Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"We just have to trust each other. That's all that matters."

Well, she thought, how could she not trust this man?

At least for tonight. Tomorrow she would think about tomorrow.

Kenji Asano was a very complex human being-Western on the surface, but with his own personality always glimmering through at the unexpected moment. He seemed to capture the best of both worlds: the forthrightness of an American and the intuitive self-confidence I've come to think of as a hallmark of the East.

The Japanese are a subtle people, in the finest sense of the word, and I normally feel slightly oafish in their land. I always know I'm missing about three levels of the nuance in whatever's going on. By the same token, a Japanese venturing into the West frequently seems to be moving as though he were following the numbers on one of those old Arthur Murray dance diagrams. The steps are precise and correct, but there's no glide to it, no natural rhythm. Ken, I must say, had long since gotten past that kind of awkwardness. His motions were fluid, his reactions quick and natural. Also, he managed to achieve this while retaining qualities that always reminded you he came from a culture that was writing Kyoto romances and wearing perfumed silk when London and Paris still had pigs in their garbage-strewn streets.

"Ken, you're a phenomenon." We were climbing into his blue Toyota sports car, which he'd driven up from Tokyo. Low profile-the car and the trip. "This play could blow up in your face."

Over our leisurely three-way breakfast in the hotel bar, he had given me a reasonably detailed sketch of the situation, after which Tam headed off in the DNI limo for her second day of appointments in the robot labs. My honest reaction, despite the prickle of jealousy, was instant liking of Asano. Furthermore, in the absence of anything better, his scheme seemed worth a shot.

Now came the sword. A phone call established that Noda had no objection to Ken's seeing it too, so we were set to head over to the Metallurgy Lab together. Not a bad time for straight talk.

"I know it's a gamble, Matthew, but I'd like to think of it as repaying my debt to America." He inserted his key in the ignition and started the engine. "In a way I feel some personal responsibility for the current condition of your technology."

Was he about to come clean on the subject of MITI's semiconductor blitz?

"You know, I once heard you were the brains behind Japan's memory chip takeover."

"Our strategy seemed prudent at the time." He sighed, then turned around to begin backing out of the hotel parking lot. "If you're planning for the long term, the sectors you focus on are obvious." He paused to light a Peace, then crumpled the wooden match in his hand and exhaled as he shifted into drive.

"And you play hardball."

"Otherwise why bother? I guess we had no idea the U.S. could be so inept. We assumed your semiconductor people, like your baseball teams, were major league."

He was right about that part. America fumbled away its lead by chasing quick profits. While MITI was playing the only way it knew how. Long term.

"I can't tell you how much I regret what's happened since," he continued, glancing occasionally at the rows of research labs gliding by on both sides of the roadway. "I now realize that a more cooperative approach would have worked to everyone's benefit. In the long run we each need the other. Now, it's going to take plenty of cooperation to prevent the U.S. from becoming a back office for Matsuo Noda."

"You really think a big MITI move will blow the whistle?"

"Matthew, the ministry is the closest thing Japan has to a strategic deterrent. By exploiting it, I will become the Japanese Rosenberg in the eyes of many, but if I can cause a worldwide scandal, perhaps everyone here and in the U.S. will start thinking about the implications of Noda's takeover."

"Friend, you're throwing your career in front of a train." I said it with respect. "Matsuo Noda could eat us both for hors d'oeuvres."

"Us, maybe. But not MITI. At least not yet." He smiled. "You know, we Japanese have a tradition of committing ritual suicide, seppuku, to emphasize a principle. You might say I'm doing that, but it's only professional seppuku. No unseemly knives or blood on the tatami."

"I understand now why Tam feels about you the way she does."

"Matthew." He spoke quietly. "I am here, you are there. I think she needs someone she trusts, and you seem to be that person just now. Stay by her."

"I'd like nothing better." And with that we lapsed into pensive silence.

It took only about ten minutes for the drive over to the laboratory, another structure that could have been a hangar for flying saucers. Somehow the idea of viewing a sacred relic of Japan's imperial past in this sci-fi setting was incongruous in the extreme, pure George Lucas.

We alighted in the executive parking lot and headed up the sidewalk together. At the sealed entrance Ken showed his palm to the computer's eye, a synthetic voice cleared us, and in we went. Waiting on the other side was a senior staff man who greeted us at the first security check, bowed, and motioned us to follow.

One area of the lab had been cordoned off, top security, with gun-carrying guards posted about every ten feet. There were also about two dozen plainclothes types wearing a white armband emblazoned with the Imperial insignia. Seemed that nobody, but nobody, got close to the Sun Goddess's sidearm without clearance from the top.

The staff man said Noda was currently tied up in a meeting with the director, so we should wait. No need, I said, flashing my DNI meishi. He bowed and we were waved past the guards, then ushered directly into the top-security workroom-where the team of white-frocked technicians was said to be cleaning and retouching the gilding on the sword's tsuba hand guard, the decorative little disc that separates the hilt from the blade.

Since the tsuba on swords were interchangeable, not necessarily connected in any particular way to a given piece, they're actually a separate art form, interesting but not overly serious items. Fact is, the Imperial Household could just as well have sent this one up here for work and kept the sword in Tokyo.

Such, however, was not the case. The main attraction itself was undoubtedly over there on the back workbench, in a big stainless steel box half the size of a coffin, an armed guard stationed next to it.

Noda must have told everybody we were coming in today because the technicians parted like the Red Sea at our approach. Although the president of Dai Nippon was still nowhere to be seen, the tsuba was there all right, lying exposed on a worktable right next to a pile of cleaning pads and the gilding apparatus.

And it was a stunner, take my word. One of the most tasteful I've ever had the pleasure to view. Iron, of course, and about ten centimeters across, circular. Actually it was shaped like a chrysanthemum, with the raised image of a mirror on one side and a beaded necklace on the other. The exquisite metalwork was enhanced by the fresh gilding, which made the embossing even more striking. My unprofessional opinion? Very, very ancient. Older than twelfth century? Entirely possible. I really couldn't say. But a wild guess would be early Heian, certainly no later than Kamakura. Fact is, back in those days metalwork didn't change all that much for long periods of time, so there's no real way to date with precision.

"Hijo-ni omoshiroi desu"-very interesting-I said after a respectful interval, hoping to get into the spirit of the occasion and impress everybody with my Berlitz Japanese. "And now, would it be possible to see the actual sword?" I pointed toward the stainless steel coffin. "Sealed in there, I presume."

The head technician bowed and suddenly looked very troubled. Then he mumbled something in rapid Japanese to Asano. He didn't budge.