Thomas Hoover - Project Daedalus

He'd been worried from the start that difficulties might arise. The idiocy of Japan's modern financial regulations had driven him to launder the payoffs thoroughly. In the old days, when he was Washington's man, controlling the Liberal Democratic Party, no meddling tax agency would have dared audit any of his shadow companies. But after a bastard maverick named Vance-with the CIA, no less!- had blown the whistle on his and the Company's clandestine understanding…

He had arranged the initial financing for the project, as well as the political accommodations, with letters of credit, promissory notes, and his word. And, eventually, if need be, the full financing could be raised by partial liquidation of his massive real estate holdings in Hawaii.

But the near-term expenses-and the necessary payoffs in the LDP-that was different. In Japanese kosaihi, the "money politics" of gifts and outright bribes, secrecy was everything. He remembered how he'd had to arrange for the mighty Yoshio Kodama, a powerbroker who had once shared his virtual ownership of the Japanese Diet and the Japanese press, to accept responsibility for the CIA-Lockheed bribe affair. It was a close call. That had involved a mere twelve million of American cash to Japanese politicians, but it had changed the rules forever. These days- particularly after the Recruit debacle had disgraced the LDP yet again-money had to be laundered and totally untraceable.

Promises had been made, schedules signed off, the veil of total secrecy kept intact. Everything was arranged. The Soviets, incompetents that they were, had no inkling of the larger plan.

Now it all came down to the funds. He needed the money at once.

He turned in his chair, pressed a gray button on his desk, and watched the window blinds disappear into their frame. Neko rose from her languorous pose, stretched her spotted white fur, and gazed down. This was the panoramic view she loved almost as much as he did, for her perhaps it was the memory of a snowy Himalayan crest; for him it was the sprawl of Tokyo, the elegant peak of Mount Fuji to the west, the bustling port of Yokohama to the south. From this vantage atop the powerful financial world of Japan, Tanzan Mino wanted two final triumphs to crown his career. He wanted to see Japan become the twenty-first century's leader in space, and he wanted his country finally to realize its historic wartime objective: economic domination of the continent of Asia, from Siberia to Malaysia, with freedom forever from the specter of energy and resource dependence. The plan now in motion would achieve both.

He revolved again in his chair, ignored the subordinate standing before his desk, and studied the model. It was a perfect replica, one-hundredth the actual size, of the spaceplane that would revolutionize the future, the symbol that would soon signify his country's transcendence in the high-tech age to come.

Then his gaze shifted.

"You were 'unsure what action to take'?" He leaned back, touching his fingertips together, and sadness entered his voice. "You know, there was a time when I thought Japan might still one day recapture the spirit we have lost, the spirit of bushido. In centuries gone by, a samurai never had to ask himself 'what action to take.' He acted intuitively. Instinctively. Do you understand?"

"Hai, wakarimasu." The man bowed stiffly.

"I am prepared to funnel trillions of yen into this project before it is over. Legitimate, clean funds. So the sum now in question is almost inconsequential. However, it is the bait we need to set the trap, and it must be handled exactly as I have specified."

"Hai, Mino-sama." Again he bowed.

"The next time you stand before me, I want to hear that the laundered Soviet funds have been deposited in the Shokin Gaigoku Bank as agreed. You have one week." He slowly turned back to the window. "Now, must I tell you what you have to do?" The man bowed low one last time. He knew exactly.

Wednesday 7:38 P.M.

"Michael! And Eva! Again, after so long. Pos iste! What a surprise!" The old Greek's sunburned face widened into a smile, his gray mustache opening above his last good teeth. "Parakalo, you must come in for a glass of raki and some of Adriana's meze. She would never forgive me."

They'd dropped by the hotel, then come here. Although Zeno's small taverna was in the center of Iraklion, its facade was still country style, covered with an arbor. A bare electric bulb hung incongruously in the middle of the porch, penetrating the dull glow of dusk now settling over the square called Platia Eleftherias, where the evening's volta was just beginning. Once the chaste promenade of eligible young women, it was now a deafening flock of motorscooters, with girls in tight jeans riding on their backs. And the watchful mothers of old were conspicuously absent. Times had indeed changed since his last time here.

"Zeno." Vance shook his hand, then accepted his warm embrace. As he was driving, he'd been wondering what the old Greek would think about the sudden reappearance of Eva. They hadn't been here together since that last trip, well over a decade ago. "Still pouring the meanest raki in this town?"

"But of course. Never that tequila you like, Michael." He chuckled with genuine pleasure, recalling that Vance could down his high-potency version of ouzo like a native. "Ah, you know, Michael, your father would never touch it. You, though…"

He beckoned them through the kafeneion's doorway, leading the way with a limp. The interior was dark, redolent of Greek cigarettes and retsina wine. Overwhelming it all were the smells of the kitchen-pungent olive oil and onions and garlic and herbs, black pepper and oregano. Although lighting was minimal, around the rickety wooden tables could be seen clusters of aging Greeks drinking coffee and raki and gossiping. The white clay walls resounded with the clacks of komboloi worry beads and tavli, Greek backgammon.

"But then," Zeno continued, "that last trip, your birthday present to him. On his retirement. Do you remember? When we three were sitting at that very table, there in the corner. He called for a bottle of my raki and shared a glass with me. We both knew it was our good-bye." His eyes grew misty with emotion. "Yes, coming here finally with his famous son was a kind of benediction, Michael. He was passing the torch to you, to continue his work."

This last was uttered with a slightly censorious tone. But it quickly evaporated as he turned and bowed to Eva, then took her hand in a courtly gesture. The old Greeks in the room would have preferred no women save an obedient mate in their male sanctuary, but traditional hospitality conquered all. "It is so good to see you two back together." He smiled warmly as he glanced up. "Welcome once again to our humble home."

She bowed back, then complimented him in turn, in flawless Greek.

"So beautiful, and so accomplished." He beamed. "You still are the treasure I remember. You are a goddess." He kissed her hand. "As I've told Michael before, you could well be from this island. No, even more. You could be Minoan. You bear a fine resemblance to the 'parisiennes' of the palace. Did he ever tell you?"

"Not often enough." She flashed him her sexiest smile. "But then he never had your eye for women."

"Ah," the old man blushed, "I have more than an eye. If I were thirty years younger, you and I-"

"Zeno, before you drown Eva in that legendary charm, let me bring her up to date," Vance laughed. "She is now in the presence of the man who has probably become the richest tavern owner in all of Crete."

It was true. Zeno Stantopoulos had indeed become a wealthy man, in many ways. His father had once farmed the land on which now stood the unearthed palace at Knossos. The handsome sum Sir Arthur Evans paid for the site was invested in bonds, which he then passed on to Zeno just before the war. Zeno had the foresight to convert them to gold and hide it in Switzerland during the German occupation of Crete. After the war, he used it to purchase miles and miles of impoverished olive groves in the south, which he nursed back to full production. These days oil went up, oil went down, but Zeno always made a profit.