Connor said, "The point is the Japanese know they can make it very uncomfortable. By raising the dust around you, they are telling me, 'handle it.' Because they think I can get this thing done. Finish it off."

"Can you?"

"Sure. You want to finish it off now? Then we can go have a beer, and enjoy some Japanese truth. Or do you want to get to the bottom of why Cheryl Austin was killed?"

"I want to get to the bottom."

"Me, too," Connor said. "So let's do it, kōhai. I think Sanders's lab will have interesting information for us. The tapes are the key, now."

Chapter 17

Phillip Sanders was spinning like a top. "The lab is shut down," he said. He threw up his hands in frustration. "And there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing."

Connor said, "When did it happen?"

"An hour ago. Buildings and Grounds came by and told everybody in the lab to leave, and they locked it up. Just like that. There's a big padlock on the front door, now."

I said, "And the reason was?"

"A report that structural weakness in the ceiling has made the basement unsafe and will invalidate the university's insurance if the skating rink comes crashing down on us. Some talk about how student safety comes first. Anyway, they closed the lab, pending an investigation and report by a structural engineer."

"And when will that happen?"

He gestured to the phone. "I'm waiting to hear. Maybe some time next week. Maybe not until next month."

"Next month."

"Yeah, Exactly." Sanders ran his hand through his wild hair. "I went all the way to the dean on this one. But the dean's office doesn't know. It's coming from high up in the university. Up where the board of governors knows rich donors who make contributions in multi-million-dollar chunks. The order came from the highest levels." Sanders laughed. "These days, it doesn't leave much mystery."

I said, "Meaning what?"

"You realize Japan is deeply into the structure of American universities, particularly in technical departments. It's happened everywhere. Japanese companies now endow twenty-five professorships at M.I.T., far more than any other nation. Because they know - after all the bullshit stops - that they can't innovate as well as we can. Since they need innovation, they do the obvious thing. They buy it."

"From American universities."

"Sure. Listen, at the University of California at Irvine, there's two floors of a research building that you can't get into unless you have a Japanese passport. They're doing research for Hitachi there. An American university closed to Americans." Sanders swung around, waving his arms. "And around here, if something happens that they don't like, it's just a phone call from somebody to the president of the university, and what can he do? He can't afford to piss the Japanese off. So whatever they want, they get. And if they want the lab closed, it's closed."

I said, "What about the tapes?"

"Everything is locked in there. They made us leave everything."

"Really?"

"They were in a hell of a rush. It was gestapo stuff. Pushing and prodding us to get out. You can't imagine the panic at an American university if it thinks it may lose some funding." He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe Theresa managed to take some tapes with her. You could ask her."

"Where is she?"

"I think she went ice skating."

I frowned. "Ice skating?"

"That's what she said she was going to do. So you could check over there."

And he looked right at Connor. In a particularly meaningful way.

Theresa Asakuma wasn't ice skating. There were thirty little kids in the rink, with a young teacher trying in vain to control them. They looked like fourth graders. Their laughter and yells echoed in the high ceiling of the rink.

The building was almost deserted, the bleachers empty. A handful of fraternity boys sat up in one corner, looking down and punching each other on the shoulder. On our side, up high, near the ceiling, a janitor mopped. A couple of adults who looked like parents stood at the railing, down near the ice. Opposite us, a man was reading a newspaper.

I didn't see Theresa Asakuma anywhere.

Connor sighed. Wearily, he sat on the wooden bleachers and leaned back. He crossed his legs, taking his ease. I stood there, watching him. "What are you doing? She's obviously not here."

"Have a seat."

"But you're always in such a rush."

"Have a seat. Enjoy life."

I sat down next to him. We watched the kids skating around the perimeter of the ice. The teacher was shouting, "Alexander? Alexander! I've told you before. No hitting! Don't you hit her!"

I leaned back against the bleachers. I tried to relax. Connor watched the kids and chuckled. He appeared entirely at ease, without a care in the world.

I said, "Do you think Sanders is right? The Japanese squeezed the university?"

"Sure," Connor said.

"And all that business about Japan buying into American technology? Buying professorships at M.I.T.?"

"It's not illegal. They're supporting scholarship. A noble ideal."

I frowned. "So you think it's okay?"

"No," he said. "I don't think it's okay at all. If you give up control of your own institutions you give up everything. And generally, whoever pays for an institution controls it. If the Japanese are willing to put up the money - and if the American government and American industry aren't - then the Japanese will control American education. You know they already own ten American colleges. Own them outright. Bought them for the training of their young people. So that they can be assured of the ability to send young Japanese to America."

"But they already can do that. Lots of Japanese go to American universities."

"Yes. But as usual, the Japanese are planning ahead. They know in the future it may get tougher. They know that sooner or later, there will be a backlash. No matter how diplomatically they play it - and they are in the acquisition phase now, so they're playing it very diplomatically. Because the fact is, countries don't like to be dominated. They don't like to be occupied - economically or militarily. And the Japanese figure some day the Americans will wake up."

I watched the kids skating in the rink. I listened to their laughter. I thought of my daughter. I thought of the four o'clock meeting.

I said, "Why are we sitting here?"

"Because," he said.

So we sat there. The teacher was rounding the kids up now, leading them off the ice. "Skates off here. Skates off here, please. That means you too, Alexander! Alexander!"

"You know," Connor said, "if you wanted to buy a Japanese company, you couldn't do it. The people in the company would consider it shameful to be taken over by foreigners. It would be a disgrace. They would never allow it."

"I thought you could. I thought the Japanese had liberalized their rules."

Connor smiled. "Technically. Yes. Technically, you can buy a Japanese company. But as a practical matter, you can't. Because if you want to take over a company, you first have to approach its bank. And get the agreement of the bank. That's what is necessary, in order to proceed. And the bank doesn't agree."

"I thought General Motors owns Isuzu."

"GM owns a third of Isuzu. Not a controlling interest. And yes, there are isolated instances. But overall, foreign investment in Japan has declined by half in the last ten years. One company after another finds the Japanese market just too tough. They get tired of the bullshit, the hassles, the collusion, the rigged markets, the dangō, the secret agreements to keep them out. They get tired of the government regulations. The run around. And eventually they give up. They just... give up. Most other countries have given up: Germans, Italians, French. Everybody's getting tired of trying to do business in Japan. Because no matter what they tell you, Japan is closed. A few years ago, T. Boone Pickens bought one-fourth of the stock of a Japanese company, but he couldn't get on the board of directors. Japan is closed."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"The same thing the Europeans are doing," Connor said. "Reciprocity. Tit for tat. One of yours for one of mine. Everybody in the world has the same problem with Japan. It's just a question of what solution works best. The European solution is pretty direct. Works well, at least so far."

On the rink, some teenage girls began to do warmups and a few tentative leaps. Now the schoolteacher was leading her charges along the corridor past us. As she went by, she said, "Is one of you Lieutenant Smith?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said.

One kid said, "Do you have a gun?"

The teacher said, "That woman asked me to tell you that what you're looking for is in the men's locker room."

"It is?" I said.

The kid said, "Can I see it?"

The teacher said, "You know, the Oriental woman? I think she was Oriental."

"Yes," Connor said. "Thank you."

"I want to see the gun."

Another kid said, "Quiet, stupid. Don't you know anything? They're undercover."

"I want to see the gun."

Connor and I started walking away. The kids trailed after us, still asking to see our guns. Across the rink, the man with the newspaper looked up curiously. He watched us leave.

"Nothing like an inconspicuous exit," Connor said.

The men's locker room was deserted. I started going through the green metal lockers, one after another, looking for the tapes. Connor didn't bother. I heard him call to me, "Back here."

He was in the rear by the showers. "You found the tapes?"

"No."

He was holding open a door.

We went down a flight of concrete stairs to a landing. There were two doors. One opened onto a below-grade truck entrance. The other went into a dark hallway with wooden beams. "This way," Connor said.

We went down this hallway, crouched over. We were underneath the rink again. We passed throbbing stainless-steel machinery, and then came to a series of doors.

"Do you know where we're going?" I said.

One of the doors was ajar. He pushed it open. The room lights were out, but I could see that we were in the lab. Off in a corner, I saw a faint monitor glow.

We walked toward it.

Chapter 18

Theresa Asakuma leaned back from the table, pushed her glasses up on her forehead, and rubbed her beautiful eyes. "It's okay as long as we don't make much noise," she said. "They had a guard outside the main door earlier. I don't know if he's still there."

"A guard?"

"Yeah. They were serious about shutting down the lab. It was spectacular, like a drug bust. It really surprised the Americans."

"And you?"

"I don't have the same expectations about this country."

Connor pointed to the monitor in front of her. It showed a freeze-frame image of the couple, embracing as they moved toward the conference room. The same image, seen from other camera angles, was reproduced on other monitors on the desk. Some of the monitors had superimposed red lines, radiating out from the night lights. "What have you learned from the tapes?"

Theresa pointed to the main screen. "I'm not certain," she said. "To be completely certain, I would have to run 3-D modeling sequences to match the dimensions of the room and keep track of all the light sources, and the shadows cast by all the sources. I haven't done that, and I probably can't with the equipment in this room. It would probably require an overnight run on a mini. Maybe I could get time next week from the astrophysics department. The way things are going, maybe not. But in the meantime, I have a strong feeling."

"Which is?"

"The shadows don't match."

In the darkness, Connor nodded slowly. As if that made sense to him.

I said, "Which shadows don't match?"

She pointed to the screen. "As these people move around the floor, the shadows they cast don't line up exactly. They're in the wrong place, or the wrong shape. Often it's subtle. But I think it is there."

"And the fact that the shadows don't match means..."

She shrugged. "I'd say the tapes have been altered, Lieutenant."

There was a silence. "Altered how?"

"I'm not sure how much has been done. But it seems clear that there was another person in that room, at least part of the time."

"Another person? You mean a third person?"

"Yes. Someone watching. And that third person has been systematically erased."

"No shit," I said.

It was making my head spin. I looked at Connor. He was staring intently at the monitors. He seemed completely unsurprised. I said, "Did you already know this?"

"I suspected something of the sort."

"Why?"

"Well, early in the investigation it seemed likely that the tapes were going to be altered."

"Why?" I said.

Connor smiled. "Details, kōhai. Those little things we forget." He glanced at Theresa, as if he was reluctant to talk too much in front of her.

I said, "No, I want to hear this. When did you first know the tapes were altered?"

"In the Nakamoto security room."

"Why?"

"Because of the missing tape."

"What missing tape?" I said. He had mentioned it before.

"Think back," Connor said. "In the security room, the guard told us that he changed the tapes when he came on duty, around nine o'clock."

"Yes..."

"And the tape recorders all had timers, showing an elapsed time of about two hours. Each recorder started about ten or fifteen seconds later than the previous one. Because that was the time interval it took him to change each tape."

"Right..." I remembered all that.

"And I pointed out to him one tape recorder that didn't fit the sequence. Its tape was only running for half an hour. So I asked if it was broken."