The Samurai Strategy Part 69

"Does a bear c.r.a.p in the woods?" he inquired rhetorically, then tipped back his head and drained the champagne gla.s.s.

"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, locking in a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into the clouds."

"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S&P 500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairy for me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavy leverage. No risk."

I concurred. "Nothing too abstruse."

"The thing of it is, I'm more comfortable dealing with reality," he went on. "I like to kick the tires, check under the hood, so that index c.r.a.p's not my style. Like I always say, if you've got hold of something you can't figure out how to drink, drive, or screw, maybe you oughta ask yourself what you're doing with it."

A pragmatic criterion, I agreed. 'Though it's rather a pity you didn't cut me in on the play. I could have used the money."

"Walton," he replied, "it downright pains me to have to be the one breakin' the news to you, but you could have used the money more than you think. Whose bank balances do you figure I've been using to test out that platinum program?"

"In the spirit of intellectual curiosity, Jim Bob, does our new system for blowing capital show promise?"

"From the looks of my early churning, I'd say you got yourself a winner."

The f.u.c.ker. How in h.e.l.l did he get access to my money? I decided to just ask, whereupon he obligingly explained.

"Well, we're hooked into every bank computer in town." He was unblinking, a drugged-out zombie. "Account numbers aren't exactly a state secret, given the right phone call. Same goes for trust funds."

Trust funds?

"Let me be sure I've got this straight. You've also wiped out my daughter Amy's college money? She's now penniless too?"

"We're close, real close." He reached down and retrieved the bottle, then sloshed more of the cheap bubbly into his gla.s.s. "I'm figuring I can have everything down to a goose egg by sometime round about . . .

lunch, probably."

I decided then and there I was going to kill him, and Matsuo Noda, with my own bare hands. The only question was whether to do it at that moment or later.

"Jim Bob, for the record, you two've just f.u.c.ked with the wrong guy.

When somebody starts messing with Amy's future, I tend to lose my sense of proportion."

"Nothing personal, Walton. You just had to be stopped, that's all." He grinned. "Figured it'd get your attention. Besides, way I see it, this man here's absolutely right. He's got the only answer that makes any sense."

"As long as sellout artists like you get rich in the process."

"It's in the grand American tradition, buddy. Enlightened self- interest, better known as looking out for number one. Everybody else here's hocking this country's a.s.sets to j.a.pan and gettin' rich doing it. So why not? Besides, we've still got a ways to go. Time to give you-all a piece of this thing too."

"If we play ball?"

"Exactly."

"You greedy p.r.i.c.k." I was considering just strangling him on the spot, nice and uncomplicated. "Noda's not here for anybody but himself. He's-- "

"That's not the way I see it." He glanced over toward The Man, who was still silent as a sphinx.

"You wouldn't have the brains to understand even if we told you. But maybe there's something you can comprehend." I glanced at the metal grip of the Uzi on Noda's desk. One lightning move and it was in my hand. "I'm not going to let you do this."

"It's already done, pal." He lifted his own Uzi and leveled it at my forehead, grinning, his little idea of a joke. "I've got that NEC mainframe out there programmed for weeks of trading. Billions . . .

Pow!" He jerked the barrel upward, then continued, "Way I've got it rigged, ain't n.o.body can turn it off now. We'd just as well all go fis.h.i.+ng."

"Jim Bob, take care with that gun. Somebody might just decide to ram it down your scrawny throat."

"Ain't gonna be you, buddy." He reached for the champagne bottle again, no longer grinning.

"Mr. Walton." Finally Noda spoke again. "I a.s.sure you this is for the best. What you two were planning was very ill-considered. Not to mention that, if I'd actually permitted you to sink Dai Nippon's capital into some volatile commodity and then manipulate the markets, you might have given our inst.i.tutional investors an enormous loss of confidence in my program. I have a responsibility to make sure that never happens." He studied Tam. "Dr. Richardson, you especially disappointed me. You betrayed my trust, something I always find unforgivable."

"You betrayed my trust." She looked ready to explode. "Lied to me, exploited me, used me. You perverted everything I had planned--"

"As I've explained, this had become necessary. There was no other way."

"How about Ken, and probably Allan Stern?" she interrupted. "Was taking their lives 'necessary' too?"

"You have no proof of that," he continued smoothly. "I would further suggest that too much speculation is not a healthy pursuit, Dr.

Richardson. In the marketplace or in life."

"I'm not speculating."

"As you wish. In any case I think we both realize it is never prudent to meddle in matters beyond one's concern."

"There's a small detail you may have overlooked, Noda-san," I broke in.

"That bogus sword. What are you planning to do when we blow the whistle?"

"My timetable for Nipponica is now proceeding on schedule, Mr. Walton."

He glanced at the Uzi on the desk, his voice ice. "Consequently you are expendable as of this moment."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

_If the swordsman casts aside two thoughts, life and death, nothing can defeat his mind.

_That was the credo of the formidable warrior-samurai Bokuden, who lived during the early seventeenth century. Focus on Noda, I told myself, not on staying alive. What we had to do was overcome him and the money of j.a.pan by the power of mind. By beating him at his own game. That was the only way we could win.

As I saw it, we might actually have the advantage. We knew his strategy, so all we had to do now was move inside his defense perimeter. In a way we were even closer than he realized. Noda was obsessed with Nipponica, and a samurai concentrating on his sword is not able to attack. The thing to remember was rhythm, the beat. We had to get out of sync with him, disrupt his pacing.

When Tam and I retreated to my office, I noticed that my _katana _was missing. No surprise, but it didn't really matter. We would be using the "no sword" technique anyway, moving under his hilt, then going in for the kill. Jim Bob would be our new weapon.

At the moment Noda's new hatchet man was strolling around the floor in his dingy white suit, toting his Uzi and monitoring us with an occasional vacant stare as he watched the terminal's flash. His b.u.mpkin facade, incidentally, had to be the best acting job I'd seen since the Royal Shakespeare. He may have been a s.p.a.ced-out options hustler at heart, but he could coach Machiavelli on duplicity. A worthy opponent.

"Just hit nine percent of IBM." He glanced at a CRT screen as he ambled down the row next to my office, swinging the automatic. "Telephone looks good for twelve percent by

opening bell tomorrow. Good thing we've got a computer and these fake accounts. Otherwise we might have to cut the SEC in on the news a little too early."