A/N: Okay, I got spooked by a nasty review, like some silly newb. I mean, I've had people tell me my stories were "terrible" before, and it flowed like rain off the proverbial duck's back. And many reviews have noted my vocabulary (obviously not always positively). But I gotta admit it made me pause to be called "incoherent". I mean, I've never been accused of incoherency before! A later, admittedly calmer, read of the review made me realize the individual was looking for hot citrus and found my rather clinical assessment of Miroku's and Sango's night together too, too disappointing. Alas. Well, my own experience tells me that grownups who are not too sure about the vast realm of judgment calls they should make on their actions do tend to look for some clinical detachment – often even in situ – as they seek to justify themselves. As two adults in what must be considered by both rather a rather morally ambiguous situation (far beyond two strangers merely deciding to sleep together) is it so strange that each should be questioning him/herself? And so that's how I wrote it. Anyway, thanks in part to the cool dowsing from my dear friend magnusrae, I'm over my review-inspired angst. More importantly, I do this hope this absurd confession does not inhibit honest criticism. I write it merely to 1) excuse the somewhat longer than normal gap in posting a chapter here, and 2) to demonstrate that I take the time to seriously consider every review offered. ^_^
Disclaimer: No ownership rights claimed, no commercial gain anticipated. Thus no purpose to be gained in bringing suit.
Chapter 11: Politics, Journalism, and the Law
Kouga didn't like it. He'd researched innumerable institutions in his time and suspicious funding sources tended to be fairly obvious. At the very least, the regulations regarding reporting taxable deductions were clear and well publicized – most entities preferred the reporting requirement rather than seeing their contributions diluted. Everyone understood the concept of more bang for their buck, after all.
Granted, one usually needed to file a FOIA request (Freedom Of Information Act), which could literally take months to process, but perhaps the greatest lesson Kouga had learned as a government employee was to cultivate relationships and never let them slide! An outsider like Miroku could never compete with Kouga's digital rolladex, no matter how many staffers the insufferably charming dilettante slept with…
A review of funding sources did not explain the hostility that had sprouted on every blog he frequented on a regular basis to the Myanmar charitable fund. True, there were hints of government investigations, but as far as he could tell the trails were cold and insubstantial. Kouga smelled a rat.
Two years ago this fund was moribund; too much talk about how the building of schools and hospitals was actually spy-speak for underground military bases. Of course, since conservatives had embraced stranger bedfellows in the decades-long war on communism – as distinguished from the current war on terrorism – and China loomed large on the Myanmar border, those bases could have been supported by western dollars and the fund drive merely a front. That was how he'd initially assessed the situation when Miroku had first asked. He hadn't wanted to disillusion his liberal friend too much.
That all said, Miroku's article two months ago had approached the fund from the angle of Buddhist monks protesting, a fairly common element in the news then. But, leave it to Miroku to find an unusual angle – these monks had, until quite recently, worked very closely with the local Imam of a particular Islamist community, buying textbooks, lunches, and yes, the now somewhat ubiquitous student laptops that were the current darling of American charities. It was the cross-religious aspect that lent Miroku's article its cache, not the computers.
Not surprisingly, Miroku's sympathetic article had spurred a flurry of charitable activity. At the same time, conservative voices fairly closely aligned to the U.S. military had begun speaking more loudly about the fund's ties to Islamic extremists. A week later, a suicide bomber had tried to board a subway in Yangon. Once disarmed, he'd implicated Miroku's fund.
Despite the wide play Sesshomouru's paper enjoyed, very few newsfeeds had picked up the former story, while every paper in the country and, as near as Kouga could tell, even the liberal blogs had commented on the thwarted bombing.
Oddly enough, he didn't recall Miroku commenting one way or another, although he had to be aware of the followup to his story. Kouga's lip twisted in a wry grin.
He spent another half an hour surfing the web, reading blogs and initiating half a dozen IMs within the broad range of contacts he'd made over a decade in conservative and military circles. Then he contacted his late father's friends by telephone. Some two hours later he poured himself a shot of Chivas and found his nose still wrinkling.
Yep. Kouga thought the whole thing stank.
Naraku skimmed through his morning briefing, confident that there was really nothing in the world going on that mattered to him that he couldn't put his finger on in time to control it sufficiently to maximize his own interests. After all, he'd built his career on incisive determinations at critical junctures. He was a crisis planner. The world was full of idiots who could build on others' formative work, but it took real brilliance to build a plan from chaos.
Which wasn't to say he couldn't achieve more long-range objectives when they were not conceived out of pure necessity…
But, what he was really looking for was the report from Sango. Ever since she'd moved into other agencies he was dependent upon them for reports on her activities. For all that he might plan her forays, he was still last in line to assess their effectiveness. For such a capable asset, such limitations irritated him almost enough to consider abandoning her use altogether. Amost.
When by noon she had still not reported in, Naraku felt more than just the quivering of impatience, for all his cultivated long-range perspective. After all, timing was a critical element of every good plan. And it was imperative that he discredit this stupid rebellion before it caught any more eyes and, especially before they used the weapons he had gifted them. If he could draw attention away from them – say, by drawing their most vocal supporter's attention elsewhere, or if necessary by discrediting him — in all likelihood no one else would follow through. And no one would be watching them or asking questions too soon.
He had the clinic's report – a detailed dossier of the drugs prescribed, likely distraction index from pain based on injury analysis as supplemented by sleeping aids, and predicted subject response was clear and reassuring.
So where the hell was Sango's confirming report and her subsequent analysis of Miroku's research files? Hadn't that been the whole point of sending her in to assess Miroku's progress? And, given any failure there, well, while Naraku hadn't actually told her that, if the initial results were inconclusive, he wanted her to continue the contact with Miroku until they could determine that his researches were harmless (or rather, until they could determine the exact nature of his research – Naraku would determine the potential for harm, to himself, of course). Sango was no idiot – she should have been competent to extrapolate the mission beyond its immediate parameters.
No one had questioned the clinic's existence. The doctor's previous interest (could it have been called a relationship? Ah, they had been far too discreet) in Sango had been exploited without offering anything in the way of a cleansed slate, and the man had been sent on to another assignment. Equipment and other staff had been dispatched elsewhere on a piecemeal basis, and the paper-trail incumbent on all military exercises sterilized into near incomprehensibility. There would be no smoking gun.
To distract himself, Naraku turned his attention to his first adjutant. Kohaku's expression was a bit lazier than usual, although the attendant smile belied any sense of unease or stress. Had he done anything to encourage a sense of comfort as to his patronage that would allow anything less than full attention while in his presence? The fact that Kohaku was Sango's brother probably fed into Naraku's ire as he snapped acidly at the young man regarding the apparent lapse (and insured that most missions involving Sango were brokered through Naraku's second adjutant).
Swallowing a start, Kohaku rapidly fingered the keyboard on his laptop, and read off figures regarding the latest budget balances from Naraku's allocations in various sensitive regions before moving on to the latest congressional inquiries directed to the General.
Was there just the slightest change in pitch as he reported on Myanmar?
"The timing reflects your usual remarkable luck, Miroku," was Sesshomouru's first remark as he approached the credenza where an assortment of hot drinks awaited.
Miroku himself had already noted that there was nothing caffeine-free, that if you didn't like French-roast or Earl Grey you were out of luck, and that the single slice of lemon and paper slip of artificial sweetener – no sugar – indicated consideration for Kaede's preferences alongside an assumption that Miroku would fall in line with his editor. Having 'enjoyed' Sesshomouru's hospitality before, he hadn't expected dairy or even its substitutes, but Sesshomouru knew damned well after two years that Miroku liked light cream in his coffee, although half and half would do. That his boss was willing to cater to his manager's tastes while ignoring his own spoke volumes.
As for his editor's comment on "luck" – well – obviously that had nothing to do with the comestibles at offer in this meeting. He rather hoped that his luck did cover ignorance on his editor's part regarding last evening's encounter with the comely Sango and her entourage of disappearing medical personnel. He definitely did not want the übermensch Sesshomouru sticking his starched nose into his personal affairs, even if those affairs overlapped a bit into his professional life. Miroku ignored his own assessment of lovely Sango as a government spy with a steady bead on his research files.
"Really, Sama, you coulda knocked me over with a feather when you said I'm being investigated by the State Department. I mean, my files on that monk story are open to anyone to check over. Is there really something fishy there? It was a cousin of mine who brought the whole thing to my attention – he's newly indoctrinated in the monastery, you know, and probably doesn't understand the rules as to media relations. Seriously, Sesshomouru, is this really a problem?" Miroku's smile could have been patented as to its effect, something between good-old-boy, pure innocence, and we-both-know-nobody's-gonna-make-a-serious-fuss. Of course it was a problem – his editor didn't waste time just in the interests of terrorizing his staff – but Miroku was fishing as to the degree of importance.
Kaede wished she'd had a digital recorder to document Miroku's performance, even knowing the futility thereof. She particularly appreciated his touch with the "sama"; he knew his audience well.
"I've looked at your cite-checks on the fund story, and they are superficial. Not like you, Miroku-kun, unless, perhaps, you have authority you cannot quote?" The editor sipped at his cup of Earl Grey, emphasizing his use of the Japanese diminutive "kun" form of address by deliberate lack of emphasis.
Back in the early '80s, the first of the Asian Tigers had asserted ascendency by becoming an economic manufacturing juggernaut. The reality of their power was evident in the history of American car production and how quickly Japanese production plants sprouted everywhere outside Detroit's hegemony. However, news publishing was, perhaps metaphorically, the last frontier for Japanese foreign investment.
The Japanese subsidiary InuAmerica had started buying up American media outlets almost immediately after the FCC had opened restrictions on foreign ownership. Careful leveraging of acquisitions with domestic investors had garnered impressive market ownership over the past decade and a half. And it hadn't taken long for market share to follow. But with the turn of the new century Inu's management team had undergone significant shifts, favoring investor nationalism over domestic allegiances. Despite the management shift to a less neutral stance, a tradition of careful shareholder cultivation and political lobbying had left InuAmerica's media holdings virtually untouched by government regulation.
After five years of traditional Asian nepotism at the helm, publishing veterans understood all too well both the expectations as to stories presented and political tone accepted at InuAmerica papers.
A faint tic appeared at the corner of Miroku's mouth, but he waved away his editor's statement as if it didn't matter. "Certainly, a check of my quotes should dispel any genuine legal queries, and I have no qualms there. But Sesshomouru, your phone message suggested a Supreme Court case. Don't you think that was rather extremist in the interest of getting a meeting today? I'm always at your disposal, of course, but to take up Kaede's time…"
"Do you really think a call from the outgoing Attorney General is 'extremist'? Granted, he has no power now, but if you think the change of administration means cases disappear you are younger than I believed…" Sesshomouru turned his attention to Kaede, pouring her a refresher cup of tea and discussing the benefits of jasmine over ginseng.
Miroku stewed quietly. Obviously, Kaede had left him on his own in this. Well, that was only fair – he'd given her only the briefest of overviews on this particular story, insisting on shouldering all responsibility when Kaede had raised concern over Chinese hostility to the Buddhists. It wasn't that she'd disagreed in principle. No, Kaede always admitted in private to opinions she would never allow to be published.
"You like expressing the 'loyal opposition's' voice, Sama, and from your cite-checking you know we're suit-proof on everything I've written. There's nothing that would make it to a court of appeals, let alone the Supreme Court. So. Why are we all here?" Miroku decided to take the offensive.
Sesshomouru should have known better. As a fluff columnist who frequently peppered his stories with celebrity encounters, Miroku had become more than familiar with a generic libel threat. Thanks to Kaede's patronage, he'd taken a grad level journalism-law course for credit as a college freshman, so he knew well the New York Times case, and it only took one or two close shaves to understand the lingo regarding "knowing disregard".
The editor glanced over at the writer and smiled gently, although such an unaccustomed expression couldn't help but send a chill upon everyone in the room. "Unfortunately, while truth is always a defense against libel charges, it carries no traction when it comes to treason."