"Mori-san, could be we're all acting under certain misunderstandings here today. For starters, buying up every American blue chip issue in sight was not exactly our idea."
She stared at me for a second, disbelieving. "But that is precisely what you are doing."
"Think again." I pointed toward Noda's office. "That's his game. Helped along by that sharpshooter over at the console." I waved to Jim Bob, who toasted us with his champagne glass, still too zonked on uppers to comprehend the revised ground rules. "Maybe you'd like to run through it with them."
She seemed to notice him for the first time. "Who is that person?"
"Noda's new hired gun. We've been retired. Without even so much as a gold watch."
"He is the one responsible?"
"He's good, tell you that. Fooled us all." I settled onto the office couch. "Noda's got him and this supercomputer. Looks like good-bye America."
Noda's office door, incidentally, was still firmly closed, so presumably he wasn't yet aware of Mori's arrival. Were we about to see history replayed before our very eyes, that fateful battle of Dan-no-ura staged all over again, eight hundred years later, as a loyal retainer of the emperor fought to thwart the armed takeover of a would-be shogun? Wonder who was going to win this time around.
"Mr. Walton, this must be stopped." She was turning the
key on her new leather handbag, unlocking it. "I also insist you return your copy of the contents of that case. Having that is the only way I can—"