Privateers (9 page)

“Nobuhiko has risen to the position of foreman in our oldest and biggest factory.”

“So? You must be very proud of him.” Unconsciously, Dan slipped into his quasi-Japanese mode of speaking, even though the two of them were conversing in English. He could speak Japanese well enough, although Yamagata’s English was much better than Dan’s Japanese.

“He is a good son. One day he will take my place at the head of Yamagata Industries.”

“Not for many years.”

Yamagata nodded and shrugged, as if to say. / will be content, whenever the time comes. Aloud, he asked Dan, “Your solicitude for my family is gratifying, but is it the only reason for calling me at this early hour?”

Dan started to grin, but the recollection of Malik’s smug ultimatum soured him. “I’ve just had a chat with the new head of the Russian space program.”

“Comrade Malik,” said Yamagata. “I have not yet had the honor of meeting him.”

“He’s raising the price of lunar ores-”

“Twenty-five percent. Yes, I know.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Dan asked.

Yamagata smiled amiably. “Do? What is there to do? We must pay their price or close down our factories.”

“There’s got to be something else.”

Clasping his hands over his round belly, Yamagata lapsed into silence.

“Now don’t go inscrutable on me, Sai,” Dan growled. “There’s got to be something we can do to get around this … this … highway robbery.”

With a slight shake of his head, the Japanese magnate said, “My old friend, there are some trees that not even the typhoon can blow down.”

Dan gave him a disbelieving look.

“Accept the inevitable,” Yamagata advised. “It is wiser than destroying oneself by trying to fight what cannot be altered.”

“That sounds curiously like the ancient advice to a woman facing rape.”

“Accept the inevitable,” Yamagata repeated.

“Just let them screw me?” Dan snapped. “I’ll be double-damned to hell and gone before I let them get away with that!”

Yamagata’s round face took on a sorrowful look. “Ah, Dan, my impetuous friend, in all these years that we have known each other, I have failed to teach you the wisdom of the Japanese outlook on the world. You remain hopelessly American.”

“I accept the compliment.”

With a small wave of one chubby hand, Yamagata suggested, “Accept, instead, an invitation. Come here to visit me.”

“To Tokyo?”

“To my country estate, in the mountains near Sapporo. You need a change of scenery, my friend.”

Feeling suddenly annoyed, Dan answered, “I’m in the middle of-”

“In the middle of a forest.” Yamagata raised his voice enough to make Dan silent. “You see one large tree, but you overlook the others. You need a change in perspective, a chance to relax, to be away from the cares and pressures of your office. Join me at Sapporo. The trip will be worth your while, I assure you.”

Dan leaned back in his chair and studied his old friend’s eyes. Yamagata was trying to tell him something that he would not, or could not, put into words. Why not? Dan asked himself. Because he’s afraid of being overheard. Phone calls are relayed by communications satellites. They can be tapped easily enough. Especially by the government that operates most of the commsats.

“I’ve never seen your place in Sapporo,” Dan said.

Yamagata’s smile returned. “I acquired it only a few years ago, when Nobuhiko became a fanatic for skiing. After living for so many years in Texas and Venezuela, you will enjoy seeing snow once again, I’m sure. Very invigorating.”

“I’ll come out for the weekend,” Dan said.

Yamagata’s eyes shifted slightly away from Dan for a moment. “My computer tells me that I am obligated to appear at a family dinner this weekend. My in-laws.” He grimaced. “Come tomorrow! Spontaneity can be very rewarding.”

“Tomorrow?” Dan echoed.

“Yes! I will tell Nobuhiko to join us. You will enjoy two or three days in the fresh, crisp air of Sapporo, I promise you.”

Within his own mind, Dan was trying to translate Yamagata’s words into their true meaning. Spontaneity. His estate all the way to hell up in the mountains of Hokkaido. He wants to talk to me in person, as far away from his office and mine as we can make it. And he wants to meet with me quickly, before anybody can arrange to bug our meeting place.

“I’ll leave tonight,” Dan said, “and be there in time for lunch.”

“Good!” Yamagata beamed happily. “I will make the necessary preparations and meet you at the airport.”

His image faded into nothingness, leaving Dan sitting alone at his desk once more. For several moments he remained there, silent, unmoving. The butler robot trundled up to the desk.

“Sir, messages for you are accumulating.”

“I’ll look them over on the phone screen,” Dan said.

“Seńorita Hernandez …”

“She called?”

“No, sir. She is here. She arrived eighteen minutes ago, while you were showering. She has been waiting in the solarium. …”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Dan snapped. He pushed out of the desk chair so quickly that it nearly tipped over and made his way through the big, empty living room toward the solarium. It had originally been a balcony running the length of the apartment, when the tower was first opened. But Dan had it enclosed with glass panels that could be polarized at the turn of a dial to go from complete transparency to a dark smokiness that kept the sun’s heat out of the room. The glass was all of the highest optical quality, so that Dan could use the squat little astronomical telescope he had set up at the solarium’s far end without opening the panels to let in the insects that hummed through the night air.

An exotic collection of flowering plants lined the solarium’s glass wall, except for the area around the telescope. Dan had originally ordered shrubs and small trees from his native Virginia, in the hope that at least this little slice of his living quarters would bear a reminder of home. But the plants could not face the fierce tropical sun, even through the polarized glass. They withered and browned. Dan had them removed, and a botanist from the University of Caracas installed a preciously contrived microcosm of local flora. It was breathtakingly gorgeous. Dan hardly ever noticed it.

Lucita was sitting in one of the cushioned wicker chairs dotting the solarium’s tiled floor, watching the flaming sunset coloring the sky over the mountains southwest of the city.

“Seńorita Hernandez,” Dan said as the glass doors to the solarium slid shut behind him. Like the airtight bulkhead hatches in a space station, the solarium doors were programmed to close automatically, sealing the air in the solarium from the cooled and dehumidified air of the rest of the apartment.

She got to her feet and extended her hand. “I’m sorry to intrude. …”

“Not at all,” he said. “The idiot robot shouldn’t have stuck you out here in this heat. Come inside.”

“No, thank you. I prefer it here. I like to watch the sunset, and the heat does not bother me. I thrive in it.”

“You certainly do.”

She wore a simple sleeveless frock of butter yellow that made her look fresh and cool and lovely in the tropical air. Her thick dark hair was coiled and pinned up, off her neck. Dan noticed a single stubborn strand curling down just behind her ear, and wondered what she would do if he reached out to tuck it up where it belonged.

But he kept his hands to himself and waited for her to speak. Finally Lucita said, “You must be wondering why I have come here, unannounced.”

It was difficult for Dan to remind himself that she was merely a child, especially when he gazed into those wondrous eyes. “Just the fact that you’re here is enough for me. I’m delighted.”

“You are very gallant.”

“And you are very beautiful, Sefiorita Hernandez.”

She smiled prettily. “You must call me Lucita.”

“I will. And my friends call me Dan.”

Her eyes flashed at that. “What do your enemies call you?”

Laughing, “A young lady should not hear such words.”

“Am I intruding?” she asked more seriously. “I realize that you must be very busy.”

“No! Not at all.” He really was delighted that she had come, he realized. “Can I offer you a drink? Do you have any plans for dinner?”

“Something cold,” Lucita said. “I’m afraid I must be home within the hour.”

“Hudson!” Dan called to the microphone hidden in the wall. “Champagne, please.”

“Not champagne. …”

Turning back to her, “Why not? It’s well chilled, and quite light.”

Lucita wiggled a finger against the tip of her pert little nose. “It makes me giggle.”

“Ah. I see. You’re much too dignified a lady to be seen giggling in public.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“You didn’t giggle at your father’s party yesterday, and you were drinking champagne.”

“No, I did not giggle then.” Her face grew solemn and Dan cursed himself for breaking the mood they had created.

The glass doors slid open and Dan felt a finger of cold air touch him as the robot butler trundled into the solarium carrying a tray that bore a bottle of champagne in a hammered silver ice bucket and two frosted crystal tulip glasses. Lucita watched in silence as Dan wormed the cork out of the bottle. It popped loudly and bounced off a glass overhead panel. She jumped at the noise.

“Happy New Year,” Dan said.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He poured the champagne and handed her a glass. “Salud, bella senorita.”

“Gracias, seńor.”

“De nada.”

Lucita barely sipped at the champagne.

“May I ask why you came to see me?”

She looked up at him, her large dark eyes giving her waif’s face a look of mixed guilt and hope. “I want to leave Caracas, get away from Venezuela entirely. …”

Dan saw the problem instantly. “But your father won’t permit it.”

“Exactly.”

“You don’t like the Russian?”

“He has nothing to do with it,” she said.

“Really?”

“I will not have my father barter me off like some prize heifer!” Lucita said angrily.

“And he will not allow you to leave Venezuela.”

She turned to look out at the sunset. “You have private planes. You could fly me to Brazil or Europe or even to the United States.”

“I’m going to Japan tonight,” Dan heard himself say, casually, almost carelessly, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. “Would you care to come with me?”

She whirled to face him again. “To Japan? Tonight?”

“It’s only a quick business trip, a couple of nights at most.”

“Tonight? When?”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “The flight takes a couple of hours. I thought I’d leave around ten tonight; that’ll put us in Japan by midafternoon, their time.”

“You would take me with you?”

He thought briefly about her father and the difficulties the Minister of Technology could cause. But he said, “Sure, if you want to come.”

“I do!”

Dan felt suddenly giddy. “Okay,” he said, grinning. “Meet me at the old airport between nine-thirty and nine forty-five. I’ll leave word at the gate for the guard to expect you.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Lucita seemed as excited as a little child on Christmas Eve. She put her champagne glass down on the edge of the planter by the window and headed past the inert robot, toward the doors. “I must pack a bag and see that my car is ready. I’ll tell my father that I’m visiting my Tia Teresa-she can be my duenna for the trip.”

“Duenna?”

“My chaperon. I could not go without a chaperon, of course. You will like her. She is a wonderful person.”

“I’m sure.”

“A phone. I must use your phone. May I … ?”

Dan pointed toward the living room. Lucita dashed off, leaving him standing there with his glass of champagne in his hand, feeling rather foolish.

Aunt Teresa turned out to be not much older than Lucita herself. Two girls barely out of their teens, Dan thought. Lucita drove a low-slung sports car out onto the runway apron and parked it with a squeal of brakes next to his own limousine. She and her chaperon climbed out, excited as schoolgirls, as one of Dan’s technicians took the car keys from Lucita and opened the trunk. At least they’ve packed sensibly, Dan saw; only four bags between them.

Lucita was wearing a loose-fitting jumpsuit of powder blue, cinched at the waist with a wide silver mesh belt. Her hair was neatly tied back into a girlish ponytail. Her duenna wore a peasant’s wide skirt, dark purple decorated with tiny embroidered flowers, and an off-the-shoulder white blouse that accentuated her full bosom. The ground crew men ogled the two of them; even the women of the crew stared openly. Lucita ignored them, but Teresa seemed to notice their attention and enjoy it.

The hypersonic plane was parked at the edge of the apron, its silvered skin glittering under the airport floodlights. It was a smaller version of the passenger liners that crossed the

Pacific in an hour, taking off like a normal airplane, then lighting off its rocket engines to arc high above the ocean in a ballistic trajectory and finally reentering the atmosphere like a space shuttle to land at a commercial airport.

Dan welcomed the two young ladies and personally escorted them to the plane. Teresa could not be more than a year or two older than Lucita, he thought. Some chaperon. She was good-looking, with the typical dark coloring of the Latin woman, an inch or so taller than Lucita and noticeably rounder, the kind of woman who would be on diets all her life. She would have looked very attractive to Dan if she had not been accompanying Lucita.

Stop thinking about it, Dan commanded himself. She’s just a kid. A breathtakingly beautiful kid who probably thinks of you the same way she thinks of her father. You’re an older adult to her, not a romantic possibility. But another voice in his head countered sardonically, It would be fun to teach her otherwise.