"Totally agree. But he's about to do something big, I'm convinced."
"Got any ideas."
Luckily the place was getting noisier now, so nobody could have been listening even if they'd tried. Which was the very reason I wanted to talk in the bar and not in either of our rooms. Who knew the reach of Noda's electronic ears?
"Not really. But what if we stepped back a second and tried looking at this latest move from a longer view. Maybe we've been tangled up in the trees, missing the forest."
"We've seen plenty of forest lately."
"But what if it's the wrong one? Let's try the teki ni naru to iu koto strategy, become the enemy. Pretend for a minute we're Noda, a guy who's got it all—money, clout, everything. So why
does he all of a sudden want to come across the Pacific and buy himself a load of industrial headaches, then hand them Japan's technology?"
"It's MITI somehow. I'm convinced that's the key. Which is why I'm going to nail Ken."
"Well, let's not jump to conclusions. I'm wondering. What if Dai Nippon is taking over American industry not because it's strategic to MITI as those memos we found would lead us to think. What if the reason is because it's strategic to Noda?"
"But why?"