Manhattan

Michiko Fujitani entered her uncle's office hesitantly. Never before had he called for her during the day, requesting that she leave her office in a sub-basement of the Park Avenue skyscraper and come to his, some forty stories above.

Ichiro Kamatsu was the head of the Taiyo Bank and Trust Company in New York.

Michiko was the supervisor of its small securities custody department. In its underground vault, Taiyo held the bonds and stock certificates its customers deposited with them for safekeeping and dutifully collected dividend and coupon payments.

The bank did not encourage its clients to keep possession of bits of paper in an increasingly electronic world, but felt obligated to provide the service for those who wanted it. For this, however, it charged an exorbitant fee, so that Michiko's department had the highest profit margin in the firm. Even so, she normally only saw her uncle during working hours at such official company events as the Golden Week picnic.

Michiko took one look at her uncle and hurried forward, oblivious to the views from the corner windows.

The usually energetic man of sixty-nine was sitting hunched forward in his chair. The skin beneath his eyes was dark and puffy and his face sagged. Equally unusual, a copy of the morning's Daily News was open on his desk. The headline over a lurid picture read, "Consul Killed".