Kuzumi pulled a small computer out of the sideboard next to him and turned it on. He tapped into the keys, pulling up the code for the bug in Nishin. The image came on the screen very faintly to the north. Kuzumi overlaid a map of San Francisco on top of the dot. Nishin was in San Francisco Harbor, to the east of the Golden Gate. Kuzumi followed the dot to the right. He turned to Nakanga. “Tell the pilot to take off.”
“Where are we going?” Nakanga asked.
Kuzumi held up the map. “Alcatraz.”
CHAPTER 18
Time to go up and take a peek, Lake thought as he pulled back on the center bar. The SDV glided up against the current, the Genzai Bakudan buffeting its way less smoothly ten feet behind the propellers.
The gauge on the instrument panel showed their ascent. Forty feet. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Lake could begin to feel the effect of the swell above. Still nothing but dark water ahead, the headlight piercing it for thirty feet. The engine of the SDV was struggling now against both the outgoing current and the weight of the Genzai Bakudan.
Ten feet. Lake felt the bow lurch up, then they were thrown down, nose pointing almost straight to the bottom. He pulled back hard and the next swell lifted them up, then the cables from the sled snapped taut, slamming both Nishin and he around on the inside. They were on the surface, bouncing about.
Water broke over the Plexiglas nose. Lake peered ahead. He could see a flashing light directly in front, less than a quarter mile away. A short, white line of breakers crashing on rock was directly below the light. Lake pushed the lever forward, moving the stabilizer, and they went down again. He descended to twenty feet and held at that depth where the surface effect wasn’t that strong. He edged forward, slightly more power going to the right screw.
He drove the SDV by feel, keeping the depth constant, edging farther right when the turbulence of the water against the rocky shoreline grew stronger. Soon he could feel the turbulence more to the right than in front, which told him he was moving along the north shore of the island. Lake edged in, remembering the tour he’d gone on to Al catraz during his time in the city. The U-shaped jetty for the island was built on the north shore. One part of the U was the shore, the other a wooden dock on pilings and the opening facing to the west. If he played his cards right, he should come right up to the center of the jetty and be able to tie up there.
Of course, Lake also realized, his hands tense on the controls, if he was too far out he’d miss the jetty altogether and if he was too close they’d hit the rocky shoreline. He wasn’t sure how much power was left in the batteries of the SDV, but his experience with similar vehicles in the SEALs told him there probably wasn’t that much. If they lost power, the weight of the bomb would pull both it and the SDV down to the bottom.
Lake took a glance over to the left. Nishin was lying there, his face inscrutable behind his mask. Looking at the Black Ocean agent, Lake again had to consider that if he did make it into the jetty, then what?
Captain Ohashi had his hands on the helm as the Alcatraz lighthouse, the first lighthouse built on the west coast of the United States, drew closer on the port bow. The sonar contact was breaking up in the “shadow” of the island.
Ohashi knew the harbor intimately and he knew that the only place that any kind of craft could put to shore on Alcatraz was at the jetty on the north side. He increased speed and aimed the prow off his ship just offshore the east end to round it and come in to the jetty from that direction.
The tilt-jet circled as Kuzumi stared at the computer screen, then out the window. “He is right below us,” he told Nakanga.
Nakanga didn’t ask who, remaining silent, waiting for the wishes of his Genoysha to be known.
“He is going to land on Alcatraz,” Kuzumi announced as the dot that reflected the bug inside Nishin merged with the northern side of the island. “Tell the pilot to put us down there.”
From the Coast Guard helicopter, Feliks could see that the tugboat was closing on Alcatraz. He, and the pilot, were startled when a strange aircraft swooped by them and descended toward the island.
“What the hell was that?” Feliks demanded.
“I don’t know, sir,” the pilot replied. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I didn’t see any markings.”
Feliks glanced about the cabin. He could only fit two of his men on board. He turned his attention outward and was impressed when the wings of the plane that had just gone by began rotating and it started to settle onto Alcatraz. Just like the Osprey that Congress had killed, he thought, except with jets. He knew that there was a craft like it on the drawing board in the U.S. government’s black budget but no operational models. That left only one country on the planet with the technology to make such a craft.
“Follow them!” Feliks ordered.
Lake spotted the jetty two seconds before the front of the SDV hit it. He slammed both levers all the way into reverse, then cringed as the Plexiglas bounced off the wood piling that had suddenly appeared. The glass cracked but since the inside of the SDV was already exposed to the water it didn’t make any difference. He braced himself and waited, then felt the slam from the rear as the sled with Genzai Bakudan on board hit them from behind.
Lake hit the emergency button on the lower-right side of the control panel and two large water wings rapidly inflated on either side of the vehicle. They were on the surface in four seconds. Genzai Bakudan slowly settled to hang below the SDV.
The swell inside the protection of the jetty was not as great as that in the harbor. Lake and Nishin slithered out of the SDV and each took a nylon line in one hand as they attempted to make the jump from the bouncing SDV to the jetty wall. Both jumped on an up swell Climbing up to the top, they tied off their lines to metal cleats “Where are we?” Nishin asked, looking up at the imposing structure of the abandoned barracks building next to the jetty. A road ran from the jetty to their right, to a sally port that had a drawbridge and controlled access to the old prison proper. To the left, a large open area was bounded on the left by the sea and to the right by a steep slope leading up to the old military parade ground. On the high ground above them lay the big house of the abandoned prison and the lighthouse, whose light flashed above their heads every few seconds.
“Alcatraz,” Lake replied.
“There is no one here?” Nishin asked.
“Not at night,” Lake said.
“And now what do you have planned?”
To that question, Lake had no immediate answer. He’d had to concentrate on driving the SDV here, so he really hadn’t had a chance to consider future courses of action. At the very least, he felt, they weren’t tied off on the southern tower of the Golden Gate anymore.
“I guess I’ll try to get in contact with someone who can take care of the bomb,” he said.
“It would not be good for the Black Ocean if the existence of this bomb is made public,” Nishin said. “Could we not destroy it ourselves? Dismantle it somehow?”
“I don’t think …” Lake paused and cocked his head. Both he and Nishin turned and watched a large tilt-jet plane come to a landing in the open area fifty yards away.
A door in the side of the plane opened and two men armed with submachine guns jumped out. A third man came out, extending a long platform. Then that man went inside and came back out, pushing a man in a wheelchair.
“Ai!” Nishin cried out. “It is my Genoysha. The head of my Society. The man pushing him is Nakanga, my Sensei.” Lake had the Hush Puppy in his hand, Nishin a knife. Not exactly a good firepower ratio against the two men’s subs. The four men began moving across the open area toward them, the two guards slightly in the lead, the butts of their weapons tucked into their shoulders, muzzles pointing at Lake and Nishin.