_Monday 6:32 P.M.
_Tanzan Mino was dressed in a black three-quarter sleeved kimono,
staring straight ahead as he knelt before the sword resting in front of
him. His hands were settled lightly on his thighs, his face
expressionless. Then he reached out and touched the scabbard, bowing
low to it. Inside was a twelfth-century katana, a five-foot-long razor
created by swordsmiths of the Mino School, from the town of Seki, near
Gifu in the heart of old Honshu. It was, he believed, a perfect
metaphor for Japanese excellence and discipline.
The sword had now been reverenced; next he would use it to test his own
centering. At this moment his mind was empty, knowing nothing, feeling
nothing.
As his torso drew erect, he grasped the upper portion of the scabbard
with his right hand, its tip with his left, and pulled it around to
insert it into the black sash at his waist. He sat rigid for a moment,
poised, then thrust his right foot forward as he simultaneously grasped
the hilt of the sword with his right hand, the upper portion of the
scabbard with his left. In a lightning move he twisted the hilt a half-
turn and drew the blade out and across, his right foot moving into the
attack stance. The whip of steel fairly sang through the empty air as
the sword and his body moved together. It was the _chudan no kamae
_stroke, the tip of the blade thrust directly at an opponent's face, an
exercise in precision, balance.
Rising to a half kneel, he next lifted the sword above his head, his
left hand moving up to seize the hilt in a powerful two-handed grip. An
instant later he slashed downward with fierce yet controlled intensity,
still holding the hilt at arm's length. It was the powerful _jodan no
kamae_ stroke, known to sever iron.
Finally, holding the hilt straight in front of him, he rotated the
blade ninety degrees, then pulled his left hand back and grasped the
mouth of the scabbard. As he rose to both feet, he raised the sword
with his right hand and touched its _tsuba _handguard to his forehead
in silent reverence, even as he shifted the scabbard forward. Then in a
single motion he brought the blade around and caught it with his left
hand just in front of the guard, still holding the scabbard. With
ritual precision he guided the blade up its full length, until the tip
met the opening of the sheath, and then he slowly slipped it in.
This weapon, he reflected with pride, was crafted of the finest steel
the world had ever seen, created by folding and hammering heated layers
again and again until it consisted of hundreds of thousands of paper-
thin sheets. The metallurgy of Japan had been unsurpassed for eight
hundred years, and now the _Daedalus _spaceplane had once again
reaffirmed that superiority. Building on centuries of expertise, he had
succeeded in fashioning the heretofore-un known materials necessary to
withstand the intense heat of scramjet operation.
The remaining problems now lay in another direction entirely. The
difficulty was not technology; it was human blundering. Lack of
discipline.
Discipline. The news he had just received had only served to assure him
once again that discipline was essential in all of life.
As he turned and stationed the sword across his desk, he surveyed his
penthouse domain and understood why heads of state must feel such
isolation, such impotence. You could have the best planning, the best
organization, the tightest coordination, and yet your fate still rode
on luck and chance. And on others.
Overall, however, the scenario possessed an inescapable inevitability.
A lifetime of experience told him he was right. He glanced at the sword
one last time, again inspired by it, and settled himself at the desk.
Tanzan Mino was known throughout Japan as a _kuromaku_, a man who made
things happen. Named after the unseen stagehand who pulled the wires in
Japanese theater, manipulating the stage and those on it from behind a
black curtain, the _kuromaku_ had been a fixture in Japanese politics
since the late nineteenth century. He fit the classic profile
perfectly: He was an ultranationalist who coordinated the interests of
the right-wing underworld with the on-stage players in industry and
politics. In this role, he had risen from the ruins of World War II to
become the most powerful man in Asia.
It had been a long and difficult road. He'd begun as an Osaka street
operator in the late thirties, a fervent nationalist and open admirer
of Mussolini who made his followers wear black shirts in imitation of
the Italian fascists. When the Pacific War began, he had followed the
Japanese army into Shanghai where, under the guise of procuring
"strategic materials" for the imperial Navy, he trafficked in booty
looted from Chinese warehouses and operated an intelligence network for
the Kempei Tai, the Japanese secret police. After Japan lost China, and
the war, the occupying supreme commander for the allied powers (SCAP)
labeled him a Class A war criminal and handed him a three-year term in
Sugamo prison.
The stone floors and hunger and rats gave him the incentive to plan for
better things. The ruins of Japan, he concluded, offered enormous
opportunity for men of determination. The country would be rebuilt, and
those builders would rule.
Thus it was that while still in Sugamo he set about devising the
realization of his foremost ambition: to make himself oyabun of the
Tokyo Yakuza. His first step, he had decided, would be to become
Japan's gambling czar, and upon his release--he was thirty years old at
the time--he had made a deal with various local governments to organize
speedboat races and split the take on the accompanying wagering. It was
an offer none chose to refuse, and over the next forty years he and his
_Mino-gumi _Yakuza amassed a fortune from the receipts.
While still in Sugamo prison he had yet another insight: That to
succeed in the New Japan it would be necessary to align himself
temporarily with the globe's powerful new player, America. Accordingly
he began cultivating connections with American intelligence, and upon
his release, he landed a job as an undercover agent for the occupa-
tion's G-2 section, Intelligence. He'd specialized in black- bag
operations for the Kempei Tai in Shanghai during the war, so he had the
requisite skills.
When SCAP's era of reconstruction wound down, he thoughtfully offered
his services to the CIA, volunteering to help them crush any new
Japanese political movements that smacked of leftism. It was love at
first sight, and soon Tanzan Mino was fronting for the Company, putting
to good use his _Mino-gumi _Yakuza as strikebreakers. With Tanzan Mino
as _kuromaku_, the Yakuza and the American CIA had run postwar Japan
during the early years, keeping it safe for capitalism.
Then as prosperity returned, new areas of expansion beckoned. When
goods could again be bought openly, the black market, long a Yakuza
mainstay, began to wither away. But he had converted this into an
opportunity, stepping in to fill the new Japanese consumer's need for
cash by opening storefront loan services known as _sarakin_. Although
his Yakuza charged interest rates as high as 70 percent, the average
Japanese could walk into a side-street office and minutes later walk
out with several thousand dollars, no questions asked.
Unlike banks, he didn't bother with credit checks--he had well-proven
collection techniques--and before long his _sarakin _were handling more
consumer loans than all Japan's banks combined. His success was such
that foreign bankers wanting to gain a foothold in Japan soon started
coming to him. Bank of America, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan,
American Express Bank--all began placing capital wholesale through the
Yakuza's _sarakin_.
When the CIA bankrolled the Corsican mob as strikebreakers in
Marseilles in the fifties, they were merely financing heroin labs for
the French Connection, but when they and America's leading banks hired
on with Tanzan Mino's Yakuza, they were furthering the career of the
man destined to become the world's richest right-winger. The CIA
arrangement had lasted until a midlevel field consultant blew the
whistle.
The score for that had yet to be settled.
He shrugged away the thought with a glimmer of anger and turned to
study the column of green figures on the computer screen atop his desk,
mentally running a total. The numbers, at least, pleased him.
Capitalization for the first year was ready to be issued; the dummy
corporations were in place, their paperwork impeccable. None of the
financing packages was likely to raise eyebrows. The plan was as
flawless as human ability could make it.
As the pale light of dusk crept through the blinds, laying faint
shadows across his silver hair, he reached over with a smile and
touched the white stingray-skin binding on the sword's hilt. Yes, the
plan was brilliant. A third world war, one of economics, had begun, but
none of the other combatants fully realized it.
The European trading nations of 1992 were banding together, also
bringing in the new capitalists of Eastern Europe, to create a trade
monolith. At the same time Japan had, through strategic planning,
achieved its own Pacific trade bloc, finally realizing its aim during
the war, a Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere. Now only one final
target remained: the new consumers of the Soviet Union, who represented
the world's largest untapped market for goods, technology, investment.
The Europeans, the Americans, all the capitalists, were fighting for
that prize, but Tanzan Mino was within a whisker of seizing it for
Japan and Mino Industries. The Soviets would have no choice.
He reached down to stroke Neko, the snow leopard who slept beside his
desk, and reflected on the scenario. The Soviets had bought into it
with eyes open. The plan was turning out to be absurdly easy.
At the moment all he needed was the cleanly laundered payoff money. The
political risks, the financial risks, everything had to be covered. The
powers in the Liberal Democratic Party feared going out on a limb for
such a risky strategic objective. They required encouragement. And
certain prominent Japanese bankers, who would have to assist in the
scenario, also needed inducement. But the money had to be cash and
totally untraceable. No more Recruit-style fiascos.
Where was it?
He pushed that worry aside momentarily as he studied the gleaming model
of the _Daedalus_, poised like a Greek statue in the center of his
office. To think that the Soviets would agree not only to the hard
financial and territorial terms he had demanded, but actually were
willing to help Mino Industries develop the most advanced airplane the
world had ever seen. Their plight was fully as desperate as he'd
assumed. It was a game where he won everything.
Yes, the _Daedalus _was as important as all the rest combined. It would
leapfrog Japan to the undisputed ranks of the major powers, erasing
forever the distinction between civilian and military technology.
Still, though, there were problems. Always problems. First, the news he
had just received: The laundered funds still had not been delivered.
Then there was the matter of the NSA cryptographer who had been given
an intercepted copy of the protocol. Three men had been lost attempting
to retrieve it, but she remained at large. That was unacceptable. It
had to be reclaimed, no matter the cost, lest there be a premature
exposure of the plan. Timing was everything.
Added to that was the puzzling matter of the Soviet test pilot, on whom
the fate of the entire project hinged. He'd begun making outrageous
demands, insisting on moving up the first hypersonic flight to Friday.
Why? He'd once spent time in the United States as an exchange pilot.
Could he be fully trusted?
Tanzan Mino had finally, reluctantly, approved the schedule change,
though his instincts told him to beware. His instincts rarely failed,
but it was better not to appear too inflexible too soon. At this stage
the test pilot had become the crucial component of the project.
Sometimes you had to bend to get what you wanted, and instincts be
damned.
As if all that were not enough, he'd just heard an unsettling rumble
out of London concerning Kenji Nogami, a _Mino-gumi kobun _for thirty
years, a man he'd made rich.
He turned his attention back to the computer screen and studied the
numbers once more. However, he could not concentrate.
The problems. He felt his anger rise, unbidden. He was too old for
problems. Surmounting human incompetence was a young man's game. He
had, he told himself, struggled enough for a dozen men. And now, having
dedicated himself to fashioning Japan's twenty-first century ascen-
dancy, he no longer really cared about money. No, what mattered now was
the triumph of the Japanese people, the emperor, the Yamato spirit.
His countrymen, he had always believed, shared a noble heritage with
another race, one distant in time and place but brothers still. Both
the modern Japanese and the ancient Greeks had pursued a mission to
refine the civilizations around them, offering a powerful vision of
human possibilities. They both were unique peoples chosen by the gods.
He wanted, more than anything, for the entire world to at last
understand that.
With a sigh he turned and gave Neko a loving pat on her spotted muzzle,
then touched the buzzer on his desk. Time to start solving the
problems.
Monday 1:03 P.M.
"Michael, I'm terribly glad you could make it." Kenji Nogami smiled and
reached for his pint of amber-colored lager. His tailoring was Savile
Row via Bond Street, his accent Cambridge, his background well
concealed. In a business where appearances counted for much, he had all
the careful touches that separated the players from the pretenders--
cheeks sleek from a daily workout at his club, eyes penetrating and
always alert, hair graying at the temples. Today he stood out like a
beacon in the mob of chatting brokers and jobbers in the paneled gloom
of the pub, his aloof bearing and dark pinstripe suit proclaiming
INSIDER as clearly as neon. A Japanese to the core, he still looked as
though he had belonged there for a hundred years.
"By the way, congratulations on the takeover." Vance caught the pint of
ale sliding across the beer-soaked mahogany, then lifted it. "I hear
you scared hell out of the big players here in the City. Here's to
going straight. Hope it doesn't take all the fun out of life."
"It had to happen eventually, Michael." He nodded with innocent guile
and raised his glass tankard in return. "Cheers."
"To your health and wealth." Vance joined him in a sip. It was warm and
bitter, the way he liked it. "No more intrigue."
"Well . . . He winked and drank again, blowing back the foam. "We
bankers still thrive on intrigue, old man. And secrecy. Otherwise
somebody else would start making the money."
The young brokers laughing, smoking, and drinking in the pub all looked
as though they made buckets of money. Outside, the ocher-trimmed Doric
columns of the refurbished Leadenhall Market looked down on the
lunchtime crowds of the financial district, almost all men in white
shirts and dark suits, the modern uniform of the money changer.
"Trouble with secrets, though"--Vance settled his mug onto the wet bar
and looked up--"is that eventually the word gets out."
Nogami studied him. "Are you hinting at something? Something I should
know?"
"Maybe I'm just thinking out loud. But what if a guy like me came
across some proprietary information, sort of by accident, and
consequently an old friend of ours back home in Tokyo was very
unhappy?"
"If that 'friend' is who I think you mean, he's not someone either of
us wants to see unhappy, do we?" He sipped solemnly at his beer.
"Speak for yourself," Vance replied, and drank again. "But to continue,
what if this hypothetical guy had decided to try and simplify the
situation, get news back to Tokyo about a way to solve everybody's
problem? Then he'd need an information conduit. One that's tried and
true."
Nogami reached for a tray of peanuts, took a small handful and shook
them in his fist before popping one into his mouth. He chewed for a
second, then smiled. "One way might be to have a drink with an old,
shall we say, acquaintance, in hopes he might be able to help with some
communication."
"Sounds like we're making headway here." He paused. "Say this
hypothetical guy wants to talk a deal."
"What sort of deal?" Nogami chewed on more peanuts, his eyes
noncommittal.
"For instance, if Tokyo'll lay off, he'll see what he can do about some
laundered funds our friend's been waiting for. He's in a position to
make it happen. But if they keep on with the muscle, the deal's off. In
other words, no play, no pay."
"Supposing I know the individual in Tokyo you mean, as things stand now
you've quite possibly come to the wrong man." He sighed. "This isn't
the old days, my friend. I'm not wired in like I used to be. Times have
changed, thank God. I'm out. I run an honest merchant bank, at least as
honest as you can in this new day and age. And I like it that way."
"Ken, don't start the runaround." Vance tried to keep his tone easy.
"You're not talking to some bank examiner now. In Japan connections
last forever. We both know that."
"You were never more correct." Nogami examined his lager. "Obligations
remain, even though influence wanes. Which is, in fact, one of the
reasons I wanted to see you today. Michael, if I do you this favor,
could you perhaps do one for me in return?"
"Is it legit?"
"I suppose that depends," he laughed. "Look, of course I'd be more than
happy to send a secure telex, if that's all you want. Heaven knows I
owe you that much." He paused to sip from his mug. "But I'll sound
rather a fool if I don't know the first thing about the situation.
Can't you at least give me some idea?"
"Tokyo'll understand. And the less you know, the better for everybody."
"All right. But my position right now is . . . well, I may not be able
to help as much as I'd like."
"I don't like the sound of that."
"It's the problem I mentioned to you. That 'individual' is calling in
favors with me now, not the other way around. So this could be a trifle
awkward, if you see what I mean."
"Ken, have you forgot I took care of you once? Remember the Toshiba
milling-machine sale to the Soviets? All the posturing back in the
U.S.? It could have been a lot worse for your team politically.
Afterwards you said you owed me one."
"Yes, and I still appreciate what you did, tipping me off about the
French, the fact they'd already sold such machines to the Soviets years
ago. It helped us dampen the fires of moral indignation on Capitol
Hill." He took another sip. "I got a lot of points with the right
people in the LDP."
"I just got fed up with all the bullshit. No harm done." He leaned
back. "But now it's your turn."
"Fair enough." He gazed around the crowded, smoke- filled pub.
"Michael, I don't know if we really should be talking here. Care to
take a walk, down to the Thames? Get a bit of air. Maybe hope for some
sunshine?"
"All right." Vance tossed down a five-pound note and reached for his
overcoat, draped across the stool next to them. "Weather's nice. At
least for London."
Nogami nodded as they pushed through the crowded doorway and into the
street. "Don't say what you're thinking. Don't say you can't imagine
why I moved here."
"Never crossed my mind." Vance took a breath of the fresh air,
expelling the residual smoke from his lungs. The lunchtime mob elbowed
them from every side.
"You know the reason as well as I do. It's all part of our overall
strategy. Japan is a world player now, Michael. I'm part of the
vanguard that's going to do to financial services worldwide what we did
to semiconductors and electronics. You just watch and see."
"I already believe it." He did. Japan's dominance of the world money
scene was just a matter of time.
They navigated their way through the midday throng. On every side
lunchtime shoppers were munching sandwiches, lining up for knick-knacks
to take back to the office. They strolled past the rear of the tubular-
steel Lloyds building, then headed down a cobblestone side street to-
ward the river.
"But we had to come here and buy our base in order to be part of the
financial game in Europe," Nogami continued, not missing a beat. "We
expect to be major players before long."
"I'd say you're already one. When the Plaza Accord sliced the greenback
in half, it doubled the value of Japan's bankroll. Every yen you had
was suddenly worth twice as many dollars, as if by magic."
"We can't complain." He paused to inhale the gray, heavy air. "Of
course the locals here in London are constantly enlisting their 'old
boy' regulators to make up new rules to hamper us, but Tokyo invented
that little ploy. It almost makes this place feel like home."
"Word is you play all the games. I hear Westminster Union now handles
more Eurodollar deals than anybody."
"We pull our weight." He smiled and dodged a red double-decker bus as
they crossed Lower Thames Street. "You name a major currency, we'll
underwrite the debt offering."
"Lots of action."
"There is indeed. Sometimes perhaps too much. Which is why I wanted to
talk down here, by the river. Shall we stroll out onto London Bridge?"
"Sounds good."
Spread before them now was the muddy, gray expanse of London's timeless
waterway. Shakespeare had gazed on it. Handel had written music to
accompany fireworks shot over it. Today a few tugs were moving slowly
up the center channel, and a sightseeing boat was headed down to
Greenwich. Cranes of the new Docklands development loomed over the
horizon downriver.
"So what's the problem?" Vance turned to study his face. There was
worry there, and pain.
"Michael, that 'individual' you spoke of. He has, in the famous phrase,
'made me an offer I can't refuse.' He wants me to handle a debt issue,
corporate debentures, bigger than anything this town has ever seen.
Anything Europe has ever seen."
"You should be ordering champagne."
"Not this time." He turned back to study the river. "The whole thing
stinks."
"Who're the players?"
"It's supposedly to raise capital for the Mino Industries Group. I've
been 'asked' to underwrite the bonds, then unload them with minimal
fanfare and keep a low profile." He looked back. "But it's almost
fraud, Michael. I don't think there's anything behind them at all.
Nothing. The beneficiaries are just phony Mino Industries shadow corpo-
rations. Only nobody will know it. You see, the bonds are zero-coupons,
paying no interest till they mature ten years from now. So it will be a
full decade before the buyers find out they've acquired paper with no
backing."
"Won't be the first time the sheep got sheared by a hustler."
"Michael, I'm not a hustler," he snapped. "And there's more. They're
so-called bearer bonds. Which means there's no record of who holds
them. Just one more trick to keep this thing below the radar."
"Typical. 'Bearer bonds' always sell like hotcakes in high-tax locales
like the Benelux countries. That mythical Belgian dentist can buy them
anonymously and screw the tax man."
"Yes, that's part of what makes Eurocurrency ideal for this, all that
homeless money floating around over here. No government is really
responsible for keeping track of it. In fact, every effort has been
made to ensure that these debentures appeal to greed. Their yield will
float, pegged at two full points above the thirty-year British
government bond, the gilt. As lead underwriter I'll have the main re-
sponsibility, but I'm also supposed to form a syndicate of Japanese
brokerage houses here--Nomura, Daiwa, Sumitomo, the others--to make sure
the offering goes off without a hitch. But that precaution will hardly
be necessary. At those interest rates, they should practically fly out
the door." He sighed. "Which is a good thing, because . . . because,
Michael, the amount I'm being asked to underwrite is a hundred billion
dollars."
"And that's just for the first year, right?"