Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"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 hell 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 document he said he wanted to hand deliver. Something about it had him scared shitless." 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."

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 sturdy, 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 passed 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 partitions were film posters and American counterculture bumper 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 Godzilla; 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 amp; the Banshees sounded from a tiny stereo assembled 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 skyscrapers like a Martian son et lumiere.

But she wasn't fooled by the frat-house trimmings. She realized these casually dressed young researchers were the pick of Japan'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 Japanese offices and labs stifled creativity, he had deliberately devised an un-Japanese workspace 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 attitude. He liked to be out on the floor, with just another low partition, 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 Institute, particularly with your IBM connection, but you should keep an eye on Columbia. Now that AT amp;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."

Hello, she thought. How come Ken suddenly knows so much scuttlebutt about U.S. computer research? Nobody at home knows the first thing about what's going on in Japan.

"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."

"Ah, well, for now my work is here." He gestured uncomfortably about the room. "Let me try once more for that tea."

She realized he'd slipped deftly around her quick probe concerning MITI's new role in the lab. He knew how to be a team player, she thought. Very Japanese.

This time he raised a response. A female voice dripping with long-vowel honorifics announced his tea would be delivered immediately.

Next came a small, awkward lull as they both sat there remembering Kyoto and not sure how to get around that memory. She wondered if it was happening all over again.