Rules of the Hunt (32 page)
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.
*
*
*
*
*
February 8
Sitting in his office in 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.
Goto spoke with the freedom that came from a long and trusted association.
Also, he and Fumio were close personal
friends.
Nonetheless, they still
addressed each other with some formality.
"There is a certain irony to our situation, Namaka-
san
," said Goto.
"Our illegal activities have remained
consistently profitable.
It is our
entirely legal expansion that is creating these difficulties.
First we invested in the dollar and that went
through the floor; then we had a flyer on gold, and that, which had always gone
up, now seems to be going nowhere; and finally, we bought and expanded Namaka
Steel.
It is the steel plant that really
lies at the root of our problems.
There
is now overcapacity worldwide.
And as to our investment in the Special Steels facility — that has
been the last straw."
Fumio sighed.
He adored his big
brother, and Namaka Steel was Kei's passion.
It made him feel like a proper industrialist.
And as for the investment in the new Special
Steels facility, that had been made as a result of a strategic decision by
MITI, the supposedly infallible Ministry of International Trade and
Industry.
MITI had devised a plan to
take over the international aerospace industry in the 1970s, and Namaka Special
Steels had been a key element in that plan.
The project had enjoyed massive prestige.
Encouraging speeches had been made by a
series of ministers and other politicians.
The plan had gone precisely nowhere.
There had been some modest progress, but for all practical purposes, the
Americans still owned the skies — with the Europeans, supposedly in decadent
decline, in a healthy second place.
It
was frustrating for MITI, but it was disastrous for Namaka.
A few defense contracts helped in the short
term, but nothing would substitute for a major breakthrough.
That breakthrough was no longer possible in the time available through
normal legal commercial trading.
The only chance that either Fumio or Goto could see lay with the
sale of some of the more esoteric products of Namaka Special Steels.
Project Tsunami, the production of
nuclear-weapons-plant equipment for the North Koreans, was illegal — absolutely
against the laws of
With Hodama dead, the North Korean weapons project was now fundamental to
the Namaka
keiretsu
's survival.
It was that simple.
"I don't think we will trouble the chairman with these
figures," said Fumio.
"He had
other things on his mind."
Goto nodded in agreement.
An
untroubled Kei Namaka was important.
As
chairman, his confident dynamism was of enormous help with the major
institutions.
It would not do to trouble
him with unpleasant details.
Anyway, Kei
had enough trouble just reading martial arts
manga
, the adult comics.
Balance sheets and cash flow forecasts were beyond him.
Goto had never been a traditional
yakuza
,
so the issue of the full-body tattoo had not arisen.
However, early on in his life he had
discovered a simple truth which he had tattooed in Japanese characters —
kanji
— across his torso.
The modest design was attractive, but it was
designed for Goto's use principally; it could be read
only
in
a mirror.
The elegant tattooed characters read:
CASH IS KING.
*
*
*
*
*
The West of
February 17
Kilmara drove the Land-Rover slowly down the unpaved track toward the
beach.
They reached a grassy area at the bottom and parked.
Ahead of them, a short steep path wound its
way through rocks to the sand and sea below.
Against a backdrop of mountains, the beach seemed to curve endlessly.
They left the car.
The day before, winds of up to eighty miles an hour had been
blowing.
Now the breeze off the
almost gentle.
The same was firm nearer the waterline and made for easy walking.
From time to time they stopped to look at
driftwood thrown up by the storm or an unusual stones or shells.
Clouds scudded overhead and the sun darted in
and out.
The air, though chill, was
invigorating.
Kilmara stopped and looked back.
They had walked for perhaps half a mile in companionable silence, and
their footsteps could be seen stretching back to the rocks below where the car
was parked.
Theirs were the only
footsteps to be seen.
He turned around,
and ahead of them the beach was unmarked and empty.
"I've been to half the countries in the world," he said with
feeling, "and I have seen amazing sights and the most beautiful scenery,
but, somehow, nowhere compares to
This country gets into your soul and it
touches you and that's it — you're hooked, you're marked for life.
If you leave, there is always a bit of you
that yearns to be back in
There is something in the fabric of this land
that is unique.
And the most beautiful
part of this land is the West."
Kathleen looked at him, a little surprised.
She had not expected Kilmara to have the soul
of a romantic.
In most of her dealings
with him he had been an authority figure, dominating — a little frightening
even — in his uniform and so often in the company of his armed Rangers.
Now, alone with her and in civilian clothes, he seemed more accessible,
easier to talk to, and more like a normal person.
There was less of the General and more of the
man.
He was someone, perhaps, who could
be a friend.
"The romantic General," she said with a smile.
"Another romantic we both know said
something rather similar."
Kilmara laughed.
"I'm a
part-time romantic," he said.
"Very part-time.
My nature is to be practical, to see the world the way it is without the
expectation that I can change it.
Hugo
is the real thing.
Even worse, he is a
romantic and an idealist.
He believes
things can and will get better, and in such notions as honor and duty and
fidelity.
That's what gets him into so
much trouble.
Yet I envy him his
nature.
He can be a lethal son of a
bitch, but in essence, he is a good man."
"And you're not?" said Kathleen.
Kilmara took his time answering.
He was thinking of Sasada, of drugs and sensory deprivation, of other
terrible techniques; of what they had done to the man to make him talk.
The man now slobbered and grunted and could no longer control his
bowels.
He was permanently insane.
"No," he said heavily.
"My world demands other qualities, and it
appear
that I may have them.
But goodness is
not high on the list."
Kathleen had the sense that he was referring to something specific, and
she shuddered.
His was a fearful world
and he had spent a lifetime in it.
Violence was a perversion of all civilized values.
How could one be exposed to such a culture of
destruction and remain unaffected?
And
yet she was being unfair.
Violence was a
reality, and the relative peace that most people enjoyed depended on such men
as her companion.
Without people such as
the Bear and Kilmara, she reminded herself, she would now be dead.
