The Samurai Strategy Part 14

"Well, you're my j.a.pan expert. What's it all about?"

"Never a.s.sume you understand the j.a.panese mind." I pointed up at the wall. "Take a good look at the eagle on that screen. You'd think it's just a picture, but actually it's an important subliminal message. The _daimyo_ who commissioned this piece had that eagle put on it to let everybody know he was c.o.c.k of the walk. Means you cross him and you're dead. Symbols are important in j.a.pan. Noda and this woman Mori talked a lot about shoguns and emperors. Maybe they hope the sword will somehow bring back the good old days."

"Well, he's got enough money to do it."

"Looks that way."

"Hope we're not about to get kamikazes with a checkbook. Thoughts like that could make a man real nervous." Henderson rose and strolled to the fireplace. He examined his reflection in the large mirror over the fireplace, then set down his gla.s.s on the mantelpiece and turned back.

"You know, Walton, I think I'm starting to lose my touch. I don't believe anything I hear and only half of what I see." He sighed. "Been one h.e.l.l of a day."

"Pretty standard Friday, far as I could tell."'

"Well, a d.a.m.ned strange thing happened this afternoon."

"Some woman turn you down? Maybe you ought to start working out, Henderson, trim that little spare tire creeping in around the waistline."

"Still no complaints in that department, friend. No, this actually goes back a ways, to a few months ago down in Washington, when I b.u.mped into a long-haired professor coming out of a committee session. Guy I mentioned a minute ago."

"The linkup between computers and weapons?"

"Him. We got to BS'ing in the men's room, and it turned out he was some computer hotshot from Stanford. He'd been testifying, I think, and he was still wound up. Probably I got to hear all the stuff he'd prepared and n.o.body'd asked."

"What was the pitch?"

"Defense semiconductor dependency. Claimed that if we keep on the way we're going, relying more and more on foreigners for advanced chip technology, we may as well kiss the farm good-bye. I had a little time to kill, so I invited him to have a drink. He good as chewed my ear off. Finally had to fake a dinner date to get loose. Man had a bug six feet up his a.s.s about the U.S. buying half the latest chips for our hot-dog military hardware from j.a.pan. Next war we fight, says he, we'll be buying high-tech weapons systems from the Far East. Problem with that is, anybody else could buy them too. And we'd get replacement parts whenever MITI feels like getting around to it. Today I happened to remember him, so I decided to give him a call, ask him if he still saw things the same wav."

"And?"

"No answer at his office, but since I had his home number, I decided to give that a try. Best I can tell, a lot of academics goof off half the time anyway."

"You get him?"

"Some police detective answered, wanting to know who I was, what the h.e.l.l I wanted, whole nine yards. Shook me up, don't mind telling you."

"So what'd your pal do? Rob a bank?"

"I was about to start wondering. Finally, though, I got to ask some questions of my own, but it was a little hard to swallow the story.

What I mean is, I don't necessarily buy what I heard."

"Which was?"

"Well, seems he was supposed to meet with the Senate's internal security committee this morning. Wife says she put him on the red-eye to Washington last night around ten. He was carrying some doc.u.ment he said he wanted to hand deliver. Something about it had him scared s.h.i.tless." Henderson paused. "Tell you, this is the kind of guy who takes security seriously. When _he's_ worried, we all better be worried."

"So what's the problem?"

"Cop claimed he's just disappeared. Not a trace."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ken looked terrific. That was Tam's first thought when he walked through the high-security inner doors to greet her. He was square shouldered and st.u.r.dy, with high, full cheeks, expensively trimmed dark hair, and a small, delicate mouth. She figured him for late forties, early fifties. Funny, but he'd always reminded her of one of those steely eyed, expensively dressed actors you saw playing executives on the j.a.panese soaps.

"Tamara!" He paused abruptly, then bowed. "_Ikaga desu

ka_?"

"_Okagesama de genki desu. Anata wa_?'

"Doing well, thanks. You never cease to amaze me. What a marvelous surprise." A smile attempted to break through his dark eyes. "You've surfaced again, just like the Sword."

She'd forgotten how colloquial his English was. Then she recalled he'd told her once about doing his doctorate at MIT. Possibly because of that he could be either j.a.panese or Western, chameleon-like, as the backdrop required. He was every bit the charmer she remembered from Kyoto.

One thing was different, though. Kenji Asano was ill at ease. He was trying to mask it, but it was there. And that was very different from the old days.

As they pa.s.sed the usual pleasantries, he led her down a hall, then through a room where intense young men in open shirts were now opening a case of Asahi beer. Computer terminals were in neat rows along the walls, beneath gleaming white "blackboards" that sparkled with equations and quips. The place was so informal, so . . . American.

There were plenty of jeans and frazzled sneakers among the forty or so young researchers, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties. Plastered across the low part.i.tions were film posters and American counterculture b.u.mper stickers (Radio Already Stolen, Nuke a Commie for Christ); above a row of printers a blond pin-up was unveiling her gynecological mysteries to the movie still of a startled G.o.dzilla; and a couple of rusty California vanity plates were hanging over one long-haired staffer's terminal like big-game trophies--one read 64K-1ST, the other EZ BKS. Probably commissioned by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley whose Porsches had since been repossessed, she thought. The rock and roll dissonance of Siouxsie & the Banshees sounded from a tiny stereo a.s.sembled out of computer hardware and a new Yamaha digital tape deck. Presumably as a stunt, the high end of the audio was being used to drive a garishly tinted computer graphics display that had been projected against one of the windows, creating a virtual image that seemed to dance amidst the Tokyo skysc.r.a.pers like a Martian _son et lumiere_.

But she wasn't fooled by the frat-house tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. She realized these casually dressed young researchers were the pick of j.a.pan's technical graduates. Making the Fifth Generation team these days was one of the highest honors in the land. After some initial skepticism the big corporations were now competing for the prestige of loaning their young stars to the project for a few years, since they hoped to reap enormous benefits down the road.

In fact, the youthful atmosphere was entirely intentional. That, she knew, had been the legacy of Ken's predecessor, Dr. Yoshida, who had refused to let anyone over thirty-five on the project. Furthermore, since he believed the stuffed-shirt layout of most j.a.panese offices and labs stifled creativity, he had deliberately devised an un-j.a.panese works.p.a.ce to try and reproduce Western research environments.

Finally they reached a closed door. Metal. When she realized it was Ken's office, she almost remarked on this departure from what she remembered about Dr. Yoshida's well-known att.i.tude. He liked to be out on the floor, with just another low part.i.tion, right there interacting with his young staffers.

Without a word Ken inserted a magnetic card into the slot beside the door handle and then pushed it open. Not only a door, she thought, a locked door. Are they finally starting to worry about industrial espionage?

She wasn't surprised, however, to see that his office had a

monastic spareness, with only his desk, a small but expensive leather couch, and a row of computer terminals along one wall. He was, she knew, a big believer in Zen philosophy. Maybe pan of the reason for the door was just to shut all the madness outside and keep his own world serene.

Through the window behind him she could see Mt. Fuji, outlined against a backdrop of autumn blue. He smiled and pointed it out, saying they were lucky to have a rare smog-less day, then gestured her toward the couch.

"Welcome to my refuge." He was cordial but entirely correct--right down to his conservative charcoal gray suit. Not a glimmer of a hint about their brief Kyoto episode. "Let me have tea sent in." He leaned forward in his leather chair and punched the intercom on his desk.

"Ken, please, don't make a fuss. I know I hate it when people just drop by." She glanced back at the locked door, wondering. "Tell me if this is not a good time for you."

"Tam, for you any time is a good time." He buzzed again-- there had been no response--then shrugged. "I guess things are getting hectic out front just now." He laughed resignedly, then turned to her. "By the way, I saw your new book. Fine piece of work. I do hope somebody over there reads it. Are you still running your Center at NYU?"

"So far." She decided to spare him the details.

"Well, it's a good school. Getting better all the time. You've got some first-rate supercomputer work at the Courant Inst.i.tute, particularly with your IBM connection, but you should keep an eye on Columbia. Now that AT&T has joined with them to go after some of the Pentagon's AI contracts, they may finally start putting together a major computer science department up there too. In a few years Stanford and Carnegie- Mellon will have to step lively to stay out front."

h.e.l.lo, she thought. How come Ken suddenly knows so much scuttleb.u.t.t about U.S. computer research? n.o.body at home knows the first thing about what's going on in j.a.pan.

"I was surprised to hear about this new appointment, Ken." She settled back on the couch. "I was guessing you had the inside track for MITI vice minister in a few years."