There were no turnoffs that she could have reached in the time it took him to get this far. She must have left the path. She had deliberately eluded him. Why?

He wouldn’t find the answer today. He had no hope of tracking her through the park. Crenshaw surely knew more than enough tricks to evade his amateurish pursuit.

She had been there when Betty Tanaka died and shared captivity with him and Jiro. Crenshaw had felt enough what? affection? loyalty? curiosity? to come to Jiro’s funeral. She had seen Sam and must have known he wanted to talk with her. Why had she fled?

It didn’t make sense. There just weren’t enough hard facts. All he had were possibilities. He was beginning to suspect that maybe he didn’t want to know what was real and what was polite fiction or an outright lie. He had grown up believing that truth was important, but he was starting to suspect he wouldn’t like the true story.

Someone was hiding facts connected to Jiro’s death. Possibly someone within Renraku Corporation itself. Someone, perhaps an ambitious executive, was practicing deception for personal ends, twisting the corporation to suit his or her own plans for individual power.

Listen to me. I Sound like dupe of the week from Channel 23’s “Confessions of a Company Man.”

Sam wanted to laugh it off, but could not. He had seen too many signs of something rotten. How much of what he had taken for granted was deception? He was still mulling over the matter when Hanae came panting up, her face flushed. Sam could tell that it was simple exertion and not anger. Concern and worry wrinkled her brow.

“Why did you run away?”

“I didn’t. I saw Alice Crenshaw. I wanted to talk to her about Jiro. She knew him, too. I was trying to catch up to her, and she deliberately avoided me. She knew I wanted to talk to her, and she walked away. Just like the rest of the company, avoiding me.”

“I’m not avoiding you, Sam,” Hanae said softly.

It was true. She had been very good to him, always available with a soft shoulder. Why did he have doubts about his feelings for her? As always when he wanted to ease his discomfort, he embraced her. Hanae snuggled close, seeming well satisfied with the physical security of his arms. She hadn’t yet noticed that he did not relax the way she did. Or if she did, perhaps she put it down to the tensions affecting him for as long as they had known one another. He certainly had complained about it enough.

“My life is a dead end here,” he said, knowing it was an old line.

“Don’t talk like that, Sam.” Distress was evident in her voice. “Renraku is our home.”

“Some home. They pen me in. I never get good assignments. They’ve lowered my security rating. It’s a dead end.”

He felt her tense up within his arms. She always said she liked him best when he was happy, that she would do anything to make him that way all the time. He wanted to believe that. Even more, he wanted to believe she could do it.

When he felt the yearning for her comfort, he wanted to fulfill her expectations, to be the man she wanted him to be.

“I could accept all that, if they would just let me contact Janice. They know what happened to her. Why won’t they tell me?”

“They must have a good reason.”

Sam wasn’t so sure. Not anymore.

Hanae seemed not to notice his lack of response.

“When Sato-sama gets here, you’ll see that things will change. He’ll need you to get the project going, and he’ll surely help you. After all, he is Aneki-sama’s assistant and Aneki-sama was your mentor. Renraku takes care of its own. All your trials will have been for a good reason. Sato-sama will help you.”

Like he helped in Tokyo? “I don’t think so.”

“You must try, anyway.”

Sam forced a smile. “All right.”

Alice Crenshaw closed the door to the outer office, shutting off the protests of the security director’s receptionist. The little twit should be used to her barging in on the director by now.

The director’s aide, Jhoon Silla, stood halfway between the door and the director’s desk, eclipsing Crenshaw’s view of his master. Silla was dressed in his usual immaculate red jumpsuit, the gold Renraku logo and captain’s star gleaming on his collar. His white Sam Browne belt gleamed softly in the indirect lighting of the lushly appointed office. The intense young man was rigid, stretched to the edge of action; his hand was under his holster flap and resting on the butt of his pistol.

“Very protective,” she said as she advanced. “But slow. You should have been at the door before 1 closed it.”

Tadashi Marushige sat back as she stepped around Silla. The security director folded his hands on his desk and gazed at her expressionlessly. He, too, wore the company’s undress military uniform, the collar showing insignia of the exalted rank of general in the Renraku military forces. Crenshaw never knew Marushige to wear his undress uniform except to review the elite Red Samurai guards. When Marushige was in a military mood, he usually forsook his power suits for simple fatigues.

“You’re early,” Marushige observed as Crenshaw lowered herself into the armchair to the left of the desk.

“Useful habit.”

Marushige’s stare was suitably venomous.

“Feel free to continue,” she offered, knowing that her insolence annoyed him.

“Quite all right,” he said coldly. “I was just finishing up, anyway.”

He called Silla forward with a gesture. The aide began to gather maps from the desk and shuffle them into a folder. Prom the far side of the desk, he produced a briefcase and slid the packet into one of its compartments. Crenshaw sat quietly, turning her head to watch as Silla crossed the room to stand the case on the floor and take up a position by the door. She noted the uniform hats and topcoats hanging behind Silla; their presence indicated that an operation outside the arcology was in the offing. Curious. She resolved to check with her sources as soon as the meeting was over.

She turned back to find Marushige waiting silently, watching her with his dark brown eyes. He said nothing. Finally, she surrendered to his patience.

“I’m not the only one running ahead of schedule today.” The director’s response was a nonverbal grunt that she took as a request to elaborate. “I thought you might be interested to know that your eleven A.M. meeting is moving itself up. Our friends from the Special Directorate are on their way.”

“Interesting.” If Marushige was surprised, he didn’t show it, though Crenshaw suspected he was ignorant of the development. He had obviously been deeply involved in the planning session with his aide and would have left orders not to be disturbed. “And knowing that I would wish you to attend the meeting, you dropped what you were doing to come at once.”