The Samurai Strategy

by Thomas Hoover

  _Inishie ni

  _Once held_,_

  _ari kemu hito no

  _it's said, _

  moteri cho

  _by men of long ago,_

  omitsuwa wo

  _my ancient prize-- _

  ware wa mochitari

  _at last is near!_

  _

  It was done.

  He sighed, leaned back, and reached for the cup of green tea thatrested beside him on the polished boards. The verse was in an archaicstyle, a few syllables longer than a haiku, modeled on an eight-hundred-year-old work by a court poet of the Heian era. The strokeswere perfectly nuanced, the flow of the brush precise, the intuitivestrength as natural as a waterfall.

  Noda drained his tea, then rose to go back inside. His antique housewas tastefully "empty": its _tatami_-floored rooms, measured inmultiples of those standard three-by-six reed mats, were barren, amuseum to times past. They also were open to each other, their slidingdoors, _fusuma_, being pushed wide. The walls, too, were vacantexpanses of white plaster with only an occasional mounted six-foldscreen depicting poetry parties of the Heian era, that courtlycivilization portrayed in The Tale of Genji. And there were no overheadlights, merely an occasional cypress _andon_ floor lamp to augment thepastel glow of the rice-paper shop windows.

  "_Asa-han_." He curtly ordered his gray-haired cook to bring breakfast,then turned to mount the ancient stairs.

  "_Hai_." She nodded and was gone.

  Although he kept the lower floor exactly as it had been two centuriespast, the upstairs was a different matter entirely. It had beenconverted into a high-tech office, hooked through a maximum securityTeleSystems TCS-9000 direct uplink (via the mid-Pacific Mareks-Bsatellite) to the mainframe of his new NEC information managementsystem in the Kyoto headquarters, an augmented NEAX 2400 IMS, whichhandled voice, data, text, image. He had scarcely flipped on the systemwhen the woman who managed his kitchen appeared, bowing, and depositeda tray bearing _miso _broth, rice, an uncooked egg, and more tea.

  He grunted thanks as he was checking a CRT screen for the current rateon Fed funds, the cost of the money American banks lend each otherovernight to meet reserve requirements. No surprises. Then he turnedand cracked the egg over his rice, adding a leaf of dried _nori_seaweed. As he leaned back, chopsticks in hand, he quickly glancedthrough the Tokyo papers, followed by The Asian Wall Street Journal andthe satellite edition of London's Financial Times. Finally he tossedthem aside.

  This was always the moment when he liked to take measure of the threephotos standing in a row across the back of his teak desk. The firstwas his deceased wife Mariko--long-suffering, deferential, resignedlyselfless. A model Japanese woman. He still thought of her withfondness, but as was expected of a Japanese helpmate, she always ran adistant second in his affections. His work came first.

  The next picture was very different. This woman's face was white, herhair a lacquered wig, her lips a tiny red pout. Her name, Koriko, hadbeen assigned years ago in the Gion district of Kyoto, and she washolding a three-stringed lute, a samisen, and intoning some classicalmelody from centuries past. These days she purchased thousand-dollarkimonos the way most office girls bought jeans, but she worked for themoney. She was a geisha, a real one, an artist whose calling requiredyears of training and commanded the awe of even the most modernJapanese. Like a prizefighter or a matador, she'd spent long painfulhours perfecting style, technique, art. She had been Noda's one-timeprotegee, beneficiary of his patronage. Now, though, she had other"patrons." He still missed her, but the memory was fading.

  The third photo was a face familiar to all of Japan's avid TV viewers--Akira Mori. She was wearing a dark blue Western suit, her hair a glossypageboy cut, the conservative look of times past. It was the occasionof her graduation from the School of Law, Tokyo University (TokyoDaigaku, or Todai as it's known), an important moment. Todai's alumnirepresent a network, a _batsu_, of the country's ruling elite, whocompete with each other for the choicest, most prestigious governmentministries. Although she had chosen a more visible career, she stillrelied heavily on her contacts in this governing clique, heads of theleading ministries, including Finance, Foreign Affairs, and of coursethe Ministry of International Trade and Industry, MITI.

  Matsuo Noda himself had, in fact, once headed MITI, probably Japan'smost powerful ministry. He came from ancient samurai stock--fittinglyperhaps, since the bureaucrats of modern Japan are mostly of thatclass. The samurai caste, men who served a liege lord and wereforbidden to engage in trade, were actually Japan's first publicservants. In between civil wars they became sword-carrying bureaucrats.Many a modern bureau chief has ancestors who wore two swords and slicedup a peasant or a merchant now and then with impunity, which may helpexplain why the average citizen still views government officials withsuch nervous awe.

  A Todai honors man himself, Noda was a natural for MITI, which runswhat is in many ways a covert operation. The head offices are in anondescript, soot-covered building of tinted glass and limestone nearTokyo's Hibaya Park, guarded by armed, helmeted members of Japan'sNational Police. Inside it's mostly open floors and lines of gray steeldesks; no plush carpets and mahogany suites. MITI has twelve bureaus,each devoted to a major industrial sector. If its officials decideJapan's strategic interests would be served by a certain manufacturinggroup's cutting production, lowering prices, altering product lines,these "recommendations" are passed along. And it happens.

  Noda began his career there by circulating through the differentsections, "going around the track" as it's called, after which heproceeded to run the General Affairs office of various bureaus, bywhich time everybody had him picked for a mover, on the "elite course."Eventually he was promoted to section chief in the International TradeBureau, next on to bureau chief, and finally at age forty-seven he madethe top. Vice minister.

  After he reached the pinnacle, he held the job for a mere five years,then routinely left. He had to go; early fifties and you're out. MITIis no country for old men. He moved on to head the Japan DevelopmentBank, JDB, where he financed various high-tech start-up industries.Finally he retired and went out on his own.

  Unlike most other retired government officials, however, he didn'taccept any of the lucrative private offers he received, the suddenly"vacant" spot on a conglomerate's board of directors. No, he had hisown smoldering vision. In a dazzling and successful departure fromusual Japanese convention, he

  founded Nippon, Inc., an adjunct to Japan's major financial players,with headquarters in the commercial center of Kyoto. His neworganization immediately became a financial fixture in the newpostindustrial, high-tech Japan, and now, five years later, Nippon,Inc. was a thriving force in the management of capital. These days eventhe new generation at MITI routinely called him up for "consensus."

  For Matsuo Noda now, everything was in place; he was at last ready topursue a lifelong dream. He'd never forgotten the end of the war, thatlast day on Okinawa when Ushijima's 32nd Army was a dazed remnant. He'dbeen in the cave above Mabuni when the general radioed his farewell toImperial Headquarters, then severed his own spinal cord. Matsuo Noda,with anguish he could still remember, had burned the regimental flagand told those remaining to scatter, to become guerrillas--repeatingUshijima's last command to "fight to the last for the eternal cause ofloyalty to the emperor." Noda had declared that their struggle wouldcontinue on for a hundred years if need be.

  He had overestimated the difficulty. The plan now poised had requiredless than fifty.

  As usual for a work-at-home Saturday (just another business day inJapan), he was wrapping up loose ends from the week, finishing reports,signing off on audits. Two printers were running, since he preferred towork with hard copy, and he was reviewing the list of outstanding loansNI was in charge of monitoring, checking for any early signs oftrouble. Had any credit ratings slipped? If a receiving corporation waspublicly traded, had its stock faltered? What was the overview:securities, un-amortized discounts o
n bonds, cash on hand? Next hepaged through the weekly updates from the Small Business Finance Corp.,the National Finance Corp., the Shoko Chukin Bank, various creditassociations and savings banks. It was all on his Kyoto informationbase, pulled off the new fiber-optic network that linked Japan'sfinancial centers.

  He was about to ring down for fresh tea when a priority overrideflashed on the screen for his eyes only. This meant a coded messagethat could only be unscrambled using a special module in the computer.The Kyoto office knew he was on line, but they hadn't wanted to routethe information directly.

  Highly irregular.

  He punched in the code, called up the receiving routine, and waited forthe message.

  There had been a call from ship-to-shore phone, the communications linelinking him directly with Dr. Shozo Takahashi, director-in-charge ofhis top secret "project" in the Inland Sea. The director was requestingthat Noda-sama contact him immediately via scrambler. Top security. Hefelt his pulse begin to race as he digested the news.

  It had been so easy. Almost too easy.

  He sat perfectly still for that timeless, historic moment, gazing atthe photograph of Akira Mori. A promise kept, from long, long ago. Fourdecades now, and he had never forgotten what he had said he would dofor her.

  He called down for tea, waited till it had been delivered, then punchedon the phone and switched it to the security mode.

  But even on the scrambler, Takahashi began circumspectly. As theesteemed Noda-sama was aware, their "project" had, over its threeyears, contended with great difficulties and many disappointments. Theywere working at the very limits of undersea technology. As Noda-samaalso knew, he went on, their early attempts at seismic verticalprofiling had been a complete failure. Takahashi took personalresponsibility for that. Next they had changed strategy and utilizedstate-of-the-art microwave radar, hoping that minuscule changes indensity along the bottom might indicate what they sought. That too,Takahashi apologized, had been unproductive from the start as Noda-samahad been informed, and he, Takahashi, took full blame for the failure.

  Noda cut in at that point, impatient and wanting to circumvent thelitany of apologies. Why was Takahashi calling?

  The director paused dramatically, then declared he wished to inform theaugust Noda-sama that their latest approach, the use of a new digitalmagnetometer, had at last borne fruit. Only this morning they haddetected and brought up an "item." In the treacherous straits east-northeast of Shikoku. It was a water-tight gold case embossed with whatappeared to be a sixteen-leaf chrysanthemum or _kiku_. The imperialinsignia.

  Other confirming inscriptions? Noda nervously reached out and clickedoff the humming computer.

  Yes, the formal script across one end appeared to be no later thantenth century. Although they dared not open the gold case for fear ofdamaging its contents, at this moment preliminary analytical procedureswere underway and the early results, including a makeshift attempt atshipboard X-ray crystallography, suggested that the steel inside, whichclearly showed traces of copper alloy, contained less than a hundredthof one percent of iron oxide. In short, it was possible the "item"might be perfectly preserved.

  It was theirs, Takahashi said, in that breathy, clipped languageinferiors use to signify great importance and great deference. It washis extreme honor to announce to the esteemed Noda-sama that the mostimportant archeological find in the history of Japan now belonged toNippon, Inc., and they--

  "_Chigau_," Noda cut him off, in the curt tone expected of superiors.Incorrect: it belonged to its rightful owner and would now be returned.

  And furthermore, he added, Nippon, Inc. had just ceased to exist. Sincethe name for ancient Japan was Dai Nippon, "Great Japan," as of thismoment Nippon, Inc. had just become Dai Nippon, International. Acomplete reorganization would begin immediately.

  Finally he ordered a total blackout. Radios silenced. No shore leavefor crew or scientists.

  He clicked off the phone and repressing a tremble, descended thestairs.

  And there on the garden veranda, using a new brush and perfumed _sumi_ink from his rare collection, Matsuo Noda composed a very elaborateletter, long swirls of black down a perfect sheet of thick, floweredpaper hundreds of years old. It was then sealed in a silver case andhand delivered by special messenger to a fortress in, the center ofTokyo.

  Five days later its recipient read it before a nationally televisedpress conference, and Japan exploded.