_I came off my chair like a shot and headed for Tam's office. "Isanybody following what's going on outside?"
Her face was down on the desk, dark hair tousled across her cheeks. Shelooked up and rubbed her eyes, obviously knocked out too. Strange.
"What . . . ?" Her voice was slurred.
"Something's gone crazy," I yelled. "Where's Henderson?"
Then I remembered he wasn't there. However, I did locate Jim Bob easilyenough. He was in Noda's corner office, wideawake and still carryingour Uzi. Only now there were two of those long black automaticspresent, the other lying atop the wide teakwood desk.
One more thing. Seated behind that desk, his silver hair framed by thesunlight streaming through the wide back windows, was . . . MatsuoNoda.
The Shogun had arrived.
And with him came the dawn of a new, powerful reality. My drugged mindwas flooded with the ramifications. Matsuo Noda, I now realized, hadbeen on to us from the start. Once again he had used us. He had beenthe one who had emptied the office, the better to lure us in.
But the guards . . .
Noda-san, I bow to a true samurai. A swordsman's swordsman. Of course,it was as simple as it was elegant. You were testing us, allowing us aplausible opening, just difficult enough to force us to reveal our truestrategy. The dictum of the masters: "If you want to strike your enemy,let him try to strike you first. The moment he strikes you, you havealready succeeded in striking him." Pure _bushido_.
Everything up till now had only been feints. What I assumed was thebattle turned out to have merely been staking out terrain, jockeyingfor position. At last, though, we were ready for the real engagement.Trouble was, Matsuo Noda had just secured the high ground.
"Come on in and have yourself a seat, Walton." Jim Bob beckoned towardthe vacant chair as he sipped from a glass of California champagne, itsplastic-looking bottle stationed on the floor beside him. Coors timewas over.
"Jim Bob, what's happening with the market?" I was ignoring Noda forthe moment, trying to get a firmer grasp on the new "prevailingconditions."
"'Bout what we figured," he replied, his white suit now greasy andwrinkled. "Yep, looks like we're roughly on schedule."
"It's a relief to know there's a timetable." I finally turned to Noda."Wouldn't want this takeover to be half-cocked."
"Mr. Walton, if you would be so kind." He smiled and indicated thechair. "It would be well for you to join us."
Jim Bob waved me over with his Uzi. "Fact is, we're all about due for alittle show and tell." He glanced up as Tarn entered the doorway. "Be agood idea if you got up to speed on what we're doing here, too."
"I just scrolled some prices," she said, glaring groggily at Noda, themorbid realization descending rapidly now. "You don't have to tell meanything. I know exactly what you're doing."
"What we're doing is, we're pulling this country out of the shit.That's what we're doing. We're saving this country's ass. Which is morethan anybody else here's doing," Jim Bob continued, satisfaction in hisvoice. "How in hell did you ever think you could pull something likeyou were trying? Mr. Noda here could squash you all just like a junebug anytime he gets a mind, take my word for it."
Noda still hadn't amplified the new Dai Nippon scenario, but he didn'treally need to bother.
"Jim Bob, don't spoil the fun and tell me. Let me try to guess." Iglanced over at Noda, then back at him. "He suckered you in with his'Rescue America' spiel. World peace at a price."
"Well, tell you the truth, the man did buy me lunch."
"I'll bet that's not all he did, you opportunistic son of a bitch."
I examined Noda. "How does it feel to have Japan about to be sole ownerof IBM and AT&T and GM and . . . guess I could just check thesupercomputer out there for the full list."
"Certain strategic corporations." Noda smiled benignly. "It had becomethe only meaningful direction to proceed, Mr. Walton. I'm afraid ourother measures were clearly too little, too late."
"Why bother with the small fish, right? If you're going to buy upAmerican technology, do it right."
"Mr. Walton, we both know it is inevitable. Neither you nor I can alterthe tides of history." He sighed. "Perhaps Japan can provide themanagement guidance required to save America's industrial base, but itcannot be achieved merely by dabbling. Stronger measures, muchstronger, were required. I finally came to see that. The problem washow to do it without a major psychological disruption of the market andmore Japan bashing. Then by the greatest of good fortune, you solved myproblem for me." He nodded toward Tam. "Your new trading program, Dr.Richardson, which allowed us to operate anonymously, was ideal. Why notmake use of it? Particularly since Mr. Henderson had the personnel torender it operational."
While digesting that, I returned my attention to Jim Bob. "Let me guesssome more. Ten to one you bought 'call' options on the Big Board issueshe was planning to take over."
"Well, they were bound to go up." He flashed a reptilian grin as headjusted the Uzi, now a bolt of black against his rumpled white suit."If you're standing by the road and a gravy bus comes along, what areyou going to do?"
"Terrific. Be a pity for this insider windfall to go to waste. Justwanted to make double sure you got a piece for yourself."
"Does a bear crap in the woods?" he inquired rhetorically, then tippedback his head and drained the champagne glass.
"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, lockingin a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into theclouds."
"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S&P500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairyfor me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavyleverage. No risk."
I concurred. "Nothing too abstruse."
"The thing of it is, I'm more comfortable dealing with reality," hewent on. "I like to kick the tires, check under the hood, so that indexcrap's not my style. Like I always say, if you've got hold of somethingyou can't figure out how to drink, drive, or screw, maybe you oughtaask yourself what you're doing with it."
A pragmatic criterion, I agreed. 'Though it's rather a pity you didn'tcut me in on the play. I could have used the money."
"Walton," he replied, "it downright pains me to have to be the onebreakin' the news to you, but you could have used the money more thanyou think. Whose bank balances do you figure I've been using to testout that platinum program?"
"In the spirit of intellectual curiosity, Jim Bob, does our new systemfor blowing capital show promise?"
"From the looks of my early churning, I'd say you got yourself awinner."
The fucker. How in hell did he get access to my money? I decided tojust ask, whereupon he obligingly explained.
"Well, we're hooked into every bank computer in town." He wasunblinking, a drugged-out zombie. "Account numbers aren't exactly astate secret, given the right phone call. Same goes for trust funds."
Trust funds?
"Let me be sure I've got this straight. You've also wiped out mydaughter Amy's college money? She's now penniless too?"
"We're close, real close." He reached down and retrieved the bottle,then sloshed more of the cheap bubbly into his glass. "I'm figuring Ican have everything down to a goose egg by sometime round about . . .lunch, probably."
I decided then and there I was going to kill him, and Matsuo Noda, withmy own bare hands. The only question was whether to do it at thatmoment or later.
"Jim Bob, for the record, you two've just fucked with the wrong guy.When somebody starts messing with Amy's future, I tend to lose my senseof proportion."
"Nothing personal, Walton. You just had to be stopped, that's all." Hegrinned. "Figured it'd get your attention. Besides, way I see it, thisman here's absolutely right. He's got the only answer that makes anysense."
"As long as sellout artists like you get rich in the process."
"It's in the grand American tradition, buddy. Enlightened self-interest, better known as looking out for number one. Everybody elsehere
's hocking this country's assets to Japan and gettin' rich doingit. So why not? Besides, we've still got a ways to go. Time to giveyou-all a piece of this thing too."
"If we play ball?"
"Exactly."
"You greedy prick." I was considering just strangling him on the spot,nice and uncomplicated. "Noda's not here for anybody but himself. He's--"
"That's not the way I see it." He glanced over toward The Man, who wasstill silent as a sphinx.
"You wouldn't have the brains to understand even if we told you. Butmaybe there's something you can comprehend." I glanced at the metalgrip of the Uzi on Noda's desk. One lightning move and it was in myhand. "I'm not going to let you do this."
"It's already done, pal." He lifted his own Uzi and leveled it at myforehead, grinning, his little idea of a joke. "I've got that NECmainframe out there programmed for weeks of trading. Billions . . .Pow!" He jerked the barrel upward, then continued, "Way I've got itrigged, ain't nobody can turn it off now. We'd just as well all gofishing."
"Jim Bob, take care with that gun. Somebody might just decide to ram itdown your scrawny throat."
"Ain't gonna be you, buddy." He reached for the champagne bottle again,no longer grinning.
"Mr. Walton." Finally Noda spoke again. "I assure you this is for thebest. What you two were planning was very ill-considered. Not tomention that, if I'd actually permitted you to sink Dai Nippon'scapital into some volatile commodity and then manipulate the markets,you might have given our institutional investors an enormous loss ofconfidence in my program. I have a responsibility to make sure thatnever happens." He studied Tam. "Dr. Richardson, you especiallydisappointed me. You betrayed my trust, something I always findunforgivable."
"You betrayed my trust." She looked ready to explode. "Lied to me,exploited me, used me. You perverted everything I had planned--"
"As I've explained, this had become necessary. There was no other way."
"How about Ken, and probably Allan Stern?" she interrupted. "Was takingtheir lives 'necessary' too?"
"You have no proof of that," he continued smoothly. "I would furthersuggest that too much speculation is not a healthy pursuit, Dr.Richardson. In the marketplace or in life."
"I'm not speculating."
"As you wish. In any case I think we both realize it is never prudentto meddle in matters beyond one's concern."
"There's a small detail you may have overlooked, Noda-san," I broke in."That bogus sword. What are you planning to do when we blow thewhistle?"
"My timetable for Nipponica is now proceeding on schedule, Mr. Walton."He glanced at the Uzi on the desk, his voice ice. "Consequently you areexpendable as of this moment."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
_If the swordsman casts aside two thoughts, life and death,nothing can defeat his mind.