“You don’t know anything,” Feliks almost yelled, then got his voice under control. “You think Genzai Bakudan is something you just discovered? You think I was surprised to hear about it during your report? Hell, I first heard the term in 1944, before you were even born. The Ranch was dealing with this back then and it will finally deal with it now.”
Lake felt his heart rate accelerate. “What happened back then?”
Feliks had half-turned away. His voice was low as if he were talking to himself. “Deals were made and broken, that’s what happened.”
His voice firmed up. “All that hoopla a few years back about Truman and the decision to drop the bomb? That crap about the Enola Gay display at the Smithsonian? The Japanese and the revisionists all whining about what a terrible thing it was, us dropping the bomb on Hiroshima? Hell, not only would revealing the existence of the Genzai Ba kudan project change all that, but how do you think people would react if it was discovered that Truman was informed of the Japanese atomic bomb program at the same time he was told of the Manhattan Project, right after Roosevelt died? And that the day he made the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, it was after being briefed about 1-24?”
“So why wasn’t this made public?”
“It couldn’t be in the interests of national security. You think your little discoveries now are so damn important, they aren’t anything!” Feliks said, his voice disgusted.
“Do you know where Genzai Bakudan is?” Lake asked.
“No, but no one else does either. The key is not the bomb, the key is stopping those looking for the bomb. The bomb was lost long ago. It’s at the bottom of the Pacific.”
“You don’t sound so certain,” Lake said. “Why are the North Koreans heading here? That means the bomb must be here.”
“The bomb never made it here,” Feliks insisted. “The Japanese scuttled 1-24 several hundred miles off the coast in deep water.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because that’s the deal we made with the sons-of bitches!” Feliks snapped.
Lake was momentarily stunned. What the hell was Feliks talking about? “Who did you make a deal with?” When Feliks didn’t answer, he tried another question. “Then why is this second North Korean trawler coming here?”
“Because they’re like you,” Feliks said. “They don’t know shit and they’re blundering around in the dark, hoping to hit a jackpot. They probably know San Francisco was the target for the second Genzai Bakudan, so they’re hoping it’s around here somewhere.”
“Maybe they know more than you,” Lake said. “As you just said, there are gaps in your knowledge.” Lake realized that Feliks didn’t know the bomb was at the base of the bridge. He also realized that whatever deal had been made so long ago, maybe neither side had completely kept their part.
Feliks’s thumb rasped on his lighter and a small flame illuminated his face as he lit another cigarette. In the brief glow, Lake could see that the old man’s face was drawn tight. “This all should have been finalized a long time ago,” Feliks said. “I don’t know why it’s come alive again, but in the morning I will have finished it.”
“Not with my help,” Lake said.
“I didn’t plan on that. I just hoped you might be smarter than I thought and played along.”
“It isn’t a game,” Lake said.
“It is when you’re winning,” Feliks replied.
“The final move hasn’t been made yet,” Lake said. If Feliks truly believed Genzai Bakudan to be at sea, then that meant there was something else at work here that was beyond both his and Feliks’s knowledge. “And I don’t think you’re winning,” Lake added. He knew he was a dead man. No matter what the emotion, Feliks was too much of a professional to have just told him the information he had if he hadn’t already decided to kill Lake.
Feliks rolled his eyes. “Oh, give me a break with the dramatic statements. It’s over for you.”
Lake smiled. “No, it isn’t. Remember what you said? Knowledge and the ability to make decisions? Well, you just gave me some knowledge.”
“It won’t do you much good,” Feliks said.
“Don’t be so sure.” Lake was moving even as he said the second word. He hit the closest guard with a spinning back kick, his boot smashing into the side of the man’s head. Lake flowed with the kick falling onto the ground on top of the guard, gripping the body and rolling it on top of him as the other guard instinctively began firing.
The guard’s body took the first two rounds, then Lake was over the edge of the pier, falling into the water, still holding the body. As he splashed in, the cold water took his breath away. He allowed the dead weight of the guard to take him down. Then, when he could just barely make out the surface above, he let go and began kicking with all his might due south through the water. In SEAL school he’d had to swim forty meters completely underwater without equipment. Here he broke that requirement, going almost half the length of a football field before he carefully surfaced and looked about.
He could hear Feliks yelling and several vans pulling up on the pier, disgorging Ranch security men. Flashlights were licking the surface, but Lake edged in along the waterfront and continued south without being spotted.
The Han Juk Sung was a sister ship to the Am Nok Sung, built along the same lines. Its real job was espionage under the cover of being a fishing trawler. At the present moment; it was steaming at flank speed due east, directly toward San I Francisco harbor. On board were a squad of navy frogmen with specialized equipment for picking up radioactivity underwater.
Kim Pak, the commander of the frogmen and ship, had initially been very unhappy with his mission. Originally it had been vague and generally consisted of “turn your ship and head toward San Francisco as quickly as possible and turn on your equipment.” That was the first message. Then had come the second which told him what he was looking for: an atomic weapon aboard a World War II Japanese submarine. That got the adrenaline flowing. He didn’t allow his mind to dwell on the possibilities that message conjured.
Of course it was a big ocean, Pak reflected. They were sixty miles off the coast in the main shipping channel heading for San Francisco Bay. His underwater sensors ranged out to one mile on either side for a bomb of World War II make. His current plan was to brush right up against the twelve-mile limit and then-He paused in his thinking as his second-in-command came hurrying up with a radio flimsy. “Sir, we have been given a definite location for the bomb!”
“From who?” Pak asked.
“High command in Pyongyang. They do not say how they got the information.”
“Coordinates?” Pak asked as he turned to the chart.
His executive officer read off the numbers. “Longitude 122 degrees, 31 minutes west. Latitude 37 degrees, 48 minutes north.”
Pak took a ruler and drew two lines. Then he stared at the point where they bisected. He looked up at his XO in disbelief. “It cannot be! We cannot go there!”
The XO waved the message. “We are ordered to go there and recover the bomb, sir!”
Pak stood straighter. “Then we will. Tell the men to prepare to dive in …” He did some calculations. “In three and a half hours.”
“Yes, sir.” The XO leaned over and looked at the chart. The two thin black pencil lines crossed another solid black line printed on the chart. “I do not understand,” the XO who was not a sailor said. “What is this?” he asked, putting his finger on the spot.
“That is the Golden Gate Bridge,” Pak said. “To be more exact, the coordinates for the bomb indicate it rests right next to the southern tower for the bridge.”