Which left only two possibilities. Either Matsuo Noda was merely an insane genius about to show us the inner workings of the massive organization he now controlled, or he planned to kill us.
Or both.
[CHAPTER TWENTY]
Dr. Kenji Asano gazed out the window of his office at the Institute, the last shafts of sun casting long shadows in the canyons below. It was late Tuesday afternoon, and gales of December wind tunneled around the skyscrapers of Tokyo, chilling the gray steel and glass. The blank computer screens reflected back his smooth, trim face, his glum eyes. Technology. It was divorcing man from all sensibility. What Kenji Asano found himself wanting at that moment was not high-tech but high-touch, to be seated on the tatami of his Tokyo teahouse, smelling the fresh straw, gazing out over the manicured evergreen shrubs of his garden, the clumps of leafless black bamboo. He recalled again the tea ceremony in Kyoto and the sight of Tamara approaching down the stepping stones of the "dewy path." She was a rare American, one who understood the essence of cha-no-yu—inner power shows itself in outer restraint.
As he lit a Peace cigarette with a wooden match and continued to examine the cheerless skyline of Tokyo, a thought flickered past—Bodhidharma, the first Zen master, who had plucked away his eyelids to prevent sleep as he meditated. That reflection led naturally to ruminations on the master's disciple, Hui-ko, who sat zazen for days in the snows outside Shao-lin monastery, then finally severed his own arm and offered it to the master as testament of his devotion.
Bushido, the code of the samurai. Who today would cut off an arm to prove determination? Or be Benkei at the Bridge, the servant who breaks the rules of society and cudgels his own master to protect their disguise and deceive their foes. That famous episode, he told himself, would be his model. Sometimes bushido required you to circumvent tradition and honor for the greater good.
What was happening in Japan? These days many thoughtful Japanese were expressing open concern, even fear, over their country's rising nationalism. Although high officials still couched their flag-waving in coded language intended to elude foreign notice, many prominent voices were now suggesting "it's wrong to think prewar Japan was all bad." The latest school textbooks spoke glowingly of the country's Imperial traditions. Encouraged by this jingoism, in truth veiled racism, many superpatriots were beginning to emerge from obscurity. Now, with the Imperial sword as symbol, the Japanese right was openly on the march. Surely Noda had known it would happen, had counted on it.
He recalled the line by Yeats, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last . . ."
The "beast," Kenji Asano feared, had arisen in Japan. And its monstrous head was none other than Matsuo Noda. Who could have suspected the dark side of Noda's grand design or the extent of his determination? Violence, money in the billions, and accomplices where they were least suspected. Perhaps even inside MITI.