Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

How'd you come by this sudden fortune? I asked. Where, she snapped back, have you been? The Dow Jones average was about to double, if it hadn't already. Funny, but the rest of the market was going nowhere. Oddest thing she'd ever seen. However, it only went to show what she'd always told me, and if I'd listened to her instead of those smarty-pants uptown brokers, I'd be rich now too. Stick with the blue chips. IBM was up thirty percent since yesterday, AT amp;T was flying, GM was selling for a price that would make you think they were back in the car business.

What the hell was she talking about! That's when I noticed a copy of Tuesday's New York Times lying there on my desk, right next to the phone. Only at first it didn't seem like the Times. Or maybe Punch Sulzberger had just been swallowed whole by Rupert Murdoch, because I hadn't seen a headline that arresting since the Posts immortal "Coed Jogger Slain in Bed." It was banner, right across the top; the Times' headline writer was practically orgasmic. But whereas the Post gets off on mere sex, the good gray Times reserves its libidinous juices for that ageless aphrodisiac, money.

New York Stock Exchange Prices Explode

NEW YORK-Volume skyrocketed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, as buyers for Big Board issues responded worldwide to a renewed confidence in American industry. Analysts are calling this the first leg of the Great Bull Market of the 1990s, saying this surge has been overdue for a decade. Leading the phenomenal rally were a number of America's foremost corporations… I came off my chair like a shot and headed for Tam's office. "Is anybody following what's going on outside?"

Her face was down on the desk, dark hair tousled across her cheeks. She looked up and rubbed her eyes, obviously knocked out too. Strange.

"What…?" Her voice was slurred.

"Something's gone crazy," I yelled. "Where's Henderson?"

Then I remembered he wasn't there. However, I did locate Jim Bob easily enough. He was in Noda's corner office, wideawake and still carrying our Uzi. Only now there were two of those long black automatics present, the other lying atop the wide teakwood desk.

One more thing. Seated behind that desk, his silver hair framed by the sunlight streaming through the wide back windows, was… Matsuo Noda.

The Shogun had arrived.

And with him came the dawn of a new, powerful reality. My drugged mind was flooded with the ramifications. Matsuo Noda, I now realized, had been on to us from the start. Once again he had used us. He had been the one who had emptied the office, the better to lure us in.

But the guards…

Noda-san, I bow to a true samurai. A swordsman's swordsman. Of course, it was as simple as it was elegant. You were testing us, allowing us a plausible opening, just difficult enough to force us to reveal our true strategy. The dictum of the masters: "If you want to strike your enemy, let him try to strike you first. The moment he strikes you, you have already succeeded in striking him." Pure bushido.

Everything up till now had only been feints. What I assumed was the battle turned out to have merely been staking out terrain, jockeying for position. At last, though, we were ready for the real engagement. Trouble was, Matsuo Noda had just secured the high ground.

"Come on in and have yourself a seat, Walton." Jim Bob beckoned toward the vacant chair as he sipped from a glass of California champagne, its plastic-looking bottle stationed on the floor beside him. Coors time was over.

"Jim Bob, what's happening with the market?" I was ignoring Noda for the moment, trying to get a firmer grasp on the new "prevailing conditions."

"'Bout what we figured," he replied, his white suit now greasy and wrinkled. "Yep, looks like we're roughly on schedule."

"It's a relief to know there's a timetable." I finally turned to Noda. "Wouldn't want this takeover to be half-cocked."

"Mr. Walton, if you would be so kind." He smiled and indicated the chair. "It would be well for you to join us."

Jim Bob waved me over with his Uzi. "Fact is, we're all about due for a little show and tell." He glanced up as Tarn entered the doorway. "Be a good idea if you got up to speed on what we're doing here, too."

"I just scrolled some prices," she said, glaring groggily at Noda, the morbid realization descending rapidly now. "You don't have to tell me anything. I know exactly what you're doing."

"What we're doing is, we're pulling this country out of the shit. That's what we're doing. We're saving this country's ass. Which is more than anybody else here's doing," Jim Bob continued, satisfaction in his voice. "How in hell did you ever think you could pull something like you were trying? Mr. Noda here could squash you all just like a june bug anytime he gets a mind, take my word for it."

Noda still hadn't amplified the new Dai Nippon scenario, but he didn't really need to bother.

"Jim Bob, don't spoil the fun and tell me. Let me try to guess." I glanced over at Noda, then back at him. "He suckered you in with his 'Rescue America' spiel. World peace at a price."

"Well, tell you the truth, the man did buy me lunch."

"I'll bet that's not all he did, you opportunistic son of a bitch."

I examined Noda. "How does it feel to have Japan about to be sole owner of IBM and AT amp;T and GM and… guess I could just check the supercomputer out there for the full list."

"Certain strategic corporations." Noda smiled benignly. "It had become the only meaningful direction to proceed, Mr. Walton. I'm afraid our other measures were clearly too little, too late."

"Why bother with the small fish, right? If you're going to buy up American technology, do it right."

"Mr. Walton, we both know it is inevitable. Neither you nor I can alter the tides of history." He sighed. "Perhaps Japan can provide the management guidance required to save America's industrial base, but it cannot be achieved merely by dabbling. Stronger measures, much stronger, were required. I finally came to see that. The problem was how to do it without a major psychological disruption of the market and more Japan bashing. Then by the greatest of good fortune, you solved my problem for me." He nodded toward Tam. "Your new trading program, Dr. Richardson, which allowed us to operate anonymously, was ideal. Why not make use of it? Particularly since Mr. Henderson had the personnel to render it operational."

While digesting that, I returned my attention to Jim Bob. "Let me guess some more. Ten to one you bought 'call' options on the Big Board issues he was planning to take over."

"Well, they were bound to go up." He flashed a reptilian grin as he adjusted the Uzi, now a bolt of black against his rumpled white suit. "If you're standing by the road and a gravy bus comes along, what are you going to do?"

"Terrific. Be a pity for this insider windfall to go to waste. Just wanted to make double sure you got a piece for yourself."

"Does a bear crap in the woods?" he inquired rhetorically, then tipped back his head and drained the champagne glass.

"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, locking in a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into the clouds."

"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S amp;P 500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairy for me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavy leverage. No risk."

I concurred. "Nothing too abstruse."

"The thing of it is, I'm more comfortable dealing with reality," he went on. "I like to kick the tires, check under the hood, so that index crap's not my style. Like I always say, if you've got hold of something you can't figure out how to drink, drive, or screw, maybe you oughta ask yourself what you're doing with it."