Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"I realize it's a lot to ask, but who else can I turn to? Tam, you're the only person I know who could pull this off. You know the technology, and they respect you. Also, you understand the language. Maybe you can cut through all the politeness and the translated PR. If you'd like a little per diem, I'll see if I can't shake loose the money from somewhere."

"Allan, really, don't you think you're maybe going overboard just a little. What if Dr. Yoshida was just tied up? The last time I visited the lab, he showed me everything, completely open."

"Ho, ho." He set down his brandy, and his eyes hardened. "I still haven't told you the clincher. There's some new guy in charge now."

"That's hard to believe. Yoshida practically invented the Fifth Generation Project. He's the director-"

"That's just it. Kaput. All of a sudden he's not around anymore. They said he's now 'technical adviser.' But you know what that really means. Removed. Sayonara. Promoted upstairs or downstairs or some damn thing. That in itself is mystifying. He's one of the most competent… oh, hell, the man is a genius. Why would they do that?"

"Very strange."

"Exactly. But now he's out. Couldn't even see me. 'On vacation.' The new director is some bureaucrat by the name of Asano. I spent a little time with the man, and I can testify he's a smoothie. Lots of pious generalities about 'technical cooperation.' But I got the distinct feeling he didn't want to talk details with me. Actually, I wondered if maybe he wasn't even a bit afraid to say anything."

Asano? Oh, shit. She took a deep breath. "Was his name Kenji Asano?"

"Ken. Right, that's his first name. Maybe you know him. I think he used to be a flunky with some government bureau over there. But now he's just been put in charge of the Fifth Generation work. It's more than a little curious."

She puzzled a minute. From what she knew about the Fifth Generation, and about Kenji Asano, he had a lot more important things to do than run the lab. The "government bureau" he worked for was none other than MITI, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. In fact, at last count he was Deputy Minister for Research and Planning, a top-ranked executive slot. Could this mean that Japan's ambitious artificial intelligence effort was being moved in on by MITI, their industrial war room?

"Allan, I'll tell you the truth. You may not have heard, but I'm in a fight now at the university. I expect to win, but I've got a lot on my mind. Notes for the book. I can't just suddenly-"

"Tam, I need your help. Look, maybe they've had some new breakthrough that none of us ever imagined." He paused. "Just between us, I lifted a strange MITI memo I found lying around an office when Asana took me on an escorted tour up to the labs at Tsukuba Science City."

She looked at him. "Was it classified?"

"How would I know? There was something about it. My sixth sense told me it was a document nobody was supposed to see. When I get back to Stanford, I plan to have a postdoc over in Physics make me a quick translation."

It was very unlike Allan to walk off with confidential memos uninvited. Which could only mean he must suspect something he wasn't telling.

"You'd better give me the whole story."

"Not now. Not yet. It's only guesswork, Tam." He glanced away. "Nothing to bore you with at the moment. But if you can find out anything, we'll write it up as a report I can circulate around the Hill. This could be important, believe me. Already Cray has started having to buy critical chips for its supercomputers from Japan. And while the Department of Defense is pouring billions into research on semiconductors that will withstand nuclear radiation, Japan is forging ahead on speed and miniaturization-what really counts. I think they could be about to have us by the balls, pardon my French. If they've somehow incorporated AI-"

"Allan, it doesn't add up. I once met Asano. In fact it was a couple of years ago at that Kyoto University symposium on Third World industrialization. He spent a lot of time trying to pick my brain about our specialized silicon-chip manufacturing here. But he wasn't the slightest bit interested in artificial intelligence."

"Well, prepare yourself for a surprise. He's plenty interested now. And knowledgeable. But still, it's not like the Japanese to do something like this, install some government guy to run an R amp;D program."

"That's certainly true." She strolled over, looked down upon the park, and began to want a brandy of her own as she chewed over the implications. Was MITI setting up some new high-tech industrial assault? If the Fifth Generation had been taken over by Kenji and his planners… "Allan, let me think about this for a couple of days."

"Don't think too long. I'm convinced somebody over there is suddenly in a very big hurry. I need to find out the real story. Am I just starting to go nuts in my old age?… Well, make that my prime." He grasped her hand for emphasis. "And you really should make it a point to see this Asano fellow. If you already know him from somewhere, I'd say that's even better."

She started to respond, then stopped. She knew Kenji Asano all right. From a little episode at that conference, when he had invited the panel members of a session he chaired to a late-night tour of the endless tiny bars in Kyoto's Gion district. She remembered all the steaming sake and being ignored by flustered bar girls who were pretending that another woman wasn't around. They had no idea what to do about a member of their own sex there in their sanctuary of male flattery. Ken apparently had staged it mainly to watch their reaction, and hers.

Part of the scene was that Ken Asano was actually something of a hunk, as Westernized as they come and attractive in that way seemingly reserved for men of great wealth or great power. He may have had both, but she was sure only about the second. Whenever he handed out that meishi card with the MITI logo, even millionaire industrialists and bankers automatically bowed to the floor.

A lot of sake later, after the other panel members had piled into a cab for their hotel, she decided to show Kenji Asano a few things about women he wouldn't learn from giggling bar girls. She'd always heard that Japanese men were pretty humdrum in bed, quick and self-centered, at least in the opinion of a woman she knew who'd done exhaustive field research on the topic. After her own experience with Ken, though, she wasn't so sure. Still, it had been a passing thing. The next morning she awoke in her own room in the Kyoto International and half tried to tell herself it hadn't really happened-just a dream, a chimera of the sultry Kyoto night, brought on by all those quaint little side streets and red paper lanterns.

The truth was she still thought about him from time to time. He was a talented lover, she certainly recalled that part well enough, and he was a charmer. In fact, she could use a little of that charm right this minute.

What she didn't admire was the organization he worked for: the infamous MITI. Behind a smokescreen of "fair trade" rhetoric, MITI's intentions clearly were to extinguish systematically Japan's world competition, industry by industry. And so far they were batting a thousand. They'd never once failed to knock off a designated "target." What was next? Had MITI finally concluded that, down the road, intelligent computers could be the drive behind some massive shift in world power?

Maybe she should go.

She poured another dash of cognac for Allan, and they wandered back into the living room, just in time to see the Simpsons out. Everybody else followed except for Dave, now perched by the windows and glaring out into the dark. She decided to ignore him as she walked over, opened one a crack, and looked down. In the park below, commerce was tapering off and the Jamaican Rastas had begun toting up receipts for the night. No sounds, except the faint strains of reggae from a boom box.