“One thing at a time. I will think of that when I am done with you,” Nishin said.
“How about if we do this together?” Lake said. “You don’t want anyone to find the bomb and I don’t want anyone to find the bomb.”
“I do not think—” Nishin began, but he paused as a metal thud reverberated through the interior of the submarine. They both looked up as if they could see through the metal skin and spot what had caused the noise. Both had instinctively drawn their guns.
“A visitor,” Lake said.
“Your people?” Nishin demanded, the gun focused right between Lake’s eyes.
“For all I know it could be your people,” Lake replied as he swung the hatch he had come in back up and wheeled it shut.
“It cannot be my people,” Nishin said. “It might be your CPI friend and his people. They are well equipped.”
“I guess we’ll find out shortly,” Lake said. He moved across the sub to Nishin’s side, ignoring the other’s gun. They both watched, waiting to see what wild card was going to be played into their standoff. From the sound, Lake guessed that someone with a submersible vehicle had come down. He figured that meant either Araki’s or Feliks’s men, the two agencies that had the technology.
He could hear the outer hatch opening. He glanced at Nishin, but the other man’s face showed no emotion. The outer hatch closed. Then Lake could see the inside wheel turning. It shot open with a gush of water and Lake blinked, keeping his gun focused on the figure that dropped in.
It was Araki dressed in a full-body black wet suit. “Lake!” he called out as he got his bearings. He had a submachine gun in his hands, which he brought to bear on Nishin.
“Hold it, Araki!” Lake yelled. “Don’t shoot!”
“He is Black Ocean!” Araki cried out. “He must die!”
Lake didn’t bother to argue further. He kicked, knocking the sub out of Araki’s hand. “Damn it, just hold on a second!”
Out of the corner of his eye, Lake saw Nishin taking aim. Lake clamped down on Nishin’s gun hand, his thumb jammed into the gap between the hammer and the chamber, preventing it from firing. “Will both of you just hold on a goddamn minute?”
Araki drew a knife. He slashed and to Lake’s astonishment the blade flew at his face. Lake felt the blade cut into his cheek and slide along as he ducked, parting flesh and sending jolts of pain to his brain. In one smooth movement, Araki reversed the blade and the blade slammed into Nishin’s left shoulder. It was out just as quickly, a spurt of blood coming from the wound.
Lake and Nishin both let go of Nishin’s gun and scrambled out of the way of Araki’s knife, a blur of steel flitting back and forth between them. Nishin feinted forward and the blade went toward him. To Lake’s astonishment, Nishin caught the blade in his hand and grabbed hold. Lake didn’t waste the effort. He slammed an open palm on the left side of Araki’s head, knocking the agent against the steel wall, out cold.
Nishin slowly opened his hand. The knife had cut through skin and tendons to the bone. Blood flowed freely. Lake grabbed a rag and wrapped it around Nishin’s hand to stop the bleeding.
“Jesus,” Lake muttered as he worked. “I don’t know why he was so damn trigger-happy.”
Nishin was holding the knife that had cut him in his undamaged hand and looking at it with a strange expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Lake asked.
“I recognize this steel,” Nishin said. “This blade.”
“What—” Lake began, but Nishin leaned forward and before Lake could stop him, he had the tip of the blade inside the collar of Araki’s wet suit.
“Now hold on,” Lake said.
Nishin ignored him, slicing neatly through the rubber down to Araki’s navel. The material peeled back to reveal an intricate tattoo on Araki’s chest. Of a sun rising over a black ocean.
“He is not CPI,” Nishin said, throwing the knife to the floor with a clang. “He is Black Ocean.”
“But…” Lake began, then shut up as he collected his thoughts.
“I do not know him,” Nishin said, answering one of the questions that flittered across Lake’s brain.
“He was the one who was tracking you,” Lake said. _ “Of course,” Nishin said. His voice was quiet, introspective as if he was talking to himself. “The Society could have put a bug in me while I was unconscious when they worked on me after my last mission.”
“Why?” Lake asked, looking down at the man who up until a minute ago he had believed worked for the Japanese government.
“I do not know,” Nishin said. “I was ordered to back off and not pursue this matter any further. He must not have expected me to be here.”
“What a shit pile was Lake’s less than elegant summation of their situation. But it was all he could think of.
“As you were saying,” Nishin said, “what do we do now?”
Lake looked at Araki, then at the hatch. “Let’s see what kind of ride we have.”
Nishin nodded. “But first…,” he said as he reversed the knife and slammed it into Araki’s chest. The body twitched once, then was still.
Lake stared at him. “Why did you do that?”
“He was going to kill both of us. There is no point to keeping an enemy alive.”
Ohashi picked his way through the fog very slowly. They could hear the blasts from the south tower foghorn slowly grow stronger. Visibility was less than twenty feet. The Yakuza on the forward deck held their weapons at the ready.
“Anything on radar?” Okomo asked.
“We have the same one contact to the west,” Ohashi replied. “The ship that passed through earlier.”
“What is it doing?”
“It’s circling, as if it was waiting.”
Okomo gripped the bottom edge of the open window that faced forward. Where was everyone? Where were the North Koreans? The Black Ocean? The Americans? The CPI? One of those four must be to the west, but where were the other three?
Okomo had ordered Ohashi forward to pick up the two divers a few minutes ago. He waited until they could just make out the base of the southern tower. Ohashi’s hands moved smoothly over the controls, holding their position.
“They are not here,” Ohashi said, a most unnecessary comment, Okomo thought angrily. He checked his watch. The two men would be out of air in five minutes. They should have surfaced and waited, holding on to the fender, ten minutes ago.
“We wait,” Okomo ordered.
The second hand on Okomo’s watch swept around. Then again. After four more minutes, he had to accept what the empty concrete fender told him. “I will be back,” he informed Ohashi as he turned.
The captain’s voice halted him. “That contact to the west is coming back. It will be passing under the bridge in twenty minutes. They might have picked us up coming across.”
Okomo nodded to indicate he understood, then headed below.
“How could we have missed it?” Feliks demanded.
“It was in the radar shadow of the Golden Gate and the north shore,” Captain Carson explained.
“Is it the trawler?”
Carson looked over his radar operator’s shoulder. “It’s small. I don’t think it’s the trawler.”
“What about underwater?” Feliks asked. “The North Koreans were moving a submarine in this direction.”
“Sonar?” Captain Carson called out. “Negative contact, sir,” the operator reported.
“How long until we sight the radar contact?” Feliks asked.
Carson stared at him for a few seconds, then answered. “Visibility is down to maybe twenty-five feet. If we see a ship, we’ll ram it.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Feliks snarled. “I have to find out who that is under the bridge.”
“I suggest we track the ship and stay close by,” Carson replied calmly. “Sooner or later the fog will burn off. Then we can see what it is.”