Free The Gate by Bob Mayer Page B

and the Society, the last two being one in the same in his mind.
    When he was sixteen he had begun his fieldwork. There was always some group somewhere, protesting something. The only requirement was that the group had taken up arms and were willing to use them. The Black Ocean Society sent its operative students to such overseas groups, regardless of the group’s cause. The key was to learn and gain experience while staying away from the eye of Japanese law.
    Libya. Lebanon. El Salvador. Yugoslavia. A short stint in Mexico with the rebels in the south when they rose up, then slipping away when a deal was struck with the government. Then to Chechnya. Nishin had been in on the planning of the raid into Russia and the seizing of the hostages that had changed the course of that war.
    Just two years ago, after Chechnya, the Genoysha had finally ruled that Nishin was able to do Society work and would no longer be risked getting experience. Only one in twenty of those Nishin had grown up with made it to that level. Many died gaining their experience, others simply weren’t good enough and were slotted elsewhere in support positions.
    Putting aside memories of the past, Nishin left the room to take care of other preparations. He felt the soreness in his limbs as he walked the streets. He wasn’t one hundred percent recovered yet from his ocean experience. Someone else should have been sent, except for two things: he had been briefed on what was in North Korea, and he was one of the few operatives the Society had with field time in America. Despite its apparently open society, America was actually a very difficult place for covert, foreign operatives to work. The American intelligence agencies were more proficient than the media reported.
    An all-night supermarket beckoned. Nishin walked in and wandered the aisles until he found the three items he was looking for. He paid and returned to the motel by a different route, occasionally backtracking to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
    Back in the security of his room, Nishin removed the objects from the bag: a clear Plexiglas ice scraper with a rubber handle, a file, and a roll of medical tape. He began filing down the ice scraper. After an hour he had turned the wide edge into a single point. He took the newly formed weapon and used the tape to secure it vertically to his stomach, above his waist; the one place the man who had patted him down had not checked. The plastic would not be picked up by the metal detector.
    The next time Nishin had to visit the Yakuza, he would be ready if action was necessary. He thought of the old man and the smile on Nishin’s face was not a pretty sight.
    Nishin turned off the light and lay down on the floor next to the bed. The AUG was locked and loaded next to him, his right hand lightly curled around the pistol grip.
     
    *****
     
    A block away, the man who had been listening to Nishin’s Yakuza meeting lowered the lid on the metal case that held the laptop computer. He slid through a curtain to the front of the rental van. He drove to the hotel he was staying at. It was much nicer than Nishin’s. He parked in the garage and retired to his room.

     
 
 

CHAPTER 4
     
    SAN FRANCISCO
    SATURDAY, 4 OCTOBER 1997 2:37 a.m. LOCAL
     
    “I got your message,” Lake said to Jonas. A group of men wearing camouflage pants, brown T-shirts, and hats with various Patriot logos on them were sitting at a table on the main floor of the bar, arguing loudly and drunkenly about what had happened years previously in Waco and Ruby Ridge and the last year in Montana. There was no disagreement about ideology, just the basic manly desire to be more outraged than the fellow sitting next to you. If they’d been talking about the World Series it would have been no big deal, but they were talking about bombs and guns and hate, and that made it more than just idle talk.
    Lake had heard it all so many times before and he’d even said it all when required. The party