Vulcan's Forge by Jack Du Brul Read Free Book Online

Japan.
    “Two days ago you disappeared for the night without telling me,” Ohnishi continued, “and now you are questioning my orders. Forget about Jill Tzu and concentrate on your other duties. Tonight we shall begin the bombings. Nothing serious, just a small show of force directed at those who oppose the referendum.”
    Kenji stood, his body flowing from the chair as if made of quicksilver, yet tensed as only a martial arts expert can be. “I will see to it personally.”
    He glided off the terrace, his tabi-shod feet merely brushing the tile. Once out of sight of Ohnishi, any trace of subservience evaporated and his handsome face took on an even keener edge. He mumbled, “You feeble-minded old fool; you have no idea who or what you’re dealing with.”
    He went back to his private office to ensure that Jill Tzu never filed her interview with Takahiro Ohnishi.
    J ill raked her fingers through her thick hair in utter frustration. She pursed her full lips, forming a seductive kiss, then blew a loud raspberry. Her feet were up on the control console of the studio’s editing room, her long legs stretched almost to the bank of monitors. She swung them down, ignoring the fact that her culotte shorts had just given her technician a view he’d brag about for a week.
    “This isn’t working, Ken,” she muttered darkly.
    “Give me a break will ya, Jill? We’ve been at this for six hours. It’s not like you’re going to get a Pulitzer for this,” the scraggly-bearded techie said in his defense.
    “Yeah, but just maybe it’ll be my ticket to the network. Just think about it, Ken. If I leave, you won’t have anyone bitching at you at all hours of the day or night.”
    “Keep wearing those shorts and you can piss and moan all you want,” Ken teased.
    “Watch it, I know a good sexual harassment lawyer.” Jill smiled for the first time in an hour. “All right, let’s go through this one more time.”
    This day in the editing room was the culmination of three months’ work on Takahiro Ohnishi. Jill had begun hunting down her story shortly after the reclusive billionaire had moved to Hawaii and Referendum 324 had first been proposed. At thirty-two, she was already too cynical to believe in coincidences and she’d begun looking for a connection between Ohnishi and Honolulu’s controversial mayor, David Takamora, and his even more polemic actions.
    She’d found, just through her own television station’s financial and scheduling records, that Takamora had purchased more advertising space during his campaign than his public files showed he’d had the money for. At just her station, there was a discrepancy of nearly one hundred thousand dollars, and she knew he’d campaigned just as heavily on the other channels. Where had the secret funds come from?
    Jill lacked any concrete evidence that Ohnishi had privately funded the majority of Takamora’s campaign, but she was damned sure that was what had happened. Ohnishi, with his billions, had bought himself a city.
    A journalism professor had once told her that only prosecutors in courtrooms needed proof. A reporter never needed to prove anything, all she had to do was implicate and wait for the self-incriminating defense. A few years later an aging editor said at his drunken retirement party that news never happened, it was created.
    Jill’s piece on Ohnishi was nearly ready. In fact this morning’s interview had really been unnecessary; she’d just wanted to meet the man, to get a better sense of what made him tick.
    She and Ken watched in silence as the first half of the piece ran. Stock footage of Ohnishi, David Takamora, and the violent street gangs currently preying on white tourists in the city were interspersed with close-up shots of Jill doing commentary in front of city hall. As the scenes began focusing more on the gangs, especially one violent image of four Asian youths beating an elderly white woman, Jill reached for the goose-necked microphone and