Hodama's security videos were linked to the cameras directly in front of the house and inside the main reception area. There were cameras elsewhere, but these were merely connected to monitors. The lab had intercut the tapes from the two cameras linked to recorders to give some chronological sense, but had edited out nothing.
The video had a grim documentary quality about it. There was no sound and the pictures were in black and white, but nonetheless they were compelling.
Unfortunately, they appeared to be of little help.
'Dark business suits and ski masks,' said Adachi cheerfully, 'and surgical gloves. These are not particularly helpful people. And note the license plates are covered with black cloth or something similar. Very professional and unfriendly.'
His voice was relaxed. Chifune had no sooner entered his apartment than he had taken her on the tatami floor, or maybe she had taken him. It was hard to know with Chifune. She now sat naked beside him, the video controls in her hand. They were drinking chilled white wine and leaning back against beanbags.
It was a rather pleasant way, thought Adachi, to carry on an investigation. He was not naked. Almost everything had come off in the encounter, but he was still wearing his tie – his Tokyo MPD tie at that. He lifted the mangled thing off his head and threw it like a ring at the door handle. It hung perfectly on the first shot.
'We've got the make of the car, the number and build of the assailants, and the makes of several of the weapons for starters,' said Chifune. 'Don't be lazy. You can't expect them to wear name tags.'
'Whiz it back,' said Adachi. He was pleased with his VCR. Matsushita, he considered, had done him proud. It featured all the latest gadgetry, not the least of which was resolution enhancement, freeze frame, and variable- speed slow motion. If there was something to be seen, they would see it.
Chifune reran the video, and again, and again, and again. And then she noticed Adachi's revived tumescent condition and decided they both could do with some attention.
Afterward, they ran the video twice more. By now they were concentrating on the figure who seemed to be giving the orders. His face and neck were completely concealed; his suit gave off no clues, except to show that the wearer was a tall, powerful man.
The camera had caught his outstretched arms as he waved his people to surround the building. Here there was an interesting detail. Through the thin surgical glove on the left hand, the outline of a heavy ring could clearly be seen.
'Kei Namaka?' said Adachi. 'The build is right, the body language is right, and he wears a ring something like that – I'll get the lab to do some photo enhancement. But hell, would he do a hit himself? He would be insane to. These people never do their own dirty work. They're insulated.'
'Hodama didn't die any old way,' said Chifune. 'This was personal. And I think it may well be political – which is interesting.'
'What do you mean?' said Adachi.
'A conventional killing gets harder to solve as time goes on,' said Chifune. 'A hit like Hodama brings the beneficiary out of the woodwork. I don't think we're looking closely enough at who benefits. Think about it. Power abhors a vacuum. Kill a kuromaku and who is likely to surface?'
'Another kuromaku,' said Adachi slowly. 'A puppetmaster – and his puppets.'
'Killing Hodama may be about revenge,' said Chifune, 'but I think it was mostly about power. Look for a power shift.'
Adachi stared at her. 'What do you know?' he said.
'More than you,' said Chifune, 'but neither of us knows enough. I'm working on it.'
'Politics!' said Adachi disgustedly.
'Not just politics,' said Chifune. 'There are linkages here.' She stroked Adachi's cheek and then kissed him. 'Powerful interests, corruption, a lot of history, and terrorism. This is a dangerous, bloody business, my love. So keep wearing your hardware.'
'‘My love’?' said Adachi, looking very pleased and rather like a schoolboy.
Chifune ruffled his hair. 'Figure of speech,' she said. 'Don't go getting ideas.'
The rest of what Chifune had said slowly surfaced. 'Terrorism?' he said. 'What the hell is going on? What ever happened to old-fashioned murder?' He was quiet for a while. 'You know,' he added, 'our killer may just have a sense of humor, and have made the most of the moment when he found Hodama about to have his bath, but I don't think so. I don't see this as a nice, clean political assassination. I think Hodama was meant to die in agony. The thing may be political – given who Hodama was, must be political – but I think the primary motive was revenge.'
'Nonetheless,' said Chifune, 'look at the politics. Look at the realignments, the new alliances in the toy box. Look at where the strings lead.'
Adachi whistled a few bars of an old Beatles song. The Beatles had been big in Japan and, when still only a kid, he had once gone to see them in the Nippon Budokan. A memorable evening. He was not sure that the present generation of much-hyped midadolescent pop stars could be defined as progress. Most Japanese singers had a short shelf life and seemed to be considered geriatric by the time they were twenty. He had a feeling they were assembled by robots somewhere and were simply replaced when they wore out. Flexible production: cars one day; pop singers the next; computer-controlled, using fuzzy logic. Your every need provided by half a dozen vast corporations and the state – or were business and the state one and the same? It was a frightening thought and not entirely fanciful. Japanese homogeneity was all very well, but like food needed salt, there was a lot to be said for a useful dash of individuality.
Speaking of which: He rolled over onto Chifune and, the weight of his upper body taken by his arms so he could look down at her, entered her. She drew up her knees to bring him deeper and returned his gaze steadily, scarcely moving. Then she reached up and stroked his face before pulling him down to her.
The meeting took place in the twenty-story Tokyo building of the electronics keiretsu. The head office of the group was officially in Osaka, but the chairman and direct descendant of the founder worked out of Tokyo, so the facilities there were lavish.
The first floor was a showroom displaying the latest electronic products. They ranged from voice-activated rice cookers to HDTV – high definition television. A constant stream of visitors came to gaze at this Aladdin's cave of desirable technology. In its way, the whole of the building was a showpiece for the scale and scope of the group.
The twentieth floor housed the chairman's office and other facilities for the board of directors. It was also used to demonstrate the group's expertise in state-of-the-art security products and was, therefore, totally electronically secure.
Twenty-one men sat at a V-shaped conference table. At the open end of the V, a multimedia wall brought data onto the giant screens on demand. A three-person secretariat from the confidential office of the chairman manipulated the computer controls as instructed and performed such other functions as were necessary. Minutes were kept in encrypted form then and there. No other record of the meeting was kept and no member could take notes or remove any records from the room.
The twenty-one men were the ruling council of the secret Gamma Society, which, scattered throughout Japan though heavily concentrated in the capital, was over five thousand strong in all. Members were drawn only from those in senior positions in the Japanese government, business, and academic establishment – and then only after personal recommendations and lengthy vetting.
Each of the twenty-one men in the guarded and sealed conference room wore two lapel pins, that of his work affiliation and that of the Gamma Society itself. The gamma pin was in the form of the Greek letter, and, in the few cases where it had been inadvertently worn outside a meeting, had been associated with Gaia – the environmental movement. The Gamma pin was actually an indirect way of referring to giri, ‘obligation.’ In this case their giri related to their obligations toward the well-being and health of Japanese society and in particular toward the body politic.
The Gamma Society had been set up by a small but influential group who had been concerned with the increasing power of the alliance of organized crime and corrupt politics, in what was otherwise a most successful
