At the Sharpe End

by Ashton, Hugh

“It’s all very interesting, but why are you talking to me?”

  “I saw a paper you’d written on image-processing algorithms a year ago.”

  It was true – such a thing actually did exist. One of Sharpe’s clients had requested an “independent research paper” which promoted their advances in the field and which they gleefully reprinted and distributed as promotional literature. As a result, he knew more than the average technical journalist about this kind of thing.

  “But there are other experts in the field. Not that I’d call myself an expert,” Sharpe hastily added. “I’m really only a journalist.”

  “The others in this field I know are all American. Or Japanese. You’re the only one from a neutral country who seems to know enough about the subject to get things published.”

  Sharpe had his doubts about the “neutral”, given Britain’s recent role in the Iraq invasion and occupation, but he held his tongue.

  He realised that he must have been drinking too much coffee earlier that day, or too little, or something, because the full meaning of the conversation only now hit him.

  “But what you’re telling me means that you knew who I was before you started talking to me?” Katsuyama nodded. Sharpe thought back. “You weren’t in that coffee shop when I came in?” Another nod. “So you’ve been following me around all day?”

  “All week,” Katsuyama corrected.

  Sharpe turned his back on the Sumida River, propped himself against the concrete wall dividing the footpath from the river bank and looked up. A little girl was riding a tricycle round and round the balcony of a third-floor flat. She stopped her endless circuits and looked down at the strange foreigner looking up at her. Sharpe waved. She considered gravely, waved, and continued on her course. Still watching her and avoiding Katsuyama’s eyes, Sharpe exploded in a sudden burst of temper. “Jesus Christ! That’s pretty damned presumptuous. Why the hell couldn’t you just phone me? Or was that too simple for you bloody rocket scientists? Why do you have to play these stupid games?”

  “Phones can be tapped,” Katsuyama pointed out. “Even cellular ones. And in any case, I’ve stopped carrying a mobile phone round with me. They can trace your movements through your phone, you know.” Sharpe nodded. He did know.

  “Go on,” Sharpe said. He was breathing more calmly, but was still more than a little peeved. He felt in his pockets for a cigarette before remembering that he’d given up smoking several years previously. All he could feel there was what felt like a toffee-like object that had escaped from its wrapper and had spent the last few years collecting pocket fluff. Maybe it was time to start smoking again.

  “What I need is someone to describe the algorithms I used to break down the faces. They’re actually trivially obvious.” Sharpe stared at Katsuyama, hoping his expression appeared sarcastic. “If you’re into that kind of thing, I mean,” added the other, interpreting the stare the way Sharpe had hoped he would. “But it’s not easy to string them together in the right combinations and the right order. That’s where my value-added bit came in, and that’s the part that’s not public.”

  “So what happens if I describe the exact process? Don’t I get the boys from Langley after me, then?”

  “Not Langley. Fort Meade. These guys are from the NSA, not the CIA. No, you won’t. If everyone knows about this thing, it’s useless as a secret. We would draw its fangs. Think about it – there’s no point in them chasing me any further if the whole world has it.” To Sharpe, it sounded as though Katsuyama was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Sharpe. “I really want you to have a very good look at this thing and find out what it can do and tell everyone about it.”

  “So why don’t you publicise it yourself, then?” It was Katsuyama’s turn to look at Sharpe. “OK, I get it. You publish your findings, and they know that you’ve stiffed them. And they take it out on you.”

  “Right. They’ve already threatened my family,” Katsuyama reminded him. “So you do it. As far as the world is concerned, we’ve never met. You worked it all out from first principles, and based it all on my published work. I can lie low for a month or two until it all becomes public through you.”

  “And you stay safe?”

  “That’s the theory.” He smiled. “Of course, I’m an engineer, so I know how theory has a habit of running contrary to practice.” He paused and thought. “I think I mean it that way round.”

  “All right, so I’ve never met you. Now what? How did I come to find out and understand what you were up to?” Sharpe asked.

  My published work’s all on the Web in English – no sense in my giving you copies – you can just look it up. Work it all out from there. The one thing I do want to do now, though, is give you this to look after.” He reached into his shoulder bag and brought out a flat cardboard box about the size of a magazine, decorated with the ubiquitous Hello Kitty character, a mouthless overly cute cartoon cat originally marketed to five-year-olds about twenty years previously, which still manages to grace the bags, pencil cases, lunch boxes and other accessories of half the female population of Japan under fifty. Sharpe remembered one girl who’d attracted him on account of her common-sense and maturity – until he’d discovered all her underwear was decorated with Kitty-chan. That had been a big turn-off.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking at Kitty. “Always been a big fan.”

  “Don’t be stupid. This is a prototype of the entire system. In fact, it’s the only working example of my theories. And it’s much safer if I don’t know where it is. So just take it and put it somewhere safe, and then I can swear with a clear conscience that I have no idea of its whereabouts.”

  “You’re still assuming I’m going to do this, aren’t you?” Sharpe hoped he still sounded peeved.

  “Of course I am. For three reasons.” He lifted his hand and started counting on his fingers, Japanese-style, where you fold the fingers down one by one as you make the points. “First, you will get a lot of favourable publicity out of this. I reckon any consulting job in the field is yours from now on. Second, you like me, and you’re doing it for a friend.” Katsuyama paused and grinned. “Aren’t you? And lastly,” the third finger went down, “you’re going to become quite rich doing this. I know that, because I’ll be paying you the equivalent of several million dollars. Tax-free, offshore. We’ll make the final arrangements together later. OK?”

  “Well, since you put it that way …”

  “I thought you’d come round to my point of view in the end. So you take this, and like I said, you put it somewhere that I can’t guess.”

  Sharpe took the box, gingerly. “Can I look inside?”

  “Sure you can, but I don’t know how much it’s going to mean to you. The real secrets are all in here right now until you dig them out from my work.” Katsuyama tapped his head. “We’ll meet again in a week or so. Probably less. Don’t worry about when and where, I’ll find you. I’ve done it before, remember.”

  “That’s it for today?” asked Sharpe. “That’s all?”

  “That’s it. You have my card, but don’t bother calling the number on it. I won’t be there. And my secretary answers my e-mail at that address, so don’t try that, either. You can look up the company, if you like. We’re real, you know. Quite profitable, too, in our little way. That’s where your money’s coming from.” He gave a half-wave and vanished down a small side alley, leaving Sharpe standing by the bank of the river, holding a cardboard box decorated with a mouthless cartoon cat.

  The tricyclist on the balcony had stopped her obsessive pedalling and was looking down at Sharpe. Or more accurately, she was looking at the box.

  “That’s Kitty-chan, isn’t it?” she called down in Japanese.

  “Yes, it is. Clever of you to notice it.”

  “I want it!” Sharpe shook his head. “I want Kitty-chan!” she screamed. Time to take off, Sharpe decided, ducking down the same side alley that Katsuyama had taken, pursued by the little girl’s frustrated wails. Japan
ese children can be such brats, he thought.

  He didn’t see Katsuyama on the way to the station, but then he hadn’t expected to.

  -o-

  Even though Sharpe continued doing consultancy work for the client whom he met later that day, he found it impossible to concentrate on the meeting and he subsequently had absolutely no memory of it at all.

  What on earth was in the box that he had accepted so casually and was now resting beside his case under the table while he talked to clients about a report he was due to deliver? Anthrax bacteria? Sarin nerve gas? A small radioactive dirty bomb? And he’d taken it from a stranger he’d only met for the first time a few minutes earlier. He must be suffering from premature senile decay, he told himself.

  Sure Katsuyama talked up a blue streak, Sharpe reasoned to himself, but so could Sharpe himself with the wind behind him. Katsuyama’s business card seemed legitimate enough, but then so did Sharpe’s own. None of the previous Tellers of Tall Tales (as he tended to think of them) had ever thought to leave this kind of evidence of their lunacy with him. He thought about leaving the box in the train, or simply throwing it in the trash, but things in Japan have a habit of miraculously returning to their owner, so that probably wasn’t going to do much good. And if he did that, there was the question of what to say to Katsuyama next time they met. There was no doubt in Sharpe’s mind that there was going to be a next meeting.

  As for going to the police – that was out of the question. Sharpe had little confidence in the ability or utility of the average Japanese policeman – remembering that this was a country that saw its top policeman shot in public in broad daylight by the lunatic Aum Shinrikyo cult, and more than twelve years later, was still seeking the evidence to convict the self-confessed assailants. In any case, Sharpe had quite liked the little he’d seen of Katsuyama, despite his sneaky habit of following people around for days without their knowledge. Maybe this was one of Sharpe’s flaws. He tried to analyse himself in the style of his school essays on Shakespeare: Q. Describe the fatal character flaw in Kenneth Sharpe’s character that leads to his final undoing. A. Despite some flare-ups of temper, a naïve tendency to display an unwarranted trust in the good intentions of complete strangers.

  But could Katsuyama really be trusted? That was the 64 million yen question that Sharpe kept asking himself that evening on his train ride back to the eastern Tokyo suburbs (actually it was Chiba if he was honest with himself, but “Tokyo suburbs” sounded a little more impressive). He’d moved there several years previously, finding that it was possible to rent a relatively spacious and more modern flat for considerably less money than he would have had to pay for the dubious privilege of living close to the centre of Tokyo. The 40-minute train ride to the commercial district was a small price to pay, considering that he did a lot of his work from home in any case.

  He walked up the stairs to the second-floor flat, let himself in, kicked off his shoes, and walked into the kitchen, Hello Kitty still tucked firmly under his arm. He hadn’t even broken the tape to look inside the box. As he walked through the kitchen door, Mieko, his live-in girlfriend of just over two years, saw the box.

  “Present for Kumi-chan?” she asked. Kumi-chan was her sister’s three-year-old daughter Kumiko who came to visit sometimes. Mieko and Kumi-chan formed a mutual adoration society, and Sharpe himself, in sentimental moments, admitted he was not immune to Kumi-chan’s charms.

  “No, it’s something else inside a Kitty-chan box. Something from a client.” And wasn’t that the truth, when you thought about it? he reasoned.

  In the small spare bedroom he used as a home office, Sharpe logged onto his main computer while unpacking the day’s work from his briefcase. After dealing with the evening crop of e-mail, he browsed the Katsuyama Electronic Devices Web site.

  Sure enough, the picture of Sharpe’s new friend smiled out from the list of corporate officers. No-one who looked like a North Korean gangster (whatever one of those people looks like) had their photo up there, though.

  The company itself, if the accounts sheets were to be believed, was a profitable little business, as Katsuyama had said. Somewhat lower-tech than Sharpe’s usual line of client, dealing in commodity semiconductor components, rather than in leading-edge technology, but obviously with an edge that enabled them to continue high-profit sales to larger corporations. Sales and profitability had increased dramatically since Masashi had taken over from a Hiroshi Katsuyama (his father, obviously) a few years previously. And all this was without the wonder technology, the sole example of which was apparently reposing in a Hello Kitty box close to Sharpe’s feet.

  A quick Google search for Katsuyama’s name revealed reprints of several technical papers, some of which listed him as a co-author, and one or two where he was apparently the sole author. Most seemed to list Stanford University as the place of origin, and listed Katsuyama as an Associate Professor there. The papers weren’t exactly light reading, and there was no way Sharpe was going to pretend that he understood them after a quick skim through, but sure enough, they seemed to deal with image processing and pattern recognition software algorithms, and the journals where they had appeared were eminently respectable, with peer review and a high standard of contributor, if the academic honours and titles were anything to go by. He decided not to waste paper by printing them out just yet, but bookmarked the sites so he could find the papers easily in the future.

  It was Mieko’s turn to cook that night. She called to Sharpe that dinner was ready, and they ate grilled fish and rice while she told of her day’s adventures with the local neighbourhood women’s association, who had somewhat grudgingly, on account of her overseas education (she’d been to school in Britain where her father had been working for a Japanese car manufacturer), divorced status, and her unmarried cohabitation with a foreigner, admitted her to their ranks, and taken a trip to a new shopping centre in Yokohama. The idea of forty middle-aged Japanese ladies invading a single store en masse would strike fear to the core of most Western shopkeepers’ beings, but the Japanese shopping malls encourage this kind of visit – shopping is often listed as a favourite hobby by Japanese women.

  As Sharpe was drying the last of the dishes, the doorbell rang. Draping the cloth nonchalantly over one arm, he flung open the door. A very young and nervous-looking uniformed policeman was standing outside. His uniform seemed several sizes too big for him, and Sharpe had the absurd feeling that maybe he’d grow into it, as Sharpe had been assured he would when he was a child and his mother had bought jackets whose sleeves had reached his fingertips.

  “Er … You’re a foreigner?” the young policeman stammered in Japanese.

  Yep, I am, kid. Stick with those powers of observation and you’ll make detective in no time, Sharpe thought, but kept this to himself, mentally adding this incident to his list of the strange things that happen sometimes when Japanese come into contact with foreigners. Instead, his reflexes sent him to grab his “gaijin card”, or more officially, the Certificate of Alien Registration from the Ministry of Justice, issued by the local city hall, that is meant to be carried at all times and produced on demand to the police. The policeman waved it away.

  “Please … we need …” he started in terrible painful English. Sharpe had the feeling that it must have cost him a week’s brainpower to get those few words out.

  “Don’t worry about speaking English,” Sharpe said to him, in Japanese. “Maybe you’d like to come in and have some tea?”

  Relief spread over the policeman’s face. “Yes, please. Excuse me. Thank you very much,” and he continued to make the appropriate Japanese polite noises of gratitude as he unstrapped the strange ankle boots that Japanese policemen wear, and arranged them neatly by the tumble of Sharpe’s oversized shoes in the hallway (Mieko’s, of course, were neatly stashed away in the cupboard provided for shoes).

  “Oi, o-cha!” Sharpe shouted to Mieko in the kitchen, using an old-fashioned disrespectful way of talking to one’s female partner and
asking for tea. The policeman caught Sharpe’s eye and allowed himself to exchange a faint grin. All boys together.

  The two men went into the living room, and Sharpe turned off the TV, which was showing yet another of the inexhaustible store of food programs. As they sat down, the policeman removing his belt, with all the police paraphernalia attached, Mieko started to come in. “Do you want to share a peach with me?” she asked. “I found some really nice ones from Okayama today—” and then stopped as she saw the policeman. “Sorry,” she said, running back into the kitchen, only to return what seemed like only a few seconds later, fully composed, with a clean apron, and a tray with three cups of tea, and three plates with segments of peeled peach. “Sorry there’s no cake,” she said to the policeman. Sharpe envied her and all Japanese women of his acquaintance the mysterious gift of moving from a state of complete panic to total unflappable calm in five seconds flat. Of course, the reverse was also true. Mieko could reach a state of advanced hysteria in seconds over what Sharpe perceived as being trivia.

  “Please don’t worry,” the policeman replied. “Did you say these were from Okayama? How wonderful. My parents grew up near there and we always used to get a box of peaches from my aunt every year when I was a boy.” Japanese people can go on for hours about food, and the places it comes from and how to serve it, Sharpe thought to himself. He was often reminded of the French obsession with food, but multiplied by a factor of about five.

  Everyone made the usual polite remarks and started to eat and drink. When the policeman had finished his fruit, he turned to Sharpe.

  “Thank you for the tea. I am sorry that I have to ask you a few questions.” He pulled out a notebook and pencil.

  “Please go ahead.”

  The policeman asked various questions that seemed to have come out of a manual, though Sharpe couldn’t see for the life of him what relevance his date of birth had to anything. He was almost surprised that he wasn’t being asked for his blood type (a favourite way of determining someone’s character, according to many Japanese). At the end of the routine questions, Sharpe felt that things seemed to be pretty matey by now, so he wasn’t expecting the next words.