Tokyo Enigma (14 page)

"It'd be a good idea to find out what we can about the
employee who was killed in the traffic accident."

"Yes sir, anything else?"

"Thank you, Yuri." That was a bad note to hang up on, but I
didn't have anything else to say.

I called Lance Allworth and asked him to meet me as soon as
he could. He had his secretary clear a spot for this morning. I assured
him it was important and hoped he'd agree after he heard what I
wanted. We met in a coffee shop instead of his office, so we'd have a
bug-free atmosphere.

"Didn't you advise me to stay out of this?" It looked like he
was trying to suppress a smirk. He wasn't successful.

"At the time, I didn't think you were involved."

"What does that mean?"

"Not you personally, your position and the company itself.
You know you don't have to talk to me, but if it's any comfort, I'm as
constrained by confidentially agreements as you are. I won't repeat
what you tell me, unless I'm subpoenaed or you say it's okay."

Lance looked like my attempt to reassure him was making
him nervous.

"What do you want to know?"

"First, what exactly are your plans? Is Kyle going to keep this
company, sell it, take the technology and run?"

"It isn't that easy to strip out the technology. It exists only in
the minds of the people here. They know that. They're selling
systems that only they can produce, assuming we ever get them into
production."

Lance took a long draw of coffee. "If you swear once more
not to repeat anything I say from this point on, I'll explain what I'm
doing here."

I swore.

He pushed his coffee cup aside and spread out napkins in
lieu of writing paper. "At first, it looked like a done deal. The
company was on the verge of bankruptcy. There were no buyers.
Kyle Solutions already had a presence in Japan."

He drew boxes and connected them with lines as he
talked.

"We were looking for new acquisitions. We made a bid.
Somewhere during the negotiations, there was a snag."

He X'd out a line.

"Kyle brought in Dorian. He had a reputation for..."

"Hard cases."

"That's right. Not long after Dorian arrived here, the
acquisition went through."

"Good man."

"Yeah, except there are complications now."

"Do you know about those kinds of complications?" I
wanted him to stay focused.

"Not directly, but there might be a relation. The engineers
who started this company had a concept for a robotics system. They
made a good one. It could tell the difference between a peach and a
baseball the same size."

He drew two circles. Neither one looked like a baseball or a
peach.

"With the right sensors, it can locate the fruit, determine if
it's ripe and pick it with its pincers without damaging it."

"So can people."

"I'm not talking about fruit pickers. It's only an illustration.
Do you understand the complications of filtering out unnecessary
data from stereoscopic video?"

I didn't.

"The engineers conceived a system for industrial robots that
can reduce costs of manpower in ways that haven't been exploited.
Their front end can use stereoscopic cameras and lasers to enable
micron-level precision. Lots of robots can do that, but they have to be
told exactly what to do. This system does it all on its own. After
analyzing its own data, it can independently program triple-axis
actuators with no human input. That means, you set a prototype on a
pad at the front of an assembly line, push Go and within minutes
you've started production. That's unprecedented."

"I'll bet. What's an actuator?" I couldn't tell from his
drawing.

"It's a robotic arm that supports whatever tool you put on it.
Triple-axis gives one tool three dimensions of movement. Anyway,
the jewel wasn't the machine tool. It was the software control
system. They used a neuro-network and fuzzy logic that had
applications beyond what they were trying to sell. There's no
programming, not in the traditional sense. With a neuro-network,
you teach it rules. The network applies the rules and makes its own
decisions. With this system, the robot uses its cameras and lasers to
get a precise 3-D image. It can even compare production to the
original and learn from its mistakes. Fantastic, right? But you see
other implications."

I shook my head.

Lance put down his pen and made a circle in the air like he
was about to sing, "It's a Small World." Instead, he divided the air
into three parts.

"Think of it in terms of object location, object identification
and mechanical control. The input data doesn't have to be visible
light. It could be infrared, ultraviolet, radar, sonar."

I thought I got it. "Military?"

"Military, undersea exploration, space, remote
surgery."

"That's all being done."

"The system doesn't have to be breaking ground in concepts
to be revolutionary. We have a significant improvement. Very
valuable, but the developers didn't see the whole picture."

"The design geniuses didn't know what they had
made?"

"They were thinking in a narrow aspect. Japan's economy is
based on job shops." Lance had his pen back and was drawing little
buildings and stick figures. "Whether it's a family factory that makes
polyethylene pipe or a global operation that makes the polyethylene.
Someone thinks, 'There's a product. Let's make it and sell it.' There
aren't many people saying, 'Here's a cool idea. Let's make a market.'
There are exceptions, like portable CD players, but basically you
don't see that kind of thinking here. These guys set out to make a
very smart industrial robotic system. In the process, they made the
closest thing I've seen to a thinking machine with scarcely imagined
applications. But they were focused on assembly lines. That's all they
saw."

"So what was the problem with the acquisition?"

"Dorian didn't conduct the initial negotiations. Our first guy
let slip how we wanted to apply the system's analytic capability in
other areas, military, space, even pharmaceuticals. Kyle thinks you
could enter the genome of a disease-creating germ and get an
antidote. I guess word got out. Suddenly the buy needed a
government go-ahead, which wasn't forthcoming. My guess is that
superior technology and foreign money sounded like too much of a
threat to local companies who were retrenching and didn't want to
take on the risk of buying this company themselves."

"Then Dorian was called in?"

"Well, he was hired just for that. The guy's got a reputation.
Anyway, he was here two, three months. Boom, the government gave
us the go-ahead. He's a magician."

"You needed government approval."

"Yeah, you run into that everywhere, US, EU."

"What Japanese agency had to clear the buyout?"

"The FTC."

I was beginning to see implications of my own. "I need a
couple of favors. One, I want to bring in a Japanese colleague to check
the office of the employee who was killed in the wreck. Have you
cleaned it out yet?"

"No."

"Don't let anyone touch it until we look at it. Two, I don't
know what I'm going to say yet, but I want to leave a personal
message for whoever bugged your office."

"What do you have in mind?"

"A disinformation campaign."

I was already headed to Protect Agency when I got a call
from Yuri.

"Kuroda just called and said he wants to meet me here in
thirty minutes. Can you make before then? He's your friend. I'm not
sure why he wants to see me."

"I'll be there in twenty."

Either he was early, or I was late. He was standing in front of
the receptionist's desk when I walked into the office. He didn't look
happy to see me.

"I'm here to talk to Yuri Taen."

"We work together."

"I had expected to see her alone."

Before I was forced to reply, the door to the interior offices
opened.

"
Taen desu
."

Kuroda bowed slightly. "I was just telling Mick-san I
expected to meet you alone."

"That's not my preference. I asked him to come. If you have
a problem with that you can get a summons against me."

For reasons I didn't understand, Yuri was playing the bad
girl. In any case, Kuroda accepted the terms and she led us to an
interview room.

Kuroda pulled out a chair, sat splay-legged, and lit a
cigarette even though there were no ashtrays. "Why didn't you
report the break-in?"

Yuri hiked her skirt and sat on the edge of the table. "What
break-in?"

"I didn't come here for my enjoyment." His eyes traced the
outline of Yuri's thigh. "Why didn't you report the break-in?"

Yuri crossed her legs. "I need an address. I need a name. I
need a date."

"Or, I can arrange a summons. Maybe a few days detention
to help you remember."

"What cause?"

"That would be my discretion, wouldn't it?"

"Call it like you want it. I need an address. I need a name. I
need a date."

Kuroda flicked ash on the floor and put the cigarette back in
his mouth. "Sayoko Shiyoda, date unknown. If you still need the
address, I don't remember it. We'll have to verify it at the detention
center."

Kuroda had conceded the name. It was Yuri's move.

"Not my apartment. There isn't much I have to say about it
that you don't already know."

"The landlord is ready to file charges against Shiyoda. He
thinks she did the damage."

"You know she had nothing to do with anything, except as a
victim. Where's this going?"

"I'm putting pieces together that you don't need to
understand."

"Don't I? I work for Dorian's company. It wouldn't be good
for me to help you convict him, would it?"

"I told him..." Kuroda pointed his chin at me without taking
his eyes off Yuri, "that I was interested in justice."

"I think you're a fraud. You're threatening to arrest me. For
what? Do you think Tokyo is your personal bailiwick? Nobody cares?
You're a rube. The weekly scandal sheets love this story. You want
your name tied to my arrest? Your picture on newsstands? The
American embassy is watching this case. It's covered by
international press. You want that pressure?"

Yuri was making me nervous. There was more going on in
her mind than I could figure out. Maybe she just didn't like authority
figures. "He did say justice. I believe him."

"Remember that." Kuroda stubbed out his cigarette on the
bottom of his shoe. "Maybe a little more cooperation next time. I'll
see you again."

* * * *

"What was that about, Yuri?"

She just shook her head and wrapped her arms across her
chest as she muttered to herself in Japanese. I couldn't be sure, but I
think she might have said "policeman" in a way that wasn't nice.
When she grew quiet, I told her about my visit with Lance
Allworth.

She rocked her upper body slowly. "We should have gone to
the company first."

"There was no one to go to. Allworth got here after I did.
Besides, there was no reason to think Dorian's situation had
anything to do with the company."

"What do we do now?"

"We draw out the bad guys. Put faces and names on them.
We already know Foxx Starr's Ito and Yamazaki are dirty.
Association implicates the FTC commissioner's secretary and maybe
the chief himself."

"When did you start believing in implications?"

"It's a road, Yuri. Something to walk down. If you have a
better idea, I'm open. How about the man from Kamio Investigators?
Have you found out who he is?"

"No," Yuri's voice took on a saw-toothed edge. "Do you know
how we do that?"

We could ask Kuroda for help, but I kept that suggestion on
hold. "I have the next step in mind. Allworth agreed to let us search
Hashimoto's office. He's the Kyle Solutions employee who was killed.
His files would be in Japanese, so you'll need to be there."

"What else, sir?" Anger was building up in Yuri like snow on
a precipice. That was an avalanche I wanted to avoid, but I couldn't
even see why she was mad.

"We leave some personal messages for whoever planted the
bugs in Allworth's company," I said. "We'll need Sayoko. Is she
here?"

"By a thread. Boredom's duking it out with her sense of
survival."

"Good, we can cure her boredom."

"Is that code for 'use her like bait?'" She stared at the
tabletop as she spoke. The corner of her mouth twitched.

"No, we'll do our best to ensure her survival. What's going
on in your mind Yuri? She's twenty-three years old. Her own
decisions put her in this situation. How come I feel like the bad
guy?"

Yuri folded her hands in her lap and pressed her thumbs
together. "I see her. I see me. My father skipped. Hers stayed home
but treated her like an unwelcome stranger. Neither of us likes
answering to the Big Brother of social mores, or any other authority.
The difference was my aunt in New Orleans."

"You got a break. If you hadn't, you can't say what you
would have done." I didn't care much for the discussion, but I did
care about Yuri. "When I was eighteen, I was a spin around the block
from joining a motorcycle gang. I picked the Air Force instead. It had
the GI bill. I ended up in recon spotting targets for air drops in a
country I had no reason to know existed. I never knew who was
being killed. I only gave the coordinates. So, instead of five-to-ten
years for a robbery gone bad, I got a college degree for blowing up
people I'd never met. How's that for a reward? Stuff happens to
everybody, Yuri. We've got the moment. It's all anyone has."

I hadn't planned to, but I took her hand, pulled her to her
feet and pressed her body against mine. She put her face to my chest.
Her anger flowed away, back into whatever void it had come from. It
hadn't come from me. She knew it but wouldn't say it.