Read Online Linnear 02 - The Miko by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B

reacted in his typical overbearing manner. Justine simply could not forgive him for his various intrusions into her life.
    Repeatedly he had used bribes or threats to discourage a succession of boyfriends. “My father’s a master manipulator, Nick,” she had told him over and over again. “He’s a bastard without a heart or a conscience. He’s never cared about anyone but himself, not me, certainly not Gelda; not even my mother.”
    Yet, Nicholas knew, Justine was blind to the kind of men she had been attracted to. They had been manipulators allfar worse than her father ever had been. No wonder Tomkin had been so hostile toward him when they had first met. He naturally assumed that Nicholas was another in the long line bent on using his daughter.
    It was impossible to make Justine see that it was his very love for her that obliged him to interfere in an area that, up until now, she had been unable to handle. This did not absolve Tomkin, but it seemed a realistic starting point for the two of them to come together and possibly understand each other.
    The tirade that had followed Nicholas’ announcement of his going to work for Tomkin Industries, if only temporarily, had been followed by days of uncomfortable silence; Justine had simply not wanted to talk about it further. But in the last days before his departure it had seemed to Nicholas as if she had relented a bit, and was more at ease with his decision. “After all,” she had said as she saw him off, “it’s only for a while, isn’t it?”
    “What?” he said now, setting his concern for her back in its niche in the shadows of his mind.
    “I asked who Sato’s marrying,” Tomkin said.
    Nicholas looked down at the invitation. “A woman named Akiko Ofuda. Do you know anything about her?”
    Tomkin shook his head.
    “She’s the newest major interest in your partner’s life,” Nicholas said seriously. “I think it’s time you thought about hiring a new team of researchers.”
    With great difficulty Tanzan Nangi turned fully around. At his back the snow-clad slopes of Fuji-yama were fast disappearing into a vast golden haze the consistency of bisque. Tokyo buzzed at his feet like a giant pachinko machine.
    “I don’t like him,” he said, his voice like chalk scraping a blackboard.
    “Tomkin?”
    Nangi arched an eyebrow as he extracted a cigarette from its case. “You know very well whom I mean.”
    Sato gave him a benevolent smile. “Of course you don’t, my friend. Isn’t that why you assigned Miss Yoshidaa woman to meet them at the airport? Tell me which Japanese business associate of ours you would have insulted in that fashion. None, I can tell you! You even disapprove of the amount of responsibility I accord her here because it is, as you say, man’s province, and not the traditional way.”
    “You have always run this kobun as you have seen fit. I begrudge you nothing, as you know quite well. But as for these iteki, I saw no earthly reason why we should lose valuable man-hours by reassigning an upper-echelon executive for their convenience.”
    “Oh, yes,” Sato said. “Tomkin is a gaijin and Nicholas Linnear is something far worse to you. He’s only half Oriental. And then it has never been determined to anyone’s satisfaction how much of that is Japanese.”
    “Are you saying that I am a racist?” Nangi said, blowing out smoke.
    “Not in the least.” Sato sat back in his swivel chair. “Merely a patriot.” He shrugged. “But in the end what does Cheong Linnear’s lineage mean to us?”
    “It’s a potential lever.” Nangi’s odd triangular eyes blazed with a dark light. “We are going to need every weapon in our arsenal to bring down these brash itekithese barbarians who think of us as so much rice they can gobble up.” Nangi’s shoulders quivered at odd moments as if they had a will of their own. “Do you think it means anything to me that his father was Colonel Linnear, the ‘round-eyed savior of Japan’?” His