The Nicholas Linnear Novels (194 page)

Nangi knew that neither he nor Nicholas could successfully fight the tanjian alone. They needed each other, but the tanjian’s strategy,
Shiro Ninja,
had torn them apart: Nicholas was useless to Nangi in his current state. And, with each passing hour, the threat of Sphynx was growing.

At that moment, Tomi looked up, startled. “Commander Omukae!”

Senjin, who had come to drop off several files with her on his way out of the office, bowed stiffly, almost formally. He repeated the process when Tomi introduced him to Nangi.

“These dossiers require your immediate attention,” Senjin said to Tomi. “Please have your comments ready by the morning’s meeting.”

Nangi, watching the two of them, saw in their interaction layers like nacre on the inside of a pearl’s shell. He saw in Senjin Omukae a diffidence he found odd in a Metropolitan Police division commander. Too, there was a disturbing lack of
hara,
of intrinsic energy within the man. It seemed to Nangi almost as if Omukae were deliberately masking some essential part of himself.

But for the moment, Nangi was more concerned with Tomi. There was no doubt that the abrupt, chaotic splintering of her own spirit was caused by Omukae’s presence. It occurred to Nangi then that the two were hiding something—perhaps a romantic entanglement. This forbidden possibility would explain both of their extreme subsurface reactions.

Senjin politely said goodbye. When he had left, Tomi said, “What are you thinking?”

It took a moment for Nangi to get back on the track they had been pursuing. Interesting, he thought. Obviously Omukae has had an effect on me as well.

With an effort, he redirected his mind back to Nicholas and the tanjian. “The murders of the doctors have more questions hanging over them than there are answers,” he said. “For instance, it seems clear that Dr. Hanami was killed in order to get Nicholas back to that office. But why was Dr. Muku murdered? Where does he fit in?”

“Perhaps he overheard the first murder being committed, or—”

“Did the two doctors know one another or have any patients in common?”

“Several,” Tomi said. “Apparently, Hanami referred a number of his patients to Muku for psychological counseling before and after surgery. But there’s nothing there. I checked them all out myself.”

“Then it would be safe to assume that the tanjian is the link between them. He knew them both.”

“Or,” Tomi said, “the tanjian knew only Dr. Muku. After all, if he was after Mr. Linnear, he would have little difficulty in finding out that Dr. Hanami was Mr. Linnear’s surgeon.”

“Too much talk,” Nangi said, rising. “Too much speculation. Right now there’s nothing solid to go on. Therefore, we’ve got to find something solid.”

“If this tanjian is only half as clever as you claim,” Tomi said, “he’ll have already erased every trace of himself.”

“Perhaps,” Nangi said. “But I think it’s time we discovered just how clever he’s been.”

Shisei did not want to leave Cotton Branding, but she was used to being in chains, and, dutifully, she obeyed. It would have been unthinkable not to comply. Suffering was nothing new to her. On the contrary, suffering had been her constant companion ever since she could remember, as basic a part of her life as breathing or eating.

She contrived a story concerning her work. She did not want to suggest that he accompany her back to Washington. It would be far better for their relationship, she knew, if he came upon that idea on his own.

So it was that when she returned to their table at the Lobster Roll, the open-air restaurant in Napeague where they were having lunch, and sat down opposite Branding, her features had taken on the aspect of worry coupled with a newfound concentration.

Her frown was enough to compel him to say, “Is something the matter?”

“My office wants me back in Washington.”

“When?”

She was careful not to look at him. “Tomorrow—at the latest.”

She allowed the silence to spread like a stain upon the afternoon. She picked at her fried clams. In truth, she had little appetite. But she was also glad of it, because she knew that Branding would see. He noticed everything about her. He followed her moods as others studied the phases of the moon, with a rapt concentration she sometimes found frightening.

Her fright stemmed not—as it would in others in her position—from the degree of attention he accorded her. She was accustomed, one could even accurately say most comfortable, with radical extremes both in emotional makeup and in psychological need. The basis of her fright was the degree that she had come to rely on his involvement in her. She could not quite believe in its reality, therefore her addiction to it was altogether dangerous. Hung up on an illusion, Shisei felt weak, vulnerable. This was what she had for so many years been trained to do to others. Tables turning. The sensation of inhabiting an inside-out world was eerie, disturbing.

Branding finished off his beer, said, “Aren’t you hungry?”

She smiled, pushed her plate across the table. “Here. You eat them.”

Her eyes followed the orbits of his hands, watching his fingers move as he picked up one curlicue of fried clam after another. Shisei propped her head up on her fists. “I love to watch you eat,” she said.

“You do?” He seemed surprised, as if no one had ever said such a thing to him before. “Why?”

“Eating is primitive,” she said. “Like fucking. Do you know how much you can tell about a person by the way they eat? It’s like seeing a film of their childhood, how they were brought up.”

“Oh, yeah?” He was clearly skeptical. “And how was I brought up?”

“You loved your mother,” she said. “I imagine that she ate just the way you do, with precise, pleasurable bites. Your father was either indifferent about food or liked drink more.”

Branding felt a tiny ball of ice congeal in his lower belly. Immediately he stopped eating, and Shisei laughed. “You look like you’re being scrutinized by a psychiatrist,” she said.

“Anything more?” he said tightly.

“Mmm, yes.” Shisei went on as if she weren’t aware of his tension. “You have at least two brothers or sisters. I know that not only because you like to share, but also because of the manner in which you share. You must have been the oldest child.”

“I was,” he said, staring at her. “And everything else you said is more or less true.”

She smiled. “I never fail.”

“You’re not psychic?”

She heard the faint interrogative inflection. “No,” she said, because that was what he wanted to hear. “Just a keen observer of the human condition.”

“Well.” He wiped his lips with a paper napkin to give him time to recover. “Now you know a good deal more about me than I do about you.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true. I don’t know one secret of yours, but you know my only secret.” He knew that she was speaking of the gigantic spider spread upon her back. It was hard, seeing her in clothes, to believe that the tattoo was actually there, pigmenting her skin in many hues.

“But I know nothing about it, or how you got it.”

“It’s time to leave,” she said quickly, slipping her gaze away from his.

“Shisei.” He put his hand over hers, staying her. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

“Cook.” She turned her hand over, pressed her palm into his. “Nothing you could do could upset me.” She looked into his eyes, as if studying something there only she could see. “If you want, I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “When I return from Washington.”

Branding did not want to wait an indefinite amount of time. In fact, he found that he did not want to wait at all. “When will that be?”

Her silence gave him the answer he had been dreading. “I have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t I cut my vacation short? I’m getting restless. Besides, it would do me good to get back. The people at the Johnson Institute have been clamoring for me to see their new advances on the Hive Project. There are some bills that need my attention. And there’s a State dinner for the West German chancellor at the end of the month. It’s one of the most important of the endless political affairs that keeps Washington spinning on its axis of power.”

“But what about Senator Howe? You said that he might somehow use our relationship against you.”

Branding, leaning across the table, put a forefinger against her lips. “Leave Senator Howe to me,” he said.

Shisei, relaxing inwardly as well as outwardly, smiled.

Tanzan Nangi had listened to the recording he had clandestinely made of his conversation with Kusunda Ikusa at the Shakushi
furo
so many times he knew every word, every subtle intonation by heart. As he stood in the rain, at the edge of Ueno Park, waiting for Ikusa to arrive, he played it yet again in his mind.

He had come to the park several minutes early in order to reacquaint himself with the curving paths, the bowing cherry trees, the ordered rows of azalea and dwarf rhododendron, so that he could sink in, feel that this was familiar territory. Often, such attention to detail was all the edge he required in an adversarial situation.

He tried to blot out the fact that Kusunda Ikusa was unlike any adversary he had ever faced, and to concentrate on what lay before him. In the intervening days between meetings, Nangi thought he had found a way out of his dilemma. But he also knew that he would have to be clever indeed in order to give himself that slim chance for success.

He saw the bulky figure of Ikusa gliding along the slick sidewalk as effortlessly as if he were a slim man. Nangi spent thirty seconds working on slowing his heartbeat and increasing the depth of his breathing. It was crucial now to have his mind absolutely clear.

The two men bowed, exchanged the ritual greeting that with this man so set Nangi’s teeth on edge. Ikusa had had no real reason to go through this formality a second time except, Nangi thought, if he were using it as another deliberate provocation.

Their umbrellas bobbed in unison as they moved off through the park.

“We can change venues,” Ikusa said amiably, “if you would prefer.”

Nangi did not care for the veiled reference to his disability. He said, “I enjoy the rain. It renews flowers that summer’s heat has beaten down.”

Ikusa nodded as if acknowledging a well-placed return of service on the tennis court.

“I wanted to speak with you about a situation that has arisen since our last discussion,” Nangi said.

“Does it concern the
iteki
Nicholas Linnear?”

Now, as he was about to take his first step upon this dangerous path, Nangi felt his heart skip a beat despite his careful preparations. “Only indirectly,” he said. “Once I have severed our ties with Tomkin Industries, I am going to need help in running the Sphynx computer-chip
kobun.”

“If you’re asking for my advice,” Ikusa said, “close it down.”

“Oh, I would,” Nangi said. If he had been walking through a mine field he could not have been more cautious. “In fact, that was what I had in mind. I felt you had given me no choice.”

“You are quite right in that assessment.”

“Toward that end,” Nangi went on, “I had a final audit begun on the
kobun
’s books. I discovered that this year’s projected revenues are astronomical.”

At this crucial junction Nangi fell silent. A pair of businessmen, as identical as ravens, hurried by, perhaps ruing their decision to take a shortcut through the park.

“What kind of numbers are we talking about?” Kusunda Ikusa asked, a sleek-skinned shark, rising out of the depths to take the bait.

Rain poured off the perimeters of their umbrellas, bouncing against the hard concrete of the path they had chosen. Nangi gave him the number upon which he had previously decided.

Ikusa blew air out of his thick pursed lips. “It would be against sound business principles to close down such a profitable enterprise.”

“That thought occurred to me,” Nangi said humbly. “But what am I to do? Nicholas Linnear’s people have all the expertise. You tell me that I must do without them.” He shrugged. “I have my duty to perform, no matter how odious I might find it.”

Ikusa’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Your confusions of feeling are of no concern to me. But profits are. It would be foolish to terminate the Sphynx
kobun.”

“How, then, am I to proceed?” Nangi asked.

The big man considered the problem for a moment. Nangi could feel the rumbling of his spirit as it sought a solution. He remained quiet, seeking the low ground, where he waited as still and patient as a fox who has sighted its prey.

“This is what I propose,” Kusunda Ikusa said. “Wait until you have hired Tomkin Industries’ key people away from Linnear, then sever the merger. That way you will be able to continue to manufacture this extraordinary chip on your own.”

Nangi arranged his expression to indicate that he was giving this ludicrous idea serious thought. He would no more entertain the idea of betraying his friend than he would of foisting on him the termination of their merger.

“There is merit to what you have suggested,” Nangi said, “but with your permission, I would like to provide an alternative.” He took the other man’s silence as an affirmative. He said, “Leave Linnear and his people in place—for the time being. This alleviates the possibility of bad blood and reprisals in the courts, which could tie up profits from the Sphynx
kobun
for many years.” He let Ikusa digest that before continuing. “Instead, I propose another merger: Sphynx with a
kobun
outside my own
keiretsu,
a company that has the management expertise in chip manufacture. That way their trained personnel can gradually learn the ropes of the T-PRAM process without arousing suspicion.”

“What about Linnear? He can’t possibly let this go by without comment or some kind of protest.”

“When he questions the merger I will simply tell him that with the increased revenue and demand, we’ve got to expand immediately. As long as I assure him that his profit percentage won’t be diluted, he won’t care.”

“I don’t like the idea of Linnear staying on.” Ikusa’s tone was so firm, so belligerent, that for a moment Nangi suspected he had failed. Then Ikusa said, “In order for your proposal to be acceptable, Nami would have to pick the electronics firm. That way we could be certain of the loyalty of those being introduced to its design and manufacture.”