Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"I doubt he will be pleased."

"Tell you one thing, that silver case has got to disappear, fast. Or we're likely to vanish ourselves. We may anyway." I quickened my pace toward the parking lot. "You know, I've got a wild hunch what's in that box. But whatever it is, I do know for sure we'd better get the thing somewhere for safekeeping. Quick."

"Should we tell Tamara?" He glanced down at the smoke- smeared briefcase in his hands, as though holding a cobra.

"She's got to know everything. For her own safety."

"Matthew," he said, looking at me. "You're supposed to be an authority. So tell me the truth. You were behaving strangely in there. It's a fake, isn't it?"

"Ken, during the Middle Ages about fifty different monasteries in Europe possessed the authentic, consecrated relic of Christ's circumcision. Who's to say? Remember Francis Bacon's 'What is truth?' Japan's emperor is now and forever. That's the only 'truth' that matters."

"What are you saying?"

"That sword belongs to the people of Japan. Ask them if it's real."

"Well, you've learned enough about this country to be able to get your message across without actually spelling it out. Very Japanese." He stared at me. "You'll have to concede one thing, though. Matsuo Noda is an absolute genius. Think about it. He claimed to have analyzed the sword, then donated the data to the Imperial Household-knowing there would be only one place on earth where it could be right out in public and yet never actually examined. In a fancy silver case kept by a bunch of Household bureaucrats, not one of whom would have the presumption to open it. Or be able to understand anything if he did."

My own nagging thoughts at that moment were on a different track. Why had Noda offered to let me see my own piece? To flaunt the dimensions of his balls? Or was he starting to believe his own trumped-up fantasy? Had Matsuo Noda convinced himself he was God? That he could turn water into wine? Or a fifteenth-century metallurgical screw-up into… The more I thought about it, the scarier it got. Or maybe, just maybe, he thought I wouldn't recognize it with a different hilt. Could be he was right. But Ken and I had accidentally viewed it disassembled. That wasn't part of his little inside joke. For once Matsuo Noda had blown it.

"Ken, everything I've learned about Noda so far tells me he's going to do something totally unexpected the minute he realizes we took that."

"Let him. I want to know what's in it."

"Do the world a favor. No. Never, never open it."

He paused a second and looked down at his briefcase.

"Maybe you're right. It's better for everybody if it just disappears."

By then we'd fully cleared the outer doors. The day was turning gorgeous, sunny and brisk. The thin film of last night's snow was all but gone.

Abruptly he stopped. "Wait, Matthew. Think a minute. We have to at least make a copy of the contents. And it needs to be gotten out of Japan."

"To protect ourselves?"

"Precisely."

"Okay, I'll buy that. Got any ideas?"

"Well, first let's go pick up Tam. Then I'd like to transmit digital facsimiles of whatever's in here to New York. She can set up a file in DNI's big NEC mainframe, and only the three of us will know the file name. It'll be your, and her, insurance policy."

"Can we do that from here?"

"In fifteen minutes. There's the Teleconferencing Center over next to Electrotechnical. They've got everything we'll need."

"Then let's collect her and get it done fast."

He opened the door of the Toyota, then turned to me. "You know, Matthew, I think you and Tam ought to be gone from here, too, as soon as possible. There's a copter pad by the hotel. I'm going to phone for a MITI chopper to pick you up and take you straight to Narita." He patted his briefcase. "After we've transmitted the contents of this, I want you back in New York. I'll call my secretary and have her book the next flight out; we'll just have somebody bumped if it's full."

"Why don't you come with us? No need for you to face Noda alone."

"Not yet." He hit the ignition. "But I'll be there in spirit."

How prophetic.

Our major concern at that point was time. We had a lot to do, and we weren't sure how long we had to do it. Furthermore, it would be foolhardy to assume everything was going to proceed smoothly. That apprehension was, in fact, soon to be thoroughly vindicated.

First, it wasn't all that simple to track down Tam. We finally discovered she'd already left the Robotics Lab and was back at the Tsukuba Hotel lunching with Matsugami and some of his senior staff. Returning there, however, did provide a perfect opportunity to grab our bags. Ken dragged her from the lunch with a phony excuse, and minutes later we were checked out, solving at least one logistics problem. Unfortunately, it also tipped off Matsugami and anybody else who might be interested that we were departing.

Next were the details of arranging for the chopper. While we were driving around trying to locate Tamara, Ken was busy on his car phone pulling strings to commandeer one of the two MITI helicopters. After three calls he managed to locate one at their auxiliary pad, currently being refueled and serviced. I listened to him lean on the service people, doing his diplomatic but firm deputy minister routine. End of long story: it would be on its way shortly, arriving in about an hour and a half.

Good, we thought. Plenty of time to handle the transmission of the still-unseen documents in Noda's silver case. In the car we brought Tam fully up to date on the extraordinary circumstances by which it had fallen into our possession, including its potential for use as leverage against Noda. Then we headed for the Teleconferencing Center, where we planned to open the thing, scan the contents with a reader, and bounce the pages to New York via satellite. Ken revealed the ministry had a high-security channel it used to communicate with the New York offices of JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization over on Sixth Avenue, MITI's public relations arm. He declared we would just link up with that office and have them patch us through to the DNI computer. Nothing to it.

Which was correct, theoretically. When we marched in, Ken again flaunting his deputy minister walk-on priority, the white-shirted staff bowed to the floor, led us to the hard-copy scanner, turned it on, and diplomatically excused themselves, closing the security door. The place was ours.

Don't know why, but until that moment none of us had really wanted to know what was in Noda's case. Maybe a part of me still didn't, even then. Whatever the reason, however, none of us had bothered to take it out of Ken's briefcase for examination. Turned out that was a mistake.

He settled his satchel onto the desk, clicked it open, and out came the box for our first real look. As he wiped off the smoke, my initial reaction was to be dazzled. It was magnificent, a silversmith's masterpiece, engraved with all manner of mythological beast and fowl. A work of art in every sense. Never seen anything remotely like it.

The problem was, it wasn't merely locked. It was soldered shut. The silver lid had literally been welded on, leaving it essentially a solid piece. Noda, it turned out, left nothing to chance. Only a silversmith could crack the seal and divulge the contents. So we still had no idea what was inside, and worse, we'd managed to fritter away a valuable half hour coming to that fruitless discovery. Now what?

"Shit," said Tam. "When will we ever get a break?"

"Looks like we've got two choices," Ken announced ruefully, gazing down at the intractable chunk of metal in his hands. "We can do what we probably should have done in the first place: simply stash this for the moment and let Noda think we know what's in it. Or we can drive into Tokyo and locate somebody there who can open it, then transmit from MITI headquarters downtown."