“I see you made the Post again,” he said, grinning. “Getting nasty with our friends in the Orient, are we?”

Loren expertly flipped an omelet onto a dish. “Ownership of a third of our businesses has been transferred to Tokyo. And with it went our prosperity and independence as a nation. America no longer belongs to Americans. We’ve become a financial colony of Japan.”

“That bad?”

“The public has no idea how bad,” said Loren, setting the omelet and a plate of toast in front of Pitt. “Our huge deficits have created an open door for our economy to flow out and Japanese money to rush in.”

“We have only ourselves to blame,” he said, waving a fork. “They underconsume, we overconsume, burying ourselves deeper in debt. We gave away or sold out our lead in whatever technology that wasn’t stolen. And we stand in line with open pocketbooks and tongues hanging in greedy anticipation to sell them our corporations and real estate to make a fast buck. Face the facts, Loren, none of this could have happened if the public, the business community, you people in Congress, and the economic cretins in the White House had realized this country was engaged in a no-quarter financial war against an enemy who looks upon us as inferior. As it stands, we’ve thrown away any chance of winning.”

Loren sat down with a cup of coffee and passed Pitt a glass of orange juice. “That’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you give. You thought of running for the Senate?”

“I’d rather have my toenails torn out. Besides, one Pitt on Capitol Hill is enough,” he said, referring to his father, Senator George Pitt of California.

“Have you seen the senator?”

“Not yet,” Pitt said, taking a bite of egg. “I haven’t had a chance.”

“What are your plans?” Loren asked, staring wistfully into Pitt’s opaline green eyes.

“I’m going to putter on the cars and take it easy for the next couple of days. Maybe if I can tune up the Stutz in time, I’ll enter it in the classic car races.”

“I can think of something more fun than getting greasy,” she said, her voice throaty.

She came around the table, reached down and took a surprisingly strong grip of his arm. He could feel desire flowing from her like nectar, and suddenly he wanted her more than he ever had before. He only hoped he was up to a second round. Then as if drawn by a magnet, he allowed himself to be pulled to the couch.

“Not in the bed,” she said huskily. “Not until you change the sheets.”

27

HIDEKI SUMA STEPPED out of his private Murmoto tilt-rotor executive jet followed by Moro Kamatori. The aircraft had landed at a heliport beside a huge solar plastic dome that rose fifty meters into the sky. Centered in a densely landscaped park, the dome covered a vast atrium that comprised the inner core of a subterranean project called “Edo” after the city renamed Tokyo during the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

The first unit of Japan’s new underground frontier, Edo, City was designed and built by Suma as a scientific research and think-tank community that supported 60,000 people. Shaped like a great cylinder around the atrium, the twenty-story circular complex contained living quarters for the scientific community, offices, public baths, convention halls, restaurants, a shopping mall, library, and its own thousand-man security force.

Smaller underground cylinders connected by tunnels to the main core held the communications equipment, heating and cooling systems, temperature and humidity controls, electrical power plants, and waste processing machinery. The elaborate structures were constructed of ceramic concrete and reached 1500 meters deep in the volcanic rock.

Soma funded the project himself without any government involvement. Any laws or restrictions that hindered construction were quickly resolved by the enormous power wielded by Soma’s corporate and underworld tentacles.

He and Kamatori boarded a concealed elevator that took them to a suite of his corporate offices covering the entire fourth floor of the outer cylinder. His secretary, Toshie Kudo, stood waiting as the doors opened to his heavily guarded private office and apartment. The spacious three-tiered rooms were decorated with delicately painted screens and murals and showcases of beautiful ceramics and sixteenth-century robes of ornately woven brocades, satins, and crepe. Paintings of land and seascapes covered most of the walls, some depicting dragons, leopards, tigers, and hawks that represented the martial prowess of the warrior class.

“Mr. Ashikaga Enshu is waiting,” announced Toshie.

“I don’t recall the name.”

“Mr. Enshu is an investigator who specializes in hunting down rare art and negotiating its sale for his clients,” explained Toshie. “He called and said he’d discovered a painting that fits your collection. I took the liberty of setting an appointment for him to display it for your approval.”

“I have little time,” said Suma, glancing at his watch.

Kamatori shrugged. “Won’t hurt to see what he’s brought you, Hideki. Maybe he’s found the painting you’ve been looking for.”

He nodded at Toshie. “All right, please send him in.”

Soma bowed as the art dealer stepped into the room. “You have a new acquisition for my collection, Mr. Enshu?”

“Yes, I hope so, one that I believe you will be most happy I was able to find for you.” Ashikaga smiled warmly beneath a perfect mane of silver hair, heavy eyebrows, and full mustache.

“Please set it on the stand in the light,” said Suma, pointing at an easel in front of a large window.

“May I draw the blinds open a little more’?”

“Please do so.”

Enshu pulled the draw lines to the slatted blinds. Then he set the painting on the easel but kept it covered by a silk cloth. “From the sixteenth-century Kano school, a Masaki Shimzu.”

“The revered seascape artist,” said Kamatori, displaying a rare hint of excitement. “One of your favorites, Hideki.”

“You know I am a devotee of Shimzu?” Suma asked Enshu.

“A well-known fact in art circles that you collect his work, especially the paintings he made of our surrounding islands.”

Suma turned to Toshie. “How many of his pieces do I have in my collection?”

“You presently own eleven out of the thirteen island seascapes and four of his landscape paintings of the Hida Mountains.”

“And this new one would make twelve in the island set.”

“Yes.”

“What Shimzu island painting have you brought me?” Suma asked Enshu expectantly. “Ajima?”

“No, Kechi.”

Suma looked visibly disappointed. “I had hoped it might be Ajima.”

“I’m sorry.” Enshu held out his hands in a defeatist gesture. “The Ajima was sadly lost during the fall of Germany. It was last seen hanging in the office of the ambassador in our Berlin embassy in May of nineteen forty-five.”

“I will gladly pay you to keep up the search.”

“Thank you,” said Enshu, bowing. “I already have investigators in Europe and the United States trying to locate it.”

“Good, now let’s have the unveiling of Kechi Island.”

With a practiced flourish, Enshu undraped a lavish painting of a bird’s-eye view of an island in monochrome ink with an abundant use of brilliant colors and gold leaf.

“Breathtaking,” murmured Toshie in awe.

Enshu nodded in agreement. “The finest example of Shimzu’s work I’ve ever seen.”

“What do you think, Hideki?” asked Kamatori.

“A masterwork,” answered Suma, moved by the genius of the artist. “Incredible that he could paint an overhead view with such vivid detail in the early sixteen-hundreds. It’s almost as if he did it from a tethered balloon.”

“Legend says he painted from a kite,” said Toshie.

“Sketched from a kite is more probable,” corrected Enshu. “And painted the scene on the ground.”