"Nonetheless," said Chifune, "look at the politics. Look at the realignments, the new alliances in the toy box. Look at where the strings lead."
Adachi whistled a few bars of an old Beatles song. The Beatles had been big in Japan and, when still only a kid, he had once gone to see them in the Nippon Budokan. A memorable evening. He was not sure that the present generation of much-hyped midadolescent pop stars could be defined as progress. Most Japanese singers had a short shelf life and seemed to be considered geriatric by the time they were twenty. He had a feeling they were assembled by robots somewhere and were simply replaced when they wore out. Flexible production: cars one day; pop singers the next; computer-controlled, using fuzzy logic. Your every need provided by half a dozen vast corporations and the state — or were business and the state one and the same? It was a frightening thought and not entirely fanciful. Japanese homogeneity was all very well, but like food needed salt, there was a lot to be said for a useful dash of individuality.
Speaking of which: He rolled over onto Chifune and, the weight of his upper body taken by his arms so he could look down at her, entered her. She drew up her knees to bring him deeper and returned his gaze steadily, scarcely moving. Then she reached up and stroked his face before pulling him down to her.
* * * * *
The meeting took place in the twenty-story Tokyo building of the electronics keiretsu. The head office of the group was officially in Osaka, but the chairman and direct descendant of the founder worked out of Tokyo, so the facilities there were lavish.
The first floor was a showroom displaying the latest electronic products. They ranged from voice-activated rice cookers to HDTV — high definition television. A constant stream of visitors came to gaze at this Aladdin's cave of desirable technology. In its way, the whole of the building was a showpiece for the scale and scope of the group.
The twentieth floor housed the chairman's office and other facilities for the board of directors. It was also used to demonstrate the group's expertise in state-of-the-art security products and was, therefore, totally electronically secure.
Twenty-one men sat at a V-shaped conference table. At the open end of the V, a multimedia wall brought data onto the giant screens on demand. A three-person secretariat from the confidential office of the chairman manipulated the computer controls as instructed and performed such other functions as were necessary. Minutes were kept in encrypted form then and there. No other record of the meeting was kept and no member could take notes or remove any records from the room.
The twenty-one men were the ruling council of the secret Gamma Society, which, scattered throughout Japan though heavily concentrated in the capital, was over five thousand strong in all. Members were drawn only from those in senior positions in the Japanese government, business, and academic establishment — and then only after personal recommendations and lengthy vetting.
Each of the twenty-one men in the guarded and sealed conference room wore two lapel pins, that of his work affiliation and that of the Gamma Society itself. The gamma pin was in the form of the Greek letter, and, in the few cases where it had been inadvertently worn outside a meeting, had been associated with Gaia — the environmental movement. The Gamma pin was actually an indirect way of referring to giri, ‘obligation.’ In this case their giri related to their obligations toward the well-being and health of Japanese society and in particular toward the body politic.
The Gamma Society had been set up by a small but influential group who had been concerned with the increasing power of the alliance of organized crime and corrupt politics, in what was otherwise a most successful society in many ways. The founders had initially considered combating the opposition publicly — for instance, by forming a new, clean political party and lobbying for change in some of the structures. They'd soon realized that the forces they were up against were too strongly entrenched. Head-on attacks would be fruitless and could indeed be counterproductive. Instead, they'd decided to work completely behind the scenes and, in the main, through others. It had proved to be a fruitful strategy.
Some of their more notable successes to date had come by applying the principles of martial arts — in particular, the principle of using the strength and momentum of an opponent to defeat himself. The technique's secret lay in applying a small amount of leverage at the right place and the right time.
The photograph of just such a lever was flashed up on the giant central screen. It was of a foreigner, a gaijin, a good-looking man with steel-gray hair worn en brosse, and gentle eyes in a strong, well-proportioned face. He looked to be in his early forties, perhaps younger.
The photo was captioned ‘Hugo Fitzduane.’
One of the gathering, using a laser pointer, commenced the briefing. The dossier was extensive.
12
Fitzduane's Island, Ireland
May 28
After a couple of months at Duncleeve, eating well, resting, exercising, and enjoying the beauty of his island, Fitzduane was starting to feel human again and ready for the next phase. He was looking forward to the arrival of his friend.
Kilmara flew in and landed on the new airstrip that Fitzduane had arranged to have constructed down the center of the island.
The strip was short, but hard-surfaced and well-drained and entirely adequate for both the aircraft the Ranger general was using and the new machine that Fitzduane had purchased. Both were Pilatus Norman Britten Islanders, sturdy aerial workhorses capable of carrying up to nine passengers or over a ton of cargo.
Fitzduane ushered Kilmara into a black-painted Hughes helicopter and they took off immediately, as if leaving a hot landing zone.
"Sometimes it's useful having money," said Fitzduane over the intercom. "I got started on this on my second week in the hospital. Let me give you the rationale and the grand tour. As you'll see, I have made a few changes."
They flew over Fitzduane's castle. Fitzduane pointed. Kilmara could clearly see the saucer shape on top of the gatehouse.
"I like the isolation here," Fitzduane continued, "but this business has made me face up to the fact that being cut off from the world has its downside. You can do nothing today without communications, so I put in a satellite dish and a slew of extra lines. We can now talk to anyone anywhere in the world without fucking with the local exchange. And we can transfer computer data the same way, using high-speed modems.
"Next on the list was the requirement to get people and goods in and out fast. This machine and the Islander now mean we can link up with Dublin in less than two hours. In addition, both aircraft are fitted with FLIR modules and other observation equipment and can retransmit that information in real time to the ground."
The helicopter looped around Duncleeve. Kilmara looked at the FLIR screen as instructed. He could just make out a series of metal posts well spaced apart.
"Microwave fencing, TV cameras, and other similar goodies," said Fitzduane. "Surprisingly affordable technology these days. No system is foolproof, but the castle itself is now almost impossible to approach undetected, and we have radar to keep an eye on the sky."