“I do not think that is a good idea.”
“Why?” Lake was punching in the numbers to the Ranch.
“Because this situation might be harmful to your country and mine, and if we keep it between us, no extra harm is done. I believe we can handle this ourselves. If you call your supervisor, then this is out of our hands.”
Lake pushed the off button and folded the phone shut. He thought of Feliks looking at him at this very spot, giving him grief for killing all three men at the bridge. If he told Feliks that there was an agent of CPI here in San Francisco, Lake knew that the long hand of the Ranch would clamp down on all operations. The Japanese material that had been found in the van on the bridge, combined with Araki’s presence, would send red flags flying. It would also slow things down. Lake knew that the freighter wasn’t leaving in the next twelve hours, but it could leave as early as this evening. The Ranch was efficient, but it wasn’t that efficient. They could lose this whole operation. The bottom line for Lake, though, was that he would lose his operational control. Already he’d had Feliks here once and Randkin here on another occasion. If they wanted to run the show, then they should be the ones getting shot at, Lake reasoned.
“All right,” Lake said. “We’ll work this together for now.”
“What about the papers?” Araki asked. “What do they concern?”
Lake looked at the top piece of paper in the glow of the overhead light. It was a Xeroxed page covered with Japanese writing. He handed it to Araki. “Make yourself useful.”
Araki scanned the page. “It is dated 1945. From the heading it appears to be a document of the Imperial Navy, detailing supply operations in the China Sea.”
“That’s something to kill over?” Lake wondered out loud.
Araki was thumbing through the rest of the few pages the Koreans had abandoned in their haste. “They are all Japanese naval documents, dated 1945. Some are about operations; some about logistics; some concern personnel assignments. There are several orders detailing ships to conduct certain missions. There is no readily apparent pattern.”
“Why would these be at UCBerkeley?” Lake asked.
“Most likely there is a historical archive in the building,” Araki said. “At the end of the war, you Americans took whatever wasn’t destroyed that could be of intelligence value.”
“Why would the Koreans be interested in such documents?” Lake asked.
Araki was silent for a few moments as he read, then he glanced up. “I do not know. Obviously they are interested in something concerning the Japanese Navy in the last year of World War II.”
Lake felt stupid asking obvious questions, but he was at a loss with this development. “Why is Nishin following the Koreans? What does the Black Ocean Society have to do with this?”
Araki explained the role the societies had in Japanese culture and the strong influence they had exerted in politics, particularly during the war. “It is something difficult for Americans to understand,” he added. “For example, in 1943, the head of the Black Dragon Society made a radio broadcast directly to your President Roosevelt and to Churchill also, threatening the most dire of consequences if the Allies did not unconditionally surrender.
“It is little spoken of or understood in the West, but much of the problem the Allies had trying to negotiate with my country near the end of the war stemmed from the fact that the secret societies and the military exerted such strong influence. Even though there were many in the government who wished to negotiate a surrender, they were unable to counter the weight of the societies until finally the Emperor himself had to make a radio announcement after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which before that time was unheard of.
“That is why,” Araki continued, “my unit was formed a few years back when it appeared that secret societies were again rearing their head. The extremists who were behind the Tokyo gas attacks were much more radical than the traditional societies, but the fear of a repeat of events that happened prior to and during the Second World War was so great that those high in the government did not want to take a chance.”
“That’s all nice and well,” Lake said, “but it brings us no closer to explaining what is so important about these papers to both the North Koreans and the Black Ocean Society.”
“As you said,” Araki pointed out, “you must go and ask someone at the university about the papers. Maybe you can find out then.” “You drop me off where I tell you, then you stake out the trawler,” Lake ordered. “I’ll get over to the university as soon as people are awake there.”
Nishin was as frustrated as Lake, but for a very different reason. For the third time the American arms dealer had interfered. The North Koreans had whatever they had come for and were safely back on their ship. From his perch, Nishin could see guards walking the deck of the trawler, Ingrams hidden under their coats.
He knew the Genoysha would not be pleased. He had failed. Nishin very seriously contemplated boarding the ship on his own and recovering the box, but his duty passion was tempered by the bitter training he had experienced. The odds were that he would be killed and then the mission would most certainly be a failure. The ship was not yet at sea; there was hope yet.
Nishin knew he needed help and there was only one place he could get it. With great reluctance he climbed down off the crane.
The campus looked very different in the light of day. Lake felt old as he walked among the crowds of students strolling to and from class. He had exchanged his bloodstained clothes of the previous evening for a fresh pair of jeans, a bulky white sweater with a turtleneck, and a faded sports jacket over the sweater. The Hush Puppy rode comfortably under his arm inside the jacket.
He also felt the irritable presence of the satellite phone in his coat’s inside pocket. He hadn’t called Feliks with the results of the previous evening, which he knew would not go over well. The report of the two dead unidentified Korean men had been on the third page of the San Francisco paper this morning and Lake knew it was a short matter of time before someone at the Ranch connected the bodies, the MAC-lOs found near them, and the stolen Bronco II.
On another front, Lake believed Araki was an agent of the CPI, but even if Araki wasn’t, Lake felt confident he could deal with the man. He also believed that Araki had not told him the full story, but that was to be expected. Lake hadn’t told Araki everything he knew either. The thing that bothered Lake about this situation was that what he did know was greatly overwhelmed by what he didn’t know.
North Koreans; Japanese secret societies; a Japanese special government agent; the Patriots’ lurking presence in the San Francisco underworld — all these things troubled Lake. Beyond the fact he didn’t know what most of those people were up to, he didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing in most cases. Motive was the most critical factor in trying to outthink one’s enemy, and here he didn’t know that either. He hoped he could gain some answers here.
Just inside the west entrance a large board showed the campus layout, with a large “you-are-here” arrow orienting Lake. He retraced the route they had taken last night in his head and found the building he was looking for: Wellman Hall. It housed the history department, which fit with the type of documents the Koreans had stolen. Before he went there, though, Lake made a detour to the library and spent a half-hour doing some reading. Then Lake walked to Wellman Hall and went in the large double doors in the center. A glass case held a listing of all the offices in the building and Lake studied it.