Dragon Dance Read online

  So that was the secret of her best political stories—she had been exploiting the weakness of a sentimental old man. Still, as a journalist what else was she supposed to do? Time and again Shiina had proved himself a top-quality source. He could be obscure, frustratingly ambiguous, and as hard to pin down as a piece of tofu. But never once had he been wrong.

  When Martine got back to the office, Charlie’s desk was covered with photos of Nozawa. Romantic Nozawa sniffing a red rose and staring soulfully at the camera. Kimono-clad Nozawa practicing his calligraphy. Rockabilly Nozawa, with greased-back hair and aviator shades. Lounge lizard Nozawa, in tuxedo and frilly shirt. Nozawa in a paddy field scattering rice seeds. Nozawa in a car factory holding an oxyacetylene welder. Nozawa astride a large motorbike, behind him the snowcapped peak of Mount Fuji. Nozawa wearing only loincloth and headband, brandishing a sword.

  Martine paused in front of Charlie’s desk, momentarily transfixed by the profusion of images and Nozawa’s chameleonlike ability to change his appearance.

  “Sorry about the mess,” said Kyo-san. “I’m in the middle of sorting it out. The amount of publicity material they sent is unbelievable. There are hundreds more in here.”

  She slapped a stack of bulky envelopes lying flat on her desk.

  “Have you decided which one you like best?”

  “These photos? I don’t like any of them.”

  It was no surprise that Kyo-san was not a Nozawa fan. Tough, sixty-year-old multiple divorcees were unlikely to be his target audience.

  [88] Martine scooped up a couple of photos and dropped them into her desk drawer. They would help focus her mind when she was writing up the interview.

  “By the way, I’ve got a couple of tickets for the concert tomorrow. You don’t want to come along, I suppose?”

  “Absolutely not. Nozawa gives me the creeps.”

  “You really don’t like him, do you?”

  Kyo-san shrugged. “It’s not so much the guy himself. I mean his music is okay, I suppose, if you like that kind of crap. What bugs me is how people respond. He really brings out the bad side of Japan.”

  “Because he’s so nationalistic?”

  “It’s not that. There are nationalists in every country these days. I mean, look at those guys in France and Italy. Compared to them, Nozawa is a pussycat. No, what bugs me is the way that nobody criticizes him, people just smile and nod their heads. In this country, when something gets popular beyond a certain point, it’s not right to go against it. You have to go with the flow, so you don’t stand out or cause any conflict.”

  “And you think that’s the secret of his popularity?”

  “Sure. That way everyone agrees, nobody has to think for themselves.”

  For Kyo-san that was an unusually emotional speech. Normally she was apolitical, viewing the world of current affairs with the detachment of a scientist observing the dynamics of a monkey colony.

  “But people are like that everywhere, aren’t they?”

  Kyo-san shook her head vigorously. “I don’t think so. Most Americans are dumb. Believe me—I was married to two of the finest examples. But they’re dumb in lots of different ways. When the Japanese get dumb, they all get dumb in exactly the same way.”

  “What you just described is called clustering,” said Martine. “There’s an economic theory explaining why it’s perfectly rational.”

  “It’s not rational. It’s dumb.”

  Kyo-san snapped her lunchbox shut, signifying that she’d said all that she was going to say. The two ex-husbands only came into Kyo-san’s conversation when she was agitated, and then usually as examples of men at their most tiresome, unreliable, and thickheadedly male. So why had she married them in the first place? Martine had to assume that there had once been an unpragmatic, uncynical Kyo-san, a woman capable of falling in love with a penniless English teacher and following him to the other side of the world and then, when that didn’t work out, trying again with a sports photographer. That Kyo-san was probably still in there somewhere, ready to emerge when the time was right.

  Martine glanced at the world clock on the wall, then switched on her [89] computer screen. She had the afternoon to finish writing up the Nozawa interview, then the early evening to do the piece on the Hiroshima virus. She scanned the news headlines, just to be sure that no new disasters had occurred while she was out—no major bankruptcies, no explosions, no crashes.

  Checking her mailbox, she found two new messages. The first was from Makoto, sent from Narita Airport. There was one line of text:

  I miss you very much, and I want to hold you again.

  Martine smiled. He would never say anything like that to her face—he was too conservative, too shy, basically—but for some reason he didn’t mind writing it. She typed in her answer:

  When I close my eyes, I can still see the fireworks. I’m waiting for you to come back and hold me and do whatever you want.

  Too provocative for his sensibilities? She didn’t think so. That was what he was expecting. Martine looked up at Kyo-san, who was staring over the top of her glasses. Martine’s eyes returned to the screen, and she pressed “send.”

  The second message had no header and no address and also contained just one line of text.

  Sexy goddess,

  You look very beautiful these days. But be careful—too much orange juice can damage your health.

  Martine stared at it in puzzlement. The sender was the same person, she was sure. But orange juice? What on earth was that supposed to mean? Perhaps she was dealing with some kind of lunatic after all.

  “Kyo-san—have you heard anything about too much orange juice being bad for your health?”

  “Orange juice? Are you kidding? More orange juice is just what you need, Martine. It’d help your complexion.”

  Her complexion again! Why was everyone suddenly talking about her complexion? Frowning, Martine closed the mailbox. But this time she did not delete the message.

  NINE

  The young general leaned back in his leather chair, an ivory cigarette holder clamped between his teeth. His office resembled the control center of any powerful business empire, which is exactly what his faction of the People’s Liberation Army had become. On the walls were photos of the shopping malls and hotels and housing developments that it controlled. On his desk was an array of stock price terminals, keeping him in touch with its hundred-million-dollar portfolio of global investments. On the shelves were choice examples of antique porcelain.

  It had taken a quarter of a century to create this empire. The beginnings had been modest—a couple of factories producing Kalashnikov knockoffs for export to Africa and the Middle East. Then they had moved into bootleg compact discs, flooding the Asian market with millions of pieces every year. Then came computer software and video discs, perfumes, designer brand ties and scarves that appeared in duty-free shops all over the world. By the early 1990s, the business had matured and the bulk of its revenue came from real estate, finance, and the trading of anything from imported cigarettes to kidneys and cornea “donated” by political prisoners.

  To the world the young general looked like a successful businessman. To himself he often looked like a successful businessman, too, but he had never felt like a businessman. As far back as he could remember he had yearned to be a warrior like his father, planning military campaigns that would decide the fate of nations. And now he was actually doing it. All the other generals might have become businessmen, but this one was carrying on the legacy of his father, the celebrated national hero.

  Today the young general was in a contemplative mood. He sat smoking his favorite Sobranie cigarette and gazing at the TV monitor on his desk. The monitor showed two women waiting for him in the room below.

  [91] One was a middle-aged Japanese woman in her late fifties, the kind you see in tour groups rummaging through souvenir stores and flashing peace signs for the camera. From her placid appearance, it was hard to believe that she was the international terrori
st Reiko Matsubara, wanted by Mossad, the CIA, the French Surete, and the British MI6. The other woman was young and beautiful, with long frizzed-out hair and a bright, piercing gaze that was never at rest. That was the gift of her father, a Palestinian bomb-maker killed by Israeli intelligence shortly after she was born.

  The two women were chatting away in Japanese, nodding and smiling at each other like any mother and daughter. The general could have asked a translator to come and explain what they were saying, but there was hardly any point. Professionals like these women would assume their conversation was being monitored and would say nothing out of the ordinary. The general was watching them carefully, absorbing their gestures and tone of voice. “The wise man watches friends like strangers, and strangers like enemies”—that was one of his father’s guiding principles. The general took his father’s maxims seriously. They had seen him through the long decades of warfare, revolution, and political turmoil, through two disgraces and two triumphant comebacks, then through the twists and turns and shifting alliances of the modern era.

  “When the enemy advances, melt like snow; when the enemy gets tired, sting him like a swarm of hornets; when the enemy retreats, drown him like the sea”—another of his father’s maxims. This one had been the key to his famous victory in 1946, when three hundred thousand of Chiang’s nationalists were cut down in headlong flight. The old general’s political strategy was the same as his military strategy. When the pro-Western capitalist readers had been forging ahead, his forces melted away like the snow. Now that they were tiring, he was stinging them. And when they finally retreated, he would muster all his strength and drown them like the sea. That time was near at hand.

  The issue that would send the pro-Westerners scurrying backward would be Taiwan. With the rupturing of the US-Japan security relationship, the duty of the leadership to reclaim the rebel province would be clear to the whole nation. The choice would be simple. Would China continue to prostrate itself before the powers that had plunged it into a century of chaos and humiliation? Or would it stand up and claim its rightful position as the leading power in Asia and, eventually, the world?

  The middle-aged Japanese woman on his TV monitor was vital to this process, and thus to the future of China. Did she know this? Probably, but it didn’t seem to mean much to her. Her only interest now was directing revolutionary activity within Japan. In the coming period of social and political chaos, she believed, there would be no middle ground, just open warfare between reactionaries and the radical left. If the ruling elite could be provoked [92] into heavy-handed oppression, then the masses would gravitate naturally toward the left.

  The young general had already set up a training camp in Iran and a cyber-ops center in Bangkok at her request. He had no interest in her revolutionary ambitions, but it was in China’s interest to have a well-equipped paramilitary force causing trouble in Japan. It would weaken the social and economic fabric, and make the country even more inward-looking at a time when its strategic position was collapsing.

  Without Auntie—as the young general called the woman, though not to her face—this whole project would never have got off the ground. In the abstract, they had known what was needed from the start. That had been clear from the work of that idiot scholar Peng Yuan. Then others with more detailed knowledge had explained the hidden weaknesses that could be exploited, the fault lines that ran through Japanese systems and institutions. But still there was the basic problem of how to apply pressure quickly and efficiently, in a way that nobody would notice. For that, something else was required, a strategic asset somewhere within the system itself.

  It was then that Auntie had appeared, expelled from the Bekaa Valley and no longer welcome in Damascus, but still burning with revolutionary fervor. She contacted some old comrades, who spoke to some of their Korean friends in Pyongyang, who passed word through to the young general. They met for the first time in Hong Kong. Auntie explained her ideas, and the general listened. At first he had thought she was crazy. Her group was so small, so weak in resources, but then she explained her ideas in more detail and suddenly the general’s mind lit up. There it was-—the strategic asset they had been looking for.

  His father had been skeptical. He didn’t trust the Japanese, and he didn’t trust women. The son pointed out Auntie’s track record: the synagogue in Buenos Aires, the Austrian airport, the disco in Rome, the cruise ship in the Mediterranean, the CIA man in Athens blown up while taking his children to school—these were all legendary attacks, carried out with ruthless precision. Not once had she failed. Not once had her group been infiltrated. Not once had a member been captured. Her group was certainly small, but that was its strength. It was tightly knit, experienced, and fanatically loyal to its leader. And it controlled a strategic asset of unparalleled value, a man capable of altering the course of Japanese history.

  The old general demanded to meet her. They spoke just a few words, and that was enough. The old soldier said she had the same kind of eyes as his sister, tortured to death by Chiang’s secret police seventy years ago. There was no compliment higher than that. So it was decided. The project went ahead with a new shape, a new organization, and a new focus.

  [93] On the screen Auntie was still chattering away to her daughter. The young general stubbed out his cigarette half smoked and got to his feet. It was time to forget about business and think like a warrior again.

  Midnight in Kawasaki. The giant warehouse was silent and still. Inside the security room Kenji Kubota leaned back in his chair and yawned. He was nursing his fifth cup of coffee of the night, and the disc player on the table in front of him was playing one of his favorite songs, “Mama’s Miso Soup” by Tsuyoshi Nozawa. Kubota had always been a big Nozawa fan. There was something about the toughness in his voice, the way he looked you straight in the eye. This was the kind of guy Kubota had wanted to be when he was young. He had fallen far short—like everyone else he knew—but there was Nozawa showing them that you should never give up, that even in today’s world it was possible for a man to be a man.

  Kubota glanced dully at the bank of video screens on the wall. Nothing was moving. It was hard to believe that in five hours the place would be buzzing with activity. There would be a dozen trucks growling in the forecourt, each emblazoned with the blue Starjacks logo. The morning shift workers, all sporting the same logo on the back of their overalls, would be running around, shouting out instructions, making sure that the day’s supplies were loaded up inside thirty minutes, as stated in the Starjacks work manual. They looked diligent, fresh, enthusiastic, as befitted the employees of a company that had spread so quickly throughout Japan, indeed throughout the world.

  Kubota had joined DaiNippon Machinery from high school and had spent twenty years in one of the finest factories in the world. The government had even awarded them prizes for productivity improvements. But all that was gone now. There had been a few years of losses, then a balance sheet problem that Kubota had never properly understood but which had resulted in the factory closing down. Kubota had counted himself lucky to find another job at his age. Most of his friends were still jobless and some were homeless, living in the sprawling cardboard cities that had sprouted in parks and train stations all over the country. But the security company was a tough employer. Every year they either cut wages or increased the workload. On his last assignment—a shopping mall on the outskirts of Yokohama—Kubota had been beaten up by a gang of high school kids. He spent three weeks in hospital and the company gave him nothing—no sick pay, no compensation, not even any help with his medical expenses. The doctors wanted to operate—they said he might lose the hearing in his left ear—but Kubota couldn’t afford it, not with [94] the thugs from the loan company breathing down his neck.

  Just two weeks ago one of them barged into his apartment. He was an enormous guy with a nose ring and dyed blond hair.

  “We’re downgrading your rating to C double minus,” he hissed, grabbing Kubota by the neck and slamming him up again
st the wall.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you pay us more interest.”

  Kubota licked his lips nervously. “How much more?”

  “Two percent!” snarled the blond guy.

  “An increase of two percent a year? I can pay that. I promise I’ll pay it.”

  “What are you talking about, cockroach! Not two percent a year—two percent a month, of course!”

  “But ... but that’s impossible. My salary’s much too low.”

  The blond guy put his face so close that his spittle sprayed Kubota’s cheek.

  “Forget about your salary. You’ve got good eyesight, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have. What does that matter?”

  “It means we could get a couple of million for a cornea, maybe the same for a kidney. We have our own clinic, you know. The doctors are always ready.”

  He prodded a finger into Kubota’s cheek and made a circle shape around his left eye. The leer on the blond guy’s face was unforgettable. “The doctors are always ready”—sometimes Kubota woke up in a sweat with those words echoing in his mind.

  The disc came to an end. Kubota walked over to his locker to get another one. He chose an old favorite—“Last Train to Kurashiki.” The way Nozawa sang those ballads, he could make you feel every word.

  Kubota fitted the disc into the player, then gazed in dismay at the bank of video screens. Two on the left had gone dead. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He picked up the phone and called Ueda, the security man stationed at the main gate.

  “Kubota here. There seems to be a problem with the video system. Is everything all right down at the gate?”

  “Yes, all quiet here. But there was something I wanted to check with you. It’s about the cleaners.”

  “The cleaners? What about them?”

  “According to the log, they came in three groups of three people. But they left in two groups of four.”