The Gate Read Online Free Page A

began cutting the 550 cord to clear himself before the chute became soaked and sank.
    As he was doing that, he heard the mutter of a boat’s engine. Small, maybe sixty-horsepower, Lake estimated from the sound. It was coming from the southwest. He cut through the last line as the sound of the boat came very close. He kicked as a wave rose him up and looked. The silhouette of a zodiac with a man in it was about forty meters away. Good thing there wasn’t much of a swell, Lake thought, or that zodiac would be in trouble. He glanced up. The current had already pushed him well away from the bridge toward the ocean.
    “Over here!” Lake yelled.
    The zodiac turned head on and slowly puttered forward. Lake grabbed the safety line rigged around the forward pontoon and pulled himself up as a swell helped lift him. He rolled into the bottom of the zodiac.
    “Where are the others?” the man running the engine hissed, as if his whispering negated the sound the engine made. The man was holding a large pistol, one Lake knew he hadn’t worked on. He couldn’t make out the man’s features in the dark. It had only been Starry and Preston for the past several weeks, so this man was a new factor.
    “They’re coming,” Lake said as he pulled off the water wings.
    “You were all supposed to jump together! I only saw one chute.” The man looked up, over Lake’s head toward the bridge. Lake dropped the water wings into the bottom of the boat. As he did so he saw the man bring the pistol up level, muzzle pointing at Lake’s chest.
    Lake rolled right along the rubber bulkhead, drawing his High Standard as he moved. He heard the sound of a gun going off and the flat crack of a bullet. Coming to a halt against the right pontoon, Lake fired twice, aiming for the man’s gun shoulder.
    The man was startled by the impact, not sure what had happened as the slight sound of the receiver working on Lake’s gun was easily muffled by the engine. He looked at Lake, who immediately knew he was in big trouble. Either the small caliber rounds hadn’t hit anything important enough to immobilize the arm or the man was wearing a vest. Those thoughts flashed through Lake’s brain as the man brought the pistol to bear again.
    Lake swiftly fired two more shots, directly into the man’s right eye socket. There was no exit wound this time. Lake’s homemade .22 shells mushroomed upon passing through the eye socket into the man’s brain, making jelly of the gray matter. The gun fell to the floorboards with a clatter, and the man slumped over.
    “Fuck,” Lake quietly cursed. He checked the body and found that the man was indeed wearing a bulletproof vest. The .22 slugs had barely cut through the cloth on top of the armor. He looked at the face, ignoring the bloody eye socket. The man had slightly Asian features. Lake patted him down. No ID. Nothing other than the gun and the clothes.
    Lake pushed the body aside and took the engine handle. He opened the throttle and headed for the Coast Guard station on the south shore. The engine fought hard against the strong seaward current, but Lake kept on course, guiding off the massive south pier of the bridge, which he knew was over a thousand feet from the south shore. He passed the tower by, just to his right, then headed in to shore, angling against the current.
    On the jetty for the Coast Guard station, Feliks was waiting for him with one of the blue vans and several of his men. The men secured the line Lake tossed them, then grabbed the body, taking it into the van. They hauled the boat up onto the jetty and began deflating it.
    As they were doing that, Lake held out a hand to Feliks. The older man reached into a pocket of the raincoat and pulled out a cigarette case. He handed it to Lake. Lake snapped open the battered metal top and pulled out a cigarette. Feliks lit it for him. There was a crest on the case. Lake had seen it the first time Feliks had given him a cigarette several years ago. He’d checked