Act of God (16 page)

McNaughton exited hastily and shut the door.

Ciano ran a finger under the collar of his shirt, as if it had suddenly grown smaller. "Uh, I don't know, Sam, maybe—" Taggart silenced him with a glare as he punched a seemingly endless number code.

A delightful female voice came through the desktop speaker: "
Uchu Kogyo Shacho-shitsu desu
—Space Industries, President's office."

"May I speak to Mr. Kuroda, please."

"Yes, sir!" the woman said, briskly. Anyone calling the president of the firm on his private line was a VIP and she had standing orders to put any such call through at once.

A pleasant baritone answered in English: "Good morning, Goro Kuroda speaking."

Sam glanced at his watch. It would be about 10:00 AM in Japan. "Good morning, Kuroda-san. I trust I'm not interrupting anything?"

Kuroda recognized the voice immediately. "Taggart-san! It's been years. Where are you, Sam?"

"Colorado. Goro, sorry to give you such short notice, but would you have time to see me tomorrow afternoon?"

"You have no need to ask. Any time you want to see me, I will make room. It will be a pleasure. I'll meet you at Narita Airport. What flight will you be on?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll let your secretary know as soon as I have my reservations. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at the airport."

"Have a good flight." Sam depressed the shutoff button and looked up to see Ugo glaring at him.

"You sadistic sonofabitch. You just love to make people squirm, don't you? You knew the guy all the time!"

Sam smiled ferociously. "I said I'd repay you for this. Now, if you're all through disposing of my time and talents, I'll be on my way."

"Say, Sam," Ciano's fury melted away and he grew crafty. "I got an idea. My buddy McNaughton here has given me free access to his corporate jet. I bet he'd send you to Japan on it gratis. I'd be happy to fly your cute little jet back to Vandenberg for you. See, as Deputy Director for Bountyhunter, I don't get a whole lot of time to devote to my astronaut training, but I'm qualified for solo flight, and I'd just love to take up one of them F-18s."

"Sorry, Ugo. I missed my lunch date with Laine, but if I step on the gas I might make it back in time for a late dinner. Now, if you'll promise to slop for the red lights, I'll let you drive me back to the airfield."

Ciano grumbled the whole way, but Sam was unmoved. Ugo behind the wheel of a sports car was terrifying. At the controls of a jet he would be a menace to Western civilization.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

TOKYO

Sam left the enormous jetliner feeling relaxed. He had stretched his legs and allowed himself two inflight bourbons in celebration at the beginning of the flight. He wanted to be in top form when he met Goro at the airport. On the flight over, he had wondered whether there really might be a typhoon down there somewhere. However, they had made a typhoonless landing at Narita and he went through the quick, efficient customs process which was much more agreeable than the one that greeted returning Americans. Kuroda was waiting for him outside customs.

"Welcome to Japan, Sam." Kuroda looked Sam up and down. "You don't look a day older than when I last saw you."

"I can say the same for you." It was perfectly true. Goro Kuroda looked exactly the same. He was somewhere in his mid-forties and impeccably dressed. He was of median height, a bit on the tall side for a Japanese, with handsome, rugged, nail-hard features. Despite his western suits and brush-cut hair he always gave Sam the impression of wearing the Samurai's
hakama
and swords and a topknot. Kiroda's chauffeur took Sam's suitcase.

Kuroda's limousine was a late-model car with a dashboard that looked more complicated than the controls of the shuttle simulator Sam had been training on. As he sat back into the luxurious seat, Sam said, "Tell your driver that I'm staying at the Milton."

"No, you aren't," Kuroda said, grinning. "I was afraid you might book yourself into one of those dreadful, western-style hostelries, so I took the liberty of putting you into the Japanese Inn. It's a much better place, you'll love it."

"Sounds good to me." Sam rapped the bullet proof glass of the side window. "Problems?"

Kuroda's grin disappeared. "Terrorists are everywhere these days. This is a precaution we take for all our top executives and their families, especially for our representatives abroad, but here, too. My own younger brother handles our corporation's affairs in France. Two years ago a kidnap attempt was tried. He was saved by his bodyguards and his armored limousine, but one bodyguard was killed. We never even found out which group it was, but there are so many that nobody can keep track of them all."

The drive from Narita to downtown Tokyo took over an hour. Kuroda, however, was far too polite to press Sam about his reasons for coming to Japan until he was rested. Mostly, they reminisced about their earlier times together. Sam had told Ugo a hair-raising story about how he had once saved Kuroda's life in Singapore during a joint U.S.-Japanese operation involving cutthroat industrial espionage, Chinese Triads, Japanese
yakuza
, Mafiosi and all manner of other dramatic trappings. It had been a fine story but it was an utter fabrication.

Actually, the two had met a dozen years previously in Dusseldorf, and what had brought them together was not espionage, but judo, which Sam was practicing passionately in those days. He had taken up the sport as a boy, and in his early days with the Agency it had served as a fine cover, since there were judo meets going on all over the world all the time. Sam had been stationed in Dusseldorf, and Kuroda's business had taken him there for several years, as Uchu Kogyo had their European headquarters in that city. They had met in a local judo club.

Kuroda, in his early thirties then, was a
yondan
or fourth degree black belt. Sam, in his mid-twenties, was preparing to take the promotional test for his
nidan
, the second-degree black belt. They took an immediate liking to each other and became fast friends, practicing judo almost daily, when their schedules permitted. Kuroda was amazed at Sam's athletic abilities and his most un-occidental capacity to internalize the subtle principles of judo. Sam found Kuroda to be a great teacher who made even the most difficult principles easy to learn and enjoyable to practice.

When Sam took the
nidan
promotional, Goro sat as one of the judges. Although Sam passed with flying colors Goro did not consider him to be anywhere near fully accomplished yet. Now it was time to put the polish on his training. First, he taught Sam the Tomiki system of aikido, developed by the late Professor Tomiki of Waseda University, who had studied under both Professor Kano and Master Uyeshiba. Tomiki had developed a system of aikido which was both realistic and scientific in its training method and elegantly simple in its principles. Sam made his first black belt in record time. Then Goro decided that he was ready lot some really serious training. He taught Sam a truly devastating combat version of judo which, in later years, saved his life on more than one occasion. One of those techniques was used on the Bulgarian in the Washington parking garage.

Between throw-and-bruise sessions, they had partied all over Europe on weekends. At that time Sam was posing as a clerical employee of the American consulate. Kuroda, who was nothing if not astute, had quickly divined Sam's real profession. He said nothing about it at the time, but years later he had occasion to call on his friend's peculiar expertise, and Sam had risen to the occasion.

It was nearly dusk when the limousine pulled up at the exclusive Japanese Inn. The entrance looked lather modest, but Kuroda led him into a world that left noisy, flashy Tokyo far behind. Inside, he found himself in a Japan of an earlier, more gracious time. Leave it to Goro to know about something like this in the middle of Tokyo. Kuroda was firing some rapid-fire Japanese at the staff, then he turned to Sam. "I'll leave you in the capable hands of these people, Taggart-san. I'll return in a couple of hours after you've had a chance to relax and refresh a bit. Then, if you feel up to it, we might have an informal dinner here. The Inn is famed for its classic cuisine."

"I am looking forward to it."

Sam removed his shoes at the entrance hall as custom dictated, and stepped onto an elevated floor of highly polished wood where a pair of slippers were laid out for him. He was led past several turns of passageway and was shown to a room detached from the main part of the Inn but connected to it by a corridor of polished wood. Except for such amenities as glass, electricity and plumbing, the Inn might have been lifted unchanged from eighteenth-century Japan.

The room was tatami-matted in traditional style. Two sides of the room had large, paper-screened sliding doors opening onto several feet of wooden floor, at the edge of the which were glass-paneled sliding doors. Intrigued, Sam slid back the glass doors. He found that the detached room was an island in an exquisitely designed Japanese garden. Pebbles covered the ground next to the elevated wooden floor of the building and stepping stones led to a pond full of large, rainbow-hued carp. A miniature bridge crossed the pond and the path disappeared into a small mound. Trees and shrubs had been carefully planted to give an impression of naturalness. The entire garden was delicately crafted to give the illusion of a self-contained cosmos. As the sky darkened, Sam heard the chirping of crickets. It seemed impossible that he was in the middle of downtown Tokyo.

For the first time in years, Sam felt like dropping his perpetual guard. He only wished that Laine were here to share this meditative tranquility. He made a vow to return with her when this was all over.

As he came back into the room, a girl in her early twenties entered carrying a tray. On the tray were steaming Japanese tea and a small, porcelain plate containing two pieces of a jello-like Japanese cake called
yokan
. Sam thanked her, setting off a gale of giggles that would have seemed immature in a young Western woman, but which here sounded good-humored and polite. She bowed and left the room.

There was a private bath adjacent to the room, its oversized tub already filled with steaming water. Sam was familiar with Japanese baths, in which the tub was strictly for soaking. He soaped up and rinsed off with hot water in the tiled area outside the tub. Only after the suds were thoroughly rinsed off did he lower himself into the tub, which was large enough to accommodate him and a couple of girls without any forced intimacy. He sighed deeply. Where had Western culture gone wrong?

For the first time in months, Sam checked out his latest set of battle scars. They were fading in among the others, now, and the wounds no longer pained him. At least, no worse than other, earlier wounds. This, he knew, would have to be his last field job. Luck had saved him too many times lately, and you couldn't count on luck. But what would he do? Leave the agency, for one thing. Damned if he'd take a desk job. But what then? Then he remembered that he and the rest of humanity might not have a whole lot of future to worry about anyway. He decided to postpone midlife crisis for the duration of the emergency. That felt much better.

Shaved, cologned, powdered and thoroughly refreshed, Sam put on a cotton after-bath kimono which he remembered was called a
yukata
and returned to his room. He sat on a large, silk-covered cushion equipped with a recliner back on which he leaned comfortably. He found that he was in perfect proximity to a low service table on which was centered a tall, cold glass of Kirin beer. He could not have sworn to it, but it looked as if the beads of condensation on the glass had been placed there with exquisite care by the same artisan who had designed the garden. It almost seemed an act of vandalism to drink it, but he did anyway. Perfectly on cue, the giggly girl arrived just as he set down the empty glass. She announced the arrival of his dinner guest.

Kuroda stepped in with his familiar wide grin. He declined to sit in the place of honor in front of the alcove. Sam pressed politely. Eventually, they compromised by sitting with the alcove between them. This had been the intention all along, but the formalities had to be observed.

The informal dinner turned out to be an eighteen-course banquet. "Goro, explain something that's been bothering me for years: How did a nation with such warlike tradition make an art form out of relaxation?"

Kuroda picked up a shallow, saucer-like cup of sake. "We have had many centuries to study both fighting and relaxation, and to refine each, particularly the latter. You people have been too busy being frontiersmen." He put down the cup. "Now, of course, we may all be frontiersmen again. I mean the United States and Japan and Western Europe. The next few centuries may see the greatest mass exodus of humanity since the opening of the New World, and the expansion into Siberia and southern Africa."

This was getting a little too close to Sam's actual business here, and he didn't want to discuss it just yet. "How's the family doing, Goro? Is Miyoko all right?" Sam knew that Kuroda's wife had died shortly after bearing him two children, and that he had never remarried. Sam had more reason than most to know just how devoted Kuroda was to his children.

"She is perfectly recovered. She graduated from Ochanomizu and is now doing graduate work in geophysics at the University of Tokyo." He grinned again. "I sent her to stay with her grandparents for a year. In the States, you turn your children over to a psychiatrist after a traumatic experience. We send them back to the family."

"I can't imagine that she needed much recovery time. That girl is pure samurai. And your son?"

"He took his degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology and is now an engineer with Toshiba's Space Division." They spent the rest of the long, leisurely dinner in casual talk. When the plates were cleared away and the waitresses gone Goro got up and opened all the paper-screened doors. He left them ajar, which Sam knew to be a security precaution. Kuroda was following his ancestor's practice for a secret conference.

Goro reseated himself. "And now, Sam, I think it is time we spoke of your reason for coming here. Much as we enjoy each other's company, this is not a casual visit. I believe we can talk freely now. I have used this place for confidential meetings in the past."

"Goro, recently you or somebody in your company were approached concerning a zero-gravity separation system for water. I believe a bribe was mentioned."

Kuroda's expression did not change, but his eyes narrowed slightly. "That is so. The bribe was, of course, refused."

"I just learned about it. That attempt was made by a colleague of mine who is renowned for his tactlessness even in the States."

"Like most people in the space program, I know Dr. Ciano by reputation. He exceeds all expectations. How did you come to be involved with him?"

Sam poured sake for both of them. "Get comfortable, Goro, I have a long story for you." As soon as he had heard Goro's name mentioned in connection with the crucial separator, Sam had resolved to tell him the whole story with perfect honesty. It was a course his superiors never would have understood.

At the end of the recitation Goro sat stone sober despite several empty sake bottles. "Much trouble and embarrassment might have been spared if I had known that you were involved in this, Sam."

"Likewise. I'm afraid that the people I work for would never think of full truth and honest action when they see a chance for bribery or coercion."

"Then it remains for men of honor to correct their mistakes." Goro thought for a moment. "Your story does not sound as far-fetched to me as it might to those unacquainted with the possibilities for exploitation of the solar system. And, too, I have a certain Japanese bias. I can easily believe this of the Soviets. There have been whole decades when you Americans have persuaded yourselves that they were your friends. We have never confused a wartime alliance or a temporary relaxation with goodwill. They have threatened us since the days of the Tsars and I do not see that changing. If this Project Ivan the Terrible is aimed at you, it is aimed at us as well. I need hardly point out that this nation is enormously vulnerable to an ocean strike."

"I'm no scientist, Goro, but people I trust assure me that we can build our first interplanetary ship in about a year if we can have your water separation system. To do it on our own would take at least two years, but more likely three. That may be too late. We have to stop them now. We know that you're not interested in money for the system. Would you let us have it as a personal favor to me?"