Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"Have to admit, too, the idea of using our international bank cover to gobble up America's blue chips incognito was a stroke of genius. Congratulations. You're about to scare MITI and the rest of Japan half to death. Not to mention the world. With DNI heading up the management, who knows what could happen? You can probably write your own ticket back home after this."

"Your friend Dr. Henderson's young colleague was invaluable."

Was?

Alas, poor Jim Bob. Did that mean he wasn't going to live long enough to spend the new fortune he thought he was about to make? Maybe Noda was planning to do half of my work for me.

"I guess a few of those phone taps you like so much led you straight to him, right? You were probably at least a day ahead of everything we did."

"Good intelligence is vital to any successful endeavor, Mr. Walton. You should remember that from Sun Tzu's classic Art of War."

The man was right on.

"All these dummy corporations." I was still running the stall. "A little stock bought by each one, the SEC will never suspect. You just roll trades worldwide, till-"

"As long as necessary."

"Who knows you're doing this?" Was it possible some rogue financier such as Noda really could pull a fast one on the whole world, use Japanese institutional money for whatever he pleased? "Have you cleared this with the fund managers…?"

"It was not necessary, Mr. Walton. I have long since earned the trust of my colleagues." Again he had a weird look in his eye. Matsuo Noda, I realized, was currently operating from a distant planet.

Needless to say, our dialogue hadn't done a lot to calm my nervous system. The obvious solution to Noda's secrecy requirements didn't include a lengthy life span for a lot of loudmouthed gaijin. Time to wrap up the stock market games and get back to swordsmanship.

"At this point there's only one problem left, but I suppose you've already thought of it too. If word of this anonymous takeover breaks too soon, the exchanges might just decide to shut down trading and stop you. Which means we're all a threat to you at this point."

He stood unmoving. "That matter will be addressed presently."

How soon, I wondered, was "presently"?

"But haven't you forgotten somebody? Bill Henderson. The man's no fool. The minute he figures out your play, which he surely will, he's going to start blowing word all over the newspapers. You'll never get away with this."

Noda smiled lightly. "It would be helpful if he were here now. Perhaps you could be good enough to arrange for it."

So with Matsuo Noda standing over me, Uzi next to my head, I called Henderson on my speakerphone. He picked up after eight rings.

"Bill. Getting rich?"

"Walton, what time is it? Goddam, you woke me up." He yawned into the receiver. "Jesus, I feel like hell. What's going on? Everything still looking okay?"

"Couldn't be better. Quite a party around here. Want to come back down and help us celebrate?"

"Well… what the…! It's after eleven already. Hey, let me check out the market first. Be down there in a little."

I looked up as Noda fingered his Uzi. "Just come on over now. Don't putz around with the market. We could use the company. And Bill…"

"Yeah?"

"This shindig's BYOB. So how about picking up a fifth of Scotch? That way we can all get into the spirit of things here on the eleventh floor."

"Walton, that's a hell of a-"

"I know bringing your own booze is not your style. But why don't you check in with Eddie, the security chief downstairs? He always keeps me a bottle of Suntory there in the utility room. See him about it."

"That Japanese crap. Matt, what are you talking about? You know I hate-"

"Just ask for Eddie, Bill." I cut him off. "Tell him Matthew Walton wants his black label Japanese juice sent up here immediately. Understand?"

I hung up before Henderson could say anything more. Such as tell me we both knew there was no such thing as "black label" Suntory.

"Guess he'll be here shortly." I turned back to Noda.

"He should be here in no time at all, Mr. Walton. Two of my guards have been posted outside his building since he returned there yesterday. For his own safety. They will bring him."

With that chilling bit of news Matsuo Noda proceeded to yank out the phone cord, then head back to his office. The Art of War. You leave nothing to chance. In fact his two sumo heavies were now standing outside my office, keeping a close eye on us. Guess he no longer had full confidence in Jim Bob.

"Tam, did you catch what just happened?" I'd walked back over to the terminals.

"I did." She was staring into space.

"Henderson was our best hope to get out of here alive. He has a suspicious mind the equal of Sherlock Holmes's. But now…"

"Matt, what's he going to do to us all?"

"Don't think it'll be pretty."

"Then…" She'd turned and was staring at the security entrance, wearing a quizzical expression.

I wheeled around to look too, and at first I thought I might have been hallucinating. A female figure was emerging through the doors, wearing an outfit whose style I couldn't quite place. Maybe it was one of those bulky creations such as Yohji Yamamoto or some other avant-garde Japanese designer might dream up, but it didn't resemble anything I'd ever seen before. Silk like a kimono, yet with a flowing quality. Ancient almost.

Then I had a vision, just offbeat enough to fit. An ink illustration out of the The Tale of Genji flashed before my eyes, and I realized I was seeing a hakama, something that hadn't been around the streets of Japan for roughly eight hundred years.

The woman in it was wearing peculiar makeup, not punk, though it might have been. It was pale, like the delicate ink shadings on a Heian hand scroll. She looked for all the world like a court lady of ages past; she'd have fit right in at some 1185 Heian linked-verse soiree. Old Kyoto come to life.

Is this the latest neo-New Wave? What in good Christ…

The only uncoordinated touch was the handbag, leather and starkly modern, with a lock attached.

Jim Bob gave her a glazed stare as she moved right past him, headed for us. The sumo pair was bowing to the floor.

Well, well, the Emperor's most devoted courtier had finally arrived. Into our presence on this day of days had returned none other than Ms. Akira Mori. One look at her eyes told me she'd come to kill somebody.

"Mr. Walton, where is the silver case?" She'd walked straight up to us and now was just standing there, awaiting an answer.

"Mori-san, that silver box is long gone, thanks to Noda." I suddenly felt as if we'd just dropped out of the twentieth century and back into the twelfth. Time warp. "Let me tell you something. It was like the apple in the Garden of Eden: bite into it and out would spew the knowledge of good and evil. Better to forget the whole thing."

"You don't know anything."

"Definite point. We've just discovered there was a heck of a lot we didn't know." I thumbed toward Noda's office. "Including the scope of Dai Nippon's impressive new investment program."

She ignored that response entirely as she whirled on Tam, her voice increasingly strident. "Dr. Richardson, you have betrayed His Majesty."

"Mori-san, you and everybody who's helping Noda are the ones who've done the betraying." Tam stared her in the eye, daggers.

"Even though you are Fujiwara, you still let him continue," Mori pressed on, oblivious. "His scheme to manipulate the Emperor, to undermine MITI-"

"That's got nothing to do with-"

"It is the duty of a Fujiwara to protect His Majesty."

"Speaking of His Majesty," I cut in, "how much did you have to do with Noda's fake sword? Guess that 'protected' the Emperor too. Nothing like being handed a new lease on divinity."