"Point accepted," said Fitzduane. "Kilmara said much the same thing. He can make connections on the security side — the man has pipelines everywhere — but he says that's not enough. I'm going to need some extra weight over there." He paused before continuing. "Someone we are certain is not allied in any way to the Namakas."
de Guevain could see the problem. Japan was a pyramid. Its base was broad, but at the top of an extremely hierarchical society a small number of people and organizations constituted the main movers and shakers. And many of this ruling group were cross-connected. Some of the alliances were known, but many were not. Japan could not be considered an open society.
"Yoshokawa," said de Guevain. "He's the obvious choice."
"He's my only choice," said Fitzduane grimly. "I have a few other connections in Japan, but they are all expatriates. Yoshokawa-san is my only option, but whether he is connected to the Namakas or not, I don't know."
"I see the problem, Hugo," said de Guevain. "I'm going back to Paris in a couple of days, so I'll put out a few feelers. But my guess is that Yoshokawa is your man. He owes you. You saved his son's life."
"Yoshokawa would not betray me," said Fitzduane, with some force, "but there is the matter of conflicting loyalties. If he's already in bed with the Namakas , he's going to sit on the sidelines, which may be all very honorable but will be no use to me."
de Guevain laughed. "I'll check out a few sets of entrails," he said, "and talk to a few friends, but my guess is that Yoshokawa is your man."
The conversation came to an end, and Fitzduane replaced the phone handset and watched the red encryption light wink out.
He lay back against the pillows of his raised bed, closed his eyes, and thought of his baby son and his home and the comfort of good friends like Kilmara and de Guevain and the Bear. Life, one way and another, was a hard and random business, but all in all he considered he was a lucky man. Being shot, of course, was not so lucky, but overall he liked to believe things balanced out.
de Guevain had called from the Great Hall of Fitzduane's castle, and as he thought about his home and felt more than a few pangs of homesickness mixed with impatience to get out of the damned hospital, he recalled how he had met Yoshokawa-san.
The Japanese industrialist had made quite an entrance.
The core of Fitzduane's castle was a rectangular stone tower known as the Keep, built by the first Sir Hugo Fitzduane in the thirteenth century. Subsequently, among other improvements, the Keep had been extended by building out to one side where the site overlooked the sea.
Unfortunately, the entire extension, known as the Great House, had been gutted by fire during the Hangman's siege. At first Fitzduane had thought of restoring it very much as it had been originally. He had grown up in Duncleeve, and its physical fabric and traditions were important to him.
He was attached to age-blackened wooden beams, oak paneling, tapestries, family portraits, crossed weapons, and mounted animal trophies with glass eyes and mange, but he was blessed with an open mind. As his ideas developed, he decided to preserve the traditional look of the exterior of the Great House so that it harmonized with the Keep, the curtain wall and its outhouses, and the gatehouse, but inside to make the rooms light and airy and uncluttered.
The general tendency of his social class to live in dusty, wood-wormed cocoons of architectural tradition and dry rot was not necessarily to their advantage, he thought. His peers tended to ossify in harmony with their museumlike surroundings.
Above all, he wanted to open the Great Hall — the magnificent open space on the top floor and the center of social activity over the centuries — to overlook the sea. It was a vista Fitzduane found endlessly fascinating, given the unusual light in the West of Ireland, but it lost quite a lot of appeal when your main visual access was confined to arrow slits designed for five foot high Norman crossbowmen — and you were six foot two. But he was far from sure how to implement this vision.
He was sitting on the chilly bronze of a cannon in the courtyard pondering this dilemma, when Yoshokawa arrived. Yoshokawa-san was the chairman of Yoshokawa Electrical, the Japanese electronics and consumer-goods conglomerate founded by his grandfather.
Hideo Yoshokawa's son, Aki, had been one of those saved by Fitzduane in the Hangman episode, and though the father had already expressed his thanks, he now had arrived in person to pay his respects and to tour the battlefield.
Four weeks later, Yoshokawa-san's personal architect and a supporting team arrived to make a site assessment. Two months after that, Yoshokawa-san himself arrived with a scale model.
Ten months later, the specially-flown-in team of Japanese craftsmen had completed the work, gotten seriously drunk on Guinness and Irish whiskey at a special dinner in the new Great Hall, and had vanished — and Fitzduane was left to gaze with considerable pleasure and not a little awe at the result.
He would wait until Christian de Guevain reported back, but his instincts said that his friend was right.
Yoshokawa-san could be trusted.
* * * * *
Tokyo, Japan
February 8
Sitting in his office in the NamakaTower, Fumio studied the discussion document prepared by Goto-san, the group's controller.
It was a masterly piece of work. The Namaka holdings were structured in the form of a keiretsu, the complex corporate structure favored by major Japanese groups. Goto had reduced the financial figures of scores of interlocking Namaka companies so that the bottom line reflected cash flow — and nothing else.
The figures reflected a simple truth. While showing paper profits, the Namaka keiretsu was hemorrhaging cash. A graph clearly demonstrated the moment of truth. The group would crash like a row of dominoes in less than a year unless there was a major cash injection.
Goto had been the first professionally qualified man that the Namaka brothers had hired. He had worked as controller of one of the major car manufacturers until a most ingenious fraud had come to light. To save face all around, he had resigned gracefully to live on his recently acquired riches, but then Fumio had tempted him out of his decidedly premature retirement. Goto had been recommended by Hodama. The kuromaku had a nose for talent.
The seriousness of the situation had been known for some time, but with Hodama alive Fumio had not been unduly worried. The kuromaku could always come up with a friendly bank. His influence with the Ministry of Finance was legendary. A word or two in the right ear, a little administrative guidance with a few remarks about the national interest...
It had been done before. It was how the system worked. It was why the climate of support that the Namaka keiretsu had enjoyed for so long seemed to have evaporated.
Nothing was said. Nothing specific that they were all aware of was done — and yet suddenly there was a chill everywhere. It was as if someone or some group of great power and influence was actively working against them. And yet every effort to determine who was responsible had come up with nothing.
In the past, they would automatically have turned to Hodama-sensei. Efforts to find a replacement had so far failed. A long and intimate relationship was the basis of working with a kuromaku. Difficult and complex things needed to be done. The law had to be treated ‘flexibly.’ Trust was essential if prosecution was to be avoided. It was not the sort of thing you could set up overnight. All the politicians were locked into their own particular factions by obligations generated over the years. And there were very few, if any, other people of Hodama-sensei's caliber.