The Samurai Strategy

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ken looked terrific. That was Tam's first thought when he walked through the high-security inner doors to greet her. He was square shouldered and sturdy, with high, full cheeks, expensively trimmed dark hair, and a small, delicate mouth. She figured him for late forties, early fifties. Funny, but he'd always reminded her of one of those steely eyed, expensively dressed actors you saw playing executives on the Japanese soaps.

"Tamara!" He paused abruptly, then bowed. "Ikaga desu

ka?”

"Okagesama de genki desu. Anata wa?'

"Doing well, thanks. You never cease to amaze me. What a marvelous surprise." A smile attempted to break through his dark eyes. "You've surfaced again, just like the Sword."

She'd forgotten how colloquial his English was. Then she recalled he'd told her once about doing his doctorate at MIT. Possibly because of that he could be either Japanese or Western, chameleon-like, as the backdrop required. He was every bit the charmer she remembered from Kyoto.

One thing was different, though. Kenji Asano was ill at ease. He was trying to mask it, but it was there. And that was very different from the old days.

As they passed the usual pleasantries, he led her down a hall, then through a room where intense young men in open shirts were now opening a case of Asahi beer. Computer terminals were in neat rows along the walls, beneath gleaming white "blackboards" that sparkled with equations and quips. The place was so informal, so . . . American. There were plenty of jeans and frazzled sneakers among the forty or so young researchers, most of them in their late twenties or early thirties. Plastered across the low partitions were film posters and American counterculture bumper stickers (Radio Already Stolen, Nuke a Commie for Christ); above a row of printers a blond pin-up was unveiling her gynecological mysteries to the movie still of a startled Godzilla; and a couple of rusty California vanity plates were hanging over one long-haired staffer's terminal like big-game trophies—one read 64K-1ST, the other EZ BKS. Probably commissioned by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley whose Porsches had since been repossessed, she thought. The rock and roll dissonance of Siouxsie & the Banshees sounded from a tiny stereo assembled out of computer hardware and a new Yamaha digital tape deck. Presumably as a stunt, the high end of the audio was being used to drive a garishly tinted computer graphics display that had been projected against one of the windows, creating a virtual image that seemed to dance amidst the Tokyo skyscrapers like a Martian son et lumiere.

But she wasn't fooled by the frat-house trimmings. She realized these casually dressed young researchers were the pick of Japan's technical graduates. Making the Fifth Generation team these days was one of the highest honors in the land. After some initial skepticism the big corporations were now competing for the prestige of loaning their young stars to the project for a few years, since they hoped to reap enormous benefits down the road.

In fact, the youthful atmosphere was entirely intentional. That, she knew, had been the legacy of Ken's predecessor, Dr. Yoshida, who had refused to let anyone over thirty-five on the project. Furthermore, since he believed the stuffed-shirt layout of most Japanese offices and labs stifled creativity, he had deliberately devised an un-Japanese workspace to try and reproduce Western research environments.

Finally they reached a closed door. Metal. When she realized it was Ken's office, she almost remarked on this departure from what she remembered about Dr. Yoshida's well-known attitude. He liked to be out on the floor, with just another low partition, right there interacting with his young staffers.

Without a word Ken inserted a magnetic card into the slot beside the door handle and then pushed it open. Not only a door, she thought, a locked door. Are they finally starting to worry about industrial espionage?

She wasn't surprised, however, to see that his office had a

monastic spareness, with only his desk, a small but expensive leather couch, and a row of computer terminals along one wall. He was, she knew, a big believer in Zen philosophy. Maybe pan of the reason for the door was just to shut all the madness outside and keep his own world serene.

Through the window behind him she could see Mt. Fuji, outlined against a backdrop of autumn blue. He smiled and pointed it out, saying they were lucky to have a rare smog-less day, then gestured her toward the couch.

"Welcome to my refuge." He was cordial but entirely correct—right down to his conservative charcoal gray suit. Not a glimmer of a hint about their brief Kyoto episode. "Let me have tea sent in." He leaned forward in his leather chair and punched the intercom on his desk.

"Ken, please, don't make a fuss. I know I hate it when people just drop by." She glanced back at the locked door, wondering. "Tell me if this is not a good time for you."

"Tam, for you any time is a good time." He buzzed again— there had been no response—then shrugged. "I guess things are getting hectic out front just now." He laughed resignedly, then turned to her. "By the way, I saw your new book. Fine piece of work. I do hope somebody over there reads it. Are you still running your Center at NYU?"

"So far." She decided to spare him the details.

"Well, it's a good school. Getting better all the time. You've got some first-rate supercomputer work at the Courant Institute, particularly with your IBM connection, but you should keep an eye on Columbia. Now that AT&T has joined with them to go after some of the Pentagon's AI contracts, they may finally start putting together a major computer science department up there too. In a few years Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon will have to step lively to stay out front."

Hello, she thought. How come Ken suddenly knows so much scuttlebutt about U.S. computer research? Nobody at home knows the first thing about what's going on in Japan.

"I was surprised to hear about this new appointment, Ken." She settled back on the couch. "I was guessing you had the inside track for MITI vice minister in a few years."

"Ah, well, for now my work is here." He gestured uncomfortably about the room. "Let me try once more for that tea."

She realized he'd slipped deftly around her quick probe

concerning MITI's new role in the lab. He knew how to be a team player, she thought. Very Japanese.

This time he raised a response. A female voice dripping with long-vowel honorifics announced his tea would be delivered immediately.

Next came a small, awkward lull as they both sat there remembering Kyoto and not sure how to get around that memory. She wondered if it was happening all over again.

Maybe it hadn't been just a fluke, a crazy one-night diversion. She was about to switch to Japanese, thinking that might provide the jolt needed to break the ice, but just as the silence swelled between them, there came a knock on the door and tea.

She was half annoyed, half relieved.

He rose to walk over and began chatting as though they'd been interrupted in the midst of some intense technical exchange.

"Are you scheduled to present a paper at that Kyoto conference coming up?" He pushed a button beside the door, and it swung wide. "There's sure to be quite a crowd. Everybody here's excited about supercomputers these days."

"No, this is strictly a pleasure trip. With maybe a few interviews thrown in to make it a tax write-off for a book I'm planning on robots." She hesitated. "Though I actually might go down and try to see a few people."

"Then this could turn out to be a pleasant coincidence." He took the tea, and the bowing girl vanished. Again the door clicked shut. "I have to go too, but I'm hoping to steal a few moments of freedom."

"You're chairing a session this year?"

"Absolutely not." He turned serious. "I'm not allowed time for anything like that anymore, Tam. This new project is top priority." He poured her a cup of the pale green liquid and passed it over, seemingly relieved that the tension had abated. "There's a lot of work here at the Fifth Generation lab now that we're coordinating this program with the supercomputer effort."

"You mean with MlTl's supercomputer project?" Caught your little slip, she told herself. You are still with MITI. Which means they have taken over this lab.

He didn't blink. "As you probably know, MITI has the goal of creating a machine capable of a hundred billion computations a second, targeted just down the road. Which means we have to come up with entirely new computer languages and architecture."

"Parallel processing."

"Exactly. Handling multiple streams of information at once. Now that we finally understand what's required for a superfast computer, this work in AI just happens to be very relevant. It turns out we humans are already walking around with parallel processing in our heads, able to handle words, images, ideas, all at the same time. So if we want to create machines that operate as fast as possible, then it's crucial to understand how our brain manages things like recognition, learning, inference. Our hope is that by utilizing the studies here in those areas, incorporating them into our supercomputer work, we might be able to put ourselves a major step ahead. . . ."

Good God, Tam thought, it's elegantly simple. That's why MITI has taken over the Fifth Generation Project. They're going to use this research in artificial intelligence to come up with a computer more powerful than anything the world has yet imagined. Their silicon monsters are about to start replicating themselves, getting smarter as they go, like in some bad fifties horror flick. The difference is, this isn't make-believe.

"So you're here on behalf of MITI."

He paused. "For coordination. As I said, MITI needs the Fifth Generation work to be accelerated." He still hadn't exactly answered the question. "As part of our supercomputer effort."

Tam knew that Hitachi and NEC were both already claiming they had the world's most powerful machines, faster even than Cray's entry, the best American computer. What did MITI want?

He continued. "With 16-megabit chip production already going strong and 64 megabit commercialization in the wings, it did seem the right time to pull all our work together. If you think about it, computer speed and computer intelligence go hand in hand. I'll show you in a second what I mean."

Not kilobit. Megabit. MITI was going for the kill. This was a crash program. Why?

"Does this mean you plan to increase your funding for the Fifth Generation effort?"

"Whatever it takes to do the job," he replied after a moment's hesitation. "I suppose there's never enough money, is there?"

"Ken, why the rush? This sudden drive?"

"It depends on whom you ask." He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "Some call it survival, Tamara. Maybe it is that simple. Japan is at a crossroads; we're rapidly losing our edge in the cost of labor. The only possible way to counter that is to step up our use of smart machines."

"Well, it looks as if I came to the right place. I'd like to add your name to my interview list."

His look darkened a moment. "Strictly off the record." Then he smiled. "And only if we can do it over dinner."

"That sounds like a bribe."

"Call it an offering from an old admirer." He smiled, attempting to ease the tension. "The most I can do, for now at least, is just give you a small peek at a few of our experimental gadgets. Details are strictly proprietary. At the moment we're concentrating on computer vision and voice access. And on that last, by the way, I think we've just about reached AI's Holy Grail, natural language comprehension."

"Good luck." That was one of the mythical dreams of AI research, a computer that could understand the speech of anybody who happened along. Even though millions had been invested in the U.S. nobody was anywhere close yet.

"I think we're getting there. Enough so in fact that we're starting to look at applications. Expect commercialization in, oh, say a year, two at most."

Look out IBM, she found herself thinking.

"I probably shouldn't be showing you this, Tamara. So let's just keep this informal. No notes. But here, have a look at one of MITI's new toys. Can you guess what this is?" He passed over a small device that had been sitting on his desk, his hand lingering on hers a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

She stared down at what appeared to be some kind of calculator-watch, except there was no watch face, merely a small speaker and two buttons.

"That uses advanced versions of MITI's new 64-megabit memory chips. There's nothing like it anywhere in the world. Without ever having heard the speaker's voice before, no calibration, it can translate ordinary spoken English into Japanese." He pointed to one of the buttons. "Just press there

and talk. When you finish, push the other button for the translation."

She did, testing it with the opening paragraph of Pride and Prejudice, her favorite novel. A simulated voice emerged from the small speaker on the face of the device and gave it back . . . in flawless Japanese.

"Not bad." She set it carefully onto the desk. The thing was actually almost frightening.

"Using this, linked to our new high-definition video and satellite, you could punch a button in your living room and bring up people on a wall-size screen from anywhere in the world, then talk to them in your language and be understood in theirs. It's a quantum advance over current technology." He retrieved the device, dropping it into a desk drawer.

"I must admit I'm very impressed."

"Truthfully, so am I. Where's this program of MITI's taking us?" He looked up. "But let me show you something else, which I think is even more astonishing. Of course you're aware that speech comprehension is easy compared to the really tough nut, duplicating the human eye. Since a visual image can contain billions of pieces of information, it can be very time-consuming for a computer to analyze all those at once and figure out what it's looking at. I've heard people at IBM claim that for a computer to recognize something even as simple as an odd-shaped coffee cup would still require almost an hour of processing, that to match the human eye and brain could take a computer the size of a building. But watch."

He walked over to a black metal installation attached to the wall and held up three fingers before its small lens. Then he pushed a button and spoke into a built-in microphone.

"What do you see?"

She started to reply herself, then realized he was talking to the lens.

This time the answer took about ten seconds. Finally a voice in passable simulation of the Tokyo dialect emerged from a gray speaker beneath the lens. "That is a human hand."

"How many fingers does this hand have?" he continued.

Again the eerie, disembodied voice. "The normal human hand has five fingers. This appears to have only three."

"Thank you." He punched a button and turned back. "That came off the mainframe here. Can you imagine the amount of memory and logic processing required to achieve what you've just witnessed: the data base and the computational power and speed? Not to mention the recognition of my voice commands."

"How does it do it?"

He paused. "Tam, this is proprietary, top secret, but what you've just witnessed is an example of parallel processing with MITI's new, still classified 256-megabit dynamic RAM's."

"A quarter of a billion bits of data on a chip." She just stared. "Are they writable?"

"Of course." He again settled himself behind his desk. "The test versions have circuits only a hundred or so atoms wide. And this is only the beginning. Within five years, maybe no more than three, MITI fully expects to have a desktop machine that will pass the Turing test."

"Three years?" It was almost unbelievable. Passing the "Turing test" meant the computer's "thoughts" and "speech" would be so lifelike you'd be able to talk with it and not realize it wasn't human. Al's end-of-the-rainbow.

"As you can see, the project is getting close." He looked pensive, like some Zen monk. "Strictly off the record—and I mean that—what MITI is working toward is total automation. Factories run by machines with human skills, intelligence, manual dexterity. In fact, several of the robotics labs at Tsukuba Science City already have prototypes in advanced stages of development."

She was stunned. This was the kind of futuristic talk you heard from all the AI buffs, but it was still mostly speculation in the U.S. and Europe. Japan, though, was taking it straight to commercialization.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

He sat silent for a moment. Then he looked at her. "Because it's time the world understood something very important about this country. There are people here . . . with an agenda. And resources."

"What do you mean?"

"Tam, there are people, important people, who are getting fed up. Know what they're saying? Try this. Our country has a monarchy older than Rome, a heritage of literature, art, aesthetics, equal to anything in the West. We've never had any colonies, any raw materials besides air and water. All we do have is a willingness to work and save—the one natural resource running short in the West. In less than half a century we've risen from the most total devastation any country has ever experienced and achieved technological parity with both the U.S. and the Soviets. We launch satellites, split atoms, splice genes. But still a lot of foreigners claim all this country can do is copy from the West, steal and commercialize other nations' inventions. Only a short time back the leader of France called our prime minister a 'transistor salesman.' That's right. A 'transistor salesman.'"

"Ken, that stupid crack was by de Gaulle. Years ago. It's—"

"Tam, look around you. This is an old country. And a lot of influential people have long memories."

"You're getting melodramatic."

He shifted in his chair and studied the white peak of Fuji. "Think so? Don't delude yourself. Believe me, the West is about to dig its own grave."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"Nothing you can't see with your own eyes." He turned back. "MITI is now ready to move into the next phase. Finally here's a project that's as strategic, in its own way, as the bomb. If Japan can succeed in creating a machine capable of humanlike thinking, it will be the most profound achievement in the history of mankind." And this project is well on its way. There may be nothing that can stop the events that lie ahead."

"Stop what? What events?"

"That's not a simple question." He caught himself and eased up, smiling uncomfortably once again. "Forgive me. None of this is for publication." He hesitated. "Your work is well-known here in Japan, Tam. You are one of the few Americans our industrialists respect unreservedly. Maybe you weren't aware of that. Your books are highly regarded; in fact, I read the new one in manuscript." A long pause, then, "Would you ever consider working with me for a while? Come back home, so to speak? You can see the implications of this project."

"I see the implications, all right." She didn't know what to say. Why a sudden job offer from Ken? Or was it from MITI? "But where is this headed? If Japan achieves this technological supremacy, what then?"

"Before the flowers bloom, MITI must tend the garden." He rose and poured more tea into her cup. "But enough. You know, I've thought about you a lot. Tell me how you've been. What've you been doing?"

"Teaching, writing, you know. Everything and nothing."

He smiled, then brushed an imaginary fleck of lint off his tailored woolen cuff. "Well, perhaps we'll have some time to talk."

What was he driving at? Was there more? Something going on he didn't want to broach here in the lab?

"Tam, it is so good to see you once more." He looked up again. "Would you be interested in going down to Kyoto with me day after tomorrow? There are some things . . ." He sipped at his tea. "As I said, I'm scheduled to look in on the conference and see a few people, but I should have some free time."

"That conference doesn't start till next week."

"Actually I need to be down a few days early."

"Oh. Why?"

He measured his words. "Oddly enough it has to do with the Sword. Things have started moving pretty fast since those archeologists working for Dai Nippon recovered the sacred Sword-of the Emperor Antoku."

"I saw the Emperor on TV. Try going outside now."

"Well, I think I'll close here a little early and let my people go on home. It sounds like their celebration has already started anyway." He gestured toward the music and noise filtering through the door. "But the reason I need to be in Kyoto a few days in advance is to see the president of Dai Nippon."

"The firm that—"

"That's right. His name is Matsuo Noda. I've known him for some years actually. He contacted me a couple of days ago about a meeting. I'm not sure what he has in mind precisely, but I have to find out. He's just become one of the most influential people in the country, not that he wasn't already. And now with all the money he's about to have in this new Imperial fund . . ."

"The one mentioned at the Emperor's news conference?"

"Exactly. As you might suspect, that was merely the formal announcement. Some of us at MITI heard about it several days ago. My private hunch is that in a few days Matsuo Noda could well have more resources at his fingertips than any one man in the history of the world." He looked at her. "It's almost frightening when you think of the power he'll soon have."

"Ken, I think I would like to come along with you." What was going on? MITI's plans already were pretty astonishing. And now this new national hero, the president of Dai Nippon, was about to get involved.

More than that, she'd half forgotten how interesting Kenji Asano really could be. Her trip was taking a lot of unexpected turns.

"Well, then, in that famous American phrase, 'Why not?'" He smiled, the mask firmly back in place. "In fact, I'll try and arrange for you to meet Matsuo Noda while we're there." A conspiratorial wink. "Maybe he'll even give us a glimpse of the Sword."

Tokyo was one big party that night, the streets mobbed. They eventually found themselves in Shinjuku, in a high-tech new restaurant all chrome and glass and New Age prices. The tuna sashimi seemed only minutes from the sea, and the aged sake was smooth as a flawless white Bordeaux. Afterward they grabbed a taxi over to the Ginza, where Ken got seats on the tatami straw mats down in the orchestra of the Kabukiza, and they took in the last act of a Kabuki play (featuring the famous Ennosuke III) that had been underway since late afternoon. The evening ended up in the art deco mezzanine bar at the Imperial, the part salvaged from the old Frank Lloyd Wright structure, where she kicked off her shoes, ordered a twenty-dollar cognac, and nestled against his elegant shoulder.

What was that he'd said about coming back home? Her books being circulated here even in manuscript? What was he hinting at?

Finally around two A.M. he called for the check and neither said a word as they headed for the elevator.

She thought one last time about Allan's warning as she watched the floors flash above the door and searched for her key. But this was no time to brood about conspiracies. Ken made her feel good. Which was a hell of a lot more than Dave Mason had done. Besides, Ken had some style; all Dave did was mope around in a pair of baggy chinos and whine about his department. Ken was upbeat, alive, aware.

What's more, she enjoyed being with him, feeling the heat of his cheek against hers. As the elevator doors opened, he slipped an arm about her waist and nuzzled her hair. Then their lips met.

He was just as she remembered. His touch, his taste, his body. Still, something about him was definitely changed.

Then he reached for her key and opened the door. The minute they entered the sitting room of her suite, he took her in his arms.

"Tam, let's not talk anymore about business, no more Swords. I'm already bored hearing about it. Just us. What do you say?"

"Agreed." She looked at him and suddenly realized something. Ken Asano was beautiful, kirei. Not handsome, beautiful. Anata wa kirei desu, Kenji Asano. "Want a nightcap? There's some airport Remy in my—"

"Who could even think about another cognac. I just want to think about us." He stood back. "All right, maybe if you insist. For old times' sake."

"'Old times' is right, Ken. It's been a very long time since Kyoto." She located the dark Remy bottle, still packed in her leather flight bag. A nice inauguration, she told herself. "What was that all about? Was it real? Or did I just imagine it all?"

"The heart never lies." He settled on the couch. "Do you really remember?"

"Vividly." She laughed as she poured an inch into each of two thin hotel tumblers. "Including that dreadful bar you took us all to."

"A glimpse of the real Japan, Tam, for our tourist friends. Show them it's not all ikebana and haiku. Believe me, it's not." He clicked her glass. "Do try to forgive me. And here's to us."

"To us."

"And to the slightly scary world we're stumbling into. Japan needs you here." He pulled her next to him and brushed her cheek lightly with his fingertips. Then he kissed her deeply on the mouth, and again. "/ need you here, Tam. Somebody like you. There's . . . well, there's a lot we could do together."

She reached up and loosened his tie, then began unbuttoning his shirt. His chest was firm, smooth, scented. She wanted him. "Let's just remember Kyoto for a while."

"I've never forgotten it."

Sometime around four A.M., more content than she had been in a long, long time, Tam Richardson lay awake on the cool sheets, Ken's trim body beside her, and wondered how it would end this time around.

Or possibly, just possibly, it wouldn't.

[CHAPTER E]IGHT

Back in New York, optimism was in increasingly short supply. What do you do if you think you're being set up? One thing, you may have occasion to muse long and hard about the consequences, personal and otherwise. You also may choose to ponder the larger motives of the individual behind it all.

So far, what had happened? Matsuo Noda had hired Matt Walton, corporate attorney-at-law, to begin shorting the American Treasury market, then proceeded to make himself a bona fide hero back home, in the process of which he acquired access to the biggest chunk of savings in the world, presumably the "financial arrangements" he once alluded to. Using that money as margin, Noda was ready to shift his play into high gear. My latest telexed instructions indicated he was poised to accelerate dramatically, "borrowing" bonds and selling them for whatever the market would pay. Of course if the price went down anytime soon, he could then replace those borrowed instruments at some fraction of what he'd sold them for. The man was gambling, for godsake. With the "Emperor's" fund.

Or was he? Therein, as somebody once said, lies the rub. Short selling has always been a reasonably good definition of gambling, except . . . except you are gambling only if you are wagering money on an event whose outcome is not precisely known. If you do know it, you are not gambling. You are taking prudent steps that will allow you to benefit from prior knowledge of said, etc.

Enough airy semantics. The big question: Why me? Now, I've been set up a few times before in my life. Everybody has. I even wonder in darker moments if the reason Joanna demanded a champagne lifestyle wasn't to make sure I spent all my time supporting it, thereby rendering me exactly what she eventually accused me of being—an absentee husband and father. That is a no-win situation.

The undertaking at hand, however, could have a very obvious beneficiary. Matsuo Noda. The only problem was that in order for Noda to win, America had to lose. Massively. The old zero-sum game: for every winner there has to be an equal and opposite sucker.

After that Friday evening with Henderson, I spent the next week mulling over the complexities of the situation. The whole thing boiled down to two very strong presumptions: one, I was indeed being set up, being told one scenario while the truth lay in quite another direction; and two, my employer had something very lethal to America's financial health up his sleeve. Still, these were merely presumptions, nothing more. The only thing I was sure about was that I had a very unpredictable tiger by its posterior handle. Time to find out a little more about my pussycat.

I hadn't actually seen Dai Nippon's midtown office, but I talked to the manager almost every day on the phone, and he occasionally shipped materials down to my place in the Village. I knew they'd taken over the building, installed a new security staff, moved into the vacant floor, and were doing something. However, I hadn't been invited up to see what the something was. I concluded the time was at hand.

As I understood it, Dai Nippon's purpose in life was to oversee the use of investment capital. Fair and good. As it happens, Japanese business tends to be funded a little differently from our own. Instead of selling off stock to the public, Japanese industry relies much more heavily on bank financing. In fact, less than twenty percent of Japan's industrial assets are publicly traded. Consequently the rules of the game are changed. If your company is beholden to a financial institution instead of a lot of nervous stockholders and fund managers, you're in partners with somebody less interested in next quarter's profits than in the larger matter of your still being around ten years hence to pay off its paper. That lender naturally rides herd very closely on your long-term planning.

As best I could tell, DNI was one of the herd-riders, a sort of hired gun that monitored various companies' operations to make sure they were managing their loans prudently. Again, since the prospectus emphasized they were specialists in overseas investment, I assumed that maybe part of the reason they were coming to the U.S. was to oversee the Japanese companies doing business here with money borrowed from back home.

Nobody had actually told me this. In fact nobody had told me anything. That was merely what I considered to be an educated guess. It was the only thing I could think of that made the slightest sense.

The following Monday morning I told myself the guesswork was over. It was high time I went up and saw for myself what they were doing. All I needed was an excuse.

Then the phone rang. I was in the garden out back, skimming the Times and working on a pot of fresh coffee while waiting for the Chicago exchanges to open. Ben was cruising the fence line, sniffing for cats.

When I picked up the receiver, waiting at the other end was Mr. Yasuhiro Tanaka, office manager for the New York operation. He chatted a bit about the weather, how nice it was to be working in the U.S., the usual. Finally he mentioned that he needed to meet with me to discuss, among other matters, certain legal questions concerning one of the other leases in their building. Would it be convenient if he came down to my place and we went over the paperwork?

Not necessary, I replied. I just happened to be headed for midtown in the next few minutes. I'd throw a copy of the leases into my briefcase and drop by to see him. Then before he could protest, I mumbled something about the doorbell and hung up. The phone rang again immediately, but I didn't answer it. I was already putting on my jacket.

I scribbled a few notes for Emma, taped them to her word processor, and headed out the door. Minutes later I was in their Third Avenue lobby, greeting the new security staff, several of whom, as a favor to Tanaka, I'd interviewed for their jobs.

Then I took the elevator up to DNI's offices on the eleventh floor and proceeded to have my argyle socks blown away.

First off, top security. The entryway just off the elevator bank had been completely transformed. TV intercom, steel doors—it could have been the vault at Chase. I told the camera's eye who I was and then waited while a computer somewhere gave me a voice-ID check. How they managed to have me in the system already I wasn't exactly sure . . . maybe they'd taken it off the phone?

After I'd cleared that, the doors slid open and I entered the first chamber of a two-room security check. An electronic voice ordered me to put my briefcase into the X-ray machine while I proceeded through the metal detector.

That cleared, the set of steel panels leading into the next room slid open and I went in . . . to be confronted by two crew-cut guards who could have been retired sumo wrestlers. As the doors clicked behind me, I took one look at DNI's welcoming committee and realized they were packing Uzis, those Israeli automatics that could probably cut down a tree in about two seconds. No candy-ass .38's for Dai Nippon. Without ceremony they commenced a body search. It was all very polite, but it sure as hell wasn't perfunctory. I just stood there in astonishment while this gorilla roughly twice my size felt me up.

That indignity completed, I was now in line for the real surprise. Yet another set of steel doors opened, and there awaited the man I'd been dealing with over the phone, Yasuhiro Tanaka. Medium build, late forties, cropped hair, automatic smile—he was Noda's chief of operations for New York. He didn't say much, just led me onto the floor, heading for his office. But he was clearly the on-site daimyd: lots of heavy bowing from the young, white-shirted Japanese staff as we headed for the corner suite.

Which brings us to the real shocker. Dai Nippon's floor operation looked like the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. Let me attempt a brief description. In the far back was a massive NEC augmented supercomputer—a half dozen off-white octagonal units about head high, one the mainframe and the others storage modules arranged alongside in a neat row. Pure power. The whole thing was encased in a glassed room with (I assumed) critical temperature and humidity control. Then out on the floor were lines and lines of workstations. Computer screens everywhere, printers running, stacks of color hard copy—pie charts, bar graphs, spreads—plus terminals carrying every financial service offered by cable or satellite.

This was just the first, five-second glance. Incredible, I thought. There must be a heck of a lot more Japanese investment in the U.S. than anybody realizes.

But something had to be wrong here. Why should . . . ? Finally I slowed down—Tanaka was hurrying me along, clearly

annoyed that I'd appeared uninvited. That's when I noticed the rest. Across one wall was a line of projection TVs, on which computer data was being scrolled. As we walked past, I noticed that each screen seemed to be under the scrutiny of a team of analysts, who were intently studying the numbers, comparing notes, running calculations on their individual terminals.

What's this all about?

I stopped before one screen and studied it a second. Beneath it a small sign said simply "Electronics." The one next to it read "Biotechnology." Then I glanced at a couple of others. Each one covered a different industrial sector. Gee, I thought, you're really out of touch, Walton. Who would have guessed Japan has so much investment in manufacturing here. I didn't remember much going on besides a few joint ventures. Sure, they've got a few auto assembly plants, that steel plant they'd bought out on the coast, some TV-tube production, chips, VCRs. But mostly it represented entries into sectors where they're trying to get the jump on protectionism, start a token manufacturing operation here before they get shut out.

"If you have any questions, I'm sure we can discuss them later." Tanaka had taken my arm and was urging me politely toward his office. The whines and hums of laser printers and the beep of computers made conversation all but impossible.

"Well, I was merely interested . . ." Then I stopped.

Know that test psychologists have, the one where you look at a couple of silhouettes and describe what you see? If you think you're supposed to look at the white part in the middle, then you see one thing—I think it's a vase. But if you concentrate on the black instead, you see something else entirely, maybe the profiles of two human faces opposite each other. Thus what you see is largely a product of your prior assumptions concerning what you're supposed to be looking for. Or maybe it measures whether you view the world as a positive or a negative image, something like that. I don't recall exactly. I do remember receiving a B- in Psych 101, which was generous.

The point is, what I first thought I saw was actually the inverse of what was really there. I'd told myself what it was, rather than believing my eyes.

Dai Nippon was running analyses, bet your ass, but the industries under their silicon microscope weren't Japanese.

They'd computerized the financial report of every American company traded publicly and were now in the process of taking those outfits apart.

And I can assure you it was cold-eyed in the extreme, strictly hard numbers: quarterly earnings, long-term debt, inventory, stock outstanding, CEO bonuses. As any professional analyst would do, they'd cut right through a company's glossed-over excuses, phrases such as strategic retrenchment, aimed at the dividend-nervous retirees in Cedar Rapids. They were putting together the real story.

Same with the financial markets. Screens were scrolling up- to-the-second quotes on everything from three-month T-bills to thirty-year Treasury bonds. Computers were running arbitrage spreads on every issue. They knew exactly where they stood with all their futures contracts. I realized my little telephone boiler room had merely been the tip of some awesome iceberg.

"Mr. Walton, it is a pleasure to meet you in person." Tanaka was ushering me into the corner office after our pass through the floor. Unlike most executive suites in New York, its windows were sealed with heavy drapes. Again, total security. "Let me order tea." He waved at somebody out on the floor.

I nodded, still chewing over the setup and trying to understand what in good Christ was underway.

"I'm sure you are a busy man, so perhaps we should proceed directly to my concerns. As you may have guessed, we are almost ready to move into a new phase of our operation."

"Oh." I guess it must have sounded dumb, but I honestly couldn't manage a full sentence. Finally I recovered slightly. "I'm a little surprised by the scope of all this. What's the purpose?"

"Our president, Noda-sama, should be arriving in a few days. I'm sure he will be happy to address your questions in detail." Tanaka paused for the green tea, delivered by a silent girl—the young, smiling, uniformed Japanese "office lady"— who scarcely looked up as she settled the tray on the desk. After she was gone, he continued. "This, of course, is only the financial nerve center for our operation. Our technical staff will begin arriving soon."

Technical staff? Then who were those grim-faced minions out there punching computers?

"You're bringing in more people?"

"Correct. Which is why I needed to see you. I understand that the lease on the floor above us is due for renewal at the end of this month. We would like to acquire that space. We will need to convert it as quickly as possible."

"What about the current tenants?"

"There is a rider in their lease, Mr. Walton, that permits the owner of the building to reclaim the space for his own use at the time of a renewal. We fully intend to make use of it. Consequently as our American attorney you are hereby authorized to inform them that their lease will not be automatically extended, that they will be expected to vacate. In accordance with the legal and binding terms of their lease. Advise them also that there can be no grace period. We will require the floor immediately."

I looked at him. So much for the current tenants. "What will these new offices be used for?"

Tanaka sipped his tea. "That section will have another managing director. Our range of operations here brings other responsibilities."

"What section, what range of operations?"

"I am regrettably not at liberty to discuss the specific extent of DNI's interests."

"Well, let me break some news to you. I like to know who I'm working for. So you'd better start discussing specifics and fast."

Tanaka seemed to be having trouble meeting my eye. The skull beneath his short-cropped hair glistened under the harsh neon lighting.

"Mr. Walton, you are now part of the DNI team. That position includes obligations I am sure you would not wish to take lightly."

"Hold on." The hell with politeness. "I'm not part of your 'team' or anybody's. I came on board with the explicit understanding that—"

"Mr. Walton, kindly sit down." He pointed without ceremony to a chair. I just looked at it, then back at him.

"As you are a scholar of Japan," he continued, "I'm sure you are aware that an employee's loyalty to his company is considered to be a gauge of his character. A company is a family, and one considers its interests in that spirit."

"Maybe you didn't notice, but I'm not Japanese. 'Nihon-jin'

as you'd probably put it. I'm a gaijin. We usually work for number one."

"At the moment, Mr. Walton, you work for Dai Nippon. There is an assigned role for you, one that Noda-san expects you to fulfill."

"Maybe I just handed in my resignation."

"I do not really think you would wish to do that." Deadpan. The confidence with which he made that statement told me this guy could make a killing at poker. Unless he had a few cards in the hole I didn't know about. "It would hardly be in your best interest. We expect your contribution to be crucial."

"What contribution?"

"That will become plain in due time, Mr. Walton." He was measuring his words as he continued, maybe easing up a bit. "For now, let me merely say we know you to be a man with substantial curiosity. Consequently we believe that what lies ahead will be of considerable interest to you."

What was this samurai up to?

"Maybe it's time everybody put their cards on the table. And why don't we begin with you." I thumbed at the floor outside. "What the hell's going on out there?"

"At the moment nothing in this office need concern you. But perhaps I can tell you this. Now that you are serving as our corporate attorney, you are in a position to help us pursue other avenues."

I looked him over. Tanaka was beating about the bush. Why? Maybe it was merely the Japanese style, but he also seemed to know exactly what not to say.

"I'm still waiting to hear what's next."

"Very well. As long as you're here . . ." He sipped calmly from his cup. "It is common knowledge that Japanese savers have become the world's largest lenders, with overseas investment that now exceeds, by the way, the greatest rate of lending by OPEC even at its peak. The Japanese people will have over a trillion dollars in overseas assets within the next few years."

"I'm familiar with the numbers." I also knew that with several trillion dollars in spare change sloshing around back home, they were sending abroad a mere dribble of what they had.

"Were you also aware that over four fifths of our overseas investment is currently in dollar-denominated instruments?"

"No surprise. The dollar's still the name of the game, worldwide."

"True enough, but we at Dai Nippon are concerned that so many of our institutions have such heavy exposure in a single currency. Accordingly, in addition to our program with interest- rate futures, we also feel it would be prudent to provide some protection for this currency risk. In the same manner, I might add, that American investors often do."

"You mean some downside protection? On the dollar?"

"That is correct. A devaluation or a sudden drop in exchange rates would jeopardize much Japanese capital. Therefore we feel it would be prudent to enter the currency-futures markets to cover at least some of the dollar exposure of our investors."

Jesus! I suddenly needed a Valium. In addition to Treasuries, now Dai Nippon was about to short the dollar, pre-sell it in advance of . . . of what?

Had Noda been lying to me right down the line? Setting up a cockamamie cover with interest futures while all along he was setting up an international currency swindle?

Or were we about to get down to the real action? He'd scheduled his curtain raiser, whatever it was, then realized he might accidentally pull the plug on the U.S. greenback? So he'd decided to arrange a little currency insurance for everybody back at the ranch, just in case.

Don't ask me why, but I was drawn to this pending nightmare like a moth to flame. This was a ringside seat at . . .

All right, who am I trying to kid? That was the moment when I finally, finally grasped what our meeting was all about. It was to formally announce the tidal wave that would soon engulf America. And now Matsuo Noda—or maybe I should say Noah—was, in his oblique Japanese way, handing me a pair of tickets good for one round-trip passage on his ark. The only thing missing was the schedule.

By then I didn't care whether I was on board or not; I figured I'd just as soon try swimming on my own. But I had one very good reason to play along.

"Okay, what's the game? Want to sell some dollars for delivery down the road?"

"We assume you are familiar with the markets."

"I stay in touch. How would you like to go? If you want

currency futures, there're the exchanges. Or you can buy forwards, which are more or less the same thing, from any number of banks around town. Futures only go out for a year, maximum, but I can probably get you forwards out to three. Come to think of it, Citibank will quote you ten-year forwards."

"We would be looking at shorter terms."

"No problem. Currency futures are quoted for March, June, September, and December. That's on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's IMM. But if three months are too far out, then you can get options on spot currency contracts down at the Philadelphia exchange, which allows early exercise. Or if you want, I think you can get off-exchange bank quotes as short as one month. Citibank has a big FOREX desk. And Bankers Trust, and First Boston, or even Banque Indosuez. Of course, if you really want to get serious, there's the currency trading floor at Barclays Bank in London. . . ."

"We expect to be active in all markets, worldwide. That seems best." Tanaka continued, "However, we are only interested in December futures and one-month contracts in the forwards. After that, we may choose to . . . make other arrangements."

Hang on, America.

"Right. And what are we talking here in terms of amount?"

He handed me a sheet of paper.

It was like he was ordering up sandwiches from the deli. Corned beef on rye, lean, with extra mustard and a slice of pickle. How many? Let me check. Oh, say a few hundred billion.

"This is going to take a few days." I passed it back, calmly as I could manage. "Why don't you send a schedule down to my place late this afternoon. My secretary will be there. I'll get started in the morning." I rose. "In the meantime, you'll understand if I take today off and catch up a little on other work."

"Of course." Tanaka bowed, head still glistening.

"Be in touch tomorrow." I nodded farewell.

"Until then, Mr. Walton." Another bow as I turned to leave.

I walked back through the floor, again trying to digest the spectacle. This was undoubtedly the most comprehensive operation I'd ever witnessed. What in hell did all this analysis of industrial sectors have to do with currency hedging?

Not a lot of time to reflect on the question, however, since I was summarily being ushered toward the steel security doors by one of Tanaka's flunkies, a young tough who seemed to speak no English, but who could strong-arm very eloquently.

In moments I was outside, facing the bank of elevators. That was when I remembered the upstairs tenant, a big public relations outfit. Better take a couple of minutes and give them the word.

Rausch, McKinley, and Stein were in the middle of proving conclusively that our mayor knew nothing about contract kickbacks, that he was in fact the closest equivalent New York had to driven snow. His Honor, in the meantime, was hastily returning the campaign contributions of all the real estate executives who, flanked by their lawyers, were now being featured on the front page of the Daily News.

Since RM&S had their hands full and also had expected an automatic renewal of their lease, there weren't too many politic smiles when I broke the news. Fact is, it was a very unpleasant scene. Finally I called for their lease and showed them the rider. They'd signed the damn thing, not me.

"Sorry, fellows, all I can do is maybe drag this out a little for you, mislay the paperwork or something. Have one of your attorneys give me a call, off the record. But I'd also advise you to start looking for space."

Then I headed downtown, a man with a mission.

Dai Nippon had to be getting ready to kick hell out of something or somebody. Trouble was, I had no idea who or what. But I'd had plenty of hints it wasn't going to do great things for the dollar. I briefly toyed with alerting Jack O'Donnell and telling him to leak some anonymous storm signals. But what storm? He wouldn't put his senate reputation on the line to peddle guesswork, and all I had to offer was— what?—circumstantial premonitions.

Where to begin? Henderson was in London and unreachable, meaning there was no chance of getting him and his less reputable Washington connections to start shouting "fire" from the rooftops. That left the press. Right. What I needed was the media. Think. Somebody who, if the whole thing proved to be smoke and mirrors, could shrug it off; but, a comer who would be intrigued by the possible broadcasting coup of the century. It had to be somebody with ready-made exposure, yet a personality with little to lose and a lot to gain. That brought to mind the perfect candidate, a former, well, acquaintance.

When I got home, I went straight to the office upstairs, looked up a number I hadn't used in a long time, and dialed it. It felt very familiar.

"Channel Eight. 'The freshest news in New York.' May we help you?"

I always loved the way they peddled information as though it were Wonder Bread.

"Donna Austen please."

"One moment please." There was a click, then another voice. "Channel Eight news desk."

"Donna Austen please."

"Who's calling please."

"Matthew Walton. Tell her it's business, not personal." Enough please's.

"Thank you, Mr. Walcan."

"Walton."

"Thank you." On came the Muzak.

Would she do it? She used to complain how fed up she was interviewing witnesses to car crashes. Her career needed a transfusion of hard news so the station management would start taking her seriously. Well, here was her shot. And since she was roughly tenth in line for the "anchor" spot, she had no reputation of noticeable proportions to jeopardize by leaking an anonymous rumor the U.S. was about to be shelled by an offshore battery of financial guns.

"Ms. Austen said to tell you she's in a meeting and can't be disturbed."

Why is it some women can't just let bygones be bygones? Give me a break, Donna. I was ready for anything, except her little bedroom games. "How about advising Ms. Austen I'm sorry I called at such an important time, but I have some information that might just save her and everybody else from total ruin."

"I'm very sorry, but—"

"Just tell her, goddamit."

"One moment." No please this time.

Another very long pause. Finally I heard Donna's broadcast-neutral diphthongs, those lower-register reverberations she'd worked so long to perfect.

"Matt, you've got your nerve. This damned well better be quick."

"Sorry I yelled at the messenger. I'm sorry about a lot of things, but that's not the reason I called. Donna, how'd you like an exclusive? The world as we know it is about to end. Inside a month."

"Matt, have you been drinking?"

"No, but that's not a bad idea."

"Well, what is it you want?"

"A small favor."

"You have got to be kidding."

"Not for me. It's the country I'm concerned about. That includes you. How about doing the U.S. a favor and leak a heavy rumor from the world of high finance. The American dollar, dear to us all, may be about to go the way of Confederate mustard plasters. I'll even dictate the statement for you."

"Matt, why don't you give this earth-shaking scoop to one of your big-shot connections down at The Wall Street Journal, assuming it's such hot news?"

Good question. The answer, sadly, was that nobody inside the system would want to even hear this kind of talk, let alone spread it. Everybody in the financial community was already whistling in the dark, terrified those Latin American debt dominos might start to tumble, taking a few of our flagship banks along with them. And now this? No way.

"Donna, I need somebody willing to go out on a limb."

"You shit." She gave a snort. "I let you mortify me once. And believe me that's the last—"

"Will you listen, for chrissake. I know it sounds crazy, but this is dead serious. I've taken on a foreign investment firm as a client. I can't tell you the name, but I'm absolutely sure the guy running it is about to screw this country somehow. He's been shorting the bond market, and now he's going to start dumping dollars. Billions and billions. I want to blow the whistle. Get something on the air that'll cause a few bankers and traders to look up from their computer terminals and—"

"Matthew, darling, how about your doing me a favor?"

"Name it."

"Simple. Don't ever call me here again. And while you're at it, tell that asshole friend of yours, Bill Henderson, I think he's the biggest—"

"Look, I'm genuinely contrite about the scene he caused at your place. If—"

"Good." Click, then the hum of a New York Tel dial tone.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I was seeing things. In any case, that aborted Monday's attempted guerrilla war against Matsuo Noda. Now to man my barricades.

Which moment coincided with the sound of Emma Epstein's key in the front-door lock. The time, obviously, was exactly one-thirty P.M. Exactly. I waited till she'd settled in before taking the fatal step.

"Emma, how about bringing me that file in your left-hand desk drawer. The one marked 'Trust Account.'"

"The blue one?"

"Right. Amy's. You know it. You updated the thing about a month ago when I switched all her money out of stocks and into money-market funds." That move had been my one small attempt to ride Noda's horse in the direction I suspected it was headed.

"I remember." She glanced at me disdainfully. "I also remember you predicted interest rates were about to go up."

Which, she was tactful enough not to add, they hadn't. She also didn't mention she had greeted my market prognosis with open skepticism. As usual.

"Well, for what it's worth, I still think rates are headed up soon. And Emma . . ."

"What?" She was grimly digging through the files.

"Ever think about some gold stocks for your retirement investments? There're some mining issues I hear look good. Golden Sceptre, Golaith, Vanderbilt . . ."

"That's Amy's portfolio you wanted, correct?" She didn't miss a beat. "Right?"

She doted on Amy and always got very testy whenever I dabbled in the management of my daughter's little nest egg. It's galling to admit Emma's market instincts did at times seem superior to mine. John Maynard Keynes once said there's nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world. Maybe he was right: could be I was shackled by too much logical introspection. Never a problem for Emma. All I know is, if her daughter-in-law in Jersey phoned in (on my line) that she'd just baked a terrific cherry pie using "New Improved!" Crisco, Emma marched out and loaded up on Procter & Gamble. And the damn thing automatically went up ten points.

"Here it is." She placed it on my desk with a decidedly disapproving sniff.

"Thanks."

Dear Lord, I thought, stand by us sinners now and at the hour of our death. I went over it quickly with a hand calculator. About ninety-four thousand. Which I figured would pay for roughly a year and a half of college the way those already inflated costs were skyrocketing. But by the time Noda got finished with the dollar, it probably wouldn't cover a weekend seminar.

Maybe I couldn't save the U.S., but I was damned well going to get my daughter through school. With fear and trembling I started calling banks. Naturally I spread the action around town, BS'ing a lot of currency traders and bank FOREX (foreign exchange) departments in the process. I'd buy some pounds sterling, then . . . by the way, long as we're on the phone, Mort, I think I might need a few million yen in, oh, say about a month. Why don't we just save time and write some contracts now? Besides, bird in the hand, you know. Then I'd take those pounds I'd just acquired and use them to buy several million deutsche-mark forwards from the next dealer I knew.

How much did I go out, total? Remember, currency forwards run around a penny on the dollar, so I effectively "sold" something like ten million greenbacks, deliverable in one month, when I figured they'd be worth . . . it was hard even to imagine. Most likely zilch. Since I was flying blind. Amy's college fund bought everything. You name it, I went long. She ended up owning futures on Swiss francs, German marks, yen, lira, pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, even French francs. I was actually tempted, briefly, by the peso (well, she loved her trip to Mexico last summer), a sentimental gesture I sternly resisted.

By the time I'd finished it was four forty-five, meaning my new, ninth-grade owner of a United Nations basket of foreign currencies had just arrived home from her West Side private school. She always charged in at four-thirty. I called Joanna and asked to speak to my daughter. Jo's response to the sound of my voice was only slightly less fulsome than Donna Austen's. Finally Amy appeared at my ear.

"Dad, how come you're calling on the downstairs phone? You're supposed to always use the one in my room. Mom hates it when—"

"Sweetie, that line is in constant and uninterrupted engagement between the hours of four thirty-one and eight- fifteen. It's never possible to reach you there at this time."

"Okay, so what's up?"

"Nothing much. How about if you and I caught up on things a bit? What do you say to dinner tonight? Just the two of us? We might even consider a real grown-up meal for a change, no alfalfa sprouts."

"Where?" She was immediately on guard. What if she ended up confronted with a red-tinged steak, sliced off one of the living mammals of the earth?

"Anywhere. Someplace you've always wanted to go. My treat."

"Wow! Anywhere?"

"Your pick."

Long pause, then, "How about Windows on the World?"

"Sounds good." I guessed one of her school friends had just been. Meaning prestige was on the line. I was right.

"Sharon's dad took her there last weekend for her birthday and it sounded really neat. She said you can see everything. It's probably a lot nicer than Top of the Six's."

Where, in case you hadn't guessed, I'd taken her on her birthday.

"Food's standard, but I think we can piece together a spread that'll meet your guidelines. Will your mother let you go?" Joanna had total weekday custody, and she played it for all it was worth.

"She's got a big date tonight. That creepy real estate guy I told you about. The one with the new silver Saab he thinks is so hot."

"Don't tell me about it. And don't call your mother's friends creeps. I'm sure they're all very nice."

"Want to bet? This guy is total weirdness. But she'll let me go. No sweat. What time?"

When I was a youth, I don't remember young ladies using phrases such as "no sweat." Probably an imperfection of memory, one of many.

"Pick you up at seven-thirty sharp. Call me if there's a problem."

"Okay."

"And Amy . . ."

"Yeah."

"Uh, think about wearing an actual dress. Not one of those experimental East Village—"

"Daaad. I'm gonna look so straight. You'll see."

"Never doubted it for an instant."

That night I'd intended to explain that her college fund was currently being hedged via a comparatively unorthodox investment scenario. However, she was too busy marveling over the lights of Manhattan a hundred stories down to give me much time to talk.

What I really wanted to tell her but somehow didn't was that I'd had this spiritualist vision we'd been reincarnated as a couple of those crazy sheiks at Monte Carlo—when I'm the guy who never ventures past the quarter slots next to the door. It was as though I'd pillaged the hundred grand carefully hoarded for her future and spread it over a giant roulette play, stacking chips on every number on the board. Who knew where Dai Nippon's wheel would stop, but when it did, one of them had to pay off a hundred to one. Noda couldn't touch us. Right?

No sweat.

[CHAPTER NINE]

Tam was headed east in the black Nissan limo, listening to the talk. And thinking. Seated alongside was Kenji Asano, wearing a light tan suit and gold cufflinks, while the space opposite was occupied by two individuals who made her very uneasy. One was the instantly famous Matsuo Noda, the other his niece, talk-show economist Akira Mori. Noda was wearing a black three-piece banker's suit, the perfect accompaniment to his silver hair, and small wireless spectacles that magnified his penetrating eyes. Mori, in designer beige, looked as if she'd just stepped from the NHK studios, which in fact she had only a few hours earlier.

Three days had passed since Noda's Imperial press conference, four counting today, with this sudden trip being only the latest in a series of unexpected events. The major new twist: getting her interviews rolling was turning out to be a lot harder than it should have been. Before leaving New York, she'd arranged for a day with Dr. Noburu Matsugami of the Electrotechnical Institute at Tsukuba Science City to go over the latest progress of MITI's Advanced Robot Technology Project, now the world leader, the undisputed state of the art in robotics. Matsugami had even volunteered to supply introductions to the other MITI labs at Tsukuba. Everything was set.

Except now it wasn't. When she called Friday to confirm their meeting, Dr. Matsugami advised her that some unexpected schedule conflicts had come up. Most apologetic. Perhaps they could try again week after next.

What's more, that was her last call for the day, because immediately afterward her hotel phone had gone dead for five hours. Management was strangely evasive about the problem. When a temporary line was finally installed, it had a curious whine that made conversation all but impossible.

My luck, she thought. Japanese technology, the best in the world, breaks down on me.

Consequently it was almost a relief to get out of town. Not the least of reasons being Tokyo still had a hangover from all the sword celebrations. Its streets were strewn with debris, and services remained haphazard. As planned, she and Ken departed the next afternoon on the Shinkansen bullet train— first class, where the porters wear white gloves and bow after making an announcement to the car. The only way to travel. Finally some peace and quiet after the madness of Tokyo, she'd told herself. It felt like the Concorde, except with legroom. She leaned back to watch as the white peak of Mt. Fuji flashed by at a hundred and forty miles per hour and chatted with Ken, who was sitting next to her, glancing through some MITI memos he'd brought along.

The trip down, zipping through industrial Nagoya, had helped to settle her mind. Kyoto. For her there was nowhere else quite like it in the world. If you knew the byways, it could be a universe away from the mania of Tokyo. Time to lighten up. At least she had no reason to suspect Ken was giving her the runaround. He'd seemed genuinely disturbed when she told him about Matsugami's polite refusal to talk. Didn't say much: just frowned, was strangely silent for a moment, then declared he'd make a few phone calls and check into it when there was time.

Kenji Asano, she noticed, seemed to have a split personality: one for her and one for the rest of the world. In public he was all Japanese, striding ahead and ostentatiously barking opinions. But that, she knew, was merely for appearances; he'd have been the object of silent derision by elders if he'd displayed the slightest consideration for his female companion. (She recalled that famous Japanese proverb: The man who falls in love with his wife merely spoils his mother's servant.) Okay, she told herself as she trailed along, when in Rome . . . Japanese men need to strut and bully their women in public; it's the only chance they get. Everybody knows the obedient little helpmate dutifully pacing behind garnishees his paycheck and doles back whatever she likes.

Ken's stern, traditional public face, however, was merely one of his many personas. Alone with her he could be as Western as any Japanese man would permit himself. For a Japanese, of course, "Western" doesn't mean all the glad-handing bonhomie of an American; there's always an element of reserve. Just the same, he was nothing like the typical sexless, oblique Japanese businessman. He had a superb body, taut and athletic, which he knew better than to bury in some cheap off-the-rack Japanese suit. No polyester; strictly silk and finest wool. He had a sense of style: the power look. And he really was a widower, whose wife had died in a freak auto crash soon after their marriage.

In short, Kenji Asano was complex, not easy to categorize.

The same went for Matsuo Noda. As she and Ken were coming down on the train, a porter had come through the car announcing "denwa," a call for Dr. Asano. When he returned, he reported that Matsuo Noda needed to make a quick trip down to the famous Shinto shrine at Ise tomorrow morning, to review the site for the new museum Dai Nippon, International would build to house the sword, and wanted him to come along, a good time to discuss their mutual interests.

"He always seems to know everything that goes on." Ken smiled wistfully. "He also 'suggested' that perhaps my visiting American colleague would like to make the trip too."

Oh, Tam thought, why me? That's not the way Japanese executives go about things. Women aren't part of their high-level conferences.

"I don't understand this, Ken." She'd been half dozing, but now she was coming awake very rapidly. "Seems a little strange, don't you think?"

Asano shrugged. "He just said he'd like to meet you."

"But why? What did you tell him about me?"

"Nothing, really . . ." He glanced away.

"Curious." She was fully alert now. "Then how did he . . . ?"

"Tam, don't be naive. Matsuo Noda knows who you are, believe me." He shot her an admiring glance. "Why are you frowning? It's true. He knows all about your work. He practically demanded you come along. He called you—what was it?—'that brilliant American professor.'"

"You know, something about this doesn't add up." She was having her first experience of Matsuo Noda's long arm, and she found it unsettling.

"Why not? Tamara, you of all people should know we Japanese have a national tradition of honoring guests. Noda-san is old school, through and through." He leaned back. "Besides, he's bringing somebody else along to meet you. Could be very interesting."

"Who?"

He told her.

So here they were in the Dai Nippon limo, a stretch, with acres of room and green tea that flowed till she thought she would burst. What was that old line about the roomful of zaibatsu negotiators: the one with the toughest bladder prevails.

Seeing Matsuo Noda in person confirmed everything she'd sensed about him on the TV. He was a genius. Still, something about him told you that when you sat down to cards with this man, you'd do well to cut the deck. What really took her aback, though, was the woman alongside him, Akira Mori.

Could be it was just her style. Tam was definitely overwhelmed. For the trip she'd worn her softly tailored Calvin Klein suit (her only one), in shades of pale, warm gray, and set it off with some simple, stark silver picked up on a trip to Morocco. Perfect pitch. She looked smashing, feminine yet all business, and Ken had told her so at least three times. All the same she wasn't prepared for Mori's ostentatious fashion statement.

When the DNI limo appeared at their hotel, the International, Japan's favorite TV money guru was wearing one of her severe Rei Kawakubo ensembles, a small ransom in gold accessories, and enough makeup for a haute couture ramp model. It turned out she'd taped an early morning interview show at NHK's Tokyo studios for broadcast that night, then come down directly on the Shinkansen. She greeted Tam and Ken with scarcely more than a frosty nod. Tam found this standoffish manner puzzling.

On the other hand it did fit perfectly with Ken's quick morning briefing on Noda's famous niece. Quite a story. According to him, her father, Dr. Toshi Noda, had been a celebrated figure in years past. An honors graduate of Tokyo University, he'd been the star mathematics professor of Kyoto University when he was summarily conscripted by Prime Minister Tojo to take charge of wartime cryptography, codes. Tojo wanted the best, and he got it. Consequently mild-mannered Toshi Noda had been one of the minds behind the famous Purple Machine, used for Japanese ciphers during the early part of the war.

Eventually, however, the project became redundant. After a time Tojo ceased to trust the Purple Machine and decided to replace it with that famous Nazi invention, the Enigma Machine. (On that one, Ken had added with a touch of irony, Toshi Noda was well vindicated. The Enigma Machine code had already been cracked by the Allies long before Hitler—declaring it unbreakable—delivered it to Tokyo.)

Toshi Noda resembled his older brother Matsuo physically, but he differed radically in outlook, being a devout Buddhist and a pacifist. After the stunning Japanese bloodbath at Saipan, which demonstrated the war was clearly lost, he'd been one of those imprudent citizens who'd spoken out publicly for peace. Not surprisingly, he was immediately placed under surveillance by the Kempei Tai, Japan's secret police, and shortly thereafter jailed.

After three months' internment he was released a broken man. A week later he committed ritual seppuku, disemboweling himself for the crime of having disgraced the family.

Toshi Noda's diaries, published posthumously and read widely in Japan, revealed his deep repugnance for the wartime

government. He believed that Prime Minister Tojo had become, in effect, a neo-shogun. Although the shogunate supposedly had been abolished when Emperor Meiji took control and opened Japan in 1867, Toshi Noda saw it restored with Tojo, another "shogun" who had come along and isolated the country once again. Nonetheless, he'd been a man of few words. His death poem, written only moments before he put the knife to his stomach, was as simple and intense as his life.

Darkness upon Yamato,

Land of the gods,

Awaits the new dawn—

Ten-no-Heika.

That last was a traditional phrase that, simply translated, meant "son of heaven." For a Japanese, though, the overtones are more; they say "the way of the emperor."

Subsequent history proved him prescient on several points—the main one being that militarism was a disaster for Japan. Also, he had rightly feared that the monarchy would become an empty symbol in the ruins of Tojo's hopeless war. Although he hadn't lived to see Tojo tried and hanged as a criminal, he had predicted the outcome of the war unerringly—and he'd insisted that his infant daughter be evacuated to Sasayama just before the Allies moved in for the kill. Because of his foresight she escaped the first firebombing of Tokyo, which converted the city into a giant death oven for eighty thousand innocent Japanese civilians too old or young to escape. America's pragmatic "final solution": Auschwitz with airborne incendiaries. The rest of Toshi Noda's family was burned alive.

Afterward Matsuo Noda had complied with another of Toshi Noda's wishes and made certain his daughter received a first-class education. Since she had a natural instinct for economics he'd encouraged her, rightly foreseeing it as a discipline vital to Japan in the twenty-first century. She had excelled beyond his fondest expectations; she was in fact brilliant. As a result he grew to dote on her, to an extent that eventually grew almost obsessive. He'd even made her his heir, since he had none of his own. His fortune was rumored to be in the tens of millions.

Probably the most important thing to keep in mind about

Akira Mori, Ken had concluded, was that she merely looked avant-garde. Inside she lived in another age. In fact he suspected the reason she'd never married had something to do with the fact she was already wed: to the vision of Japan's powerful, sacred Imperial past.

On the trip down to Ise, Mori had silently sipped her green tea while Noda chatted with Asano about the costs and timing of commercializing the intelligent machines that would come out of the Fifth Generation Project. Although Noda stuck to generalities, it was clear he was totally conversant with the latest developments in the field. In fact, Tam found herself thinking, he seemed to know anything there was to know about just about everything. He displayed the same obsession with Japan's technological future that the old-time shoguns must have had about the goings-on of their vassals.

She also sensed that he and Asano were doing a lot of their communicating in a verbal shorthand, enough so that she began to suspect they had worked together before: they were like father and son, each anticipating the other's thoughts and conclusions.

By the time they reached Ise it was already late afternoon, but Noda's driver had phoned ahead from the car and arranged rooms for the night at the local spa, so they wouldn't have to go back late. She noticed there hadn't been any talk about the famous Sword, but she figured maybe he was saving that for dinner.

The museum Noda planned was to be built outside the shrine proper, just before you crossed the wide, arched Uji Bridge spanning the Isuzu River that separated Shinto's holy ground from the ordinary world. The shrine itself, a collection of thatched-roof buildings in severe traditional style, was hidden down a long trail among giant cryptomeria trees that towered hundreds of feet into the pale afternoon sky.

Attesting to the speed with which things can happen in Japan when there's the go-ahead from above, the location had already been staked and the trees cleared. Excavation for the foundation merely awaited Noda's approval. While everybody else stood around and waited, he consulted with the site engineer, checked over the plans, and made a few final changes. All the while, onlookers were bowing to him right and left. He'd become, overnight, an authentic Japanese legend.

After finishing with the engineer, he suggested they stroll on down to pay respects at the shrine itself, since they'd come all this way. Their burly chauffeur suddenly became a bodyguard, clearing the path ahead. Noda was expansive now, presumably confident his niche in history was secure. As they were crossing the wooden bridge, he casually asked Tam what she knew about the Sword.

A one-of-a-kind historical find, she replied. Important and fascinating. She'd seen the Emperor on TV. . . .

"I assumed you would understand its significance." He was leading the way down the path. "Perhaps then you'll indulge me a moment for an ancient tale about it."

By now the entire shrine had been cleared of tourists and they were surrounded only by bowing and smiling priests in white robes: the VIP treatment. "The Imperial sword harkens back in a way to our version of Adam and Eve. Except, according to our own creation story, they were also the ones who created Japan; they were the original kami."

"The original Japanese gods."

"Well, perhaps 'god' is too strong a term, Dr. Richardson. I prefer to think of our kami as merely spirits of life." Noda shrugged, then continued. "According to the myth, the first male and female kami stirred the sea with a long spear, then lifted it, and the brine that dropped from its tip piled up and became Japan."

She caught herself smiling. "I've always wondered what Freud would have thought of that."

Mori glared at her in a way that suggested some offense at her irreverence, while MIT-educated Ken merely stifled a grin. Noda, however, took the quip in stride.

"Freud? Ah, yes, your philosopher. I seem to recall he's the one who regarded almost everything as some manifestation of our sexual appetite. Well, these are primitive stories, Dr. Richardson, that describe the beginning of life. I suppose they should be somewhat earthy, wouldn't you agree?" He chuckled. "Nonetheless, according to our early tales, the Sun Goddess—whose shrine this is—was created out of the left eye, the side of honor, of the first male kami, and the Moon God was created out of his right. Then they ascended into the skies."

She glanced up. The Sun Goddess appeared to be headed for bed, the sky itself barely light through the cryptomeria. The air was beginning to grow slightly crisp.

"Now we come to the sword. When the Sun Goddess finally sent her grandson down to rule over the mortals below, he brought with him the three items that became the emblems of Imperial rule. They were the sacred mirror, signifying purity, a curved bead necklace, used to ward off evil spirits, and the sword, standing for courage. The great grandson of that first earthbound immortal extended his dominion over all of Japan and became the first emperor. We are told his name was Jimmu, and the legends say that was around 660 B.C."

"So desu," Miss Mori interjected abruptly, startling even Ken. She seemed to be lecturing directly to Tam. "We all know our Emperor today is directly descended from him. In fact, he is precisely the one hundred and twenty-fourth emperor after Jimmu. Japan and the Imperial line were born simultaneously, and every Japanese is related to him. We are a monoracial state."

Tam glanced at her. By God, she wasn't kidding.

"Well, it's possible the traditional account has reworked historical facts a trifle," Noda continued smoothly. "Actually the peoples who became our modern Japanese seem to have made their way here to the main island from somewhere in the South Pacific and settled in this area around Ise. Near here we still find burial mounds that contain replicas of their early symbols of Imperial authority—mirrors, gems, swords."

"But the sword you found? Did it really come down from on high?" Tam asked, half hoping to rankle Akira Mori.

"You mean was it that very first one?" Noda shrugged. "Who could locate the original Garden of Eden? Please, we all must allow for a certain element of poetic license in our myths. But it is unquestionably the sword referred to in the ancient chronicles such as the Heite Monogatari, which dates from the Heian era, the ninth through twelfth centuries. That sword was lost in 1185, and now it's been recovered. That's all we know for sure."

Mori, walking along in her quick, Japanese-woman pace, obviously was not satisfied with Noda's rationalist version of history.

"Dr. Richardson," she cut in again, "what the recovery of the sword has achieved is to remind the Japanese people that we are unique. We Japanese have a special soul, a Yamato minzoku of pure blood and spiritual unity. All Japanese are related to each other and to the Emperor, so there is a oneness of spirit, a blood-and-soul relation, between the Emperor and his people. Yamatoists believe, rightly, that a temporary eclipse of our Japanese minzoku was brought about by the American occupation, whose imposed constitution and educational system were acts of racial revenge against Japan. Our postwar identity crisis, our negative image of ourselves, was created by Americans. But that time is over. Although we have no single God, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have something even more powerful. Through our Emperor we have a line of descent that harkens back to the beginning of our world. Perhaps we no longer choose to claim he is divine, but that makes him no less an embodiment of Japan's special place."

Akira Mori, Tam suddenly realized, was a closet Yamatoist, those new right-wing racist firebrands of modern Japan. Time to give her a little heat.

"Surely nobody today seriously thinks the Emperor's forefather came down from the skies?" She turned back to Noda. "You don't believe it, do you?"

He shrugged. "Ours is a skeptical world, Dr. Richardson. Is your pope really infallible, or did he acquire his right to be divine spokesman by winning a small election? Nonetheless, popes and kings are like ancient tribal leaders. Despite all our modern democracy, we still yearn for a figure to embody our identity. For the Japanese to have an emperor who, if only in legend, has blood kinship with the gods who created our homeland—what could be more important?"

About that time Tam glanced up and realized they were passing under a large torii gate, entryway to a place that seemingly had nothing to do with the real world. Just beyond were the shrines, reminding her somewhat of a sanitized tropical village as imagined by Hollywood. Each of the cypress-wood buildings, set above the ground on stilts, was architecture at its most primal, a study in simplicity. Their polished wood was untouched by a speck of paint, while the foot-thick blanket of woven straw comprising their roofs had a creamy texture that looked like cheesecake. There was nothing in the world to compare.

What really made them unique, though, was something else entirely. Although the shrines were merely straw and natural wood, possessing none of the centuries-old authority of the cathedrals of Europe, in a curious way they were actually

older, for they had been rebuilt anew every twenty years since time immemorial.

Suddenly the real significance of that struck her. What other people had kept alive such a powerful symbol of their common heritage for centuries and centuries? Westerners had difficulty grasping the continuity this shrine represented. Little wonder Noda could galvanize his clan with some powerful new reminder of who they were. Shinto wasn't a religion; there were few rules and no payoff in the sky. Instead it was the mortar binding a race.

"The main shrines over there," he continued, pointing to a collection of buildings in an area enclosed by a high wooden fence, "are off limits to all save the Emperor himself and certain of the priests. That ground is the sacred link between our Emperor living now and those of times past. Even photographs are forbidden."

Tam noticed that many of the gables of the buildings were tipped in gold, burning amber when an occasional shaft of late sunlight reflected off them. Dusk was starting to settle in, and the evening birds and crickets had begun to add their eerie sound effects. She found herself deeply touched. What was it about the place that inspired such reverence? Was it the serenity? The purity?

Yes, this Shinto holy of holies possessed a secret power, the unassailable strength of nature. It moved her; how could it not? Somewhere inside she felt envy of them all, felt a yearning to share their absolute sense of' who they were.

While she reflected on that, surrounded by the white gravel and golden woods, she found herself looking anew at Ken. Being here with him at Ise made her question once again whether in his world, his austere yet deeply passionate world, she could never be anything but a gaijin, an outsider.