North Korean trawler already at sea. It is a spy ship just like the Am Nok Sung.”

  “And?” “The message ordered the ship to immediately proceed ‘to San Francisco.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to find out what happened to the Am Nok Sung,” Lake said.

  “Maybe. But the message also told them to conduct a search for radioactive material. Now, why would they do that?” Araki asked.

  Because they know where Forest is, Lake realized. He didn’t know how they had found out, but he knew they had. And they were going to follow the path the 1-24 had taken.

  “Can your people keep tabs on that trawler?”

  “Yes. It is well east of Hawaii, so it will not take them long to get here. Perhaps two days, maybe even less, since we don’t have an exact fix on it yet. I suppose you are not going to tell me why they are heading this way right now, are you?” Araki asked.

  “Not right now. Meet me here on the campus at three. I’ll explain then.” That would give Lake time to figure out what he was going to do and how much to say. “I will see you at three, then?” Araki repeated.

  “Yes.” Lake closed the phone.

  “Nothing, right?” Harmon asked with a slight grin.

  “No, actually it was something,” Lake said. He explained that another North Korean trawler was headed this way, with orders to search for radioactive material.

  “So the Koreans must know about where 1-24 was supposed to go,” Harmon said when he was done. “Maybe they’re taking a shot in the dark that the 1-24 made it close to San Francisco.”

  She poured them both another cup of coffee. “Again, I don’t think the 1-24 surrendered,” she said. “It would have been against the nature of the crew and officers. No matter what you say, I think we would have heard something if a Japanese submarine carrying an atomic weapon had been captured at the end of the war.”