“And you are?” Lake asked.
The driver’s attention remained focused ahead. He appeared to be young, somewhere in his mid-twenties by Lake’s best guess. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and a very nice dark gray suit. Lake pressed the barrel of his pistol into the side of that suit and repeated his question. “Who are you?”
“Yariyasu Araki,” the man replied.
Lake spared a glance out the windshield. There was indeed no sign of either the pickup or the LTD. “And you are with?” Lake asked.
“Japanese CPI,” the man said. “I assume you are with a United States government agency,” he added.
“Why do you assume that?” Lake asked. He knew what CPI was: a secret arm of the Japanese government, the Central Political Intelligence, a cousin to the Ranch, formed after the Tokyo gas attacks a few years back. Its mission was to keep track of Japan’s fringe groups. The covert world was a small one, and despite all the secrecy the various agencies had an idea of each other’s existence on a level unknown even to their own governments.
“I intercepted your recent satellite communication phone conversation with what appeared to be your boss,” Araki said.
Lake was impressed. The Ranch’s equipment was topnotch and the satellite phone was supposed to be totally secure.
“Also, you were following the Koreans,” Araki continued.
Lake wasn’t sure whether to take Araki for what he claimed, but since Lake had the gun in the man’s side, he wasn’t overly concerned at the present moment about the veracity of the other man’s claim. With his right hand, Lake flipped open the cover on his direction finder and turned it on.
Araki glanced over as they descended into Oakland. “You have a fix on them?”
Lake nodded. “They’re northeast,” Nishifl stayed with 1-80 as it turned to the north and ran along the bay.
“Coming up on due east,” Lake reported.
Nishin took the University Avenue exit and, first chance he had, pulled into a parking lot. “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing at the gun which Lake still had poking into his side.
“Actually, I do mind,” Lake replied, keeping it in place. “I have no proof you are who you say you are and I just had two different groups of people shoot at me for no reason that I know of. So forgive me if I’m not exactly in the most friendly mood.”
“I understand your concerns about my identity,” Araki said. His English was precise and each word was enunciated clearly. “But you must know that I do not carry an identification card. I am working in your country on a mission of deep concern to my own country.”
“Pretty weak,” Lake said, checking the direction finder. The small dot indicating the Koreans had stopped a few miles to the east. “Unfortunately, I really don’t have the time to have a deep discussion with you about all this. There’s some people I have to catch up with.”
Araki nodded. “The North Koreans.”
“They’re from the North?” Lake wasn’t too surprised. “What are they doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Araki replied.
“Why are you following them, then?”
“I am not following them,” Araki said. “I am following a man who is following them.”
“The Japanese guy with the Steyr AUG,” Lake said.
“Correct.”
“And who is he?”
“That is my concern,” Araki said.
“He tried blowing my head off back there in the tunnel,” Lake said. “That makes it my concern. Also, bud, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re in America now. I could have your ass thrown in jail.”
“As you threw me in jail, would you also admit to selling the Koreans those weapons last night?” Araki asked in a level voice.
Lake pushed the barrel harder into Araki’s side, evoking a surprised grunt of pain. “Don’t fuck with me, son. I could also just make you disappear.”
“I imagine you could,” Araki said. Lake could see him swallow, trying to control his fear. The man was doing a reasonably good job of remaining calm, but Lake sensed that Araki wasn’t a seasoned agent. He didn’t have the hard edge that men in the world of covert operations gained after only a few years in the field — if they survived that long. Of course, he could also be better than most and a good actor. That made Lake wonder exactly what Araki’s role here was.
“We need each other,” Araki said. “Why do I need you?” Lake said, checking the direction finder one more time. The dot was still stationary.
“I want the Japanese man,” Araki said. “You want the Koreans. But I do not think you know what the Koreans are up to. I do not know what Nishin — that is his name — is up to, other than the fact he is following the Koreans also. There are many unanswered questions. Two minds can answer them better than one. I have access to my agency’s resources, which are quite extensive. Remember, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Lake snorted. “You sound like fucking Confucius.”
“Confucius was Chinese,” Araki began. “I am—”
“Yes, Confucius was Chinese,” Lake interrupted. “Confucius, originally known as Kung Chill, born 551 B.C.” died 479.” He removed the gun from Araki’s side and holstered it. “Personal virtue, devotion to family, most especially one’s ancestors, and to justice — all are tenets of his teachings.” Lake tapped the direction finder. “In the interests of justice, let’s track these little shitheads down.”
Araki was staring at Lake. He turned the key, restarting the engine. “Yes. Let us go.”
They drove up University Avenue. The dot on Lake’s screen remained stationary. “I’d say they are about three or four miles, dead ahead,” Lake said.
At the university, Nishin watched as the four remaining Koreans parked the LTD. His own lights were off and he’d kept a more discreet distance behind ever since the gunfight in the tunnel. Obviously the Koreans had spotted the American gun dealer and in their usual abrupt manner had decided to stop him from following them. Nishin was disappointed that he had not been able to kill the American, but at least there were two less of the enemy to deal with. More importantly, whatever the North Koreans were after now must be the key to their mission, otherwise they would not have caused such an incident to prevent someone from following them.
Nishin glanced around. The University of California at Berkeley was not unknown to him. It had a reputation as a center of liberalism and protest that Nishin had heard of in his time working underground in the States during his training. The campus was practically deserted this time of night, but Nishin knew there must be some type of campus police and he kept an eye out for patrol cars as he parked the pickup truck behind a building, across the street from the lot where the Koreans had parked.
He quickly ran across, keeping the four men in sight. He had the Steyr tucked in to his side, a fresh magazine in the chamber. The Koreans walked up to the side door of a large academic building and opened the door, disappearing inside. The name on the building, Wellman Hall, meant nothing to Nishin.
Nishin paused outside the door, then decided to move along the outside wall and find another way in. He found a door two hundred meters farther down and cracked it open. He was in a short corridor. Moving forward, he peeked around the edge, toward where the Koreans had entered. There was no one there, but he could hear noises, as if someone was moving something heavy about. There was a light on every twenty feet, giving a faint glow to the hallway.
He got to his knees and peered around the next hallway.
A Korean, MAC-10 at the ready, stood guard outside a door, forty feet away. Nishin sat down, back against the wall and became perfectly still.
Araki drove the van into the west entrance of the UCBerkeley campus.
“Close now,” Lake said. He continued giving directions as they wove through the campus, until he spotted the LTD parked outside one of the buildings. “There she is.”