The Samurai Strategy Part 52

"I also support fully Watanabe-san's insightful summary of the relevant issues." Ikeda spoke up, his honorifics far more polite than necessary, a signal. "_Keredomo _(however) . . . it might possibly be prudent to examine briefly the considerations advanced by those who differ with this wise a.s.sessment in order that we may counter their concerns more thoughtfully."

That was it. Kenji Asano had a head count. Watanabe was against sending MITI personnel. Kitano was waffling. Hiromu Ikeda was foursquare and h.e.l.l-bent in favor of the idea. He had just announced it to the room.

Was Watanabe in league with Noda, willing to give him free rein? Was he one of Noda's operatives inside the ministry? Or was he merely advancing his own ideas, genuinely fearful an influx of MITI personnel into the U.S. could precipitate a severe diplomatic flap?

On the other hand, why was Ikeda so in favor of having MITI move in on Noda? The answer to that was hardly a puzzle. MITI's young prince of ambition, Hiromu Ikeda, scented the possibility of grabbing a part of Matsuo Noda's new American empire for his own. Handled skillfully, it might well catapult him directly to vice minister inside a decade.

"Perhaps it would be useful to review once more the main elements of the situation." Kitano knew he had the middle ground and thus was offering to arbitrate. "The condition of America now is very troubling.

The question is, how can we best aid them, and ourselves. We in j.a.pan realize that a nation's true strength is ultimately not in armaments but in the health of its economy, its industry. Yet the Americans, by making themselves a military state, have paradoxically imperiled their real security. How long can we continue to rely on an ally so blind to the main threat to its own strategic well- being? Matsuo Noda is correct. Our very safety may soon be imperiled. Something must be done.

The only question is how best to proceed."

"_So desu ne_." Watanabe pressed, realizing he would have to force his point. "The Pentagon is, ironically, America's most insidious enemy.

j.a.pan's greatest benefit from America's defense umbrella has not been the billions we've saved on sterile arms; it has been the technical manpower we have free to support compet.i.tive industries. But the price has been the industrial decline of our foremost ally. This cannot, must not, be permitted to continue." He paused. "Matsuo Noda, a man I've known and respected for years, who guided this ministry to greatness, should be allowed to a.s.sist the Americans rebuild their civilian sector unhindered by us. If MITI involves itself at this time, the American government may well grow alarmed and step in to stop him. Then their industrial stagnation will merely accelerate."

"_So deshoo_," Ikeda finally spoke. "I agree. Unfortunately, however, there are some who believe the task Noda-sama has undertaken cannot succeed without direct MITI a.s.sistance. Again it is a matter of our own security. The question has arisen concerning whether we should continue to rely on the Americans to rescue their industrial base una.s.sisted by any formal direction. Of course I disagree with such pessimistic views, but some would say we ourselves must now step forward and a.s.sume global leaders.h.i.+p in technology to prevent a vacuum from developing in the Free World. By taking charge of America's floundering high-tech sector, we could rescue it from continued mismanagement, while--incidentally-- satisfying our own R&D needs in a way that is extremely cost- effective. However, this can only be achieved if we are in a position to provide hands-on guidance. Which means direct MITI involvement." He paused. "These opinions of course are not my own, merely ones I have heard voiced. I am told, though it is difficult to comprehend, that this viewpoint has

been entertained by Nakayama-sama of the Secretariat, and even discussed in his weekly conference with the Parliamentary Vice Minister."

The hand of fate! Asano exulted. Hiromu Ikeda has already done my work for me. He's gone over everybody's head. He swallowed the idea like a carp snapping a hovering dragonfly, then went off and peddled it to the Vice Minister as though it were his own.

A man to watch out for in the future, he thought. But a perfect ally at the moment.

Watanabe said nothing. His ancient face was in shock. Everybody realized the meeting was over. It was clear Ikeda had trampled on consensus and seniority in order to further his own fortunes.

"Watanabe-san, I think we all agree your understanding of the situation is entirely proper," Kenji Asano said soothingly. "But solely in the interest of continued theoretical discussion at some later time, it might be prudent if all sections prepared a contingency list of staff, fluent in English, who would be suitable for rea.s.signment to an American sector."

"It is always wise to cover contingencies, Asano-san," Watanabe said dryly.

None of them realized it, of course, but Hiromu Ikeda's ambition could well turn out to be the salvation of MITI itself. But for now, Asano mused, that was something none of them needed to know.

Looking out the window at the freezing streets below, glimmering from headlights and neon, Kenji Asano told himself that a dangerous game lay ahead. Noda's first gambit had been countered, but there would be more.

What he needed was a preemptive strike.

He had made the plans for that strike, a play of pure, absolute genius.

The catch was, Tamara would have to cooperate.

With that thought he reached down and unlocked the top right-hand drawer of his metal desk, then drew out a large red and blue envelope.

It was air express from a university address in California. As he fingered the stripes along its side, he recalled how it had arrived here at his office at The Inst.i.tute for New Generation Computer Technology while he'd been in Kyoto with Tamara.

Finally he opened it again and slipped out the contents.

Inside was a confidential memo on the old Nippon, Inc. letterhead, unsigned but obviously auth.o.r.ed by Matsuo Noda, a top-security doc.u.ment that had been clocked in at a doc.u.ment station at Tsukuba Science City.

How had Allan Stern stumbled onto this? Had he stolen it? Picked it up by accident? It was in j.a.panese, so how could he have sensed its real import?

American ingenuity, he told himself, defied all understanding. The memo, which outlined the timetable for a ma.s.sive scenario, had been the first step of a long path of discovery leading Kenji Asano to indisputable proof of Matsuo Noda's real objective. Allan Stern must have had this translated or somehow intuitively guessed Noda's plan.

And then . . . Allan Stem had tried to warn MITI. Why? Out of past regard for Dr. Yos.h.i.+da, former head of the Inst.i.tute and a close friend?

Stern reportedly had vanished the same day this envelope was postmarked. Noda had acted, but not swiftly enough.

Who at MITI had been the original recipient of this memo? Maybe, he thought, it no longer mattered. There was only one real way to stop Dai Nippon. . . .

At that moment his phone buzzed. As he punched the b.u.t.ton, his fl.u.s.tered secretary announced that an in-flight call was waiting, channeled through MITI's satellite security link. It was the president of Dai Nippon, International.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tsukuba Science City can be awe-inspiring or a specter, depending on how you choose to look at it. The time was Wednesday morning, and Tam and I were viewing the place through the tinted windows of Matsuo Noda's personal DNI limo, the black Nissan she knew so well. From the vantage of an elevated freeway packed with rows of sleek Hondas and Toyotas sparkling in the cold December suns.h.i.+ne, we could see the silhouettes of cl.u.s.ter after cl.u.s.ter of modernistic concrete towers, an urban complex of a hundred and fifty thousand souls rising above what was, only a few short years ago, mostly farms. Be that as it may, take my word for it that n.o.body's growing radishes there today. Science City, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Tsukuba some fifty kilometers northeast of downtown Tokyo, represents a government investment, including the industrial park once the site of Expo '85, of over thirty billion dollars.

Tsukuba is holy ground, the place of heroes, where kamikazes once trained for their suicide missions against the American fleet. Now it is one of the largest research centers in the world, with almost ten thousand scientists and fifty separate laboratories and scientific inst.i.tutes. As we neared the first complex, I tried to make sense of all the Dali-esque curved buildings that housed j.a.pan's new brain trust. From the outside you can tell something is going on, but it seems secretive and proprietary. It is. The thing I had to keep reminding myself, though, was that none of this was for military boondoggles. It was aimed dead-on at industrial technology. E.g., there's research here on high-energy lasers all right, but they're not intended for zapping some hypothetical Soviet satellite; they're part of the world's largest laser-radar telescope, which can project beams out more than thirty miles to a.n.a.lyze air quality. In short, the work here was applications-oriented, practical, and--get a firm grip on your wallet-- commercial.

Together with Noda and his bodyguard/chauffeur we were headed for the Electrotechnical Inst.i.tute, where he was about to give us our first glimpse of j.a.pan's new high-tech empire. That lab just so happened to be the place where heavy work was underway on applications of the artificial intelligence effort of Kenji Asano's Fifth Generation shop.

It was merely the first stop, however, in an odyssey Noda claimed would take us through the hidden heart of j.a.pan's industrial future.

Noda reported he had spoken with Kenji Asano, who was unfortunately tied up in meetings and couldn't join us until tomorrow. Thus Tam had not yet had her chance to hear his account of MITI's sudden new interest in Dai Nippon's program. All the same, Noda claimed to welcome Ken's arrival.

"Whatever concerns you may have, I'm sure he will be more than happy to address them," declared the president of Dai Nippon.

Tam had tried on her own to reach Ken at his office, without success.

Maybe, I thought to myself, he just didn't want to talk. In any case that quandary remained unresolved.

The way I saw the situation, though, we had enough to deal with merely getting through today. Noda's game was no longer a game. He was going to take us to the top of the mountain, show us the other side, and then . . . what? Whatever it was, that part would have to be handled in due time. For now his intentions seemed to be to drive home a singular point: if you think Dai Nippon has been playing hardball with money, wait till you see j.a.pan's real action. He was going to lay bare the empire, the awesome machine he now had at his command. The payoff of Tsukuba, he explained, was intended to be nothing less than total technological supremacy.

The limo was slowing to a stop in front of an oddly shaped concrete building, brand-new, that covered several acres with cones and hexagons and various geometries. We'd arrived.

"This is the Electrotechnical Inst.i.tute, research center for j.a.pan's Advanced Robot Technology Project." He pointed. The laboratory appeared to be somebody's idea of what architecture would be in the twenty-first century, a sort of j.a.panese s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p splattered across a vast acreage.

"The work underway here and over at the Mechanical Engineering lab is intended to coordinate all government and private research on industrial robots."

He stepped out and motioned for us to join him. Our top- secret tour had begun. As we walked toward the main entryway, he delivered an opening summary.

"Here we have allocated twenty billion yen, about a hundred and fifty million dollars, for an eight-year research program to perfect a range of industrial robots." He continued while we walked past the small gray metallic sign, in both j.a.panese and English, that identified the Inst.i.tute. "It is being closely coordinated with the spin-offs of the Fifth Generation AI work."

I noticed that no guards were posted, though the metal doors were tightly sealed. Noda didn't bother to take out a key as he proceeded.

"The Advanced Robot Technology Project coordinates the research of over twenty corporations as well as R&D at various universities, and this lab is where we integrate all the results of that work."

"You mean different parts or robots are being created at separate research operations, then brought together here?" I probably shouldn't have been surprised by the tight, nationwide coordination. Typical j.a.pan.

"Precisely. Robots have a multiplicity of elements. There are manipulators, the mechanical versions of our hands; then there are the senses of vision and touch; and finally there is movement, locomotion.

Each of these is being developed individually, then combined here. For example, if a robot is to understand voice commands--in effect making its operator a programmer--then it must incorporate the speech recognition work of the Fifth Generation Project, which will supply the eyes, the ears, the brain."

Maybe that's where Asano comes in, I thought. Could it be he's the point man here for artificial intelligence, on board to oversee creating the computerized brains for all these babies. Was he yet another DNI operative, witting or unwitting, just as Tam and I had been?

Noda's lecture was still underway. "The first generation of robots does things by rote, the same motion repeated dumbly over and over again.

What we call the second generation are those with crude sensing abilities, perhaps touch pads or video, though they are still stationary." He placed his hand over a small screen by the door. A light flashed under his palm---presumably allowing a computer somewhere to a.n.a.lyze his handprint--and a second later the door slid open. Then he continued, "The goal of the work here is a third-generation robot. You might almost call it a functional 'android,' since it will be able to move, see, and think much as we do. Whether it will actually look like a human is another matter, but that's not necessarily even a useful objective."

Intelligent monsters in silicon and steel, I found myself thinking. All our fantasies, or nightmares, come to life.