Nishin was stunned. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. It is inside you. We scanned you the second time you came. It is located in your left buttock. That is why you are here. Because we want whoever bugged you — and we think it is your own people in the Black Ocean — to follow us. We do not fear the Black Ocean. In fact, the more of the Black Ocean that comes here, the better. We want everyone to be here for the end.”
Okomo let go of the chin. “You had best start praying, Ronin. Pray to your Sun Goddess because you do not have much time left.” Okomo walked away to greet the visitor who had gotten out of the limousine.
Nishin shook his head, ignoring the pain, blinking, trying to get the blood out of his eyes. He curled in a ball around the railing and slowly he reached under his shirt until the fingers of his right hand closed on the ice scraper taped there. With small rocking motions he began to free the scraper.
“Ahead one quarter!” Kim Pak ordered. All lights were out on board the trawler, a violation of international sea law, but Pak knew that his ship’s presence here in United States waters was-already a violation of law and there would be many more laws, American and international, broken before this night was over.
The fog was coming in and for that he was grateful. He could hear the foghorn on the Southeast Farallon from his right rear. He could also just make out the lights on the top of the two towers of the Golden Gate Bridge directly ahead, but there were tendrils of fog beginning to reach up that high also.
Pak took another sounding to his right front and checked the chart. He identified Mile Rock, a lighthouse foghorn poised on top of a single rock sticking out of the ocean and, checking it against the sound from the Farallons, he plotted himself five miles out from the bridge. There were no other ships showing on his radar, which was not at all unusual for this time of night. Normal entry into the port was made in the daytime.
A quarter mile off the port stern another ship shadowed the Han Juk Sung, unseen by eyes because of the fog and by radar because of its shape. It had been there ever since the trawler had passed through the outer banks. As the North Korean trawler slowly moved forward, its shadow stopped keeping pace and rapidly moved forward, water spraying off of the twin hulls. The ship made little noise though other than the sound of water rushing by.
Pak spotted the trailing ship first and that was the last thing he ever saw. The inverted V shape of the hull was new to him, but the lack of any lights and the black coating over the skin of the ship told him that this wasn’t a chance encounter. As he yelled a warning, a bright light flashed out from the apex of the V and Pak’s warning changed to a shrill scream of pain. His eyes burned as if acid had been thrown in them.
Pak collapsed to his knees, both hands over his damaged eyes. Other crewmen who had been caught by the burst of high-intensity laser also were blinded and in agony. Those who weren’t blinded caught on quickly and looked away from the source of the light which allowed the stealth ship to slide up next to the Han Juk Sung unopposed. Men clad in black and armed with silenced submachine guns fired grappling hooks across the small space between the two vessels, immediately grabbing onto the ropes and climbing across. They wore special night-vision goggles to be able to see in the dark and protect them from the laser.
The man wielding the laser on top of the stealth ship continued to visually suppress the Koreans until the assault party was on board, then he shut it down. Next to him, the captain of the ship and Araki watched and listened to the attack with satisfaction. It was all over within thirty seconds. It was a much simpler and more efficient assault than that by the Yakuza on the first trawler.
Every Korean on board was dead. The chart and all records of radio transmissions were seized and brought back. The commandos opened the sea valves, and for the second time in as many days, a North Korean intelligence ship went down off the Golden Gate.
Araki and the captain looked at the chart from the trawler. The intersection of lines at the south tower of the Golden Gate caught their immediate attention.
“This is where they were headed,” the captain said.
“Take us there,” Araki ordered.
The captain obeyed without question and the stealth slipped forward in the fog as the last of the trawler disappeared under the waves.
Lake eased up on the throttle until the engines just purred, pushing the boat through the water. He was within four hundred yards of the Coast Guard station, southeast of the Golden Gate. The convoy was pulling into the station.
The fog was pouring through the ocean gap between Marin County and San Francisco, but it was still clear where he was. He shut down the engine and cocked his head listening. Car engines were turned off and doors began slamming. A voice was giving orders. There was an eighty-foot cutter tied up to the dock and lights began going on aboard the ship as men carried gear up the gangway. Lake waited patiently as he heard the sound of the cutter’s engine begin to rumble.
The Coast Guard cutter slowly began moving away from the pier. Lake started his own engine. Wherever Feliks was going, he was going also. He would soon find out how much Feliks knew about the fate of Genzai Bakudan.
Eighty miles from the Pacific Coast, the specially designed and constructed tilt-jet plane that the Black Ocean used for high-priority covert missions was coming in over the wavetops at six hundred miles an hour.
In appearance, the jet looked like the experimental American V-22 tilt-rotor Osprey, with the major difference being that instead of propellers on the wings there were two jet engines. This allowed the tilt-jet to fly at airplane speeds, twice the speed of the Osprey. Like the Osprey, it could hover and land like a helicopter when its wings were rotated from the horizontal through the vertical.
The tilt-jet was being developed by a company controlled by the Black Ocean under a Japanese government military contract. It was highly classified and still supposedly in the “testing” stage, but the Black Ocean had been flying this prototype for the past two years. Its unique features made it most valuable for entering foreign countries where there were no prying customs officials.
In the rear, Kuzumi had spent an anxious flight, his mind going over all that he had been told by his various sources, trying to make sense of it. The fact that it didn’t make sense convinced him that his decision to come to America to personally take charge was the correct one. The stakes with Genzai Bakudan on the table were simply too great.
“We will be landing here,” Nakanga said, holding a map in front of the Genoysha. The point he indicated was in the Presidio at the south end of the Golden Gate.
Kuzumi remembered the place from his days at UCBerkeley. “That is a military post,” he said. “It is now a national park,” Nakanga said. “It will be deserted at night. I have not been able to get in contact with Ronin Nishin to meet us—” He paused as Kuzumi held up a hand and took the map from him.
“I will make arrangements for our meeting. It is not Nishin who I wish to speak to.”
Nakanga frowned but didn’t say anything. “Yes, Genoysha.”
“We must not be discovered,” Kuzumi warned.
“We are under the airport radar. We will not be detected.” Nakanga paused. “Sir, with all due respect, I believe I should know what is happening in order that I might serve you better. Who are we meeting?”
Kuzumi looked up from the map. “You will serve me by doing as I order.”
Chastened, Nakanga left the rear cabin to go back up front.
“Hurry,” ordered Okomo, “we must beat the Koreans to the bridge so we can lie in wait.” “We will get there before them,” Captain Ohashi calmly said. “It is right ahead. Prepare your men.”