"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 04 - The Kaisho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

'Margarite, bellissima!' Dominic's voice said in her ear, and she slowly closed her eyes.

BOOK ONE
Old Friends
Year after year
On the monkey's face,
A monkey's mask.
Matsuo Basho

ONE
Tokyo/Marine on St Croix/New York
So early in the morning Tokyo smelled like fish. Perhaps it was the Sumida River, still home to hundreds of fishermen plying their ancient trade. Or, thought Nicholas Linnear, perhaps it was the steel-hued haze that squatted like a gluttonous guest over the sprawling metropolis.
Somewhere in the countryside far away the sun was struggling up over the mountaintops, but here in the heart of the city it was still dark. Just a hint of predawn light turned the shadows nacreous.
As Nicholas ascended the Shinjuku Suiryu Building in the non-stop chairman's elevator he considered the formidable array of decisions awaiting him at Sato International, the vast keiretsu, industrial conglomerate, he ran jointly with Tanzan Nangi.
Nangi was the canny Japanese, a former vice-minister of MITT, Japan's all-powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry, with whom Nicholas had decided to join forces, merging his own company, Tomkin Industries, with Nangi's Sato International.
It was interesting that both men had inherited the top position in their respective conglomerates: Nangi from his best Mend's dead brother; Nicholas from his late father-in-law. For this, and many other reasons, there was a unique bond between the two men which could never be severed.
Nicholas stepped off the elevator at the fifty-second floor, walked past the deserted teak and chrome reception lobby, past silent offices and work stations, into his own

office which, together with Nangi's, comprised the entire western-facing end of the floor.
He crossed to a low couch in the welled seating area alongside a huge window, and sat staring out at the city. The haze, pale as green tea, was a filthy nimbus, occluding his coveted view of Mt Fuji.
He knew that very soon he needed to return to America, not only to sit down face to face with Harley Gaunt, but also to lobby in person in Washington against the rising tide of animosity toward the admittedly arrogant Japanese. Gaunt had hired a man named Terrence McNaughton, a professional lobbyist, to work on their behalf, but Nicholas was beginning to believe that in these retrogressive times persuasion by proxy was not enough. Nicholas l^d thought of flying to Washington many times during the last several years, but always Nangi convinced him of the need to stay here, to lobby their pro-international stance with the Japanese themselves.
Nicholas, Nangi had argued with unassailable logic, was uniquely qualified to do this since the Japanese did not view him as an iteki, a barbarian outsider. Nicholas's father, the Englishman Colonel Denis Linnear, held a special place in the hearts of the older generation of Japanese, for he had been seconded to General Douglas MacArthur's SCAP headquarters just after the end of World War II. It was he who had liaised so successfully with the upper-echelon officials when MacArthur had given the defeated Japanese a new democratic Constitution which had survived into the present. When Colonel Linnear died, his funeral was as widely attended and reported as that of any Japanese emperor.
Nicholas became aware of Tanzan Nangi emerging onto the floor before he actually saw him. Nangi was now well past middle age. His face was striking, but not in any normal way. His right eye was an unseeing milky-white orb set behind a damaged lid forever frozen half shut. Otherwise his face might have been that of a top-flight diplomat

who knew the exigencies of his world and how to maneuver among them.
Nangi tapped on the half-open door to Nicholas's suite with the end of his walking stick which was capped by a carving of a dragon. Depending on the time of day, his state of health and the weather, he moved more or less stiffly on legs that had been damaged during the war in the Pacific.
The two men greeted each other with warmth and the minimum of formality. It would have been far different had anyone else been in the room with them.
They savored their green macha tea in the silence of close companionship, then commenced their morning business - the strategic planning for Sato which they liked to have set before the rest of the staff arrived.
'The news is very bad,' Nangi began. 'I have been unable to come up with the capital you feel we so desperately need to expand into Vietnam.'
Nicholas sighed. 'Ironic since business is so good. Look at the last quarter's figures. Demand for the Sphynx T-PRAM is far exceeding our current production capabilities.' The T-PRAM was Sato International's proprietary computer chip - the first and only programmable random access memory chip on the market. That's why we need to expand into Vietnam as quickly as possible. Ramping up new manufacturing facilities which meet our standards and which also hold down production costs is an exhausting marathon.'
Nangi sipped his tea. 'Unfortunately, Sphynx is only one kobun in the keiretsu's vast network of businesses. Not all of them are doing so well.' Kobun was a divisional company within the keiretsu, the conglomerate.
Nicholas understood the reference. Unlike Tomkin Industries before the merger, Sato International had always had ready access to capital until now, when the ground rules in Japan had suddenly changed. The most radical difference between American and Japanese

corporations had in recent years turned from being a valuable asset to a dangerous liability. All major keiretsu in Japan were either owned by or folded into a commercial bank. In Sato's case, it was the Daimyo Development Bank. This cozy relationship within the keiretsu allowed it to borrow money for expansion or research and development at low rates and with exceedingly generous terms.
Now, however, Japan was in the grip of an economic crunch of a size and gravity unknown since the horrors of the immediate postwar period. It had begun in 1988 with the Government's misguided efforts to prop up an economy already suffering the first effects of a far too strong yen by artificially creating a land boom. Investing within their own country, these ministers reasoned, would mitigate, at least to some extent, the value of the yen. And the theory worked - up to a point. Then values began to stretch the bounds of reality. And still Japanese businessmen - cash-rich and arrogant in their seemingly unflagging success - poured money into real estate. Inevitably, the bubble burst. Over-leveraged on property they could no longer unload even at steep discounts, many businessmen went under, losing vast fortunes virtually overnight.
The carnage grew, widening like ripples in a pond. Money-center banks which had blithely extended credit for what had appeared to be gilt-edged real estate were left with foreclosed properties that could not resupply them with sufficient capital. They were forced to draw down assets to pay the huge loan losses, and within the space of a year their balance sheets were stained with the red that is the only blood a banker recognizes.
Daimyo Development Bank was no exception. Though hit less hard than some that were now out of business, the bank was weathering an exceptionally rocky period, and its losses had recently become a significant drag on Sato International's bottom line. As recently as six months ago Nangi had had to replace Daimyo's chairman, and still the

mess was far from being under control. It was a source of particular humiliation to him since he had once been the bank's director.
The new watchword in Japan was risutora, something heretofore unheard of: industrial contraction. Japan Inc. was coming to terms with restructuring - a painful reduction in factories, consumer goods, and Japan's most precious resource, superbly trained and loyal personnel. In a country where the expansionist 'bigger and better' had been the key economic phrase for over four decades, risutora was a bitter reverse course indeed. Thankfully, Nangi and Nicholas had never allowed their keiretsu to become bloated and inefficient. And Nicholas's role within the conglomerate was increasing exponentially, since he had more experience with significant economic downturns than any Japanese. Nevertheless, the crunch in their operating capital was real enough.
'Still, one way or another, we've got to come up with the capital,' Nicholas urged. 'If we don't get involved there in a major way - and quickly - we're going to find ourselves run over by all the other major keiretsu.'
'I need to give the situation some more time,' Nangi cautioned, not for the first time. 'Vietnam is still newly opened, and I don't fully trust the Government.'
'What you mean is you don't trust the Vietnamese at all.'
Nangi swirled the dregs of his tea around in his cup. He disliked this tension between them. Ever since Nicholas had first gone to Saigon several years ago to recruit this man Vincent Tinh as their director in Vietnam, Nangi had been worried. Tinh was a Vietnamese, and he supposed Nicholas was right, he did not trust them. So much money already committed to this strange, newly capitalist Vietnam, and Nicholas had been pushing him to commit so much more. What if the Communists returned and nationalized all private business? He and Nicholas would lose everything.

"These people are opaque to me,' Nangi said, raising his eyes from the shifting runes of the tea leaves.
They're just different.'
Nangi shook his head. The Hong Kong Chinese are different and I deal with them all the time. They're devious but I must admit I enjoy their intrigues. I have no feel for the Vietnamese.'
'Which is why I'm handling them,' Nicholas said. 'But just look at the bottom line. Profits from the small amount of goods we now manufacture out of Saigon under Vinnie's direction are astronomical. Think what these lower manufacturing costs would do for the kobun whose profits are currently in a downward spiral.'
Of course, Nicholas was right, Nangi thought. He most often was in these matters. Also, he could not minimize Nicholas's success in predicting trends in business.