第32节

many high-born supporters of the

progressive party did not escape the notice of the agents that Lord

Ieyasu had managed to station inside the domain of the Yama-Shita and

elsewhere.

Despite a great deal of effort and ingenuity, he had not succeeded in

placing an agent in a key long-term position within the palace walls,

but that had ceased to be a problem. Two years ago, one of his special

agents, trained in the ancient arts of the ninja to perform what were

often suicide missions, had succeeded in planting an electronic bug in

the main council chamber before his presence was detected. Unable to

escape, he had killed himself.

To the Yama-Shita family it looked like a failed assassination attempt

which was also strangely ill-timed since Lord Hirohito, the presumed

target, was absent on a tour of his domain. But the ninja had done his

work well.

The chamber was used for important policy meetings, and the

miniaturised listening device had relayed a great deal of useful

intelligence to a secret listening post aboard an innocent-looking

fishing boat that always cast its nets within a mile of the palace

ramparts.

Ieyasu had been assured that the small, bean-sized battery - another

long-dog miracle - had one more year of life, but now, as the age-old

rivals of the TohYota gathered to plot new treasons, the device had

fallen silent.

How tiresome! thought Ieyasu. Never mind. His network was

resilient.

Messages would be sent, ways would be found. And if all else failed,

he could always rely on Domain-Lord Kiyo Min-Orota, a true and trusted

ally who had already passed on the wording of the invitation he had

received to join a group of like-minded friends at Sarakusa.

Ieyasu was right about Sakimoto's motives for inviting his

fellow-progressives, but he was wrong about the reason for the break in

transmission. The electronic bug had not suffered battery failure; its

presence had been detected and its location revealed by Cadillac.

Acting on a wild hunch, he used parts of the radio equipment stripped

from the damaged Skyhawk to sweep several key areas of the palace,

including the main conference chamber. Just when he was about to give

up, the tell-tale feed-back noise had led him to the device which had

been embedded in the underside of the long, low, eight-legged table.

After examining the bug, he deactivated it then restored it to its

hiding place. There was no point in showing it to the Regent, Aishi

Sakimoto, ahead of the meeting.

The device itself was physically insignificant and would mean nothing

to anyone who had not grasped the concept of electronic surveillance.

It needed to be woven into a carefully-prepared scenario and revealed

with a dramatic flourish when he had secured the undivided attention of

his powerful audience. He had promised them proof of the Toh-Yotas

treachery, and he intended to supply it.

The Skyhawk transceiver unit contained a tape-deck with an eight-hour

digital cassette which enabled pilots to record ground-to-air or

air-to-air conversations. Using his gift of mimicry and his fluent

grasp of japanese, Cadillac recorded two voices from a sending and

receiving station, in which the sender reported that the secret

conference summoned by the Yama-Shita was now underway, but that the

listening device had suddenly stopped relaying the voices of the

conspirators.

Both speakers referred to the Lord Chamberlain and the TohoYota by

name, their voices rising and fading against a background of static

created by rustling a crumpled piece of rice-paper close to the tiny

microphone.

It took several tries before Cadillac pronounced himself satisfied

with the balance of the voices and Roz's sound-effects, but the final

version was impressive - with just enough roughness and deptho convince

any listeners that the voices were coming from some point far beyond

the castle walls.

His audience would not have heard voices 'captured' from the air