“We weren’t supposed to meet until tomorrow night,” Lake replied.
“You have the guns?”
“I have them.”
The leader gestured and the man at his side came forward and opened the rucksack, checking the weapons and ammunition.
“The money?” Lake asked.
The man was breaking down one of the weapons, his hands moving expertly over the metal pieces despite the lack of light. Jonas was right; these men had the look of professional soldiers. “It is functional,” the man called out to his leader in Han Gul, the language of the Korean peninsula. Lake assumed that the Koreans didn’t know he understood their language and he wanted to keep it that way until he was forced to disclose his knowledge.
“The money?” Lake repeated.
“You will be paid,” the leader said. “Kill him,” he called out in Han Gul to his men. Lake’s language ability had remained secret for all of ten seconds.
The man with the Ingrams near Lake was sliding a magazine into one of the weapons. Lake had always considered it a fundamentally unsound business practice in the arms trade to be killed by your own merchandise. He turn-kicked toward the man with the MAC-10 only to have the man sidestep the strike, grab his leg, and twist, dumping Lake on his back. The Korean unfolded the stock of the MAC10, put it into his shoulder and aimed down at Lake.
Sparks flew off the concrete floor near the Korean and Lake could feel the presence of bullets flying by, although he heard no sound of firing. He rolled and looked up, spotting the muzzle flash of a weapon being fired high up on the south wall. The Korean who had been about to shoot Lake rolled right, out of the way of the unexpected firing, grabbing the duffel bag with the other weapons and getting under the cover of one of the large cannons.
Lake didn’t stop to savor his reprieve. He scuttled on his back, the concrete ripping through his shirt, getting behind the cover of a large pyramid of cannonballs. At least covered from the Koreans, Lake realized as soon as he was there. Whoever the gunman on the wall was had a perfect shot at him, but whoever it was had had a perfect shot at him earlier and hadn’t taken advantage of it.
The Korean let loose a sustained burst of fire up at the wall, but the man was firing blindly, not sure where his target was. The gun battle was eerie, played out in almost total silence, only the flaming strobe of the muzzle flashes and the sparks of rounds ricocheting giving any hint as to what was happening.
Lake drew his pistol and waited, peering around the cannonballs. The Korean leader had joined the gunman. While one provided cover, the other ran with the duffel bag toward the archway where the other two waited. Lake got a perfect sight picture on the back of the running man and his finger began to bear down when he halted. He remembered what had happened on the bridge. He relieved the pressure on the trigger and watched as the man made it to the safety of the entrance arch. The three men there then provided cover as the leader joined them. Whoever was on the wall had not fired again since the initial bursts. Lake assumed that the gunman was gone.
Silence reigned and Lake did nothing to break it. He gave the Koreans plenty of time to escape, then stood. He didn’t hear any sirens. Time to be going. Lake cautiously made his way to the entryway and slipped through. He chose the quickest way across the parking lot to his truck. Throwing it in gear he got away from the fort as quickly as possible.
Nishin watched the weapons dealer leave. When Nishin had seen that the man carried Ingram MAC-lOs, he’d known that this meeting was not what he was after. He would have let the North Koreans kill the man except for the fact that it would have drawn unwanted attention from the American authorities. The Koreans were so obtuse at covert operations that they didn’t understand the consequences of such actions. Nishin knew they would just assume his firing to be part of the man’s backup, so he had not tipped his hand there.
What Nishin wanted to know was what did the Koreans need weapons for? What did they have planned next? To find that out, he would have to go back to his perch near the dock. Nishin faded away to the southeast.
Which left only one man in the area. The last watcher wasn’t worried about where the Koreans went because he knew that Nishin would stay with them and he had the computer which would tell him where Nishin was.
The weapons dealer didn’t concern him either. Guns were a part of the American culture and this man was of no concern. The last watcher had the same questions as Nishin. He packed up his night-scope and went back to his van.
“Weapons?”
“Yes, Genoysha,” Nakanga said. “That is what they Wanted.”
Kuzumi sighed. Still no idea what the Koreans were up to. “Anything else?”
“No, Genoysha.”
Kuzumi turned his wheelchair away from the desk. He heard the pad of Nakanga’s feet across the wooden floor, then the door shutting. He pressed up against the eye scanner and opened the file cabinet. Again he pulled up the wooden box. He turned back to the desk, putting the box on top. He opened the cover and took the picture out. He carefully unfolded the paper and leaned it against one of the phones, angled so he could see it.
He had looked at the picture every day for eight years in the same manner. Except then it was leaned up against the pitted concrete wall of his cell. When they came for him each day, he would fold it and put it back in the breast pocket of his prison shirt.
Other than the clothes he wore, it had been the only personal thing he had with him when he’d flown out of Hungnam on the third of August in 1945. By orders he had had to leave everything else in the assembly cave.
Kuzumi rubbed his left temple as he remembered the crowded cargo airplane. There were no seats and all the senior scientists who had worked on Genzai Bakudan were seated on the bare metal floor of the converted bomber. They were heading back to Japan, but not directly. They knew the Russians would be waiting in the Sea of Japan and there wasn’t enough fuel anyway to make the hop directly. So they flew north, along the coast of the Korean peninsula. They would refuel at an air force base in Manchuria, then make the shorter hop across the sea there to the northern island of Hokkaido and the home of the Black Ocean.
They were excited, staring out the windows, back toward Hungnam. The flash of the bomb going off had come on the horizon less than twenty minutes after they’d departed. They’d celebrated, slapping each other on the back. It worked! There was hope that all could be changed!
An hour later the pilots climbed over land again, crossing the mountains on the shore and then quickly dipping down toward the airfield. They were just about on the ground before anyone realized something was wrong. The large white pieces of cloth scattered around were parachutes. A machine gun at the end of the runway opened fire. Planes with the red star descended out of the clouds like wolves after a rabbit.
Kuzumi could see Russian paratroopers firing their rifles at the plane as the pilot desperately tried to pull up. A stream of bullets tore through the fuselage and men screamed as the large-caliber bullets found flesh. The plane tipped over and slammed into the ground.
Kuzumi woke up in agony, pain spiking through his back. He was in the back half of the plane, he could tell that, but there was no front half. Daylight streamed in. He could hear voices yelling in Russian. He reached down his side and with difficulty flipped open the holster holding his Model 94 pistol. For some reason he was having great trouble moving his arms. He pulled the pistol up and put the muzzle to the side of his head as he saw a Russian officer climb into the wreckage. Kuzumi pulled the trigger.