The men moved to the end of the pier and turned to the east, following the waterfront. Lake started the engine and began following at a considerable distance; his direction finder told him that one of the men was carrying the MAC10 with a bug in it, so he didn’t have to keep them constantly in sight.
In the crane control room, Nishin also waited until the men were out of sight, then he carefully climbed down. He had spotted the Bronco II when it had pulled in. He now regretted his decision of the previous evening to save the gun dealer; the man was turning out to be a nuisance. Nishin assumed he wanted his money, although how he had found the North Koreans’ ship concerned Nishin.
Nishin slid into the darker shadows and followed the band of Koreans. He watched as they broke into the first two cars they found parked and hot-wired them. As they drove off, Nishin quickly broke into another car around the corner and did the same.
Not very subtle, Lake thought as he watched the Koreans steal an old model Ford LTD and a newer Camaro. They’d simply broken the glass on the driver’s side, unlocked the doors, and climbed in. They at least had the expertise to smash open the steering column and get the engines started.
He followed the two-car convoy southeast along Columbus Avenue. He noticed a black pickup following farther back and made a note to keep an eye on it. What he did not notice, because it was out of sight, was the white van four blocks back, following the entire procession.
Directly ahead, Lake could see the bulk of the Trans america Pyramid filling the night sky. Columbus Avenue ended at the base of the pyramid and the Koreans turned to the half-right, going down Montgomery Street. The black pickup was still following.
“One big happy family,” Lake muttered.
The procession continued until they were on 1-80, heading for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The toll was only for westbound vehicles and traffic this time of evening was relatively light. Glancing in his rearview mirror, Lake could tell that the black pickup was holding its position. The two stolen cars were ahead in the far-right lane and scrupulously staying at the speed limit. They were on the lower level of the bridge, along with all the other eastbound traffic.
Lake didn’t like his position between the Koreans and whoever was trailing. He was too close to the Koreans, and there was a good chance they would detect his presence.
He didn’t want to take a chance, though, and go behind the pickup, since he didn’t know who was at the wheel of that vehicle. For all he knew there were other Koreans in it.
They approached Yerba Buena Island, the midpoint for the four-and-a-half-mile bridge complex. If the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t so near, the Bay Bridge would perhaps be better known to those outside of the San Francisco area. Finished within a few months of its more famous sister in 1936, it had two levels, with westbound traffic on the top five lanes and eastbound on the bottom five. A quarter million cars a day crossed the bridge, and its partial collapse in the 1994 earthquake had caused massive commuter problems for the Bay area.
The bridge actually consisted of two major sections. The western, which Lake was coming to the end of, consisted of two suspension bridges, attached in the middle by a central concrete anchorage which was sunk deep into the center of the bay. The eastern part of this section touched land at Yerba Buena Island, bore through a tunnel in the island, then hit the other section of the Bay Bridge, which was a cantilever bridge built on over twenty piers leading into Oakland.
Lake passed under the last tower of the western suspension section. He was a hundred feet behind the Camaro, which was right on the bumper of the LTD. Both cars slipped into the mouth of the tunnel and Lake kept his distance. He glanced in his rearview mirror; the pickup was also keeping its place.
As Lake returned his attention to the front, he automatically pulled his foot off the gas pedal. The brake lights on the Camaro were bright red in the tunnel ahead. Lake heard the squeal of rubber as the Camaro spun about. A car in the other lane narrowly avoided collision, swerving out of the way. Lake slammed his foot on the brake as the headlights of the Camaro fixed on his windshield.
He halted but the other car didn’t. The front bumper of the Camaro smashed into the left-front grill of the Bronco II, jolting Lake forward against his seat belt, then his head snapping back, bouncing against the headrest. The Camaro pinned the Bronco against the wall of the tunnel, the right front side of the truck hitting concrete.
Two men jumped out of the Camaro, MAC-10s at the ready. Lake ducked before they fired, the bullets shattering the windshield above him, showering him with broken glass.
He unbuckled his seat belt and slithered between the front seats into the back where the backseat was down. Bullets continued to stream by over his head. He added a few rounds of his own with the Hush Puppy, shooting out the large window in the right corner of the cargo bay.
Lake gathered himself and dove out through the opening he had just created. He bounced off the right wall of the tunnel, grunting as he felt pain jar through his shoulder. Hitting the pavement, he rolled, pistol at the ready, peering underneath his Bronco. He could see the legs of the Korean on the near side of the Camaro. He fired twice, both rounds hitting the man in the ankle, tearing his leg out from under him. Lake fired again at the prone figure, this time a head shot, killing the stunned man instantly. All of four seconds had elapsed since the accident and the only noise had been that of the collision and the bullets shattering glass.
Now, there was the sound of another car coming to a hurried halt and Lake took a chance, popping his head up over the side of the cargo bay he had just come out of to see what the tactical situation was. He expected the LTD to be there, disgorging more gunmen, but was surprised instead to see the black pickup twenty feet away and a man leaning out the passenger side, a silenced Steyr automatic rifle in his hands. The man hosed down the second Korean, blowing blood and guts all over the right side of the Camaro. Lake froze an image of the man in his memory: Asian, more Japanese features than Korean, short and thin, and from the way he handled the gun, a professional at the job of killing.
Lake’s visual inventory was brought to an abrupt halt as the man turned the smoking barrel of the Steyr in his direction. For the second time Lake dove for cover as bullets tore chips out of the concrete above his head. Lake fired underneath, but the man was inside the pickup and all Lake could shoot at was the tires.
The firing suddenly ceased and Lake heard a vehicle accelerate away. He carefully edged his head around the rear of the Bronco. The pickup was gone. Two smashed vehicles and two dead bodies. He watched the pickup disappear down the tunnel to the east.
“Fuck,” Lake said, standing up and dusting off broken glass from his clothes. There was a bottleneck of frightened motorists in their cars to the west but no sign of police yet. Lake reached into the front of the Bronco and pulled out his homing device. There was nothing else in the truck that could identify him.
Lake brought the muzzle of his weapon up as a white van wove its way through the halted cars and raced up to him. He had a perfect sight picture on the driver who leaned over and threw open the passenger door. “Get in!” the man yelled.
Another Japanese, Lake noted, keeping his weapon steady. He heard sirens in the distance.
“Get in!” the man repeated. The sirens were getting closer.
Lake hopped in, keeping his weapon trained on the driver. The man took off, heading west. They passed through the tunnel and out into the night air on the other side of Yerba Buena Island, onto the eastern section of the bridge.
“I don’t see them,” the driver said, peering ahead.