The Samurai Strategy

by Thomas Hoover

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Our major concern at that point was time. We had a lot to do, and we weren't sure how long we had to do it. Furthermore, it would be foolhardy to assume everything was going to proceed smoothly. That apprehension was, in fact, soon to be thoroughly vindicated.

First, it wasn't all that simple to track down Tam. We finally discovered she'd already left the Robotics Lab and was back at the Tsukuba Hotel lunching with Matsugami and some of his senior staff. Returning there, however, did provide a perfect opportunity to grab our bags. Ken dragged her from the lunch with a phony excuse, and minutes later we were checked out, solving at least one logistics problem. Unfortunately, it also tipped off Matsugami and anybody else who might be interested that we were departing.

Next were the details of arranging for the chopper. While we were driving around trying to locate Tamara, Ken was busy on his car phone pulling strings to commandeer one of the two MITI helicopters. After three calls he managed to locate one at their auxiliary pad, currently being refueled and serviced. I listened to him lean on the service people, doing his diplomatic but firm deputy minister routine. End of long story: it would be on its way shortly, arriving in about an hour and a half.

Good, we thought. Plenty of time to handle the transmission of the still-unseen documents in Noda's silver case. In the car we brought Tam fully up to date on the extraordinary circumstances by which it had fallen into our possession, including its potential for use as leverage against Noda. Then we headed for the Teleconferencing Center, where we planned to open the thing, scan the contents with a reader, and bounce the pages to New York via satellite. Ken revealed the ministry had a high-security channel it used to communicate with the New York offices of JETRO, the Japan External Trade Organization over on Sixth Avenue, MITI's public relations arm. He declared we would just link up with that office and have them patch us through to the DNI computer. Nothing to it.

Which was correct, theoretically. When we marched in, Ken again flaunting his deputy minister walk-on priority, the white-shirted staff bowed to the floor, led us to the hard-copy scanner, turned it on, and diplomatically excused themselves, closing the security door. The place was ours.

Don't know why, but until that moment none of us had really wanted to know what was in Noda's case. Maybe a part of me still didn't, even then. Whatever the reason, however, none of us had bothered to take it out of Ken's briefcase for examination. Turned out that was a mistake.

He settled his satchel onto the desk, clicked it open, and out came the box for our first real look. As he wiped off the smoke, my initial reaction was to be dazzled. It was magnificent, a silversmith's masterpiece, engraved with all manner of mythological beast and fowl. A work of art in every sense. Never seen anything remotely like it.

The problem was, it wasn't merely locked. It was soldered shut. The silver lid had literally been welded on, leaving it essentially a solid piece. Noda, it turned out, left nothing to chance. Only a silversmith could crack the seal and divulge the contents. So we still had no idea what was inside, and worse, we'd managed to fritter away a valuable half hour coming to that fruitless discovery. Now what?

"Shit," said Tam. "When will we ever get a break?"

"Looks like we've got two choices," Ken announced ruefully, gazing down at the intractable chunk of metal in his hands. "We can do what we probably should have done in the first place: simply stash this for the moment and let Noda think we know what's in it. Or we can drive into Tokyo and locate somebody there who can open it, then transmit from MITI headquarters downtown."

Neither of these plans seemed particularly inspired. The first gave us nothing but presumptions for leverage, and the second could take hours. Noda, we all realized, was not a man who dallied.

"Actually"—Tam spoke up—"there's a third option. Surely Noda's going to find out sooner or later we came here to the

Center. Believe me, he always learns everything eventually. So why not transmit something else now, anything, and then after you get the case open you can send the real data?"

"You mean, give him circumstantial cause to assume we've got the goods on him?" Sounded good to me. "Buying ourselves more time?"

"Right. It'll take him awhile to find out exactly what was transmitted. All he'll know for certain is that we sent something. In the meantime Ken can go on to Tokyo and proceed with plan B: open the case there and transmit the real contents."

He looked skeptical. "That might deceive everybody for a while, but not for long. There're too many links in the chain between here and DNI's New York office."

"But sending something now will gain time. It has to. Then you can go on to Tokyo and do what you need to from there. Tomorrow."

"Maybe." He still wasn't totally convinced. "But all right—rather than waste time arguing, let's just go ahead and do it. No harm in any instance."

She peeked into his briefcase, a jumble of documents. "What have you got in here that we could send?"

"Today's Asahi Shimbun . . ." He laughed.

"Ken."

"Okay, okay." He laid the newspaper aside and was riffling through his paperwork. "How about a few MITI memos?"

"Nothing to do with Marketshare - 90, I hope," said Tam.

"Promise."

The apparatus was already humming, so he put through the connection to JETRO's New York office, whereupon Tam took over and gave them instructions for the phone link over to the DNI mainframe. It probably required all of a couple of minutes. Welcome to the Brave New World of global information technology.

Since we were just shooting in the dark, they transmitted some twenty or twenty-five pages. Actually it would have been almost better to send too few rather than too many. At four pages a minute, though, we were finished in no time. As something of a joke, Tam suggested using the file name Nipponica, homage to Noda's takeover pipe dream. Somehow it seemed poetic justice.

Whether the transparency of our ruse would be immediately evident to Matsuo Noda remained a big unknown. But . . . maybe Noda would have no real way of discovering we'd sent garbage, at least not for a while. The transmission done, we signed off, zipped up Ken's briefcase, and marched out as if we knew what we were doing. Still, it was only a bluff, and a shaky one at that. Which set me to thinking.

"Ken, it seems to me yours is the critical path in this play now." We were walking back to the executive parking lot where we'd left his car. "It's more important to have a real copy of the data stashed somewhere than it is for us to blow the country in the next two hours. Which means maybe you ought to take the chopper back yourself, send the stuff today, and let us just drive down to Narita in your car?"

"I agree." Tam nodded concurrence. "We can leave it there and you could have somebody pick it up tomorrow."

"That's dangerous, for both of you."

"Maybe so," she said, "but he's going to come after this case, guns blazing, as his first priority. Ken, you're the one who's going to have to stay out of his way now, not us. The quicker you move, the better."

"You've got a point. All right, if you want me to, then I could take the copter back to Tokyo myself and you can use the Toyota." He was fishing for his keys. "In fact, maybe you should just leave now."

"Let me check the schedule." I'd asked his secretary for a listing of the afternoon and evening flights in case we got delayed. It was now one-thirty. The next flight that looked like a sure thing was a United at seven forty-two, or maybe the JAL at nine. Then there was a Northwest at ten-fifteen. Loads of time.

"Look, we can wait for the chopper and at least see you off. Why don't we head back over to the hotel and have a drink. Solemnize the occasion—the final nailing of Matsuo Noda."

"Fine." He started the car. "But both of you get only one, at least whoever's driving does. I want you back in one piece."

The hotel bar was beginning to feel like a second home, though now it was deserted, the lunch trade long departed. Our ceremonial libation also provided my first real opportunity to study Ken Asano at leisure. I sat sipping my Suntory while he repeated once again the details of his upcoming political move at MITI. Given any kind of luck, the flap would render Noda's takeover a worldwide scandal.

Good. Tam and I had been Noda's point men, had done everything we knew to assist him, and now it was clear he'd been using us all along for his own ends. He was bent on bringing American industry back to life for the sole purpose of skimming the cream.

What other reason could there be? Noda's noble intention supposedly was to help rejuvenate those American corporations doing basic research—but the price was then to let Japan lift that R&D and translate it into consumer technology, thereby keeping for his team all the elements of real economic value in the chain from laboratory to cash register. They would be the ones refining their strategic capacity to transform new ideas into world-class products and economic leadership. Japan would retain the advanced engineering segment of product development, while tossing a few low-skill assembly plants to the U.S. to make us think we were still part of the action. It would, of course, be a fatal delusion. The high-tech hardware of tomorrow's world increasingly would be Japanese, while America became an economy of paper-shuffling MBAs and low-paid grease monkeys assembling products we no longer were able to design or engineer.

That depressing conclusion required the space of one Scotch. By then I was ready to order a second, hoping it would bring forth a solution to the problem the first had evoked with such alarming clarity.

But there wasn't time. At that moment we heard the MITI copter settling onto the pad next to the hotel parking lot.

"Ken, here's to success." I saluted him with the last melting ice cubes.

He toasted back, then signaled for the bill. Time to get moving.

The chopper was a new Aerospatiale AS 365N Twin Dauphin, big and white, a VIP four-seater. Single pilot, capable of 180. (The Japanese love those high-rotor French copters.) Guess Ken had called in a lot of chips to arrange this customized three-wheeler for a couple of gaijin. The seat-mile costs alone must have been staggering. But there it was, fully serviced and set to go.

He walked over, ducking the rotor, and advised the pilot that there had been a slight change of plans. They'd be returning directly back to Tokyo. The man, wearing a blue uniform, bowed and gave him a little salute. They seemed to be old friends. Well, I thought, if deputy ministers don't use this gold-plated extravagance, then who's it for?

Then he returned to pick up his briefcase (Noda's silver box safely therein), have a brief farewell, and give us his keys.

"Tamara, telex me the minute you get back. We'll proceed immediately. Full speed."

"Let's go for it." She smiled and drew his face down for a long, languorous kiss. I then shook his hand, and we headed for the car. Since our bags were just little carry-ons, we looked solid to catch the United flight with a couple of hours to spare, assuming traffic cooperated.

"Tam, how about taking the wheel? This left-hand-side-of- the-road driving takes practice. I almost hit somebody once in England."

"Sure." She reached for the keys, then turned back to wave to Ken. But he was already climbing aboard and didn't notice.

"Isn't it odd?" I mused, "We still haven't heard zip out of Noda. He must have realized by now we have his silver case. What's he planning to do? Where'll he try to head us off?"

"Good question." She turned the key in the ignition. "I'm not going to feel safe till we've got the actual goods on his phony sword. Not just some dummy data."

"My guess is he'll try and nail us at the airport. It'd be his best shot."

"At least Ken was smart enough to make the reservations under fake names, so he won't know which flight to watch."

"There're not that many. He could be covering them all. On the other hand, he'll assume we're arriving via the MITI chopper, so maybe we can dodge his hit squad."

"I feel like I've been run through a wringer." She was pulling out of the slot, backing around to begin making her way through the rows of staff vehicles, all with special Tsukuba parking stickers.

"You can say that again. Who could have guessed all the . . ."

I'd reached around to check the back window, hoping to get the heat going, when my field of vision turned an incandescent orange, bright and glaring, as though the sun had just come in for a close encounter. Before I could turn to see what . . . the dashboard rose up and slugged me in the teeth, as a shock wave flung us both against the seat belts.

We're dead, I thought. We've been bombed. Noda's just dropped . . .

Then I looked up.

The MITI Aerospatiale, about two hundred feet off the ground, had become a blazing sphere, a grotesque nova. Now its rotor blades were clawing the air, askew, while it circled downward like a wounded bird. An instant later it nosed into the parking lot behind us, hurtling fragments of tail assembly through several empty staff cars.

I sat mesmerized as a second ball of fire erupted where it had crashed. One of the fuel tanks had ignited, just like in the movies.

"Ken!" Tam let out a choked cry after the first few seconds of disbelief. Then she slammed the transmission into 'Park' and began ripping off her seat belt.

Where's she going? Doesn't she realize—?

Her door was open and she was stumbling out. That's when I finally came to my senses, which included the sobering thought that there might be more fuel tanks, such as the auxiliary, that hadn't yet blown.

"Wait!" I'd ripped off my own seat harness by that time and had rolled out to begin running after her as she stumbled across the snowy stretch of asphalt separating us from the flames.

She was moving like a gazelle, but I managed to catch up about thirty yards from the wreckage. Using a modified shoulder block, I pulled her around and tried to get a grip.

"Tam, nobody could survive that. We've got to stay back . . ."

At which point we both slipped and collapsed in a patch of snow . . . just as the last fuel tank detonated with the impact of a sonic boom. Memory can be a little unreliable under such circumstances, but I still remember more wreckage sailing past us, including a strut off the landing gear that gouged a furrow in the asphalt no more than ten feet from our heads.

"Tam, he never knew what hit him. It had to be instantaneous." I was trying to brush the wet snow off her face as I slipped my arm around her shoulders. She was still holding back the tears, but only just.

"We didn't even have a real good-bye." Her words were jagged. "There were so many things . . . I was hoping we . . ."

Her voice trailed off into tears.

"Look, I only knew him for a day, but that was enough to learn some things. Kenji Asano was a wise and noble soul. Everything about him was good."

She took my hand and held it against her cheek. "Matt, he was so kind. That was what . . . He was . . . all that I . . ." Her eyes were reflecting back the flames, now billowing into the pale afternoon sky. Around us the labs were emptying as technicians raced toward the lot, white coats fluttering.

"You know, he said something to me today. About you . . ."

"What?" She glanced up, her face streaked. "What did he

say?"

"He must have known there was danger. He sort of asked me to look out for you."

"Danger?" She looked back at the wreckage, and a new tear trailed down her left cheek. "I guess we don't really know for sure, do we? Maybe it was just a fuel tank rupture, or . . ."

"You don't believe that."

"No." The tears, abruptly, were gone. "Matsuo Noda just took away the one . . . Matt, I'm going to kill him."

It was a sentiment I shared in buckets. The question was merely how. Medieval torture seemed too kind. I started to say something inane, and then, finally, the shocking truth landed with the force of that last explosion.

"Tam, that was supposed to be us." I was gazing at the flames, watching talons of metal contort in the heat. "Noda thought we were going to be on that copter."

"My God, of course."

"We've got to get out of here. Now. There's nothing anybody can do for Ken."

"I'm not leaving till I've settled the score."

"Be reasonable. There's no way we can do it here. This is Noda's turf." I was urging her to her feet. "We'll find a way. All I ask is that he know we were the ones who did him in."

"But how can we just leave?"

"What else are we supposed to do? There's nothing left." I tried to take her hand. "Come on."

She finally relented and, with one last tearful stare, turned to follow me back to the car. By then a crowd of technicians was surging in around us.

Ken's blue Toyota was still running. Without a word she buckled in, shoved the stick into gear, and turned for the exit, whereupon she barely avoided colliding with the first racing fire engine.

"Look, are you okay? I can drive if you . . ."

"Matt, don't say anything more, please." The tears had vanished. "Can I just think for a while? Just give me some quiet to think." She was gripping the wheel with raw anger. "Please."

"You've got it."

By the time we reached the highway, she was driving mechanically but with absolute precision, almost as though tragedy had somehow sharpened her reflexes, her logical processes.

It's a curious thing, but different people respond differently to disaster, and Tam was one of those rare few who become harder, not softer. I could see it in her eyes. As the minutes ticked by, and we reached the packed thoroughfare that would take us south, it even got to be a little unsettling. What in hell was going through her head?

Finally, after about an hour of bumper-to-bumper freeways, I couldn't take the silence any more. Without asking anybody's permission, I reached over and clicked on the radio. It was set for a classical station, the music Chopin. Was this Ken's regular fare? I wondered. Was he a romantic at heart or a classicist? Guess I'd never know . . . that, or much of anything else about him. Which thought brought with it a renewed sadness. Kenji Asano was a man of the East who was as much of the West as anybody I'd ever met in Japan. I'd wanted him for a friend.

When you get to be my age, you don't make too many new friends, not real ones. After forty, it's acquaintances. The roots of true friendship extend so deep that there's never really time to plant them if you start too late. Maybe it's because there's always a part missing, that shared experience of being young and crazy and broke. Those times back when you both still believed anything was possible. New friends can't begin sentences with "Remember that weekend before you were married when we got drunk and . . ." Getting old is tough, and that's one of the toughest parts. But somehow I felt, with Ken, that I'd known him forever. Could be that's absurd, but I really did. So quite apart from the tragedy of his death, I felt cruelly robbed. It sounds selfish, maybe, but it's the truth. A sad but true truth.

I was still thinking those thoughts when the four-o'clock newscast came on. For a moment neither of us noticed, but then Tam snapped alert and turned up the volume. The report was opening with a live remote from Tsukuba Science City. I couldn't really follow very well, but she realized that and began to translate as it went along.

". . . was the first tragedy of its kind for the ministry, and there are widespread calls for an official inquiry. Dr. Kenji Asano, nationally known director of The Institute for New Generation Computer Technology, died today here at Tsukuba Science City when a MITI helicopter, an Aerospatiale Twin Dauphin, crashed due to a malfunction. No cause has yet been ascertained for the accident, which also took the life of the pilot, Yuri Hachiro, a MITI veteran with fifteen years of service. The condition of the wreckage has made it impossible to determine how many other passengers may have been on board, although MITI sources report that two visiting American scientists are also thought to have been traveling with Dr. Asano. Their names are being withheld by the ministry at this time, pending the completion of a full investigation. . . .

Next came an interview with a MITI official, after which the reporter offered a wrap-up.

". . . believe Dr. Asano's death represents a significant blow to several vital sectors of MITI's computer race with America. However, the vice minister has assured NHK that MITI's research effort will redouble its commitment to . . ."

Tam clicked it off. "Two birds with one stone."

"What?"

"Matt, by bringing down the 'copter with all three of us in it, he was planning to stop MITI and us both. Now he may think he did."

"You're right." I looked at her, and finally understood the real import of the crash. "Which means we're now officially dead. If nobody else knows we weren't on that chopper, why would Noda?"

She didn't answer for a long moment. Finally she said, "Maybe that gives us the time we'll need."

"Time to nail him."

"Right. I've been thinking. About what it all means."

"Noda's play?"

"Not just that. I'm talking about Japan. Everything. You know, this country could lead the world someday, maybe even now, if it wanted. It has the finest schools, the most disciplined people; it's not hung up on a lot of 'superpower' male-macho bullshit. It could be a beacon in the dark, a force for good. But what has Noda done? He's turned it all upside down. He's exploited the noble things about Japan for his own selfish ends. Greed and power."

"Lucifer, the fallen angel. Who walked out on the Kingdom?"

"I guess so. But I'm also thinking about what he did to me. He exploited the fact I was part Japanese, that I understand the potential this country has. He made me think that's what I would be helping him realize. But all along he intended to pervert it. He's perverted us, Matthew. Both of us. Perverted us and used us. And now that we're no longer needed, he's tried to kill us."

"High time we evened things out."

"Damned right. I learned a lot when I lived here. About the Japanese mind. And you understand legal tactics. Swordsmanship. I think we're ready."

"Ready?"

"To turn our knowledge against him."

"Start probing for the niche in his armor?"

"No. There's no time for that." She was silent for a moment, as though preparing her words. "We've got to just sink him. Obliterate Dai Nippon totally. And with it Matsuo Noda."

"You mean . . . go public about the sword? The problem with that is . . ."

"Exactly. Everything's destroyed. So why not forget about the sword for a while? Whatever you know about it, at this point that's just your word against his. I mean we have to bring the whole thing down."

"Tam, we're talking billions of dollars. This could take a while. That number is a little hard to argue with."

"But what if that's both his strength and his weakness." She glanced over at me. "Look, I've been thinking about what we might try. Maybe there is a way."

"To assault him on the money front?"

"Right, but we'll need your friend Bill Henderson. Think he'd help?"

I nodded. "If you want him, I'll see that he pitches in."

"Good." She turned her eyes back to the road. "Matt, I'm

Fujiwara. Did I ever tell you that? And a Fujiwara's duty is to protect the emperor of Japan. For a thousand years it's been their job."

She'd cracked. Begun talking gibberish. "What's that got to do with—?"

"Noda thinks he's going to exploit the Emperor. Well, he's got a big surprise in store. I am now going to use Dai Nippon to destroy him and then drive a stake into DNI's heart. Matthew, I'm going to make Matsuo Noda's billions just disappear."

"That's impossible."

"Watch me."

[CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE]

Guess Tam's Shinto kami were on our side, since we made it through Narita Airport with no hassles; or maybe being dead keeps you off anybody's hit list. Now that MlTI was determined not to release our names until they located our remains, we looked to be in limbo as far as Matsuo Noda and Dai Nippon were concerned. Given the fact the chopper had been demolished and then burned down to metal, nobody knew anything. Yet.

The scenario Tam laid out on the 747 flying back, while we drank a lot of airline cognac in the upstairs lounge, was destined to be yet another first in the annals of American finance, one way or the other. If we bungled it—and lived to face the consequences—would we end up like those grim-faced executives you see being hustled into the federal courthouse downtown, flanked by G-men in cheap trench coats? Later, eyeing the network cameras, we'd have to smile bravely and declare that American justice, in which we had full confidence, would surely vindicate us after all the facts, etc.

To go with her play meant we were headed either for the history books or jail, or both. But we would definitely need

Henderson and his "Georgia Mafia." My questions were actually pretty simple: (1) Could it be done, and if so, (2) how and how fast?

We got back Monday, the day before New Year's, and the first person I called after Amy was Henderson, casually mentioning that something potentially very disrupting to the Street was in the works.

"Bill, fasten your seat belt. Bumpy weather ahead."

That captured his attention in a flash. What in hell, he inquired, was I talking about?

"We need to get together, tonight." I continued.

"Where?"

"How about your place? Matter of fact, there's a real question just now, at least in Japan, concerning whether Tam and I are actually alive."

"Walton, what in God's name is going on?"

"In the fullness of time, friend, all things will be known. Now we see as through a glass darkly . . . well, actually we're seeing through the smudgy windows of the Plaza, suite three twenty-five, where we're presently holed up. But we've got to stay low profile for a few more days."

"Whatever you say," he replied, still puzzled. "Then how about dropping by here tonight for a quick one, and then afterward we can all mosey over to Mortimer's on Lex for a quick bite?"

"Okay. As long as we go late. I want to miss the happy-hour crowd."

This did not please him, but he agreed. My suspicions were he wanted to use the occasion to reconnoiter the glittery, jet-set ladies at the bar. Henderson, whose style and drawl undoubtedly distinguished him from the B-school competition there like a white-maned palomino in a herd of draft horses (investment drones who wore a beeper on their belt and used "bottom-line" as a verb), surely found the place a fertile hunting ground. Mortimer's was custom-made for his idiosyncratic style.

About nine that evening Tam and I slipped out of the Plaza's Fifty-ninth Street entrance and headed up Fifth Avenue toward Bill's. He was headquartered in one of those solid, granite-faced buildings near the Metropolitan that are constructed like small fortresses—presumably so New York's upper one tenth of one percent can repel the long-feared assault of the homeless hordes at their feet. In the lobby, Henderson vouched for us over the TV intercom, after which we were given a visual search by the doorman, his uniform a hybrid of Gilbert & Sullivan and crypto-Nazi, and shown the elevator.

A quick doorbell punch and the man from Georgia greeted us, Scotch in hand. His little pied-a-terre was about three thousand square feet of knee-deep carpets, Old Masters (I loved the Cezanne and the Braque), and masculine leather furniture. A padded wet bar, complete with mirror and a bank of computer monitors—for convenient stock action—stretched across one side of the living room, while the sliding glass doors opposite faced onto a balcony that seemed suspended in midair over Central Park. While Tam, with her designer's eye, was complimenting him politely on the understated elegance of his Italian wallpaper, French art, and English furniture, I tried not to remember all those early years back in New Haven when his idea of decor was a feed-store calendar featuring a bluetick hound.

Although the balcony doors were open, the living room still had the acrid ambience of a three-day-old ashtray. He poured us a drink from a half-gallon of Glenfiddich on the bar, gestured us toward the couch, and offered Havana cigars from a humidifier. I took him up on it, out of olfactory self-defense.

"So tell me, ladies and gents, what's the latest?" He settled himself in the leather armchair and plopped his boots onto an antique ottoman. "How're the Jap assault forces doing these days? They gonna take over the Pentagon next?"

"Not that we've heard." I was twisting my Havana against the match. "Though it might reduce procurement costs on toilet seats and ashtrays if they did."

Henderson sipped at his drink, then his tone heavied up. "Who are we kidding, friends. My considered reading of the situation is your boys on Third Avenue are unstoppable. They can do whatever they damn well please from here on out."

"That's not necessarily in everybody's best interest, Bill." I strolled over to look down at the park. "Got any new thoughts?"

"Can't say as I do. Our IBM play didn't get to first base; Noda saw us coming a mile away. Thank God I didn't get in deep enough to get hurt." He leaned back. "What makes it so damned frustrating is the market's tickled as a pig in shit. Ain't nobody too interested in dissuading your friends from buying up everything in sight. Street's never seen anything like this kind of bucks before. It's a whole new ball game downtown."

"That's right, Bill," I mused aloud. "The question is, whose ball game is it?" Tam still hadn't said anything.

"Damned good question. What happens when foreigners start owning your tangible assets? The answer, friend, is they end up owning you."

"Henderson, all that could be about to change."

"Says who?" He leaned back. "Looks to me like Noda's going all the way."

"Bill, let's talk one of those hypothetical scenarios you like so much. What if Dai Nippon suddenly had a change of plans? Switched totally? And instead of buying, they started selling?"

That pulled him up short. He even set down his glass. "Come again?"

"Call it a hypothetical proposition. I'm asking what would happen on the Street if Dai Nippon decided, unannounced, to make a significant alteration in its portfolio? All of a sudden started divesting? Massively."

"When'd this happen!" He squinted. "How much action we looking at?"

I didn't want to say it for fear he might need CPR for his heart. Finally Tam set down her drink and answered him. "All of it."

"Christ." He went pale. "What's that add up to, total?"

"We figure it'd run to several hundred billion," I answered.

He sat there in confusion. "Over what kind of time period?"

"That's part of the reason we wanted to see you. If, strictly as a hypothesis, they were to do something like that, as fast as possible, how long would it take? Just throw your hat at the number, wild guess."

"Time, you mean?"

"Exactly."

"Well, let's look at it a second here. I'd guesstimate that all the exchanges together—Big Board, American, Merc, CBOT, NASDAQ, Pacific, the rest—probably have a dollar volume upwards of . . . how many billions a day? Say twenty billion, easy, maybe more, the way volume's climbing. But that figure's purely hypothetical. If Dai Nippon dumped all those securities on the table at once, the value of their portfolio would go to hell."

I glanced at Tam.

"That's how we see it too," she said. And nothing more.

"What are you two suggesting?" He was visibly rattled. "Noda'd never pull anything that crazy."

"Bill, with all due respect, let's proceed one step at a time here with this hypothesis," I went on. "Assuming, just for purposes of discussion, he did decide to do something like that, unload everything, what's the fastest way?"

"Hell, I'd have to think."

"Come on, man. Financial derring-do is your special trade," I pressed him. "What if DNI's mainframe was used to set up a global trading network? Began dumping worldwide?"

"Well, that'd probably be the quickest approach." He was slowly coming awake. "Jesus Christ! It's not Noda we're talking about." He looked at me, then at Tam. "It's you. You're going to try and . . ."

"Possibly."

"Then we sure as hell are talking theory, 'cause you'd never be able to do anything like that without Noda's gettin' wind of it."

"Henderson, as usual you're not listening. Plausibility is not the topic under discussion. Right now we're looking at the impact."

"Well, you'd damned well better start with some plausibility." He settled back. "Say you could get around Noda. The next problem is, the minute word hits the Street DNI's dumping, all hell's liable to break loose. It'd be front page. And first thing you know, the market's going to be headed the wrong way. If you've got a heavy block of shares you want to divest, you damn well do it on the QT, 'cause its price can start to nosedive. Folks tend to figure you know something they don't. The Street's about ninety percent psychology and ten percent reality . . . if that much."

"Just concentrate on the technical part, Henderson."

"Well, friends, any way you cut it, we're talking what I'd call a very dubious proposition. Those Jap institutions would lose their shirt if DNI dumped all at once." He exhaled quietly. "You start rolling billions and billions in Japanese money, how you plan on keeping the thing from blowing sky-high? You'd have Nips climbing all over your ass in ten minutes flat, you tried something like that."

"Henderson, relax. What if we did it anonymously? Like I said. Used the DNI mainframe, funneled orders through accounts everywhere, dummy accounts in banks all over the place? Wouldn't that give us some elbow room?"

"Maybe, maybe. If you played it right. I'd guess a few wise guy analysts would probably sniff something in the wind, but nobody'd have a handle on the real action, at least not for a while. Things might stay cool temporarily."

"Are you saying that, in theory, the market side is doable, at least initially?" Tam pressed him.

"I'm just guessing it's vaguely conceivable." He got up to freshen his drink. "Be that as it may, though, the real problem is the Japanese end. I'd guess the shit's going to be all over the fan in Tokyo the minute you start selling. Those pension funds are not going to roll over and let you wreck their portfolio."

"Bill"—I spoke up—"they're not going to be able to stop us. Count on it. DNI holds the stock as trustee. Noda's rules. Ironclad power of attorney."

"So?"

"So," I said very carefully, "we are going to take over Dai Nippon."

"What the hell are you talking about!"

We told him. The Rambo part.

"Jeezus!" He stared at the two of us. "What you're proposing is a major felony. I could get accessory and five years for just listening to this."

"Who's going to file charges?"

"How about Mr. Matsuo Noda for starters?"

"Bill, we just happen to have a little leverage with Mr. Noda-san at the moment. The minute he finds out we're still alive—"

"You'd damned well better, or you could be looking at a long interlude of pastoral delights up at the Danbury country club." He was still dumbstruck. Finally he grinned. "After parole, though, you could probably sell your memoirs to Newsweek for a couple of million and land a guest slot on Carson."

There was a long pause as silence filled the room, broken only by the distant sound of a siren from the street below. For a minute I had the paranoid fantasy it was the first wave of the police SWAT team heading downtown to shoot it out with us.

Finally Bill turned back and fixed me with a questioning look. "Are you really serious about this asshole idea?"

"It's not without appeal."

"Walton, you dumb fuck, do this and you'll never work in this town again."

"I'm well aware of that."

"Nobody'd hire you to fight a dog summons, let alone a takeover." Bill turned to Tam. "Talk sense to this man."

"It was my idea."

"You're both crazy." He walked over to the bar and poured some more Scotch into his glass. "But what the hell. I've seen enough to know we'd damned sure better start taking this country back into our own hands one way or another."

"So you'll help?" She was watching him like a hawk.

"Well, now, what's life for, gentle lady"—he grinned—"except to kick ass now and again. Somebody's got to throw a monkey wrench into Noda's operation. If you think you can do it, then count me in. If nothing else, maybe we can cause a few waves down on the Potomac."

What am I hearing? I found myself wondering. Dr. William J. Henderson, capitalism's pillar of sober reappraisal, entertaining a scenario straight from a CIA handbook?

Of course, Bill still hadn't heard the second half of the play.

"Fine, we could use your help on the setup." I glanced at the row of CRT screens behind the bar. "First there's the matter of getting control of DNI's supercomputer, and then we'll need somebody with trading experience. Is there any chance you could bring in one of your boys to oversee that end?"

"How do you figure on running it?"

"I'd guess our best shot is to stay off-exchange as much as possible. Use Jeffries, third-market outfits like that. And also keep the money offshore, international, with a lot of separate bank connections to handle the transfers. Maybe also float some of the interim liquidity in overnight paper to cover our tracks, just so we can generally keep the lid on everything as long as we can."

"Then it so happens one of my boys might just fill our bill. That's his thing. He operates freelance now, but he's good. Damned good. Trouble is, he knows it, and he don't come cheap anymore."

"I think we can cover a few consulting fees. Can he keep his mouth shut?"

"If he couldn't, we'd both probably be in jail by now." He drained his glass. "Though remember, you'll be moving a lot of bucks, and there are folks who keep track of such things. But I know a few smokescreens that'll hold the SEC and that crowd at arm's length for a little." He looked at me for a second, his face turning quizzical. "What was that you said just now? About parking the money overnight? What are you going to do with it after that?"

"You're getting ahead of things," Tam replied calmly.

"Bill, why don't we head on over to Mortimer's?" I looked out at the park one last time. "You may need a stiff drink for the rest of this."

"Jesus, I'm dealing with maniacs." He got up and headed for his coat. "Let's move it."

[ ]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Bushido. Take it apart, bu-shi-do, and you have "military- knight-ways," the rules of chivalry that governed every moment of a samurai's existence. This code of honor of the warrior class, this noblesse oblige, was also known as 'the way of the sword.' For a samurai the sword was a sacred icon, an emblem of strength and inner resolve. Casual handling was unheard of. You never stepped over a sword, you never treated it with insouciance or irreverence. It was an extension of your character. A samurai regarded his katana as the symbol of his caste: a weapon, yes, but also a constant reminder of who he was, his obligations as well as his rights.

Which was why I needed the prize of my collection in hand when we entered our final battle with Dai Nippon. I wanted to face Matsuo Noda with classic dignity, with the Japanese honor he had scorned, to let him know he had a worthy opponent, one who understood the meaning of bushido. I also wanted in that process to stick those DNI guards' Uzis up their ass. I'd be needing a katana.

Our meeting with Henderson was Monday night. Tuesday morning we all buckled down and began working around the clock, each of us handling a separate area, Tam called in some favors with the head of the NYU computer center and adapted an off-the-shelf program for stock transactions to suit our unique requirements. She then booked time and scheduled a few debugging runs. In the meantime Henderson was taking care of our banking preparations, opening a string of accounts, mostly offshore where we could move with comparative anonymity. Also, we all got together at his place a couple of times and blocked out exactly what we wanted to unload first, names and dates.

While Tam and Henderson were setting up the financial end, the electronics were my responsibility. I was on the phone all day Tuesday knocking heads with Artie Wilson, an old friend who operated a maritime radio business down on the island of St. Thomas. Together we assembled a piece of gear needed to address one of the essential telemetry elements, and Wednesday night he took his boat over to St. Croix to install it.

I think I've already mentioned the marvelous Caribbean beach house that had practically fallen into my and Joanna's hands a few years back. It also sported, as do a lot of island places, a TV satellite dish, and it so happens this one was massive, a twenty-footer. Now, what is not commonly appreciated is that those concave parabolas can be used to broadcast as well as receive.

Artie and a couple of his cronies worked all Wednesday night and got it rigged the way I wanted it, including a deadeye bead on the commercial satellite currently being used by DNI for proprietary communications with Noda's Kyoto office. I figured it like this: if "Captain Midnight" could override Home Box Office's satellite network using a receiving station in Florida and broadcast a Bronx cheer to Time-Life, we could by God knock out DNI's high-security channel for an hour or so. Artie would be on standby Friday, ready to flip the switch.

Noda was apparently still in Japan, presumably busy throwing obstacles in MITI's path, or maybe searching for the remains of his silver case. Let him. We were about to start handling his communications with the DNI office for him, via a setup of our own devising.

One nice thing about global electronics is that if you get a network far-flung enough, nobody can trace anything—which was what we were counting on. After we'd killed Noda's primary communications system, we intended to substitute some Japanese hardware we'd had installed at Henderson's—together with a little help from a mutual friend in Shearson Lehman's Tokyo office. The arrangement was complicated, but it looked workable on paper. Thing was, though, we'd have to get it right the first time. No dry runs.

All of which tended to make me uneasy. You don't leave anything to chance when you're playing our kind of game; you need to have a backup. This feeling brought to mind an admonition in an old sixteenth-century text on swordsmanship, the Heiho Kaden Sho, something to the effect that "you should surprise your opponent once, and then surprise him again." So, strictly on my own, I went about a bit of bushido lawyering, using that power of attorney Noda gave me back when we started out to set up a fallback position in case Tam's scheme somehow failed. This twist, however, I decided to keep under wraps. Nobody needed to be diverted just then worrying about worst-case scenarios. That's what corporate counsels are for.

It was the most hectic week of our lives, but by three P.M. Friday we were ready, assembled at Henderson's place and poised for battle. Using his new hardware, we got on line to Shearson's Tokyo office, Bill cashing in a decade of stock tips with a longtime acquaintance. We then fed him the MITI ID codes we'd picked up from Ken during that ill-fated episode at the Tsukuba Teleconferencing Center, and he used these to patch back through to their New York JETRO offices. Finally we got St. Croix on the phone, holding.

"Time to synchronize everybody's watches." Tam was wearing her usual designer jeans, a blue silk shirt, and had her DNI flight bag freshly packed for the long days ahead.

"That thing says 3:28:37." Henderson was watching one of his monitors behind the bar, now blinking off the seconds.

"Then let's all get ready to set at 3:29," said Tam.

Which we did.

"Okay, time to roll." I punched the speakerphone. The line to St. Croix was still open.

"Ready, Artie?"

"Say the word, my man," the voice from the box came back. "We got the watts."

"You on frequency?"

"Loud and clear. Sound like they runnin' some kind of coded transmission. Don't read."

"Double-check, Artie. We can't mess up. You're on 26RF- 37558JX-10, right?"

"Yo, my man. Who doin' this?" He bristled. "Think I can't hit nothing 'less it got hair round it?"

"Just nervous up here, okay? Settle down. At three-thirty, exactly twenty-seven seconds from now, go to transmit."

"No problem."

"Stay on channel, Artie. Don't wipe out The Old Ttme Gospel Hour or something. We're about to be in enough trouble as it

is."

"You the one 'bout to be up to yo' ass in bad news, frien'. Me, I just some oyster-shuckin' jive nigger don't know shit."

. . . Except, I found myself thinking, how to make a monkey out of the U.S. Coast Guard and DEA and God knows who else for ten years. Artie was the best.

Disconcertingly, I might also add, Artie Wilson had demanded cash in advance for our job, which didn't exactly reflect a high degree of confidence in the endeavor. However, there was no way we could test what we planned to do. This was it.

"You've got fifteen seconds."

"One hand on the switch, boss, other on my—"

"Artie, stay focused—"

"Thing is, jus' hope I remember which one to yank."

"The big one."

"That's what you think, white boy . . . zero. Blast off . . . yooeee, they gone." Pause, then: "Yep, we pumpin'."

"Got it?"

"Just hit that little birdy with enough RF to light up San Juan. They eatin' garbage. They decoder up in Apple town's gotta be goin' apeshit. They can't be readin' no telex, no nothing."

"Okay, keep it cranking." I turned to Tam. "You're on."

"We're already patched through, on hold."

"All the way through Tokyo and back?" It was still a bit dazzling.

"We're going to look just like an auxiliary MITI transmission. All I have to do is put in the DNI code, then request the connection over to Third Avenue."

She tapped away on Henderson's keyboard, sending the ID through Shearson's communications center in Tokyo, then back through JETRO on Sixth Avenue, from whence it was routed into the communications room at DNI's Third Avenue offices. Since she was using the standard DNI transmission format, we would look authentic. Right now, with their primary satellite channel gone, the JETRO link should be DNI's only high-security connection to the outside world. She began the transmission, in Japanese kana.

Attention: Eyes only; J. N. Tanaka. Special instructions regarding operations. Please confirm routine satellite communications channel currently inoperative.

Moments later the message came back: Confirm communications malfunction.

Then Tam: Due to technical difficulties with transmitter, weekend operations terminated. Staff advise alert number, message J9.

That last was DNI's special setup that caused the computer to automatically dial the home number for all members of the staff, giving special instructions. Message J9 told everybody not to come in until further communication. God, was DNI efficient! The mainframe just kept dialing each number till somebody picked up. It even talked to answering machines. We figured that would head off most of the next crew. All we needed was a window of a few minutes between the goings and comings.

Then a message came back. As Tam began translating for us, though, a strange look was spreading across her face.

Operations already suspended as of 2:57 NY time per security-link instructions. Staff leave of absence. Is this confirmation? Repeat. Is this confirmation?

"What in hell." Henderson stared at Tam, then me. "Whose damned instructions?"

"Matt, what do you think's going on?" Tarn's fingers were still poised above the keyboard. "Why on earth would DNI Kyoto order a shutdown here?"

"That's a big question." One that had no answer. "Better just fake it, and fast."

"What else can we do?" She revolved back around to the keyboard and began to type.

Confirmation. What personnel remain?

Back came Tanaka's reply: As instructed, security personnel only.

"Tam, get off the line. This feels wrong."

She wheeled back again. Transmission concluded. Standby for further instruction.

Tanaka's reply was brief and to the point. A man of few words: Confirmed.

"Whatever's going on, we've got to get over there." I hit the speakerphone line again. "Artie, keep them jammed till five oh five. That should do it. If we're not in by then, we're dead."

"You got it, boss," came back the voice. "Any longer, some gov'ment honkie's gonna put on a trace. Be our ass. Correction, yo' ass."

"Just pack up your gear and haul out of there. The FCC's the least of our problems at the moment."

"You the man. Down again soon?"

"Can't rule it out. Take care." I punched off the phone.

Tam was already headed for the door. Downstairs waited the car and driver we'd hired. No point trying to hail a cab in rush hour, particularly with so much depending on the next thirty minutes.

"Okay, Bill, keep that Shearson link up. Maybe it'll block anybody else from reaching DNI's message center." I was putting on my coat. "Where's that package?"

"Right here." He reached behind the bar and retrieved the one item I wanted with me when we confronted security. It was nicely wrapped in brown paper. "Look out for yourself, Walton. I got a few good drinkin' years left. Be a shame to have to do it all by myself."

"Your guy ready?"

"Says he's on his way. Due here inside fifteen minutes."

Without further farewells we headed for the elevator.

The trip over brought forth various thoughts on what lay immediately ahead. For some reason I found myself remembering Yukio Mishima, who once voiced a very perceptive observation on the nature of swordsmanship. He claimed that the perfect stroke must be guided toward a void in space, which, at that instant, your opponent's body will enter. In other words your enemy takes on the shape of that hollow space you have envisioned, assuming a form precisely identical with it.

How does that happen? It occurs only when both the timing and placement of a stroke are exactly perfect, when your choice of moment and the fluidity of your movement catch your opponent unawares. Which means you must have an intuitive sense of his impending action a fraction of a second before it becomes known to your, or his, rational mind. The ability to strike intuitively before your logical processes tell you your opponent's vulnerable moment has arrived requires a mystical knowledge unavailable to the left side of the brain, because by the time that perfect instant becomes known to your conscious mind, it has already passed.

The point is, if you allow yourself to think before you strike, you blow it. Which is why one of the primary precepts of bushido is "To strike when it is right to strike." Not before, not after, not when you rationally decide the moment has come, but when it is right. That moment, however, is impossible to anticipate logically. It can only be sensed intuitively.

My intuition, as we rode the elevator up toward Dai Nippon's center of operations, was troubled. The offices had been cleared in advance of our arrival by somebody from DNI's Kyoto operation. We had struck at the proper void in space, all right, but our opponent had deliberately created that opening. Things weren't supposed to happen that way.

Then the elevator light showed eleven and the door glided open. We were there. Before us lay the steel doors of The Kingdom. While Tam gave the computer a voice ID, I stood to the side readying the surprise I planned for Noda's security twosome. Off came the brown paper, then the scabbard, and in my hand gleamed a twelfth-century katana from the sword-smith who once served the Shogun Yoritomo Minamoto. The prize of my collection. It was, arguably, the most beautiful, sharpest, hardest piece of steel I had ever seen. With the spirit of the shoguns.

"Ready?" She glanced over as the doors slid open.

"Now."

Awaiting us just inside the first doors were the X-ray and metal detector, the latter a walk-through arch like you see in airports. Then past that were the second doors, beyond which were stationed the two Uzi-packing guards. The detector was set to automatically lock the second doors if metal was detected on the persons of those passing through, and the wires leading out of it were encased in an aluminum tube, attached there on the left. This would have to be fast.

The sword was already up, poised, and as we entered, it flashed. Out went the electronic box with one clean stroke, the encased wires severed at the exact point where they exited from the gray metal. There was no alarm, not a sound. We'd iced it.

Beautiful.

I figured there would be time for exactly two more strokes, but they had to be right, intuitively perfect. So at that moment I shut down my rational mind, took a deep breath, and gave my life to Zen. Mental autopilot.

The connecting doors slid open, and there stood the guards. We'd caught them both flat-footed. So far, so good. Now the sword . . .

Yukio Mishima, whom I mentioned earlier, once asserted that opposites brought to their logical extremes eventually come to resemble one another, that life is in fact a great circle. Therefore, whenever things appear to diverge, they are actually on a path that brings them back together—an idea of unity captured visually in the image of the snake swallowing its own tail. According to him there is a realm wherein the spirit and the flesh, the sensual and the rational, the yin and yang, all join. But to achieve this ultimate convergence you must probe the edge, take your body and mind to the farthest limits.

I'd been reflecting considerably on what this meant to us. Noda's two heavies personified brute physicality, the body triumphant; Tam and I were meeting them with the power of the mind and, I hoped, finely honed intuition. Whereas these may seem the farthest of opposites, as with the symbol of the snake, they merged at their extremities. They became one. I knew it and the two startled guys now staring at us understood it as well. Mind and body were about to intersect. The circle had joined.

Their Uzis—about two feet long, black, heavy clip, metal stock—were hanging loosely from shoulder straps several inches away from their hands. I saw them both reach for the grip, but that sight didn't really register. My cognitive processes were already shut down.

While the first man's left-hemisphere neurons were telling his right hand to reach downward, the sword was already moving, milliseconds ahead. It caught the gun's heavy leather strap, parting it like paper, and the Uzi dropped, just eluding his fingers. He stood naked.

That was all for him and he immediately knew it. If you're looking at a razor-sharp katana, you don't get a fallback try. However, the second guard, dark eyebrows and bald head, now had time on his side. Up came the automatic, one-handed.

Right here let me say you've got to admire his pluck. If I'd been staring at a four-foot katana that could have bisected me like a noodle, I might have elected to pass. But he'd weighed the odds and concluded he had a chance. Again, though, his rationality bought us time. The neurons firing in his brain were setting in motion a sequence of logic. He was thinking.

The sword wasn't. My blank mind was centered on the void, the place where the Uzi would be when it was leveled at my chest. The overhead stroke caught it just where intuition said it would be, point-blank, his finger a millimeter from the trigger.

Cheap Israeli steel. The eight-hundred-year-old katana of Yoritomo Minamoto's swordsmith parted the Uzi's perforated black barrel like Hotel Bar butter, bifurcated it into identical slices. Guard number two just grunted as it clattered to the floor.

By my reckoning we'd been in the inner chamber for about three quarters of a second, but Noda's two human mountains were now standing there holding nothing but time in their hands. Nobody had to draw them a picture. The game was over. Bushido.

I motioned Tam toward the first guard's weapon.

"Matthew . . ." She hesitated a moment, then snapped into action. "You weren't kidding about that sword. I never realized—"

"Let's go."

"Right." She now had the one remaining automatic. The other was no longer usable. Didn't matter. One was all we needed.

We now had to kill the automatic ID on the outer door and put it on manual. Otherwise the two guards upstairs might come calling. While Tam stood there with the Uzi, I went back out and yanked the wires that hooked the voice reader to the computer. There was probably a scientific way to turn it off, but who had time for science? Besides, just then my veins were still pumping pure adrenaline. Facing the business end of an Uzi, even for a fleeting instant, is no way to begin an evening.

Tam ordered the guards to open the last door and in we marched. Tanaka was standing outside his office, his dark eyes glazed, his bristle-covered skull rosy with shock. He turned even redder when he saw the katana. Nobody had to tell him what it could do.

"Mr. Walton, why are you here?"

"We're about to undertake some corporate restructuring."

Tam proceeded to herd Tanaka and the guards into Noda's office, pausing just long enough to kill the phone wires. As he began to recover, he commenced sputtering about legal action and jail and general hellfire. Who cared? As of this moment, the offices and computer of Dai Nippon, International belonged to us.

Henderson was informed of our progress when his phone rang at exactly 4:48 P.M. He arrived, along with his Georgia Mafia computer expert, at 5:17, and Tam met them at the security doors.

I wasn't actually there to welcome them aboard, since I was guarding Tanaka just then and engaged in a small one-on-one with the man, explaining to him that Matsuo Noda's ass was ours. The president of Dai Nippon, I advised, was a few short days away from becoming everybody's lead story, featured as the Japanese executive who'd (apparently) rebelled against his homeland. Noda was no stranger to headlines, of course, but he preferred to engineer them himself, so this definitely wasn't going to be his style. Matsuo Noda was, albeit unwillingly, about to make history. As I broke this news to Dai Nippon's chief of New York operations, I sensed he was definitely less than enthusiastic about the prospect. Well, he'd have a few days to get used to the idea, since nobody was going to enter or leave the eleventh floor for a while.

It was still a bit difficult to believe what had happened. Or even more, what was next. But sometimes reality can have a way of outstripping your wildest powers of imagination—a Space Shuttle explodes, a nuclear meltdown in the Ukraine, ten-dollar oil, all of it too farfetched to make credible fiction. It could only exist in the realm of the real.

We were about to start moving billions and billions of dollars, fast. And since we didn't know how long we could continue before Matsuo Noda figured out a way to stop us, we were going to adhere to a schedule that covered the most vital sectors first—those outfits whose R&D Tam considered strategic to America's future technological leadership. Our goal for the first day was five billion, worldwide.

Thus the countdown began. Henderson's financial artist loaded Tam's new program tape onto DNI's big NEC supercomputer and cranked up. We had roughly sixty hours till the opening bell on Monday.

[CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN]

"It's the worst of times, buddy, and the best of times. Whatever dude once said that didn't know the half of it. He oughta be around now to check out the Street."

That was Henderson's Georgia Mafia co-conspirator, an irritatingly smug young man with red hair and acne who dressed entirely in white, right down to his skinny Italian tie. We were told he went by the handle of Jim Bob. As he meditated upon Wall Street's macroeconomic incongruities, he punched a Willie Nelson tape into his boom box and popped a Coors, pregame warm-up for programming a full-scale assault on the U.S. securities markets.

Jim Bob allowed as how he'd arrived in the Big Apple four years earlier with a cardboard suitcase, a finance degree from Georgia Tech, and a larger than regulation endowment of natural cunning. After a couple of years' toil in Henderson's quasi-legal vineyards, he'd gone out on his own, whereupon he'd parlayed his winnings with Bill and the remnants of a baseball scholarship into what was now a high six-figure "haircut," the name options players use for their grubstake. The way he figured it, he was just hitting his stride.

How, I inquired at one point during that long weekend, had he managed it?

"Chum, it's idiot simple. You buy into fear, sell into greed, and fuck fundamentals. Main thing is, if something makes sense, don't do it. America's in the all-time shit, and Wall Street's oblivious. It's like everybody's bidding up standing room on the Tttanic. But who cares? You play options like I do and all you have to worry about is not getting stupider than the herd. Which ain't necessarily much of a trick."

Stock options, he went on to assert, were like having a credit card in a whorehouse—a ton of action for what amounted to tip money up front. No wonder Las Vegas was in trouble, when Wall Street was beckoning our high rollers to take odds on the direction of the market. Only widows and orphans, he observed, bought actual securities anymore. That action was reserved for the halt and lame.

While country singers twanged beer hall soliloquies on the general increase in faithless women, Jim Bob coded in the brokerage houses and offshore banks we'd be using, the catalog of stocks in the DNI portfolio, and our sequence of transactions.

As noted earlier, the financial setup had been handled by Henderson and friends. Using his connections, he'd opened accounts for hundreds of dummy corporations in about two dozen offshore banks. He stuck to the usual no-questions-asked operations like Banca della Svizzera Italiana and Bank Leu in the Bahamas—the latter a Swiss-owned Nassau laundry that had, in years past, reportedly destroyed records and lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission as a favor to certain of America's more inventive inside traders.

Since the volume of money to be moved was staggering, it would all be handled by sophisticated telecommunications networks. We would pass it through the anonymous accounts we'd established, accessed both ways by computer, and it would never be touched by human hands. DNI's cash would flash in and out with total cover. Added to that, anybody who tried to trace us would first have to break through a traditional Swiss stone wall.

To dump the stock we were planning to exploit fully the new "globalization" of the financial scene. Now that the National Association of Securities Dealers had struck a deal with the London and Tokyo stock exchanges to swap price quotes, worldwide market makers were buying and selling American securities around the clock. Plenty of active market-making was happening off the exchange floors as well, at places like Jeffries out on the coast, which had recently handled a massive Canadian takeover of an American company overnight, entirely off-exchange. With all the avenues available it was almost impossible to track the movement in a given issue. DNI's computers would be routing sell orders to brokerage firms around the globe, a block here, a block there, none of them in quantities that would raise eyebrows.

Maybe I also should add that none of the "corporations" Henderson had set up would be allowed to show a profit, which would simplify Treasury Department reporting requirements. As a matter of fact, before we were through, DNI was going to lose billions. But it would all be done legally, in accordance with SEC regs. It would also lead to a world financial flap of notable proportions. Nobody would ever take Noda's money for granted again.

While Tam went over her new program with Jim Bob, pointing out her special features, Henderson and I found ourselves at reasonably loose ends. We sat around drinking green tea (God, how I came to hate that stuff) and puzzling how we'd all managed to get into such a mess. The major plus, however, was that we finally had Matsuo Noda by the short and curlies.

Or so we hoped. The problem was, he'd been a player longer than any of us, and he'd already demonstrated plenty of stamina. How would he counterattack? The question wasn't if, it was when. For the moment, though, we seemed to be on our way with clear sailing; in fact, the communications link with Kyoto was entirely empty. Tanaka also had clammed up, refusing to talk—beyond a rather firm prediction that our wholesale divestiture of DNI's assets was an insane act doomed to failure. I might also add he didn't appear nearly as concerned as the circumstances would seem to merit. In fact, he was so complacent I started getting a little uneasy. Finally Bill and I ran his prediction past young Jim Bob. Could somebody get through to Tam's program and devise a way to shut us down?

Henderson's increasingly glassy-eyed protege took out enough time from popping "uppers" and swilling Coors to assure us to the contrary.

"Hell, no way you could stop what we're settin' up here. We got ourselves what you call a closed system. Everything's

going to be handled by that green-eyed monster over there in the corner. We got these numbered brokerage accounts all over the place. Zip, in go the sell orders; zap, out go confirmations. And since none of the cash sits around, our bank accounts are all just gonna churn. We'll have billions of buckaroos rollin' at the speed of light. Ain't nobody gonna be able to get a bead on the action, take my word for it."

Our computer-generated buying and selling, he went on to declare, was conveniently similar in appearance to the "program" trading of the big institutional investors, the arbitrage players who routinely sold millions of dollars of securities in minutes using computers. Thanks to them, the market these days had been conditioned to accept huge, unaccountable trades as part of the territory. If somebody dumped massive blocks of stock unexpectedly, it could mean anything—such as, the spread between those stocks' prices and some "index future" had gotten momentarily out of sync. Shuffling securities like poker chips was the name of the game on the Street these days, so nobody would really notice or care. The turnover we'd be generating would merely suggest to the market that various investment-house arbitrage desks were unwinding positions.

What the heck, I said to Tam, maybe we could unload the better part of DNI's holdings before Noda struck back. The real key to our attack on Dai Nippon, however, depended on what happened to that cash after we turned it around. When I mentioned that, she just crossed her fingers.

By late Sunday night the DNI offices were a clutter of empty Chinese take-out containers, Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes, and computer printouts. However, Jim Bob claimed the system looked like a go. He'd completed a long sequence of test runs, and he was predicting he could probably swing at least four billion the first day, something in the nature of a warm-up for grander things to come.

Jim Bob, I should say, was fully as efficient as advertised by Henderson. Even if he was now flying higher than a moon shot, thanks to all the pills. He worked methodically, carefully analyzing the program at every step, double-checking the codes, poring over his verification printouts for obscure glitches. Mainly, though, he kept one unfocused eye on the clock, saying he always delivered on time. Point of honor.

Thus it was that, when Monday morning rolled around, we

were primed to move on Wall Street. Tam's program was poised inside the mainframe like some lurking id, ready to be unleashed. We decided to start modestly, sticking to the exchanges in New York, and only later in the day expanding outward as we gained firmer footing.

At the stroke of nine-thirty A.M. Jim Bob inaugurated our maiden run with yet another beer. Henderson and I poured ourselves a bourbon. Tam even joined us, accepting a respectable shot.

"Fasten your seat belts, boys and girls." Jim Bob shakily peeled back the tab on his Coors. The screen in front of him focused our attention down to one small flashing green dot.

"Ignition."

He hit a key on the terminal, and Merrill Lynch got a computerized "sell" order for ten thousand shares of Texas Instruments. The time was exactly 9:31.

It was a textbook lift-off. Rows of green numbers began to scroll up the screen, only to blink and disappear. By God, the thing seemed to be working. We had just pulled the plug on DNI. All that was left now was to sit back and watch it sink.

As the morning wore on, Tam fielded phone calls from staffers, always claiming that Tanaka was not available just then. Of course, we weren't sure how long we could get away with that excuse, but for now none of us wanted to set the man free to start jabbering in Japanese on the phone. On the other hand, we were loosening up a bit on security. Partly, I guess, because we were all increasingly wrecked, but also because it seemed to fit the situation. By Monday, Tanaka and his two retired sumo bone-crushers appeared to have grown resigned, one might even say philosophical, and I don't mind admitting it bothered me a lot. Tanaka was watching us destroy Noda's grand design right before his very eyes, yet he just sat there as though none of it mattered. How could this be? All he did was busy around brewing tea for everybody. (Except, of course, for Jim Bob, who stuck to Coors.) However, I was too tired by then to think much about it.

Around two-thirty Henderson began complaining of a splitting headache and declared he had to go home and get some rest. I started to protest, but the man looked half dead. Tam and I weren't much better off, so we flipped a coin to see who would take the first watch. She won, which was great by me, since the long hours without sleep were really starting to unravel my concentration.

To understand what happened next, you have to try and envision the scene. It was three P.M. and things were going letter perfectly. The dollars were sailing through the accounts we'd set up and along about noon we'd even kicked in our buy program.

Yes, buy. That's not a typo. You see, we had to lose billions, not necessarily a trivial task. Think about it. If you merely want to drop a few million, all you have to do is just invest in some high-flying start-up and then sit there till the venture craters. But billions?

That's the part where Tam really showed her mettle (no pun intended). Look, she said, the Brothers Hunt managed to blow millions by trying to corner silver, bidding up the price and then seeing it collapse. But we've got to get rid of some serious money, so why don't we do the same thing, only with a commodity worth something?

Platinum.

All life's great ideas have an inevitable simplicity. That's right, we were programmed to sell DNI's stock and buy platinum. From anybody, anywhere, at any price. We were planning to just swallow the worldwide commodity markets in the stuff, starting at the NY Merc and ending at Capetown. Of course, what we were also doing was boosting its price into the stratosphere—we were even bidding against ourselves through different brokerage houses. Anything to drive it up. I mean we had a lot of money to get rid of. We figured that by the time we were finished, DNI would be the proud owner of a couple of hundred billion in platinum metal, platinum futures, platinum mining stocks, platinum storage companies, platinum dealerships, platinum reserves, platinum investment coins. All of it at a price as high as we could push. I was betting on two thousand dollars an ounce by Friday.

The nice part was, what central bank was going to step in? Platinum was strategic, sure, but it wasn't a monetary metal. And if we had to bid against governments, so much the better. We were playing a drunken speculator's dream, going all out for the most volatile of all the world's commodities. After we'd squeezed that scam for every ounce it was worth, we would deliberately puncture the bubble and let the price nosedive. We were going to destroy the cancer of Dai Nippon by gorging Noda's takeover machine with financial poison. The eventual collapse should wipe out Matsuo Noda totally.

Platinum. I asked Jim Bob to check the waning moments of Monday's spot market, the latest prices down at the NY Merc, and he reported it had scooted up about twenty dollars an ounce. A little slow maybe, but then we were just starting out. I figured it would probably double in a couple of days.

Such was my fond hope as I drifted off for a nap on my desk. Tam was in Tanaka's office, half-nodding in her chair, while Jim Bob was sitting before his monitor, still nourishing himself with beer and colored pills. I gave him the Uzi and told him to help Tam out by keeping an eye on Tanaka and the two guards, all now sleeping like a baby. My last vision was of Jim Bob sitting there, the Uzi draped over his wrinkled white lap, clicking away at the keyboard.

I slept right through Emma's four-o'clock phone call from my office downtown. When I awoke around nine P.M. Jim Bob mentioned she'd rung. No message, he said. Then don't worry about it, I mumbled to myself; get back to her in the morning.

Tam didn't seem to remember the call, which momentarily troubled me. Had we both been dozing at the helm? Well, who could blame her? In spite of my own nap I still felt like hell, so I dragged myself up, stretched, wandered around the office, drank some more green tea, and inquired of Jim Bob how things seemed to be proceeding.

"Looking good." He grinned. He was now working Hong Kong and the Asian exchanges, limbering up the satellites as he flashed our (DNI's) money around the globe. Anybody heard from Henderson? Not a word, he said in a tone that seemed disconcertingly pat.

I briefly toyed with heading down to the street and trying to locate an early "bulldog" Times to see what kind of a splash we were making in the press, but since Tam was now sound asleep, I figured I'd better stick to duty.

I vaguely recall stumbling into my office to rummage for an old box of NoDoz stashed somewhere there in the desk, and thinking how nice it would be just to lean back in the chair. . . .

A phone was jangling in my ear. As I pulled erect, the clock on my desk was reading ten-thirty—My God, A.M.—and I felt as if I'd been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. What the hell was in that green tea Tanaka had been brewing?

Inside the receiver at my ear was Emma, and what she had to say brought me awake like an ice-cold shower. In a voice

brimming with triumph, she announced she'd just resigned and I could consider this official notice thereof. In fact, she was price-shopping Florida condos this very minute—what did I think of Coral Gables?—and I was lucky she'd bothered to take out time to inform me of her intended plans. By Wednesday she expected to be able to loan money to the Rockefellers, in case they should need a little liquidity on short notice.

How'd you come by this sudden fortune? I asked. Where, she snapped back, have you been? The Dow Jones average was about to double, if it hadn't already. Funny, but the rest of the market was going nowhere. Oddest thing she'd ever seen. However, it only went to show what she'd always told me, and if I'd listened to her instead of those smarty-pants uptown brokers, I'd be rich now too. Stick with the blue chips. IBM was up thirty percent since yesterday, AT&T was flying, GM was selling for a price that would make you think they were back in the car business.

What the hell was she talking about! That's when I noticed a copy of Tuesday's New York Times lying there on my desk, right next to the phone. Only at first it didn't seem like the Times. Or maybe Punch Sulzberger had just been swallowed whole by Rupert Murdoch, because I hadn't seen a headline that arresting since the Posts immortal "Coed Jogger Slain in Bed." It was banner, right across the top; the Times' headline writer was practically orgasmic. But whereas the Post gets off on mere sex, the good gray Times reserves its libidinous juices for that ageless aphrodisiac, money.

New York Stock Exchange Prices Explode

NEW YORK—Volume skyrocketed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, as buyers for Big Board issues responded worldwide to a renewed confidence in American industry. Analysts are calling this the first leg of the Great Bull Market of the 1990s, saying this surge has been overdue for a decade. Leading the phenomenal rally were a number of America's foremost corporations. . . .

I came off my chair like a shot and headed for Tam's office. "Is anybody following what's going on outside?"

Her face was down on the desk, dark hair tousled across her cheeks. She looked up and rubbed her eyes, obviously knocked out too. Strange.

"What . . . ?" Her voice was slurred.

"Something's gone crazy," I yelled. "Where's Henderson?"

Then I remembered he wasn't there. However, I did locate Jim Bob easily enough. He was in Noda's corner office, wideawake and still carrying our Uzi. Only now there were two of those long black automatics present, the other lying atop the wide teakwood desk.

One more thing. Seated behind that desk, his silver hair framed by the sunlight streaming through the wide back windows, was . . . Matsuo Noda.

The Shogun had arrived.

And with him came the dawn of a new, powerful reality. My drugged mind was flooded with the ramifications. Matsuo Noda, I now realized, had been on to us from the start. Once again he had used us. He had been the one who had emptied the office, the better to lure us in.

But the guards . . .

Noda-san, I bow to a true samurai. A swordsman's swordsman. Of course, it was as simple as it was elegant. You were testing us, allowing us a plausible opening, just difficult enough to force us to reveal our true strategy. The dictum of the masters: "If you want to strike your enemy, let him try to strike you first. The moment he strikes you, you have already succeeded in striking him." Pure bushido.

Everything up till now had only been feints. What I assumed was the battle turned out to have merely been staking out terrain, jockeying for position. At last, though, we were ready for the real engagement. Trouble was, Matsuo Noda had just secured the high ground.

"Come on in and have yourself a seat, Walton." Jim Bob beckoned toward the vacant chair as he sipped from a glass of California champagne, its plastic-looking bottle stationed on the floor beside him. Coors time was over.

"Jim Bob, what's happening with the market?" I was ignoring Noda for the moment, trying to get a firmer grasp on the new "prevailing conditions."

"'Bout what we figured," he replied, his white suit now greasy and wrinkled. "Yep, looks like we're roughly on schedule."

"It's a relief to know there's a timetable." I finally turned to Noda. "Wouldn't want this takeover to be half-cocked."

"Mr. Walton, if you would be so kind." He smiled and indicated the chair. "It would be well for you to join us."

Jim Bob waved me over with his Uzi. "Fact is, we're all about due for a little show and tell." He glanced up as Tarn entered the doorway. "Be a good idea if you got up to speed on what we're doing here, too."

"I just scrolled some prices," she said, glaring groggily at Noda, the morbid realization descending rapidly now. "You don't have to tell me anything. I know exactly what you're doing."

"What we're doing is, we're pulling this country out of the shit. That's what we're doing. We're saving this country's ass. Which is more than anybody else here's doing," Jim Bob continued, satisfaction in his voice. "How in hell did you ever think you could pull something like you were trying? Mr. Noda here could squash you all just like a june bug anytime he gets a mind, take my word for it."

Noda still hadn't amplified the new Dai Nippon scenario, but he didn't really need to bother.

"Jim Bob, don't spoil the fun and tell me. Let me try to guess." I glanced over at Noda, then back at him. "He suckered you in with his 'Rescue America' spiel. World peace at a price."

"Well, tell you the truth, the man did buy me lunch."

"I'll bet that's not all he did, you opportunistic son of a bitch."

I examined Noda. "How does it feel to have Japan about to be sole owner of IBM and AT&T and GM and . . . guess I could just check the supercomputer out there for the full list."

"Certain strategic corporations." Noda smiled benignly. "It had become the only meaningful direction to proceed, Mr. Walton. I'm afraid our other measures were clearly too little, too late."

"Why bother with the small fish, right? If you're going to buy up American technology, do it right."

"Mr. Walton, we both know it is inevitable. Neither you nor I can alter the tides of history." He sighed. "Perhaps Japan can provide the management guidance required to save America's industrial base, but it cannot be achieved merely by dabbling. Stronger measures, much stronger, were required. I finally came to see that. The problem was how to do it without a major psychological disruption of the market and more Japan bashing. Then by the greatest of good fortune, you solved my problem for me." He nodded toward Tam. "Your new trading program, Dr. Richardson, which allowed us to operate anonymously, was ideal. Why not make use of it? Particularly since Mr. Henderson had the personnel to render it operational."

While digesting that, I returned my attention to Jim Bob. "Let me guess some more. Ten to one you bought 'call' options on the Big Board issues he was planning to take over."

"Well, they were bound to go up." He flashed a reptilian grin as he adjusted the Uzi, now a bolt of black against his rumpled white suit. "If you're standing by the road and a gravy bus comes along, what are you going to do?"

"Terrific. Be a pity for this insider windfall to go to waste. Just wanted to make double sure you got a piece for yourself."

"Does a bear crap in the woods?" he inquired rhetorically, then tipped back his head and drained the champagne glass.

"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, locking in a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into the clouds."

"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S&P 500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairy for me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavy leverage. No risk."

I concurred. "Nothing too abstruse."

"The thing of it is, I'm more comfortable dealing with reality," he went on. "I like to kick the tires, check under the hood, so that index crap's not my style. Like I always say, if you've got hold of something you can't figure out how to drink, drive, or screw, maybe you oughta ask yourself what you're doing with it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trust funds?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"If we play ball?"

"Exactly."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I'm not speculating."

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

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

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