The Samurai Strategy

by Thomas Hoover

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  "Jack, doing anything today?"

  "Walton, what in hell . . .?"

  Jack O'Donnell and Joyce Hanson had been working through the ten-poundChristmas catalog known as the Sunday Times--she was up to Arts &Leisure and he'd advanced as far as Business--when my call interruptedtheir mutually agreed-upon vow of silence. Now that her apartment inthe West Seventies had become Jack's weekend hideaway, his escape fromphones and conferences, the number was as carefully guarded as aMinuteman launch code.

  The time was shortly after noon. He'd just braved a foot of snow andsleet to retrieve the paper and a couple of fresh croissants, whileJoyce was still recovering from a two A.M. session editing a speech oneof his staffers had drafted for some

  ILGWU holiday blowout the following week. Since he was still chewingover Noda's ominous phone call, wondering what to do, the last personon earth he wanted to hear from right now was Dai Nippon's lawyer, evenif it was me.

  "Feel like coming down for a Bloody Mary? An academic lady we both knowis here, and we've happened across something you might findinteresting. Very interesting."

  "Care to elaborate?"

  "It's a little complicated, Jack. How about coming down?"

  He glanced out the frosted kitchen windows, puzzling what in blazes wasup, then finally agreed.

  "Keep the coffee hot."

  "You've got it."

  Joyce claimed to be unamused, though in truth maybe she wasn't all thatheartbroken to have the place to herself for the afternoon. He grabbedhis coat and said don't throw out The Week in Review.

  The streets were now at a standstill, so the prospect of finding, letalone traveling in, a taxi was implausible in the extreme. As a resultSenator Jack O'Donnell shared the Broadway local with several hundredof his lesser-heeled constituents and finally managed to get down toSheridan Square, from which it was only a few mushy blocks over to myplace.

  Ben greeted him at the door with me not far behind, doubtless lookingas if I'd just stumbled in from a three-day forced march. Without aword he passed over his coat, then followed me downstairs where Tam wasstill going through the line of printouts spread across the dining roomtable, translating onto one of my yellow legal pads.

  I pointed him in the direction of the coffee urn stationed in thekitchen. He poured a cup, then came around and plopped down on thecouch.

  "Walton"--he sampled his brew, then set it down--"you're not going tobelieve what your goddam client did Friday. Swear to God, your manactually threatened me, the bastard, a not-too-subtle warning to backoff."

  "Jack, that's small potatoes." I straddled one of the dining roomchairs. "What would you say to a possible play by our friend MatsuoNoda that makes Pearl Harbor look like a gesture of Japanese-Americansolidarity?"

  "Two days ago I might have thought you'd been smoking a controlledsubstance. Now, I'm not so sure."

  "Well, we're still piecing it together. I don't think anybody couldeven imagine what's really afoot. One thing's for sure, though--this isbig." I paused. "It might even be that Noda is somehow fronting forMITI, though I'm still not totally convinced."

  I'd been turning that possibility over, but I somehow couldn't buy itall the way. Wasn't Matsuo Noda's style. He was a loner.

  "MITI?" He looked at me. "That's government, right? The Ministry of . .."

  "International Trade and Industry. Japan's 'War Department' for trade."

  "Yeah? Go on."

  "Listen. All Noda's talk about helping American industry? Of courseit's bullshit. But I think it's just half the bullshit. What we suspectis, he's buying a little of everything so nobody will figure out theirreal agenda."

  "You'd better back up and take this from the beginning."

  "Wait a minute." Tam got up and started the turntable. Mendelssohn wasstill on the platter. Maybe we were taking too many precautions, butshe still nursed the idea we might be bugged.

  With the music cranked up to "8," we proceeded to give Jack a quicksummary of how the stack of memos on the table had come into our hands.In a way, though, they raised as many questions as they answered.

  "Jack, nothing here is spelled out in detail. We have to takeeverything and sort of rotate it by ninety degrees to see how Noda fitsin." I walked over to the table. "Tam, where's your translation of thatone by what's-his-name . . . Ikeda?"

  "Right here." She handed it to me.

  "Here, Jack, start with this. Just to get up to speed on thebackground."

  He fumbled in his pocket, retrieved his bifocals, and began to read theyellow sheet.