Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

A pragmatic criterion, I agreed. 'Though it's rather a pity you didn't cut me in on the play. I could have used the money."

"Walton," he replied, "it downright pains me to have to be the one breakin' the news to you, but you could have used the money more than you think. Whose bank balances do you figure I've been using to test out that platinum program?"

"In the spirit of intellectual curiosity, Jim Bob, does our new system for blowing capital show promise?"

"From the looks of my early churning, I'd say you got yourself a winner."

The fucker. How in hell did he get access to my money? I decided to just ask, whereupon he obligingly explained.

"Well, we're hooked into every bank computer in town." He was unblinking, a drugged-out zombie. "Account numbers aren't exactly a state secret, given the right phone call. Same goes for trust funds."

Trust funds?

"Let me be sure I've got this straight. You've also wiped out my daughter Amy's college money? She's now penniless too?"

"We're close, real close." He reached down and retrieved the bottle, then sloshed more of the cheap bubbly into his glass. "I'm figuring I can have everything down to a goose egg by sometime round about… lunch, probably."

I decided then and there I was going to kill him, and Matsuo Noda, with my own bare hands. The only question was whether to do it at that moment or later.

"Jim Bob, for the record, you two've just fucked with the wrong guy. When somebody starts messing with Amy's future, I tend to lose my sense of proportion."

"Nothing personal, Walton. You just had to be stopped, that's all." He grinned. "Figured it'd get your attention. Besides, way I see it, this man here's absolutely right. He's got the only answer that makes any sense."

"As long as sellout artists like you get rich in the process."

"It's in the grand American tradition, buddy. Enlightened self-interest, better known as looking out for number one. Everybody else here's hocking this country's assets to Japan and gettin' rich doing it. So why not? Besides, we've still got a ways to go. Time to give you-all a piece of this thing too."

"If we play ball?"

"Exactly."

"You greedy prick." I was considering just strangling him on the spot, nice and uncomplicated. "Noda's not here for anybody but himself. He's-"

"That's not the way I see it." He glanced over toward The Man, who was still silent as a sphinx.

"You wouldn't have the brains to understand even if we told you. But maybe there's something you can comprehend." I glanced at the metal grip of the Uzi on Noda's desk. One lightning move and it was in my hand. "I'm not going to let you do this."

"It's already done, pal." He lifted his own Uzi and leveled it at my forehead, grinning, his little idea of a joke. "I've got that NEC mainframe out there programmed for weeks of trading. Billions… Pow!" He jerked the barrel upward, then continued, "Way I've got it rigged, ain't nobody can turn it off now. We'd just as well all go fishing."

"Jim Bob, take care with that gun. Somebody might just decide to ram it down your scrawny throat."

"Ain't gonna be you, buddy." He reached for the champagne bottle again, no longer grinning.

"Mr. Walton." Finally Noda spoke again. "I assure you this is for the best. What you two were planning was very ill-considered. Not to mention that, if I'd actually permitted you to sink Dai Nippon's capital into some volatile commodity and then manipulate the markets, you might have given our institutional investors an enormous loss of confidence in my program. I have a responsibility to make sure that never happens." He studied Tam. "Dr. Richardson, you especially disappointed me. You betrayed my trust, something I always find unforgivable."

"You betrayed my trust." She looked ready to explode. "Lied to me, exploited me, used me. You perverted everything I had planned-"

"As I've explained, this had become necessary. There was no other way."

"How about Ken, and probably Allan Stern?" she interrupted. "Was taking their lives 'necessary' too?"

"You have no proof of that," he continued smoothly. "I would further suggest that too much speculation is not a healthy pursuit, Dr. Richardson. In the marketplace or in life."

"I'm not speculating."

"As you wish. In any case I think we both realize it is never prudent to meddle in matters beyond one's concern."

"There's a small detail you may have overlooked, Noda-san," I broke in. "That bogus sword. What are you planning to do when we blow the whistle?"

"My timetable for Nipponica is now proceeding on schedule, Mr. Walton." He glanced at the Uzi on the desk, his voice ice. "Consequently you are expendable as of this moment."

If the swordsman casts aside two thoughts, life and death, nothing can defeat his mind.

That was the credo of the formidable warrior-samurai Bokuden, who lived during the early seventeenth century. Focus on Noda, I told myself, not on staying alive. What we had to do was overcome him and the money of Japan by the power of mind. By beating him at his own game. That was the only way we could win.

As I saw it, we might actually have the advantage. We knew his strategy, so all we had to do now was move inside his defense perimeter. In a way we were even closer than he realized. Noda was obsessed with Nipponica, and a samurai concentrating on his sword is not able to attack. The thing to remember was rhythm, the beat. We had to get out of sync with him, disrupt his pacing.

When Tam and I retreated to my office, I noticed that my katana was missing. No surprise, but it didn't really matter. We would be using the "no sword" technique anyway, moving under his hilt, then going in for the kill. Jim Bob would be our new weapon.

At the moment Noda's new hatchet man was strolling around the floor in his dingy white suit, toting his Uzi and monitoring us with an occasional vacant stare as he watched the terminal's flash. His bumpkin facade, incidentally, had to be the best acting job I'd seen since the Royal Shakespeare. He may have been a spaced-out options hustler at heart, but he could coach Machiavelli on duplicity. A worthy opponent.

"Just hit nine percent of IBM." He glanced at a CRT screen as he ambled down the row next to my office, swinging the automatic. "Telephone looks good for twelve percent by opening bell tomorrow. Good thing we've got a computer and these fake accounts. Otherwise we might have to cut the SEC in on the news a little too early."

Well, DNI was nothing if not organized; "global trading" was on a roll. There would be no way to trace Noda-or to stop him. By the time anybody realized what was afoot, he'd be well on the way to having us literally bought out. God knows, Japan had the money.

"Jim Bob," I yelled across. "Mind telling me what the hell it is you really think you're up to?"

"I'm making history." He grinned and waved his Uzi in the air. "You're getting to watch the dawn of a new age."

"For your wallet." I beckoned him over. "Tell me something. You didn't actually sell any of the high-tech stocks on Tam's list after all, did you?"

"Hell, no." He was still grinning. "All we did was play games a little. Whenever I sold anything, I just turned around and bought it back a few minutes later."

"So where's all the money coming from for this big blue chip takeover?"

"We got a whole new financial network in place. Mr. Noda worked it out with the pension funds over there."

"Well, it seems to me you ought to be doing this thing right. Why think small? Pick up some more shares of those high-tech issues in the old portfolio too."

He stared at me with his bloodshot eyes. "How come we'd want to bother with that?"

"Just thought maybe you'd like to make a score."