‘Asieda never married. His brother, an admiral in the Imperial Navy, was taken prisoner in the early days of the war. When the Philippines were about to fall, Hooker was ordered to leave his headquarters at Bastine by your President Roosevelt. Through an accident, Hooker’s adopted son was left behind and ultimately fell into the hands of Asieda, who took him back to Japan.
‘The boy, who was half Filipino, looked more Japanese than even his mother, so living here was not difficult for him. Asieda took him to Dragon’s Nest, where he tried to arrange a trade. The boy for Asieda’s brother. He communicated by sending Hooker a chameleon in a box and then he found the boy’s mother and sent her to try to negotiate the trade. Hooker responded by murdering her. Asieda had no choice. Negotiation was out of the question, But what could he do with Hooker’s son?
‘Remember, this was a very kind man, not a war lord. And through the months of captivity, he had developed a great affection for Hooker’s son. The boy ultimately felt secure with Asieda. They became inseparable. A true irony that Chameleon should adopt the son of his deadliest enemy.
‘But as the war drew to its close., the members of the War Council panicked. The few who knew who Chameleons son really was demanded a meeting, in Hiroshima. It was their plan to use the boy as a bargaining tool once the war was over. Asieda, of course, disagreed. They fought about it, and that night Chameleon, disguised as a woman, slipped away with his son and left at dawn by train two hours before the city was obliterated. Asieda and young Hooker watched from the train.
‘He and the boy became nomads. They had two things in common: they loved each other and they hated Hooker. Ultimately they settled in Kushiro on the island of Hokkaido to the north. Asieda became a fisherman.
‘Asieda had made a vow that he would never let Hooker rest. He knew Hooker had murdered his own mistress, Bobby’s mother. He knew he was using his military position to set up new industries in Japan in which he was a silent partner. He. learned all of the general’s vulnerabilities, and there were many. Chameleon knew more about General Hooker than anyone alive. And he became like a conscience. When Hooker became military governor, he helped set up the conglomerate San-San and made Tomoro the head of it. In exchange, Tomoro tried for five years to track down Chameleon. But it was impossible. Chameleon’s agents would never have revealed his identity — they were all members of the higaru-dashi. And those few members of the council who knew his true identity all died at Hiroshima.’
‘Asieda, too, was reported dead at Hiroshima,’ said Okari. ‘And so, for thirty years, Hooker was hounded by a ghost — Chameleon. Of course, it was no ghost, only one man, devoted to psychologically destroying his enemy. A simple fisherman who had taken a vow to wreak his revenge on a dishonourable man by becoming the voice of his conscience. His old agents provided him with information. So did his friends in the government. The vendetta worked both ways. Hooker sent assassin after assassin to find Chameleon. Some gave up. Some died, The last to come was your friend Falmouth. And although Asieda died peacefully in his sleep four years ago, Chameleon lives on. His son took up the vow. And it will go on until Hooker dies or they kill me.’
‘So you’re Bobby Hooker,’ Eliza said.
‘I am Okari Asieda,’ the tattooed man said. ‘Bobby Hooker no longer exists.’
He revealed to them private feelings which he could never share before, how he had hated and feared Asieda- san for months and how Asieda-san with patience and wisdom had finally won him over, had explained the meaning of the Tendai and the most ancient myths and how to live in the forest and fish the sea.
‘And when the war was over and he set off on his Walk of a Thousand Days, I went with him, begging at doorways, walking from one end of Japan to the other, as he sought the wisdom of Zen. And always there was time for the lessons. He taught me the Way of the Secret Warrior, the Moves of the Sword, the Language of the Creatures. He taught me honour, respect and love. And finally, he revealed to me the seventh level of the higaru- dashi.’
‘And he never attempted blackmail? Extortion?’ the Magician asked.
‘He never asked for anything after his brother died.’
O’Hara leaned back, staring at the imaginary boxes hanging in the air before him, looking back through time. Slowly the pieces began to fall into place. The sequence became obvious to him.
What Hooker and his elitist friends needed was a power base of their own. From that, they could begin monopolizing other related companies. There was only one problem: monopolies were illegal. But an oil consortium of separately owned corporations, each with its own autonomy — that would be perfect. The key was AMRAN, They formed the consortium, then killed the key men in the member corporations and put their own people in. In effect, they owned every company. They owned Hensell, Alamo, Sunset, Intercom, Am Petro and San-San and all its subsidiaries. They even controlled a bank in Boston. The common thread was oil.
There were still a few empty boxes,
‘I keep wondering why they blew up Marza’s car,’ Eliza said.
‘It made it easier to take over Aquila.’
‘And,’ the Magician said, ‘do you know what was so special about that car?’ Eliza shook her head. ‘The fucker was supposed to get fifty, sixty miles to the gallon. It would have revolutionized the auto business. Do you realize how that would have cut into AMRAN’s profits?’
‘My god,’ Eliza said. ‘Are they that greedy?’
‘Money’s no longer the game,’ O’Hara said. ‘They’ve got all the money they need. Now the game is pure power.’
‘Then why did they sink the Thoreau?’ Eliza asked. ‘If the AMRAN people were wooing Sunset Oil as a potential member of the consortium, they were destroying an eighty-million-dollar asset that might someday belong to them. Isn’t that kinda cutting off your nose to spite your face?’
‘Maybe it was a squeeze play,’ said the Magician. ‘Maybe Sunset was a holdout, and it couldn’t afford to be a holdout anymore after the rig got knocked over.’
‘That’s a good theory,’ said O’Hara. ‘But let’s look beyond it for a minute. Why were the pictures lifted in Hawaii and then destroyed?’
‘Because nobody needed them,’ the Magician said.
‘Then why buy them?’
‘So nobody else would!’ Eliza said.
