Thomas Hoover

“ Was Novosty here protecting Eva, he suddenly wondered? After all, there was age-old blood connecting them; Eva Borodin and Alex Novosty went back centuries together, centuries of Russian history. Aristocrats both, they shared family, pain, and glory from an age long before the October Revolution. But would she turn to him for refuge? No, not likely. She'd never be that desperate.
"Like you said this morning, Alex, it's unhealthy in this business to know too much. Tends to spoil all the interesting surprises."
"Yes, I agree. Ignorance is often bliss, I think that's the expression. ”

“ Jiro Sato listened thoughtfully, appreciating Nogami's indirect and poetic answer. Then the banker went on.
"Ninjo, Sato-sama. For over three centuries ninjo has been what made our brotherhood unique. Are we to forget that now?"
They both knew what he meant. Ninjo was uniquely Japanese, because no other people in the world had Japan's sense of tribal unity. The Western terms chivalry or compassion carried only a superficial sense of ninjo. It was the inborn golden rule of Japanese culture that surfaced daily in expressions of racial togetherness, support and cooperation. ”

“ Under the CEO's direction, Taro Ikeda and his forty- seven MITI engineers had relocated here on Hokkaido to oversee a secret, fast-track project. Forty-seven. Perhaps, he sometimes mused, that number was no coincidence. Perhaps it was an unconscious act of historical resonance. Forty-seven brilliant young technicians, just like the forty-seven ronin, the samurai of the famous legend. Those ronin had bided their time for many years, living in obscurity and ignominy until the moment when they rose up in triumph.
Bushido. You must always make your opponent do battle on your own terms. ”

“ His attacker was reaching for the gun, hands slippery with blood. There was hot breath against his face, the gurgle of labored breathing. It was a dying man with nothing to lose.
Now Alex was shouting at Eva through the rain, telling her to run for it.
Good, he thought, and turned to shove his fist into the face of the figure struggling to turn the pistol on him. The weapon fired, a lethal blast next to his ear, but the muzzle was still directed away. The round glanced off the stone archway and ricocheted down the hallway. ”

“ Was the Soviet Union about to become the financial and technological captive of a shadowy group of foreigners, men whose identities remained, even now, shrouded in secrecy? Was this a Faustian bargain?
Just then he noticed the doors at the far end of the hangar slide open and two men in white lab coats enter. Perfect timing, he thought. Even at that distance he knew immediately who they were: the joint venture's two top technical officers: his father, Andrei Petrovich Androv, and Taro Ikeda, the project director for the Japanese team. The men held equal authority. ”

“ Tanzan Mino was known throughout Japan as a kuromaku, a man who made things happen. Named after the unseen stagehand who pulled the wires in Japanese theater, manipulating the stage and those on it from behind a black curtain, the kuromaku had been a fixture in Japanese politics since the late nineteenth century. He fit the classic profile perfectly: He was an ultranationalist who coordinated the interests of the right-wing underworld with the on-stage players in industry and politics. In this role, he had risen from the ruins of World War II to become the most powerful man in Asia. ”

“ Also during that time his only son, Yuri Andreevich, had become the Soviet Union's leading test pilot. Yuri was rarely home, and then, nine years ago, Andrei Androv's wife had died of pneumonia. Isolated in the long, snowy nights at Baikonur, he'd consoled himself with string quartets, his studies of classical Greek, and his designs, his dreams of the ultimate space vehicle.
But he knew Russia would never be able to build it alone. Soviet computer and materials technology already was slipping behind those of the West. ”

“ Trucks were starting up, birds coming alive. He began noticing the lack of sleep, but he pushed it aside and took another sip of raki. Just keep going, he told himself. You're about to find out if great minds really do think alike. . . .
"Darling, what in the world are you doing with my computer?" The voice was like a whisper over his shoulder.
"How about checking to see if you've got any video games?" He turned around, startled in spite of himself. What had woken her? She was probably wired. "Eva, why did you take off tonight? ”

“ If tomorrow brings the prospect of death, then how much sweeter is life in the short hours before dawn.
Wednesday 2:00 a.m.
Kenji Nogami wandered alone through the bond-trading floor of Westminster Union Bank, staring at the blank computer screens. His bank was a member of Globex, a twenty-four-hour world-wide trading network for currency futures, but tonight he'd ordered all his traders to square their positions—neither short nor long—and take the night off. Then he had dismissed the cleaning crew. He wanted to have the space entirely to himself, to think and to reflect. ”

“ Vera continued. "There are limits beyond which a society can no longer endure change."
Eva stared at her. "I take it KGB and your military right- wingers are planning to try and stage a coup?"
"There still are responsible people in the Soviet Union, Dr. Borodin, who believe our country is worth saving."
My God, Eva thought, their hard-liners are planning to take control of this plane and use it to re-enflame the Cold War? Just like the race for the H-bomb, it'll rejuvenate the Soviet military.
"This is our last chance," Vera continued as she reached down and flicked on the computer. ”

“ The frescoes over the alabaster arches showed bold blue dolphins pirouetting in a pastel sea dotted with starfish and sea urchins. And just beneath them stood the famous bathroom of the queen, connected to the vast drainage complex of the palace, great stone channels curved in precise parabolas to control and dampen turbulence. Daedalus was an engineer-architect who had mastered the science of fluid dynamics thousands of years before the invention of wind tunnels and supercomputers.
"My favorite spot. The bedroom." He slipped the small bottle of ouzo from his trench coat pocket. ”

“ Nogami saw himself as an advance man for the eventual Japanese domination of the globe's financial landscape. Maybe he was.
Michael Vance knew him from a wholly different direction, now almost another life. In years gone by, Nogami had traveled with equal ease in two worlds—that of straight money and that of "hot" money. He'd always maintained the cover of a legitimate banker, but insiders knew he'd made his real fortune laundering Yakuza amphetamine receipts and importing small-caliber weapons. ”

“ By then, too, the revered Andrei Petrovich Androv was boldly speaking his mind.
"Mikhail Sergeevich, time has run out for Russia. There is nothing to buy, almost nothing to eat, and prices are soaring. There is so much corruption you will not leave a Russian hospital alive unless you've bribed everyone, right down to the drunken orderlies. And those bribes can't be money. Who wants rubles? They are worthless. These days you have to bribe with vodka." ”

“ He led the elder Androv toward the truck-mounted stair, gleaming steel, that led up into the open hatch just aft of the wide wings.
"Let's go up into the aft cargo bay. That's where it's exposed."
The Japanese technicians and mechanics were scurrying about, paying them virtually no heed as they mounted the steel steps and then disappeared into the cavernous underbelly of the Daedalus. The interior of the bay was lighted along the perimeter with high-voltage sodium lamps.
"Have you ever been inside here?" Yuri's voice echoed slightly as he asked the question, then waited. ”

“ Vance's attention, however, was riveted on what awaited at the end of the stony walkway. It was a traditional teahouse, set in a grove of flowering azaleas. And standing in the doorway was a silver-haired figure dressed in a formal black kimono. He was beckoning.
"Did I neglect to tell you I prefer Japanese cha-no-yu to the usual British afternoon tea?" Tanzan Mino announced. "It is a ritual designed to renew the spirit, to cleanse the mind. It goes back hundreds of years. I always enjoy it in the afternoon, and I find it has marvelously restorative powers. ”

“ It boggled Eva's mind. The alliance might be partly military, but the Japanese and the Soviets were no fools. They realized full well that the real battleground of the next century would be an economic struggle, with the ultimate aim of every country being to surpass the United States.
She stared at the blue screen, mesmerized. This secret protocol was a detailed battle plan whereby the Soviets and the Japanese provided each other exactly what they'd need to emerge as the dominant superpowers of the twenty-first century. ”

“ At this stage the test pilot had become the crucial component of the project. Sometimes you had to bend to get what you wanted, and instincts be damned.
As if all that were not enough, he'd just heard an unsettling rumble out of London concerning Kenji Nogami, a Mino-gumi kobun for thirty years, a man he'd made rich.
He turned his attention back to the computer screen and studied the numbers once more. However, he could not concentrate.
The problems. He felt his anger rise, unbidden. He was too old for problems. Surmounting human incompetence was a young man's game. ”

“ The airflow around the model continued to accelerate, while laser holograms of its complex aerodynamics were now being converted by the computer into multi-colored graphic art. Androv watched the wall-size liquid crystal display screen in the control room begin generating a vivid depiction of the streams whirling past the model, simulating the incremental stages of hypersonic climb. It was like watching a hallucination, he thought, as colors swirled around the fuselage of an object seemingly composed of 3-D lines and curves. ”

“ What could this sector be? Once again the Japanese security guards merely bowed low and waved her Mino-gumi escorts past.
The wide doors opened onto yet another hallway, and she was overwhelmed by a blast of sound. Motors were blaring, voices were shouting, escaping gasses were hissing. The din, the racket, engulfed her. And then she realized the reason: There was no ceiling! Even the "offices" along the side were merely high-walled cubicles that had been dropped here in the entryway of some vast space.
It was the hangar. ”

“ Now Androv had faltered and was leaning shakily against the open doorway of the module, the right sleeve of his pressure suit covered in blood. Vance took advantage of the ticking moments to step up and examine it.
"You need a bandage." He started tearing away the synthetic cloth. "Or better yet, a tourniquet."
"No." Androv glanced at his arm and grimaced. "There's not—"
"You're going on adrenaline right now, my friend. But when the shock wears off . . ." ”

“ No, even more. You could be Minoan. You bear a fine resemblance to the 'parisiennes' of the palace. Did he ever tell you?"
"Not often enough." She flashed him her sexiest smile. "But then he never had your eye for women."
"Ah," the old man blushed, "I have more than an eye. If I were thirty years younger, you and I—"
"Zeno, before you drown Eva in that legendary charm, let me bring her up to date," Vance laughed. "She is now in
the presence of the man who has probably become the richest tavern owner in all of Crete."
It was true. Zeno Stantopoulos had indeed become a wealthy man, in many ways. ”

“ Then Lemontov lowered his voice.
"Yuri Andreevich, by forming what amounts to a strategic alliance with Mino Industries, we will achieve two objectives. We will gain access to Japanese technology and capital, to rejuvenate Soviet industry and placate our people. And we will strike a preemptive blow against the peril of a new China on our borders in the next century."
"China?" Yuri had studied him, startled.
"My friend, don't be fooled by summits and talks of reconciliation. Neither we nor China care a kopeck about the other. Think about it. In the long run, China can only be our nightmare. ”

“ Andrei Androv was both an idealist and a pragmatist. In Russia you had to be. That education began almost half a century earlier when, as a student, he had been on hand to assist in the first free flight of a Russian-made liquid fuel rocket, at an army base just outside Moscow. He had experienced the exhilaration of a new frontier, and plunging himself into the new science of rocketry, he had become a self-taught expert who published theoretical works read and praised by men three times his age. ”

“ Vera Karanova answered from the doorway. Eva glanced back and saw a platoon of eight Mino-guchi kobun, Mino's personal bodyguards, all with automatics. "You will come with us."
Androv was staring blankly at her now, his swagger melting like springtime Georgian snow. "You're American? National Security?"
"They kidnapped us. In London. They're going to screw you, everybody. We found out—"
"We?"
"My name is Eva Borodin. I'm director of Soviet SIGINT for the National Security Agency in Washington. And Mike Vance, CIA, is here too. God knows what these criminals are doing to him right now. ”

“ One could never fully repay such indebtedness, even with one's life. A Japanese called it "the burden hardest to bear."
A Yakuza's foremost expression of giri was to honor and obey his oyabun. The great oyabun of Japan's leading Yakuza syndicates were more than merely godfathers. They were Confucian elders, patriarchs, wisdom figures who embodied all the traditions of the clan. Their authority was absolute and unquestioned.
Kenji Nogami owed as much giri to Tanzan Mino as any man could. The Tokyo oyabun had made him everything he was ”

“ But then, drifting through unasked, came an admonition of the great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. "Intelligence is everything. You must know your opponent's plan even before he knows it himself."
It was true. The security for this project had been airtight, except for one minor breach. Someone in the Tokyo office had stupidly transmitted the final protocol over an unsecured satellite channel. It had been intercepted by Soviet intelligence.
Fortunately, the Russian blunderers had been unable to decipher the encryption. ”