Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

Back when the world was young and Amy was still a gleam in our eye, Joanna and I acquired a rambling white fortress, complete with pool, that was being offered to the first tourist appearing on St. Croix that day with ready cash. Seemed its Cosa Nostra owner back in Sicily (so the story went) suddenly needed a transfusion of a hundred grand in bail money. Fortunately I'd had a good year and happened to have the necessary liquidity. It was luxurious beyond vulgarity. Hardwood parquet floors, heavy tile roof (to withstand an Interpol bombing run? Who knows?), manicured grounds, satellite dish, a bar worthy of Caesars Palace, three bedrooms, and music in every room. It was oversize and garish and pretentious and… who cares, I loved the place. Sort of a Roman villa in the middle of paradise. However, because of the peculiar requirements of its former tenant, it also had a security setup to shame Fort Knox, including a six-foot fence, two-inch-thick doors, and TV monitors all over the grounds.

If we could locate a little hardware to match Noda's Uzis, he'd be in for a surprise should he try and send down a Dai Nippon hit squad for an unscheduled visit.

But first things first. Right now we needed to somehow lure Matsuo Noda into revealing more of his overall strategy.

After the cab dropped me off, I rode the elevator up to twelve and passed through security. The complement of guards, I noticed in passing, had just been expanded. Instead of two, now there were four. And when I walked out onto the floor, nobody said anything, but there was an almost palpable air of tension. Stony silence, analysts nervous. Bad vibes, very bad vibes.

I just ignored the stares and headed straight for Tarn's office. She was waiting, and she had an identical reading of the situation. The minute I walked in, she got up and shut the door. Her first words…

"He just brought in more security. That, and the IBM thing. Matt, he's getting worried."

"Bet your ass he is. We're moving in too close. But I think Noda figures he's just toying with us now. Having some fun before he cuts us in half."

"I'm not afraid of him. No matter what he tries." She glanced at the door. "Did you bring the memos?"

"Here in my briefcase. But I think it's too soon to show him everything we have. Right now he doesn't know what we've got. That's better."

"Well, I've just begun to fight. I'm going to Tokyo to get the truth out of Ken." She paused, and her voice trembled slightly with anger. "He's got some heavy explaining to do."

"You're incredible." I just looked at her. "I almost believe you still can't accept that your friend Asano is in on Noda's play. Since he's such a terrific guy."

"Matt, I don't believe it. He wouldn't be part of this. You don't know him."

"That I don't."

"All I'm saying is, this doesn't feel right. He wouldn't involve MITI in whatever Noda's planning." She sat down, running her hands through her tousled dark hair. "You know, the fact is we still don't know for sure who's really behind what."

"Exactly. How does everybody fit in, including us? We've got pieces of a puzzle lying around-a section here, a section there-but something fundamental is missing."

"So what do we do next?"

"How about a little joust with our friend downstairs? Try and feel him out. Maybe we can lure him into making another move, something that'll give away more of his game."

"You don't think he's actually going to talk."

"Not really. He'll feint, parry. But if we watch carefully, maybe we'll glimpse more of the outline of his strategy. Then we'll know what our counter scenario has to be." I decided to hold off on telling her the getaway plan. Assuming the walls had ears, we'd already said too much. "Look, make you a deal. First let's see what happens with Noda, then we decide what to do about your friend Asano."

"All right. But let's stay cool." She was locking her desk.

"You read my mind."

With that settled, we strolled out, past the doubled security, and headed down to eleven. The way people looked at us, I felt as naked as Tam had been in the bath Saturday night. How much did they know?

Matsuo Noda was in his office. His secretary buzzed us right through, almost as though he'd been waiting for our appearance.

"Dr. Richardson. Mr. Walton." He rose to greet us. "How timely. There is an urgent matter we have to discuss."

"We want to talk about MITI." I decided to try and break his rhythm as quickly as possible. Take the action to him.

"Then this is a coincidence." An easy smile as he resumed his seat. "That happens to be the very matter I wanted to explore-"

"What we want to know," Tam interrupted, "here and now, is whether our program is being run by the ministry."

"Dr. Richardson, you… and Mr. Walton, are in the employ of Dai Nippon, International, not MITI." He leaned back in his chair. "Though of course nothing in this world is entirely simple. Certain… interests of the ministry are germane to our programs here."

"Then we'd like to hear about it." She glanced at the leather chairs but decided to remain on her feet. I did the same.

His face was like granite. "Well, you are aware we've occasionally received input from MITI's Industrial Technology arm.

"How about Research and Planning, Ken's section?"

"Only a few informal-"

"Nothing to do with Marketshare – 90?"

He betrayed a hint of confusion, quickly masked. "Dr. Richardson, with all due respect, I fear you may not be entirely aware of the various forces at play here." He leaned back. "This program of ours must succeed. There are many avenues of responsibility, but all difficulties will be overcome."

"What do you mean?"

"All in time, please believe me." He smiled once more. "I'll readily grant you our acquisition program may have evolved slightly as of late in the direction of more-solid securities, but you can be assured that is merely a response to the concerns of certain conservative institutional investors in Tokyo." He continued, a silver tongue to match his silver hair. "Risk is involved. Not to mention an enormous quantity of funds. There is pressure on us just now to try and maintain a prudent balance in our portfolio." He glanced at his watch impatiently. As if he was anxious to move ahead. "Which brings us to the matter we have to address."

"Just to set the record straight"-I decided to do a little parrying of my own-"you have nothing to say about any kind of MITI involvement? Including Marketshare – 90?"

"Well, this Marketshare – 90 proposition you refer to probably should be thought of as merely one of the ministry's more ambitious trial balloons, nothing more. It has the quality of-how do you say it?-woolgathering. Whatever its purpose, it should in no way be confused with Dai Nippon's objectives." Such was Noda's reply. Then in a remarkably convincing tone he added, "How could the ministry's planning possibly have anything to do with our program here?"

Tam wasn't buying. "Looks to me like it has a lot to do with it."

"Dr. Richardson, since I am no longer directly affiliated with MITI, I am not in a position to speak for every proposition arising there. However, we both know that the ministry's responsibility is to provide long-range industrial planning. They often circulate scenarios for comment. It's part of their job."

We were rapidly losing our footing. Noda was top-ranked swordsman. He'd kept his discipline and revealed nothing. He was telling us we hadn't found an opening. He was right. It was a classic standoff.

Or it should have been. Strategically, we should have taken that moment to back away and analyze Noda's style, searching for his weakness. But instead Tam made what turned out to be a fatal move. She struck, exposing herself.

"Since according to you MITI is not involved in this program, there should be no problem if I contacted them directly and talked this over. In Japan."