Debt of Honor

  Why? Instincts. Winston immediately turned his loose. There was just something—what? A nastiness in Yamata. Was he one of those who viewed everything as combat? Winston had been that way once, but grown out of it. Competition was always tough, but civilized. On the Street everyone competed with everyone else, too, for security, advice, consensus, and competition, which was tough but friendly so long as everyone obeyed the same rules.

  You’re not in that game, are you? he wanted to ask, too late.

  Winston tried a new ploy, interested in the game that had started so unexpectedly. He lifted his glass, and silently toasted his successor while the other people in the room chattered across the table. Yamata reciprocated the gesture, and his mien actually became more arrogant, radiating contempt at the stupidity of the man who had just sold out to him.

  You were so good at concealing your feelings before, why not now? You really think you’re the cat’s ass, that you’ve done something ... bigger than I know. What?

  Winston looked away, out the windows to the mirror-calm water of the harbor. He was suddenly bored with the game, uninterested in whatever competition that little bastard thought himself to have won. Hell, he told himself, I’m out of here. I’ve lost nothing. I’ve gained my freedom. I’ve got my money. I’ve got everything. Okay, fine, you can run the house and make your money, and have a seat in any club or restaurant in town, whenever you’re here, and tell yourself how important you are, and if you think that’s a victory, then it is. But it’s not a victory over anyone, Winston concluded.

  It was too bad. Winston had caught everything, as he usually did, identified all the right elements. But for the first time in years, he’d failed to assemble them into the proper scenario. It wasn’t his fault. He understood his own game completely, and had merely assumed, wrongly, that it was the only game in town.

  Chet Nomuri worked very hard not to be an American citizen. His was the fourth generation of his family in the U.S.—the first of his ancestors had arrived right after the turn of the century and before the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” between Japan and America restricting further immigration. It would have insulted him had he thought about it more. Of greater insult was what had happened to his grandparents and great-grandparents despite full U.S. citizenship. His grandfather had leaped at the chance to prove his loyalty to his country, and served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, returning home with two Purple Hearts and master-sergeant stripes only to find that the family business—office supplies—had been sold off for a song and his family sent to an intern camp. With stoic patience, he had started over, built it up with a new and unequivocal name, Veteran’s Office Furniture, and made enough money to send his three sons through college and beyond. Chet’s own father was a vascular surgeon, a small, jolly man who’d been born in government captivity, and whose parents, for that reason—and to please his grandfather—had maintained some of the traditions, such as language.

  Done it pretty well, too, Nomuri thought. He’d overcome his accent problems in a matter of weeks, and now, sitting in the Tokyo bathhouse, everyone around him wondered which prefecture he had come from. Nomuri had identification papers for several. He was a field officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, perversely on assignment for the U.S. Department of Justice, and completely without the knowledge of the U.S. Department of State. One of the things he had learned from his surgeon father was to fix his eyes forward to the things he could do, not back at things he couldn’t change. In this the Nomuri family had bought into America, quietly, undramatically, and successfully, Chet told himself, sitting up to his neck in hot water.

  The rules of the bath were perfectly straightforward. You could talk about everything but business, and you could even talk about that, but only the gossip, not the substantive aspects of how you made your money and your deals. Within those loose constraints, seemingly everything was open for discussion in a surprisingly casual forum in this most structured of societies. Nomuri got there at about the same time every day, and had been doing so long enough that the people he met were on a similar schedule, knew him, and were comfortable with him. He already knew everything there was to know about their wives and families, as they did about his—or rather, about the fictional “legend” that he’d built himself and which was now as real to him as the Los Angeles neighborhood in which he’d come to manhood.

  “I need a mistress,” Kazuo Taoka said, hardly for the first time. “My wife, all she wants to do is watch television since our son is born.”

  “All they ever do is complain,” another salaryman agreed. There was a concurring series of grunts from the other men in the pool.

  “A mistress is expensive,” Nomuri noted from his corner of the bath, wondering what the wives complained about in their bathing pools. “In money and time.”

  Of the two, time was the more important. Each of the young executives—well, not really that, but the borderline between what in America would seem a clerkship and a real decision-making post was hazy in Japan—made a good living, but the price for it was to be bound as tightly to his corporation as one of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s coal miners. Frequently up before dawn, commuting to work mainly by train from outlying suburbs, they worked in crowded offices, worked hard and late, and went home most often to find wives and children asleep. Despite what he’d learned from TV and research before coming over here, it still came as a shock to Nomuri that the pressures of business might actually be destroying the social fabric of the country, that the structure of the family itself was damaged. It was all the more surprising because the strength of the Japanese family unit was the only thing that had enabled his own ancestors to succeed in an America where racism had been a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

  “Expensive, yes,” Taoka agreed morosely, “but where else can a man get what he needs?”

  “That is true,” another said on the other side of the pool. Well, not really a pool, but too big for a tub. “It costs too much, but what is it worth to be a man?”

  “Easier for the bosses,” Nomuri said next, wondering where this would lead. He was still early in his assignment, still building the foundation for embarking on his real mission, taking his time, as he’d been ordered to do by Ed and Mary Pat.

  “You should see what Yamata-san has going for him,” another salaryman observed with a dark chuckle.

  “Oh?” Taoka asked.

  “He is friendly with Goto,” the man went on with a conspiratorial look.

  “The politician—ah, yes, of course!”

  Nomuri leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the hundred-plus-degree water of the bath envelop him, not wanting to appear interested as his brain turned on its internal tape-recorder. “Politician,” he murmured sleepily. “Hmph.”

  “I had to run some papers to Yamata-san last month, a quiet place not far from here. Papers about the deal he just made today, in fact. Goto was entertaining him. They let me in, I suppose Yamata-san wanted me to have a look. The girl with them ...” His voice became slightly awed. “Tall and blonde, such fine bosoms.”

  “Where does one buy an American mistress?” another interjected coarsely.

  “And she knew her place,” the storyteller went on. “She sat there while Yamata-san went over the papers, waiting patiently. No shame in her at all. Such lovely bosoms,” the man concluded.

  So the stories about Goto are true, Nomuri thought. How the hell do people like that make it so far in politics?

  the field officer asked himself. Only a second later he reproved himself for the stupidity of the question. Such behavior in politicians dated back to the Trojan War and beyond.

  “You cannot stop there,” Taoka insisted humorously. The man didn’t, elaborating on the scene and earning the rapt attention of the others, who already knew all the relevant information on the wives of all present, and were excited to hear the description of a “new” girl in every clinical detail.

  “Who cares about them?” Nomuri asked crossly, with closed eyes. “T
hey’re too tall, their feet are too big, their manners are poor, and—”

  “Let him tell the story,” an excited voice insisted. Nomuri shrugged his submission to the collegial will while his mind recorded every word. The salaryman had an eye for detail, and in less than a minute Nomuri had a full physical description. The report would go through the Station Chief to Langley, because the CIA kept a file on the personal habits of politicians all over the world. There was no such thing as a useless fact, though he was hoping to get information of more immediate use than Goto’s sexual proclivities.

  The debriefing was held at the Farm, officially known as Camp Peary, a CIA training facility located off of Interstate 64 between Williamsburg and Yorktown, Virginia. Cold drinks were gunned down as rapidly as the cans could be popped open, as both men went over maps and explained the six weeks in-country that had ended so well. Corp, CNN said, was going to begin his trial in the following week. There wasn’t much doubt about the outcome. Somewhere back in that equatorial country, somebody had already purchased about fifteen feet of three-quarter-inch manila rope, though both officers wondered where the lumber for the gallows would come from. Probably have to ship it in, Clark thought. They hadn’t seen much in the way of trees.

  “Well,” Mary Patricia Foley said after hearing the final version. “Sounds like a good clean one, guys.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Ding replied gallantly. “John sure shovels out a nice line of BS for people.”

  “That’s experience for you,” Clark noted with a chuckle. “How’s Ed doing?”

  “Learning his place,” the Deputy Director for Operations replied with an impish grin. Both she and her husband had gone through the Farm together, and Clark had been one of their instructors. Once the best husband-wife team the Agency had, the truth of the matter was that Mary Pat had better instincts for working the field, and Ed was better at planning things out. Under those circumstances, Ed really should have had the senior position, but Mary Pat’s appointment had just been too attractive, politically speaking, and in any case they still worked together, effectively co-Deputy Directors, though Ed’s actual title was somewhat nebulous. “You two are due some time off, and by the way, you have an official attaboy from the other side of the river.” That was not a first for either officer. “John, you know, it’s really time for you to come back inside.” By which she meant a permanent return to a training slot here in the Virginia Tidewater. The Agency was upsizing its human-intelligence assets—the bureaucratic term for increasing the number of case officers (known as spies to America’s enemies) to be deployed into the field. Mrs. Foley wanted Clark to help train them. After all, he’d done a good job with her and her husband, twenty years before.

  “Not unless you want to retire me. I like it out there.”

  “He’s dumb that way, ma’am,” Chavez said with a sly grin. “I guess it comes with old age.”

  Mrs. Foley didn’t argue the point. These two were among her best field teams, and she wasn’t in that much of a hurry to break up a successful operation. “Fair enough, guys. You’re released from the debrief. Oklahoma and Nebraska are on this afternoon.”

  “How are the kids, MP?” That was her service nickname, though not everybody had the rank to use it.

  “Just fine, John. Thanks for asking.” Mrs. Foley stood and walked to the door. A helicopter would whisk her back to Langley. She wanted to catch the game, too.

  Clark and Chavez traded the look that comes with the conclusion of a job. Operation WALKMAN was now in the books, officially blessed by the Agency, and, in this case, by the White House.

  “Miller time, Mr. C.”

  “I guess you want a ride, eh?”

  “If you would be so kind, sir,” Ding replied.

  John Clark looked his partner over. Yes, he had cleaned himself up. The black hair was cut short and neat, the dark, heavy beard that had blurred his face in Africa was gone. He was even wearing a tie and white shirt under his suit jacket. Clark thought of the outfit as courting clothes, though on further reflection he might have recalled that Ding had once been a soldier, and that soldiers returning from the field liked to scrape off the physical reminders of the rougher aspects of their profession. Well, he could hardly complain that the lad was trying to look presentable, could he? Whatever faults Ding might have, John told himself, he always showed proper respect.

  “Come on.” Clark’s Ford station wagon was parked in its usual place, and after fifteen minutes they pulled into the driveway of his house. Set outside the grounds of Camp Peary, it was an ordinary split-level rancher, emptier now than it had been. Margaret Pamela Clark, his elder daughter, was away at college, Marquette University in her case. Patricia Doris Clark had chosen a school closer to home, William and Mary in nearby Williamsburg, where she was majoring in pre-med. Patsy was at the door, already alerted for the arrival.

  “Daddy!” A hug, a kiss, followed by something which had become somewhat more important. “Ding!” Just a hug in this case, Clark saw, not fooled for a moment.

  “Hi, Pats.” Ding didn’t let go of her hand as he came into the house.

  4

  Activity

  “Our requirements are different,” the negotiator insisted.

  “How is that?” his counterpart asked patiently.

  “The steel, the design of the tank, these are unique. I am not an engineer myself, but the people who do the design work tell me this is so, and that their product will be damaged by the substitution of other parts. Now,” he went on patiently, “there is also the issue of commonality of the parts. As you know, many of the cars assembled in Kentucky are shipped back to Japan for sale, and in the event of damage or the need for replacement, then the local supply will immediately be available for use. If we were to substitute the American components which you suggest, this would not be the case.”

  “Seiji, we are talking about a gasoline tank. It is made of—what? Five pieces of galvanized steel, bent and welded together, with a total internal capacity of nineteen gallons. There are no moving parts,” the official of the State Department pointed out, interjecting himself into the process and playing his part as he was paid to do. He’d even done a good job of feigning exasperation when he’d used his counterpart’s given name.

  “Ah, but the steel itself, the formula, the proportions of different materials in the finished alloy, these have been optimized to the precise specifications required by the manufacturer—”

  “Which are standardized all over the world.”

  “Sadly, this is not the case. Our specifications are most exacting, far more so than those of others, and, I regret to say, more exacting than those of the Deerfield Auto Parts Company. For that reason, we must sadly decline your request.” Which put an end to this phase of the negotiations. The Japanese negotiator leaned back in his chair, resplendent in his Brooks Brothers suit and Pierre Cardin tie, trying not to gloat too obviously. He had a lot of practice in doing so, and was good at it: it was his deck of cards. Besides, the game was just getting easier, not harder.

  “That is most disappointing,” the representative of the U.S. Department of Commerce said. He hadn’t expected otherwise, of course, and flipped the page to go on to the next item on the agenda of the Domestic Content Negotiations. It was like a Greek play, he told himself, some cross between a Sophoclean tragedy and a comedy by Aristophanes. You knew exactly what was going to happen before you even started. In this he was right, but in a way he couldn’t know.

  The meat of the play had been determined months earlier, long before the negotiations had stumbled upon the issue, and in retrospect sober minds would certainly have called it an accident, just one more of the odd coincidences that shape the fate of nations and their leaders. As with most such events, it had begun with a simple error that had occurred despite the most careful of precautions. A bad electrical wire, of all things, had reduced the available current into a dip tank, thus reducing the charge in the hot liquid into which the steel sheets we
re dipped. That in turn had reduced the galvanizing process, and the steel sheets were in fact given merely a thin patina, while they appeared to be fully coated. The non-galvanized sheets were piled up on pallets, wrapped with steel bands for stability, and covered with plastic. The error would be further compounded in the finishing and assembly process.

  The plant where it had happened was not part of the assembler. As with American firms, the big auto-assembly companies—which designed the cars and put their trademarks on them—bought most of the components from smaller parts-supply companies. In Japan the relationship between the bigger fish and the smaller ones was both stable and cutthroat: stable insofar as the business between the two sets of companies was generally one of long standing; cutthroat insofar as the demands of the assemblers were dictatorial, for there was always the threat that they would move their business to someone else, though this possibility was rarely raised openly. Only oblique references, usually a kindly comment on the state of affairs at another, smaller firm, a reference to the bright children of the owner of such a firm, or how the representative of the assembler had seen him at a ball game or bathhouse the previous week. The nature of the reference was less important than the content of the message, and that content always came through loud and clear. As a result, the little parts-companies were not the showcases of Japanese heavy industry that other nationalities had come to see and respect on worldwide television. The workers didn’t wear company coveralls, didn’t eat alongside management in plush cafeterias, didn’t work in spotless, superbly organized assembly plants. The pay for these workers was also something other than the highly adequate wage structure of the assembly workers, and though the lifelong employment covenant was becoming fiction even for the elite workers, it had never existed at all for the others.