Linnear 03 - White Ninja (38 page)

'And there's something about Ikusa's relationship with Ken Oroshi. Oroshi, the elder by twenty years, genuflected in front of Ikusa.'

'Oroshi's company, Nakano Industries, is in desperate financial straits,' Nangi said.

'Yeah. I'd heard that.'

'You're among the few who have,' Nangi said. 'Oroshi's moved heaven and earth to keep it secret. Frankly, I don't know how he's kept the company going this long. All he's got there now is a superior research and development department. I would give my left arm for some of his resident geniuses. That's what gave me the idea when Ikusa started to squeeze me. That's primarily why Nakano was the one firm on my list I was hoping Ikusa would pick. After we merge, I'm going to exercise my right of stock option immediately. Then I'll own Nakano. I'll have expanded, acquired key personnel, got 3,000 square feet of prime laboratory space, something the Sphynx kobun desperately needs. And the best part is that I'll have done it for virtually no money.'

The Pack Rat said, 'Excuse me, but what do you need me for?'

'Insurance,' Nangi said. 'I am not about to underestimate Ikusa-san. I want no interference from him or from Nami once I begin.'

The Pack Rat lost the second game. Nangi saw his expression, said, 'What's troubling you?'

'Killan Oroshi's not what I had expected. She's not a pawn, more of a wild card. I can't tell whether her actions are unpredictable or premeditated.'

'Why should this concern me?'

'I'm not sure,' the Pack Rat admitted. 'Perhaps it's as you suspect, nothing but an indiscretion on Ikusa's part. He thinks she's having the affair with him to spite her father whom she clearly despises. But I wonder. I wonder whether it's she who's playing the great Kusunda Ikusa for a fool.'

'That would, indeed, be interesting,' Nangi mused. 'But for this kind of investigation one needs time, and I have very little of that before I sign the merger papers with Nakano. Ikusa has worked moresquickly than I had imagined. Already the contracts are with my lawyers. Continue the Ikusa surveillance. This titbit about Ken Oroshi's daughter is interesting, but that is all. I need something with which to destroy Ikusa's reputation, not his friendship with Ken Oroshi.'

'Ikusa doesn't gamble,' the Pack Rat said. 'He owes no debts, he takes no bribes, he gives his advice freely. He's unmarried. He's a prudent man.'

Nangi shook his head. 'Do not make the mistake of confusing tatemae - the facade - with prudence,' he said. 'Kusunda Ikusa is clever; he covers himself in virtue as a squid ejects ink into the water. But for whatever reason, he has formed this liaison with Ken Oroshi's daughter. This is not the act of a prudent man, but a man so in love with power that it has warped his judgement.'

The Pack Rat reached around to the side of the machine, did something Nangi could not see. A small door opened, and the Pack Rat extracted a couple of tokens. So that's his secret, Nangi thought. He cheats. 'Still,' the Pack Rat said, closing the door, beginning his

third game. I've got a feeling we're missing something important, or looking at the situation from the wrong end.'

'With the recent death of the Emperor, Nami's power has grown ten thousand-fold. It has become a danger to Japan. This coercion they have me under is proof of that. It is Nami, ultimately, that I must discredit,' Nangi said. 'If we bring Ikusa down, Nami will follow.'

'Are we doing the right thing?' the Pack Rat said.

'As far as Nami goes,' Nangi said soberly, 'it exists neither for Japan nor for the Emperor. It was created in the minds of men and there is where its true power resides. It has no real function other than to raise its members to power. It is the guardian of this power and nothing more. But time passes and it seems to me that that empty power, that talismanic facade, needs to be fed. The warp of the flame is never so extreme as when it exists for itself and not to light the way for others.'

'Yet the topmost ministers, the business world's most influential chairmen acquiesce to its wishes.'

Nangi grunted. 'Such is the hypocrisy of the modern-day society in which we live. Men fear the unknown, and Japan without the old Emperor is a question mark. Nami seeks now to capitalize on the insecurity of the nation. Its members are predators who know well the stench of the rotting flesh upon which they feed.'

The Pack Rat watched the tiny steel ball-bearing rocket around the vertical pachinko field. 'Perhaps you're right, and Nami is our ultimate target,' he said. 'But right now I feel as if I can't get to that until I've unravelled the mystery of Kusunda Ikusa and Killan Oroshi.'

'I won't tell you how to do your job,' Nangi said, 'but have a care, Pack Rat. Nami is extremely dangerous. It is a law unto itself. Remember, I need you beside me, not dead in some alleyway.'

The Pack Rat won big. He was on a roll.

...

David Brisling watched Douglas Howe on the phone in his office, and felt a sharp stab of jealousy. That damned Japanese bitch, he thought. Nothing has been the same around here since she squirmed her way into Howe's inner circle. He tried to stem the wild burst of envy he felt, but blurted at Shisei when she emerged, 'Why wasn't I at that meeting? As operations deputy, I should have been involved.'

'Why don't you ask your boss?' Shisei said tartly. She turned her kilowatt smile on Brisling, held up the Louis Feraud suit. 'Did you see what Dougie bought me? It must have set him back a fortune.' She laughed to see Brisling's face flush. 'The problem with you,' she said, 'is that you're a wuss. I can't imagine what your function is.' She stuck her face in his. 'Why does Dougie keep you around? For laughs?' Her smile deepened, changed subtly. 'Or maybe it's just to bring his suits to the cleaners. Face it. You're a little boy in a man's world and you always will be.' She laughed as she left him standing there, white and trembling.

Howe, who was on the phone with General Dickerson, his stooge at the Pentagon, beckoned for Brisling to come in. He cupped his hand over the speaker. 'I need you to do something for me.'

'What is it?' Brisling snapped. 'You need me to go to the cleaners?'

'What?' Howe's head came up. 'General,' he said into the phone, 'I'll get back to you.' He cradled the receiver, said to Brisling, 'What the fuck're you talking about?'

'Nothing,' Brisling said sullenly. 'Just something the Jap bitch said.' He watched Howe emerge from behind his desk, reach for his jacket. Phones were ringing in the ready room, fielded by Brisling's cadre of assistant secretaries.

'Come on,' Howe said. 'I've got to get to SI to see Stedman.' He was talking about John Stedman, currently

the most senior senator on the Hill. S1 was Stedman's hideaway office in the Capitol Building. Ever since the dawn of the Republic, the seventy-five hideaways were the most precious perks in Washington. 'Life begins at S40,' Howe often said, because he didn't have one. But Cotton Branding did, because of his prestige, his contacts. Another unhealed wound in Howe's flesh, another inequity for which he despised Branding.

'Forget Shisei;' Howe said in the car as Michael, his driver, pulled out into traffic. 'She's not your concern.'

'That's what you always say. You know she calls you "Dougie"?'

'Does she?' Howe stared at his assistant. 'It's a joke, David. She's pulling your goddamned chain.' He shook his head. 'Jesus, sometimes I can't believe you.'

'Still. I want to know what her status is around here.' Brisling's jaw was firmly set and a vein pulsed in his temple. He could not believe how deeply Shisei had got under his skin. He had resented her from the moment Howe had started using her, and that resentment had steadily percolated. But the way she had talked to him just now had been the last straw. It was inexcusable.

'Shisei's a servant, David' - Howe shrugged - 'just like all the other dedicated, patriotic servants I employ to help me navigate the perilous waters of Washington.' There was a smirk on his face; privately he was amused by Brisling's obvious jealousy.

'Leave that bullshit for the press,' Brisling said hotly. 'She's nothing like the rest of us, and you know it.'

'Yeah,' Howe said, with a peculiar combination of satisfaction and malice, 'her pussy's prettier than all of you put together.' He was fed up with Brisling's whining. In fact, the only thing that was keeping him from firing Brisling was plausible deniability. Brisling was a born pawn. When his usefulness is at an end, Howe decided, he's out.

Howe picked up his mobile phone, spoke to General Dickerson for several minutes. Then, because he was in the mood to have some malicious fun, he leaned over, said in a conspiratorial whisper, Til tell you a secret, David, sometimes her pussy is smarter than the whole bunch of you.' He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears out of his eyes.

'Your jokes aside,' Brisling said somewhat stiffly, 'I don't trust her. For the life of me, I can't understand why you do. I've seen her twist you around her finger when you thought the opposite was happening. You set out to use her, which is OK, but this has turned into something else. She's got under your skin, into your blood. I see the presents you give her whenever she does a job for you. I think you want her and that's all that's on your mind when you're with her. That's power. That's control.'

'Are you finished?' Howe said. He was angry now. Who was this little pissant to tell him what was what? Shisei was right about Brisling, he was eminently expendable. He reined in his emotions with a great force of will. 'I just sent the bitch off to make sure Branding takes her to the gala State dinner for the German chancellor at the end of the month. There I will ruin him forever. So forget your little operation at the Johnson Institute. I have something else for you.

'You hate Shisei's guts, you think she's affecting my judgement. Maybe you're right. I think it's time we found out the truth about her.' He smiled warmly, settled his features into a mask of confidentiality. 'I'm giving you that job, David, because I know I can trust you. I happen to know that Shisei keeps her intelligence notes at home, in her bedroom. Wait until the night of the dinner, when we know she'll be out with Branding. Just after she^eaves, find a way to get those notes.'

'But - ' Brisling's face showed his concern. 'You want me to break into her house?'

Howe raised his eyebrows. 'David, I don't know what you mean. Use your own initiative, that's the way to get ahead in this city.' He stared out of the window at the passing parade of Washington's monuments. They all seemed to be saluting him. 'It seems to me I'm giving you what you want most: a chance to prove to me what you're really worth.'

He swung around, cultivating his avuncular look. 'You've always found my advice helpful to you in the past, haven't you? I took you out of the Senate cloakroom, made something out of the young drone you once were. That's because I saw the potential in you.' The benevolent smile broadened as he slipped an arm around Brisling's shoulders. 'Listen to me, David. You're going places. Today, my director of operations. Tomorrow -well, who knows?'

And Death had a name.

Nicholas opened his eyes, staring up into a face he had been certain he would never see again.

'Kansatsu-san?' His voice was a.dry, reedy rasp. 'Is it really you? Am I dreaming? Am I dead?'

'You are not dead,' Nicholas's first ninjutsu sensei said. 'Neither are you alive. Yet.'

His face - which was all of him Nicholas could see -was exactly the same as the last time Nicholas had seen it, in the winter of 1963. Impossible, Nicholas thought. But his thoughts were hazy, half-formed, still partially encased in ice.

'Where are we?'

'In Limbo,' Kansatsu-san said. 'My home upon the Black Gendarme.'

'A house? Up here?' How odd my voice sounds! Nicholas thought. How hollow, how timbreless.

"Though Limbo is my home,' Kansatsu said, 'it is a retreat. Think of it as a monastery, a holy place of

serenity and of strength.' He peered down at Nicholas. 'Isn't that what you need most now?'

Nicholas tried to nod his assent, fell asleep instead. He dreamed of the Black Gendarme, rising from the centre of his soul.

Two weeks after they returned to Washington, Cotton Branding took Shisei with him to the Johnson Institute. It was the first time since he had been back that he had been able to break away from his duties on the Senate floor.

The Institute, the ne plus ultra destination of the best minds graduating from MIT and Stanford, owned a large red-brick building constructed at the turn of the century in the Georgian style. It was essentially a country house that now sat in the centre of Washington, on Devonshire Place, just a block from the Connecticut Avenue Bridge with its gigantic Art Moderne urns.

That a structure originally built for displaying works of art was now used for highly advanced and elaborate laboratory facilities perhaps said more about the capital than a year's worth of speeches in the Senate.

Though the mansion was still beautiful on the outside, all its interior charm had been lost in the renovation. Still, as far as Cotton Branding was concerned, the Johnson Institute was the centre of the world, as beautiful as any museum he had been in or contributed to.

He was here to see the latest demonstration of how far the Hive Project had actually come. It was meant only for him, since this phase was still in its embryonic experimental stage. Yet Shisei was with him. He was proud of the work being done here, saw it, perhaps, as a reflection of his own efforts, the fruit of his hard work.