by Bob Mayer
Feliks paused, as if thinking of how to say what he was telling them. He shrugged. “So we struck a deal. We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, you assured us Genzai Bakudan would not be detonated.”
“What kind of deal was that?” Nira demanded, her shock representative of what Kuzumi and Lake felt.
“It was a deal that saved Japan from being leveled,” Feliks shot back angrily. “Do you know what would have happened if that thing”—he pointed at the jetty—“had gone off? Yeah, you would have taken out the Golden Gate Bridge and then what? You didn’t have any more and we knew that. You think the United States would have said, Gee, we’re sorry after five years of war and let’s have a truce? Didn’t you see how we reacted to Pearl Harbor? If you had detonated Genzai Bakudan, it would have been genocide. There wouldn’t be a Japan today. There’d be just a bunch of lifeless lumps of land in its place.”
“And Nagasaki?” Kuzumi asked. “Was that part of the deal too?”
“That was your problem. The Emperor still couldn’t get the military hotheads under control. So we helped him convince them.”
“That is why the frequency this was set on,” Nira said, “was the wrong one.”
“Correct,” Feliks said. “Taiyo kept that frequency as the final control over Genzai Bakudan.”
“And why they tried to kill me and get the detonator back,” she added, almost to herself.
“Right.”
“All these years,” Nira said. She looked at Kuzumi. “You knew none of this?”
Kuzumi shook his head. “I was in Russia. When I returned I was told that the 1-24 which carried Genzai Baku dan had been scuttled at sea and you were dead.”
Nishin spoke for the first time. “The detonator in the submarine was on the wrong frequency, too. Hatari thought he was betrayed.”
Kuzumi spread his hands. “I did not know.”
“But you did,” Nira said, staring at Feliks. She raised her empty hand and pointed at Feliks.
“It was necessary,” Feliks said. “It was the right…” He never finished the sentence as a black hole suddenly appeared in the center of his forehead. The back of his skull exploded out and the body flipped back onto the gravel. The two Ranch guards were also shot, their bodies crumpling under the impact of several rounds each.
“It was treachery all around,” Nira said. “There was no honor in it.” She reached out the same hand that had signaled Feliks’s death to Kuzumi and took his hand. “I am sorry that we have lost all these years.”
At the jetty Lake glanced at Nishin. Lake walked forward to Nira and Kuzumi. “What now?”
Nira’s face still held some of the beauty it had once glowed with. She smiled and handed Lake the detonator. “It is all yours. Peggy told me that you were a man that could be trusted. Do what you will with the bomb. Sink it at sea like it should have been long ago.” She turned to Kuzumi. “We must leave. It will be dawn soon and people will be coming.”
Kuzumi nodded. “Come with me?” he asked her.
Nira tapped her daughter on the shoulder. “Take the men back. I will get in contact with you later.” She took Nakanga’s place and pushed the wheelchair toward the tilt-jet, whose engines were starting up.
“Come with us, Nishin,” Kuzumi called out.
Nishin had walked forward with Lake. The Japanese looked at Lake and shrugged. “It is all I know,” he said.
Lake simply nodded. Nishin followed the couple, in step with Nakanga.
Lake looked at Harmon. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a tape recorder. “You might want Feliks’s words. They might help you get reinstated.”
Lake took the tape recorder. “You should have told me the truth. I told you the truth about me.”
“My mother and I didn’t know the truth,” Harmon said. “We had to find it out.”
“So you lied to get to the truth?” Lake shook his head. “All of this,” he added, gesturing at the tilt-jet taking off, Feliks’s body, the Yakuza tug, the Coast Guard helicopter that was also taking off. “All of it happened because of lies.”
“What are you going to do?” Harmon asked.
Lake felt very tired. “The first tourist boat will be out here shortly. Maybe Feliks’s men are coming. The Coast Guard pilot probably has called the police by now.
“I’m going to wait,” Lake said. “I’m going to give the bomb to the park police. And I’m going to give them the tape.”
“You’re going to cause a lot of trouble if you do that,” Harmon said.
“All this happened because no one wanted the trouble the truth would cause. Seems like the lies don’t do much better than the truth.”
“And you?” she added in a different tone of voice.
“And I’m going away,” Lake said. He met her eyes for a long minute, then turned and walked away toward the tied-up SDV. Harmon stood still, then quickly walked toward the tub, her men following her.
Soon there was no one but Lake left alive on the island. He strolled over to Feliks’s body and reached into his jacket. He pulled out the old OSS cigarette case.
When the first police boat reached the island, Lake was on his second smoke.
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