Fitzduane 02 - Rules of The Hunt

by O'Reilly-Victor

  de Guevain could see the problem. Japan was a pyramid. Its base was broad, but at the top of an extremely hierarchical society a small number of people and organizations constituted the main movers and shakers. And many of this ruling group were cross-connected. Some of the alliances were known, but many were not. Japan could not be considered an open society.

  "Yoshokawa," said de Guevain. "He's the obvious choice."

  "He's my only choice," said Fitzduane grimly. "I have a few other connections in Japan, but they are all expatriates. Yoshokawa-san is my only option, but whether he is connected to the Namakas or not, I don't know."

  "I see the problem, Hugo," said de Guevain. "I'm going back to Paris in a couple of days, so I'll put out a few feelers. But my guess is that Yoshokawa is your man. He owes you. You saved his son's life."

  "Yoshokawa would not betray me," said Fitzduane, with some force, "but there is the matter of conflicting loyalties. If he's already in bed with the Namakas , he's going to sit on the sidelines, which may be all very honorable but will be no use to me."

  de Guevain laughed. "I'll check out a few sets of entrails," he said, "and talk to a few friends, but my guess is that Yoshokawa is your man."

  The conversation came to an end, and Fitzduane replaced the phone handset and watched the red encryption light wink out.

  He lay back against the pillows of his raised bed, closed his eyes, and thought of his baby son and his home and the comfort of good friends like Kilmara and de Guevain and the Bear. Life, one way and another, was a hard and random business, but all in all he considered he was a lucky man. Being shot, of course, was not so lucky, but overall he liked to believe things balanced out.

  de Guevain had called from the Great Hall of Fitzduane's castle, and as he thought about his home and felt more than a few pangs of homesickness mixed with impatience to get out of the damned hospital, he recalled how he had met Yoshokawa-san.

  The Japanese industrialist had made quite an entrance.

  The core of Fitzduane's castle was a rectangular stone tower known as the Keep, built by the first Sir Hugo Fitzduane in the thirteenth century. Subsequently, among other improvements, the Keep had been extended by building out to one side where the site overlooked the sea.

  Unfortunately, the entire extension, known as the Great House, had been gutted by fire during the Hangman's siege. At first Fitzduane had thought of restoring it very much as it had been originally. He had grown up in Duncleeve, and its physical fabric and traditions were important to him.

  He was attached to age-blackened wooden beams, oak paneling, tapestries, family portraits, crossed weapons, and mounted animal trophies with glass eyes and mange, but he was blessed with an open mind. As his ideas developed, he decided to preserve the traditional look of the exterior of the Great House so that it harmonized with the Keep, the curtain wall and its outhouses, and the gatehouse, but inside to make the rooms light and airy and uncluttered.

  The general tendency of his social class to live in dusty, wood-wormed cocoons of architectural tradition and dry rot was not necessarily to their advantage, he thought. His peers tended to ossify in harmony with their museumlike surroundings.

  Above all, he wanted to open the Great Hall — the magnificent open space on the top floor and the center of social activity over the centuries — to overlook the sea. It was a vista Fitzduane found endlessly fascinating, given the unusual light in the West of Ireland, but it lost quite a lot of appeal when your main visual access was confined to arrow slits designed for five foot high Norman crossbowmen — and you were six foot two. But he was far from sure how to implement this vision.

  He was sitting on the chilly bronze of a cannon in the courtyard pondering this dilemma, when Yoshokawa arrived. Yoshokawa-san was the chairman of Yoshokawa Electrical, the Japanese electronics and consumer-goods conglomerate founded by his grandfather.

  Hideo Yoshokawa's son, Aki, had been one of those saved by Fitzduane in the Hangman episode, and though the father had already expressed his thanks, he now had arrived in person to pay his respects and to tour the battlefield.

  Four weeks later, Yoshokawa-san's personal architect and a supporting team arrived to make a site assessment. Two months after that, Yoshokawa-san himself arrived with a scale model.

  Ten months later, the specially-flown-in team of Japanese craftsmen had completed the work, gotten seriously drunk on Guinness and Irish whiskey at a special dinner in the new Great Hall, and had vanished — and Fitzduane was left to gaze with considerable pleasure and not a little awe at the result.

  He would wait until Christian de Guevain reported back, but his instincts said that his friend was right.

  Yoshokawa-san could be trusted.

  * * * * *

  Tokyo, Japan

  February 8

  Sitting in his office in the NamakaTower, Fumio studied the discussion document prepared by Goto-san, the group's controller.

  It was a masterly piece of work. The Namaka holdings were structured in the form of a keiretsu, the complex corporate structure favored by major Japanese groups. Goto had reduced the financial figures of scores of interlocking Namaka companies so that the bottom line reflected cash flow — and nothing else.

  The figures reflected a simple truth. While showing paper profits, the Namaka keiretsu was hemorrhaging cash. A graph clearly demonstrated the moment of truth. The group would crash like a row of dominoes in less than a year unless there was a major cash injection.

  Goto had been the first professionally qualified man that the Namaka brothers had hired. He had worked as controller of one of the major car manufacturers until a most ingenious fraud had come to light. To save face all around, he had resigned gracefully to live on his recently acquired riches, but then Fumio had tempted him out of his decidedly premature retirement. Goto had been recommended by Hodama. The kuromaku had a nose for talent.

  The seriousness of the situation had been known for some time, but with Hodama alive Fumio had not been unduly worried. The kuromaku could always come up with a friendly bank. His influence with the Ministry of Finance was legendary. A word or two in the right ear, a little administrative guidance with a few remarks about the national interest...

  It had been done before. It was how the system worked. It was why the climate of support that the Namaka keiretsu had enjoyed for so long seemed to have evaporated.

  Nothing was said. Nothing specific that they were all aware of was done — and yet suddenly there was a chill everywhere. It was as if someone or some group of great power and influence was actively working against them. And yet every effort to determine who was responsible had come up with nothing.

  In the past, they would automatically have turned to Hodama-sensei. Efforts to find a replacement had so far failed. A long and intimate relationship was the basis of working with a kuromaku. Difficult and complex things needed to be done. The law had to be treated ‘flexibly.’ Trust was essential if prosecution was to be avoided. It was not the sort of thing you could set up overnight. All the politicians were locked into their own particular factions by obligations generated over the years. And there were very few, if any, other people of Hodama-sensei's caliber.

  Goto spoke with the freedom that came from a long and trusted association. Also, he and Fumio were close personal friends. Nonetheless, they still addressed each other with some formality.

  "There is a certain irony to our situation, Namaka-san," said Goto. "Our illegal activities have remained consistently profitable. It is our entirely legal expansion that is creating these difficulties. First we invested in the dollar and that went through the floor; then we had a flyer on gold, and that, which had always gone up, now seems to be going nowhere; and finally, we bought and expanded Namaka Steel. It is the steel plant that really lies at the root of our problems. There is now overcapacity worldwide. And as to our investment in the Special Steels facility — that has been the last straw."

  Fumio sighed. He adored his big brother, and Namaka S
teel was Kei's passion. It made him feel like a proper industrialist. And as for the investment in the new Special Steels facility, that had been made as a result of a strategic decision by MITI, the supposedly infallible Ministry of International Trade and Industry. MITI had devised a plan to take over the international aerospace industry in the 1970s, and Namaka Special Steels had been a key element in that plan. The project had enjoyed massive prestige. Encouraging speeches had been made by a series of ministers and other politicians.

  The plan had gone precisely nowhere. There had been some modest progress, but for all practical purposes, the Americans still owned the skies — with the Europeans, supposedly in decadent decline, in a healthy second place. It was frustrating for MITI, but it was disastrous for Namaka. A few defense contracts helped in the short term, but nothing would substitute for a major breakthrough.

  That breakthrough was no longer possible in the time available through normal legal commercial trading. The only chance that either Fumio or Goto could see lay with the sale of some of the more esoteric products of Namaka Special Steels. Project Tsunami, the production of nuclear-weapons-plant equipment for the North Koreans, was illegal — absolutely against the laws of Japan — but it represented a vast amount of cash money.

  With Hodama dead, the North Korean weapons project was now fundamental to the Namaka keiretsu's survival. It was that simple.

  "I don't think we will trouble the chairman with these figures," said Fumio. "He had other things on his mind."

  Goto nodded in agreement. An untroubled Kei Namaka was important. As chairman, his confident dynamism was of enormous help with the major institutions. It would not do to trouble him with unpleasant details. Anyway, Kei had enough trouble just reading martial arts manga, the adult comics. Balance sheets and cash flow forecasts were beyond him.

  Goto had never been a traditional yakuza, so the issue of the full-body tattoo had not arisen. However, early on in his life he had discovered a simple truth which he had tattooed in Japanese characters — kanji — across his torso. The modest design was attractive, but it was designed for Goto's use principally; it could be read only in a mirror.

  The elegant tattooed characters read: CASH IS KING.

  * * * * *

  The West of Ireland

  February 17

  Kilmara drove the Land-Rover slowly down the unpaved track toward the beach.

  They reached a grassy area at the bottom and parked. Ahead of them, a short steep path wound its way through rocks to the sand and sea below. Against a backdrop of mountains, the beach seemed to curve endlessly.

  They left the car. The day before, winds of up to eighty miles an hour had been blowing. Now the breeze off the Atlantic was down to a tenth of that and the waves were almost gentle.

  The same was firm nearer the waterline and made for easy walking. From time to time they stopped to look at driftwood thrown up by the storm or an unusual stones or shells. Clouds scudded overhead and the sun darted in and out. The air, though chill, was invigorating.

  Kilmara stopped and looked back. They had walked for perhaps half a mile in companionable silence, and their footsteps could be seen stretching back to the rocks below where the car was parked. Theirs were the only footsteps to be seen. He turned around, and ahead of them the beach was unmarked and empty.

  "I've been to half the countries in the world," he said with feeling, "and I have seen amazing sights and the most beautiful scenery, but, somehow, nowhere compares to Ireland. This country gets into your soul and it touches you and that's it — you're hooked, you're marked for life. If you leave, there is always a bit of you that yearns to be back in Ireland. There is something in the fabric of this land that is unique. And the most beautiful part of this land is the West."

  Kathleen looked at him, a little surprised. She had not expected Kilmara to have the soul of a romantic. In most of her dealings with him he had been an authority figure, dominating — a little frightening even — in his uniform and so often in the company of his armed Rangers.

  Now, alone with her and in civilian clothes, he seemed more accessible, easier to talk to, and more like a normal person. There was less of the General and more of the man. He was someone, perhaps, who could be a friend.

  "The romantic General," she said with a smile. "Another romantic we both know said something rather similar."

  Kilmara laughed. "I'm a part-time romantic," he said. "Very part-time. My nature is to be practical, to see the world the way it is without the expectation that I can change it. Hugo is the real thing. Even worse, he is a romantic and an idealist. He believes things can and will get better, and in such notions as honor and duty and fidelity. That's what gets him into so much trouble. Yet I envy him his nature. He can be a lethal son of a bitch, but in essence, he is a good man."

  "And you're not?" said Kathleen.

  Kilmara took his time answering. He was thinking of Sasada, of drugs and sensory deprivation, of other terrible techniques; of what they had done to the man to make him talk.

  The man now slobbered and grunted and could no longer control his bowels. He was permanently insane.

  "No," he said heavily. "My world demands other qualities, and it appear that I may have them. But goodness is not high on the list."

  Kathleen had the sense that he was referring to something specific, and she shuddered. His was a fearful world and he had spent a lifetime in it. Violence was a perversion of all civilized values. How could one be exposed to such a culture of destruction and remain unaffected? And yet she was being unfair. Violence was a reality, and the relative peace that most people enjoyed depended on such men as her companion. Without people such as the Bear and Kilmara, she reminded herself, she would now be dead.

  She took his arm companionably. "You're a kind man," she said thoughtfully, "and a good friend to Hugo."

  Kathleen had not seen Fitzduane since the carnage at the hospital. In view of the investigations after the incident, she had been sent to a hospital elsewhere and released after a week. Her physical injuries were not serious and were now almost healed. Then there had been her father's funeral and her mother to look after. And there was a sense of shock and violation that was taking a lot longer time to overcome; it might take years.

  In truth, her feelings about Fitzduane were hard to clarify. Indirectly he was the cause of these terrible happenings. He was not responsible but he was directly associated. If she had never met the man, her father might yet be alive and her mother would not have had a nervous breakdown.

  "How is he?" she said. She missed him as she spoke and had an overwhelming desire to be with him. She felt confused. Here was a man with a son by another woman, whose life was associated with a level of threat that any sane person, given a choice, would avoid like the plague.

  He was also the most attractive and stimulating man she had ever met, and she could not stay away from him. Yet she was scared of being with him and the emotional pain that might ensue. And she was appalled by the latent physical danger. The memory of McGonigal and Sasada was still fresh in her mind. She had trouble sleeping and found it difficult to concentrate. Sometimes, for no specific reason, she felt herself shaking with terror and sweating.

  "Grumpy," said Kilmara, in an amused voice, and then he became more serious. "For the last couple of years, Hugo has been focused on Boots and rebuilding Duncleeve and some work for the Rangers — but otherwise skating. He did not seem to be fully engaged. It was as if he needed to rest up for a little time before embarking on something new. He had hung up his wars and his cameras but hadn't found a replacement activity. He seemed to me to lack a purpose in life."

  "Looking after a child and building a home is not a purpose?" said Kathleen, a little annoyed.

  Kilmara laughed. "Touché!" he said.

  Kathleen stopped and stared at some seaweed, kelp, the deep-brown rubbery kind with long stalks and little bubbles on the fronds that you could burst. She was reminded of summers at the seaside with her family and th
e reassuring feeling of her father's hand in hers, and she was gripped with a sense of loss and desolation. Tears welled from her eyes.

  Kilmara looked across at her and saw the tears and put his arm around her, and they walked like that for some distance before either spoke again. The beach seemed endless and the headland in the distance was shrouded in mist. Kathleen imagined that they were walking on clouds. When she spoke again, she picked up the conversation where they had left off. "And his being shot," she said. "Are you implying that this has changed him?"

  "Being shot, seriously injured, tends to concentrate the mind," said Kilmara grimly. "You'll have seen it for yourself. Some people fold and die and others draw on all their reserves and seem to get a renewed grip on life, as if they realize just how little time there is and the importance of making the most of what you've got."

  "Well, Hugo is a fighter," said Kathleen forcibly.

  "And there is the irony," said Kilmara. "He claws his way back into the land of the living, and insofar as it is humanly possible in such a condition, operates flat out..." He paused and laughed.

  "And?" said Kathleen impatiently.

  "And when something happens that he cannot remotely blame himself for — the attack on the hospital — he gets an acute attack of depression and just does nothing for five days," said Kilmara. He looked at Kathleen. "I think he misses you."

  Kathleen did to reply at first. Her cheeks were tingling from the breeze off the sea and the salt spray. She felt defensive about Fitzduane and thought Kilmara was being a little cruel. "He feels responsible," she said slowly. "He was the target and others died. That would hurt him."

  "Well, he is back on track now," Kilmara said, "and furious with himself for losing so much time. That is why he's grumpy."

  Kathleen started to laugh, and it was infectious. Soon both of them were laughing as they walked arm in arm along the endless curve of the sand.