Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

"I don't believe you did this." Tam fell against me laughing. "Do you realize what it really means? Noda's totally destroyed. He'll have to sell off that new portfolio of blue chips just to have enough profit to cover the claims of his original Eight-Hundred-Year-Fund investors. After this, no Japanese money manager is going to give him a yen. He's history."

"Bushido. When you break the rules, things like that can happen."

"Jesus, I'm not going to screw around short selling. I'm just gonna load up on puts before the opening tomorrow. You oughta do the same, Walton. When the Street gets wind of this and all those stocks crater, you could clear millions." Bill headed briskly up the avenue.

"Stay well." We watched him disappear into the crowd, then started searching for Charlie Morgan and the car.

Incidentally, the recipient of that phone call wasn't really named Patrick. Since there are laws about smuggling firearms in and out of countries, and we damned well were going to take along the Uzi, it seems only right to give him a pseudonym. His charter outfit, which works out of that hangar off to the side of the majors at Kennedy, keeps a Lear that can make the Caribbean in one hop if it's not too full. He even picks you up in a limo, his come-on for the carriage trade.

About ten minutes later we saw Charlie working the Rolls around all the fire engines double-parked on Third and waving for us.

"Good to see you again, Matt." He glanced back as we settled in. "Christ, you two look terrible. Were you up there?"

"Just left."

"Must have been a hell of a fire from the looks of it." He hit the gas and made a right turn. "Where to? Straight down Fifth to your place?"

"One quick stop first. Over on West Seventy-eighth."

"The West Side? In this traffic? Come on, Matt. I still haven't had lunch."

"Just cut through Central Park. Should be a snap."

While he and Tam waited outside the West Side "Free School, I went in to try and kidnap Amy. It wasn't easy. I finally explained to Ms. Winters that my daughter's Christmas vacation had merely been delayed a little this year, but better late than never. After some haggling, we struck a deal on homework. Then, in a limo piled high with school books, class projects, lunch boxes, and a black Israeli Uzi, we headed downtown.

"Dad, you've gone nuts." My only offspring was in heaven.

"Honey, we're going to snorkel for two weeks solid. Think you can stand the old man for that long?"

"Can we have a Christmas tree? You promised."

"I'll cut it myself."

"And a Christmas party too?"

"Might have to call it something else, but I suppose we can give it a try. If you keep up on the homework." I looked at her, failing as usual to understand the movements of her mind. "Sweetie, why do you want to throw a party? This is supposed to be a vacation."

"Dad, really. Don't you remember that neat boy from Sweden whose parents have that house across the bay? He was teaching me windsurfing last summer. He's in junior year now, but if he's there, we've got to have a party. Don't you understand?"

"Guess we'll have a party."

What can you do? Nobody said you're supposed to win them all.

Bad news, or maybe it was good news, travels with amazing speed in this day and age. The late edition of the Tuesday New York Post found its way to the Caribbean on an evening flight, and since it took us a while to get out of town, it actually reached the Virgin Islands shortly before we did. However, since we flew directly into St. Croix instead of the main island of St. Thomas, we missed the delivery.

As it happened, though, an old acquaintance was passing the house that night on a personal mission, and he was kind enough to drop off Rupert Murdoch's Tuesday contribution to journalism.

The time was around ten P.M. Amy was sound asleep, conked out from twilight windsurfing, and Tam and I were working on a pitcher of planter's punch by the pool when there came the sound of honking out front. I went in and unlocked the entry, then peeked out to see who it was. The red, white, and blue jeep belonged to none other than Artie Wilson, dressed to the nines.

"Walton, my man, you done gone and got yourself famous." He grinned with delight, then threw a rolled-up newspaper toward the door. "Tole you it'd be yo' ass."

"Artie, what in hell. Turn that thing off and come in for a drink. Somebody I want you to meet."

"Hey, late for a reception at that new place down the beach. Think all them hot New York divorcees jus' come down here for nothing but sunshine an' vitamin D? Gotta keep the tourists satisfied." He revved his engine and began backing out of the drive. "Tomorrow, maybe, Feds ain't nailed yo' honkie butt by then."

With which enigmatic pronouncement he sped into the humid night.

I picked up the bundle, then snapped on the yard lights and strolled back out where Tam was sitting, still wearing her pool robe. What was Artie talking about?

As I settled down beside her and unrolled the paper, staring back at us from the front page were two very familiar faces.

"Off one of my book jackets," she said. "I never much cared for it."

"Mine's from their photo morgue, during some takeover circus."

Guess we should have been keeping closer tabs on the news. Seems that Matsuo Noda, president of Dai Nippon, Int., had held a press conference mid-afternoon Tuesday to refute all the misinformation being spread by Senator Jack O'Donnell. As he claimed, it was actually two Americans, former employees of DNI, who had been responsible for Dai Nippon's secret hostile takeover of the U.S.'s largest corporations. He made this point to dispute Senator O'Donnell's assertion that they had been the ones who'd stopped it. (See photo, page 1.) He went on to apologize for what apparently had been a severe communications mix-up within DNI, which brought about this unauthorized action, and he was pleased to report he personally had taken steps to terminate the buy-up this very morning, as of 11:53 A.M.

Run that whopper by Jack's subcommittee, Noda-san.

There was more. Seems the body of an unidentified male-young, Caucasian, and badly burned-had been recovered by firemen on the eleventh floor of DNI's offices. Noda had no idea who this person was, perhaps a misfortunate prowler…

"Matt, look!" She was pointing at a paragraph on the lower half of the page.

There'd been a second casualty, although not as serious. The well-known Japanese financial commentator Akira Mori had been borne, unconscious, from the premises. Acute smoke inhalation. As of press time she was in intensive care at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

"We saw her come out of the office. It was pretty smoky by then, but how could…?"

The answer followed. Firemen reportedly had discovered her in the computer room near the mainframe's burned-out storage banks. Speculation was she had been attempting to save the hard disks, the vital DNI files.

"Mori wasn't trying to save anything." Tam tossed down the paper. "She wanted to make sure all the disks were destroyed. To protect the Emperor from a scandal over Noda's sword hoax."

"Another victim for the Imperial sword." I looked up at the starry sky, a mosaic of silver and black as the Milky Way floated above us. The night air was symphonic with the sound of crickets. "How many more?"

Then she retrieved the Post and we finished the item. After Noda's prepared statement there'd been a Q amp;A-during which he reaffirmed his intention to use all available means to block Senator O'Donnell's subpoena of DNI's remaining records, an action he declared confiscatory and groundless. Privileged information, etc.

He did, however, manage to wrap things up on a forward- looking note. Today's unfortunate, indeed tragic, accidental fire should be understood as merely a momentary setback. Nothing that had happened would in any way diminish his program of capital infusion and open-market acquisition in America's high-tech sector. Wall Street need not worry; Senator O'Donnell's "harassment" notwithstanding, Dai Nippon's money was here to stay. We were now partners. His grand new alliance, Nipponica, would shape the world to come.