He settled his satchel onto the desk, clicked it open, and out came

the box for our first real look. As he wiped off the smoke, my initial
reaction was to be dazzled. It was magnificent, a silversmith's
masterpiece, engraved with all manner of mythological beast and fowl. A
work of art in every sense. Never seen anything remotely like it.
The problem was, it wasn't merely locked. It was soldered shut. The
silver lid had literally been welded on, leaving it essentially a solid piece.
Noda, it turned out, left nothing to chance. Only a silversmith could
crack the seal and divulge the contents. So we still had no idea what was
inside, and worse, we'd managed to fritter away a valuable half hour
coming to that fruitless discovery. Now what?
"Shit," said Tam. "When will we ever get a break?"
"Looks like we've got two choices," Ken announced ruefully, gazing
down at the intractable chunk of metal in his hands. "We can do what
we probably should have done in the first place: simply stash this for the
moment and let Noda think we know what's in it. Or we can drive into
Tokyo and locate somebody there who can open it, then transmit from
MITI headquarters downtown."
Neither of these plans seemed particularly inspired. The first gave
us nothing but presumptions for leverage, and the second could take
hours. Noda, we all realized, was not a man who dallied.
"Actually"—Tam spoke up—"there's a third option. Surely Noda's
going to find out sooner or later we came here to the
Center. Believe me, he always learns everything eventually. So why not
transmit something else now, anything, and then after you get the case
open you can send the real data?"
"You mean, give him circumstantial cause to assume we've got the
goods on him?" Sounded good to me. "Buying ourselves more time?"
"Right. It'll take him awhile to find out exactly what was
transmitted. All he'll know for certain is that we sent something. In the
meantime Ken can go on to Tokyo and proceed with plan B: open the
case there and transmit the real contents."
He looked skeptical. "That might deceive everybody for a while, but
not for long. There're too many links in the chain between here and
DNI's New York office."
"But sending something now will gain time. It has to. Then you can
go on to Tokyo and do what you need to from there. Tomorrow."
"Maybe." He still wasn't totally convinced. "But all right—rather
than waste time arguing, let's just go ahead and do it. No harm in any
instance."
 She peeked into his briefcase, a jumble of documents. "What have
you got in here that we could send?"
"Today's Asahi Shimbun . . ." He laughed.
"Ken."
"Okay, okay." He laid the newspaper aside and was riffling through
his paperwork. "How about a few MITI memos?"
"Nothing to do with Marketshare - 90, I hope," said Tam.
"Promise."
The apparatus was already humming, so he put through the
connection to JETRO's New York office, whereupon Tam took over and
gave them instructions for the phone link over to the DNI mainframe. It
probably required all of a couple of minutes. Welcome to the Brave New
World of global information technology.
Since we were just shooting in the dark, they transmitted some
twenty or twenty-five pages. Actually it would have been almost better
to send too few rather than too many. At four pages a minute, though,
we were finished in no time. As something of a joke, Tam suggested
using the file name Nipponica, homage to Noda's takeover pipe dream.
Somehow it seemed poetic justice.
Whether the transparency of our ruse would be immediately
evident to Matsuo Noda remained a big unknown. But . . . maybe Noda
would have no real way of discovering we'd sent garbage, at least not for
a while. The transmission done, we signed off, zipped up Ken's
briefcase, and marched out as if we knew what we were doing. Still, it
was only a bluff, and a shaky one at that. Which set me to thinking.
"Ken, it seems to me yours is the critical path in this play now." We
were walking back to the executive parking lot where we'd left his car.
"It's more important to have a real copy of the data stashed somewhere
than it is for us to blow the country in the next two hours. Which means
maybe you ought to take the chopper back yourself, send the stuff
today, and let us just drive down to Narita in your car?"
"I agree." Tam nodded concurrence. "We can leave it there and you
could have somebody pick it up tomorrow."
"That's dangerous, for both of you."
"Maybe so," she said, "but he's going to come after this case, guns
blazing, as his first priority. Ken, you're the one who's going to have to
stay out of his way now, not us. The quicker you move, the better."
"You've got a point. All right, if you want me to, then I could take
the copter back to Tokyo myself and you can use the Toyota." He was
fishing for his keys. "In fact, maybe you should just leave now."
 "Let me check the schedule." I'd asked his secretary for a listing of
the afternoon and evening flights in case we got delayed. It was now
one-thirty. The next flight that looked like a sure thing was a United at
seven forty-two, or maybe the JAL at nine. Then there was a Northwest
at ten-fifteen. Loads of time.
"Look, we can wait for the chopper and at least see you off. Why
don't we head back over to the hotel and have a drink. Solemnize the
occasion—the final nailing of Matsuo Noda."
"Fine." He started the car. "But both of you get only one, at least
whoever's driving does. I want you back in one piece."
The hotel bar was beginning to feel like a second home, though
now it was deserted, the lunch trade long departed. Our ceremonial
libation also provided my first real opportunity to study Ken Asano at
leisure. I sat sipping my Suntory while he repeated once again the details
of his upcoming political move at MITI. Given any kind of luck, the flap
would render Noda's takeover a worldwide scandal.
Good. Tam and I had been Noda's point men, had done everything
we knew to assist him, and now it was clear he'd been using us all along
for his own ends. He was bent on bringing American industry back to
life for the sole purpose of skimming the cream.
What other reason could there be? Noda's noble intention
supposedly was to help rejuvenate those American corporations doing
basic research—but the price was then to let Japan lift that R&D and
translate it into consumer technology, thereby keeping for his team all
the elements of real economic value in the chain from laboratory to cash
register. They would be the ones refining their strategic capacity to
transform new ideas into world-class products and economic leadership.
Japan would retain the advanced engineering segment of product
development, while tossing a few low-skill assembly plants to the U.S. to
make us think we were still part of the action. It would, of course, be a
fatal delusion. The high-tech hardware of tomorrow's world increasingly
would be Japanese, while America became an economy of paper-
shuffling MBAs and low-paid grease monkeys assembling products we
no longer were able to design or engineer.
That depressing conclusion required the space of one Scotch. By
then I was ready to order a second, hoping it would bring forth a
solution to the problem the first had evoked with such alarming clarity.
But there wasn't time. At that moment we heard the MITI copter
settling onto the pad next to the hotel parking lot.
 "Ken, here's to success." I saluted him with the last melting ice
cubes.
He toasted back, then signaled for the bill. Time to get moving.
The chopper was a new Aerospatiale AS 365N Twin Dauphin, big
and white, a VIP four-seater. Single pilot, capable of 180. (The Japanese
love those high-rotor French copters.) Guess Ken had called in a lot of
chips to arrange this customized three-wheeler for a couple of gaijin.
The seat-mile costs alone must have been staggering. But there it was,
fully serviced and set to go.
He walked over, ducking the rotor, and advised the pilot that there
had been a slight change of plans. They'd be returning directly back to
Tokyo. The man, wearing a blue uniform, bowed and gave him a little
salute. They seemed to be old friends. Well, I thought, if deputy
ministers don't use this gold-plated extravagance, then who's it for?
Then he returned to pick up his briefcase (Noda's silver box safely
therein), have a brief farewell, and give us his keys.
"Tamara, telex me the minute you get back. We'll proceed
immediately. Full speed."
"Let's go for it." She smiled and drew his face down for a long,
languorous kiss. I then shook his hand, and we headed for the car. Since
our bags were just little carry-ons, we looked solid to catch the United
flight with a couple of hours to spare, assuming traffic cooperated.
"Tam, how about taking the wheel? This left-hand-side-of- the-road
driving takes practice. I almost hit somebody once in England."
"Sure." She reached for the keys, then turned back to wave to Ken.
But he was already climbing aboard and didn't notice.
"Isn't it odd?" I mused, "We still haven't heard zip out of Noda. He
must have realized by now we have his silver case. What's he planning
to do? Where'll he try to head us off?"
"Good question." She turned the key in the ignition. "I'm not going
to feel safe till we've got the actual goods on his phony sword. Not just
some dummy data."
"My guess is he'll try and nail us at the airport. It'd be his best shot."
"At least Ken was smart enough to make the reservations under fake
names, so he won't know which flight to watch."
"There're not that many. He could be covering them all. On the
other hand, he'll assume we're arriving via the MITI chopper, so maybe
we can dodge his hit squad."
 "I feel like I've been run through a wringer." She was pulling out of
the slot, backing around to begin making her way through the rows of
staff vehicles, all with special Tsukuba parking stickers.
"You can say that again. Who could have guessed all the . . ."
I'd reached around to check the back window, hoping to get the
heat going, when my field of vision turned an incandescent orange,
bright and glaring, as though the sun had just come in for a close
encounter. Before I could turn to see what . . . the dashboard rose up
and slugged me in the teeth, as a shock wave flung us both against the
seat belts.
We're dead, I thought. We've been bombed. Noda's just dropped . .
.
Then I looked up.
The MITI Aerospatiale, about two hundred feet off the ground, had
become a blazing sphere, a grotesque nova. Now its rotor blades were
clawing the air, askew, while it circled downward like a wounded bird.
An instant later it nosed into the parking lot behind us, hurtling
fragments of tail assembly through several empty staff cars.
I sat mesmerized as a second ball of fire erupted where it had
crashed. One of the fuel tanks had ignited, just like in the movies.
"Ken!" Tam let out a choked cry after the first few seconds of
disbelief. Then she slammed the transmission into 'Park' and began
ripping off her seat belt.
Where's she going? Doesn't she realize—?
Her door was open and she was stumbling out. That's when I finally
came to my senses, which included the sobering thought that there
might be more fuel tanks, such as the auxiliary, that hadn't yet blown.
"Wait!" I'd ripped off my own seat harness by that time and had
rolled out to begin running after her as she stumbled across the snowy
stretch of asphalt separating us from the flames.
She was moving like a gazelle, but I managed to catch up about
thirty yards from the wreckage. Using a modified shoulder block, I
pulled her around and tried to get a grip.
"Tam, nobody could survive that. We've got to stay back . . ."
At which point we both slipped and collapsed in a patch of snow . .
. just as the last fuel tank detonated with the impact of a sonic boom.
Memory can be a little unreliable under such circumstances, but I still
remember more wreckage sailing past us, including a strut off the
landing gear that gouged a furrow in the asphalt no more than ten feet
from our heads.
 "Tam, he never knew what hit him. It had to be instantaneous." I
was trying to brush the wet snow off her face as I slipped my arm
around her shoulders. She was still holding back the tears, but only just.
"We didn't even have a real good-bye." Her words were jagged.
"There were so many things . . . I was hoping we . . ."
Her voice trailed off into tears.
"Look, I only knew him for a day, but that was enough to learn
some things. Kenji Asano was a wise and noble soul. Everything about
him was good."
She took my hand and held it against her cheek. "Matt, he was so
kind. That was what . . . He was . . . all that I . . ." Her eyes were
reflecting back the flames, now billowing into the pale afternoon sky.
Around us the labs were emptying as technicians raced toward the lot,
white coats fluttering.
"You know, he said something to me today. About you . . ."
"What?" She glanced up, her face streaked. "What did he
say?"
"He must have known there was danger. He sort of asked me to
look out for you."
"Danger?" She looked back at the wreckage, and a new tear trailed
down her left cheek. "I guess we don't really know for sure, do we?
Maybe it was just a fuel tank rupture, or . . ."
"You don't believe that."
"No." The tears, abruptly, were gone. "Matsuo Noda just took away
the one . . . Matt, I'm going to kill him."
It was a sentiment I shared in buckets. The question was merely
how. Medieval torture seemed too kind. I started to say something
inane, and then, finally, the shocking truth landed with the force of that
last explosion.
"Tam, that was supposed to be us." I was gazing at the flames,
watching talons of metal contort in the heat. "Noda thought we were
going to be on that copter."
"My God, of course."
"We've got to get out of here. Now. There's nothing anybody can do
for Ken."
"I'm not leaving till I've settled the score."
"Be reasonable. There's no way we can do it here. This is Noda's
turf." I was urging her to her feet. "We'll find a way. All I ask is that he
know we were the ones who did him in."
"But how can we just leave?"
 "What else are we supposed to do? There's nothing left." I tried to
take her hand. "Come on."
She finally relented and, with one last tearful stare, turned to follow
me back to the car. By then a crowd of technicians was surging in
around us.
Ken's blue Toyota was still running. Without a word she buckled
in, shoved the stick into gear, and turned for the exit, whereupon she
barely avoided colliding with the first racing fire engine.
"Look, are you okay? I can drive if you . . ."
"Matt, don't say anything more, please." The tears had vanished.
"Can I just think for a while? Just give me some quiet to think." She was
gripping the wheel with raw anger. "Please."
"You've got it."
By the time we reached the highway, she was driving mechanically
but with absolute precision, almost as though tragedy had somehow
sharpened her reflexes, her logical processes.
It's a curious thing, but different people respond differently to
disaster, and Tam was one of those rare few who become harder, not
softer. I could see it in her eyes. As the minutes ticked by, and we
reached the packed thoroughfare that would take us south, it even got to
be a little unsettling. What in hell was going through her head?
Finally, after about an hour of bumper-to-bumper freeways, I
couldn't take the silence any more. Without asking anybody's
permission, I reached over and clicked on the radio. It was set for a
classical station, the music Chopin. Was this Ken's regular fare? I
wondered. Was he a romantic at heart or a classicist? Guess I'd never
know . . . that, or much of anything else about him. Which thought
brought with it a renewed sadness. Kenji Asano was a man of the East
who was as much of the West as anybody I'd ever met in Japan. I'd
wanted him for a friend.
When you get to be my age, you don't make too many new friends,
not real ones. After forty, it's acquaintances. The roots of true friendship
extend so deep that there's never really time to plant them if you start
too late. Maybe it's because there's always a part missing, that shared
experience of being young and crazy and broke. Those times back when
you both still believed anything was possible. New friends can't begin
sentences with "Remember that weekend before you were married when
we got drunk and . . ." Getting old is tough, and that's one of the
toughest parts. But somehow I felt, with Ken, that I'd known him
forever. Could be that's absurd, but I really did. So quite apart from the
tragedy of his death, I felt cruelly robbed. It sounds selfish, maybe, but
it's the truth. A sad but true truth.
I was still thinking those thoughts when the four-o'clock newscast
came on. For a moment neither of us noticed, but then Tam snapped
alert and turned up the volume. The report was opening with a live
remote from Tsukuba Science City. I couldn't really follow very well, but
she realized that and began to translate as it went along.
". . . was the first tragedy of its kind for the ministry, and there are
widespread calls for an official inquiry. Dr. Kenji Asano, nationally
known director of The Institute for New Generation Computer
Technology, died today here at Tsukuba Science City when a MITI
helicopter, an Aerospatiale Twin Dauphin, crashed due to a
malfunction. No cause has yet been ascertained for the accident, which
also took the life of the pilot, Yuri Hachiro, a MITI veteran with fifteen
years of service. The condition of the wreckage has made it impossible
to determine how many other passengers may have been on board,
although MITI sources report that two visiting American scientists are
also thought to have been traveling with Dr. Asano. Their names are
being withheld by the ministry at this time, pending the completion of a
full investigation. . . .
Next came an interview with a MITI official, after which the
reporter offered a wrap-up.
". . . believe Dr. Asano's death represents a significant blow to
several vital sectors of MITI's computer race with America. However, the
vice minister has assured NHK that MITI's research effort will redouble
its commitment to . . ."
Tam clicked it off. "Two birds with one stone."
"What?"
"Matt, by bringing down the 'copter with all three of us in it, he was
planning to stop MITI and us both. Now he may think he did."
"You're right." I looked at her, and finally understood the real
import of the crash. "Which means we're now officially dead. If nobody
else knows we weren't on that chopper, why would Noda?"
She didn't answer for a long moment. Finally she said, "Maybe that
gives us the time we'll need."
"Time to nail him."
"Right. I've been thinking. About what it all means."
"Noda's play?"
"Not just that. I'm talking about Japan. Everything. You know, this
country could lead the world someday, maybe even now, if it wanted. It