Chapter 1.10

Chapter 11

Mr. Fumihiro Yoshida turned out to be a man of over sixty years, with an enigmatic face and a halo surrounding him, perhaps due in part to his erect physical position, his parsimony and clarity when speaking, his attitude alert at all times and an external softness that barely concealed an extreme hardness. Watching him immediately evoked in Aiko's mind the image of a medieval samurai.

Mrs. Yamaguchi, who had taken a liking to the girl and had become her discreet confidant, had anticipated that Yoshida was indeed from a military family and that many of his ancestors had fallen in World War II; he himself had had a long trajectory in the armed forces of Japan and although formally retired was now dedicated to train people who, although not being intelligence agents of the Japanese government agencies had to fulfill tasks of informants of those agencies due to the position they occupied in civil life. At the same time and as his main activity, he had a school of business intelligence, whose purpose was to train people to obtain and analyze sensitive technological and commercial data- in fact information theft- as well as how to counteract precisely said activities of third parties.

If Aiko was expecting a karate teacher, or a judo tatami, a shooting range or sophisticated communications equipment she suffered a disappointment. The small room had only a small table and a couple of chairs. On the table there was only one jug of water and two glasses.

Yoshida began to speak to her gently since as she would later tell him, Aiko reminded him of his distant granddaughter in Tokyo.

"Tell me Aiko. Why do you want to serve your country in the secret service?"

The question found Aiko poorly prepared. Although she had asked it several times to her, her mind then went through other meanders and eluded definition. She answered what was going through her mind at that moment.

" Living in such a large country as Argentina, located on a turbulent but peaceful continent, I am sad to see my birth country surrounded and at the mercy of powerful and aggressive enemies."

Thinking in retrospect it seemed a sentimental and poor response, but the instructor looked pleased.

" Tell me what are your feelings for your adopted country?"

"Gratitude for the generosity with which it welcomed me and my family."

" Don´t you think that conflicts between both loyalties can arise?"

"The feelings towards a father and a husband normally do not generate conflicts. In addition, the chances of a conflict between Japan and Argentina are remote. They are two countries exactly in the geographical antipodes."

The answer again seemed to please Yoshida, who rather than the answers themselves wanted to probe the feelings of the disciple in search of potential sources of risk.

The talk, actually a kind interrogation, lasted a couple of hours. When the subjects seemed to be over, the sensei added.

"Aiko, I do not want to be indiscreet or invasive, but I would like you to tell me something about that friend you have, I understand that he is not of Japanese descent."

"He is not."

"Talk to me about him".

Succinctly and discreetly Aiko narrated her relationship with the young man, after which Yoshida asked.

" Is there be any way I can meet him?"

"In fact there is. Mr. Matsumoto invited us to dinner some day."

"I will ask Katsuo to let me be in the game."

From there Yoshida began to give an explanation about the content of the training program the girl would follow.

"As you can imagine, the training of an intelligence agent is carried out only in Japan and involves a period of not less than two years, with an intensive part of techniques of self-defense, weapons handling, electronic espionage and many other things. It is not what you will start now, although if you find out what you want to follow that path you can continue it later. But now we are having information needs that I will talk to you about later and that we should cover immediately. For this you will go through a kind of basic course pointing to those needs and whose duration we estimate in six weeks. Do you agree?"

"Yes, Yoshida San."

"Well, we will leave for today and we will continue in two days going straight to the point."

Yoshida got up and Aiko did the same, after which she said goodbye by tilting her head.

The instructor approached his briefcase on the floor and extracted from it an recorder in which he began to make a report of the interview; it would then be typed by Mrs. Yamaguchi and after the correction by Yoshida, presented to Matsumoto, who was ultimately responsible for the recruitment of agents in the country.

The next day when arriving at his desk Katsuo Matsumoto found on it a small folder with several typed sheets. When he opened it he read its title.

"Preliminary evaluation"

It was signed by Fumihiro Yoshida and dated the previous day. It referred to the aspirant Aiko Teruya and consisted of only two pages. Matsumoto read it avidly, since in some way his discernment in presenting this aspirant was also in judgment. Part of the text said.

""The young person in question seems to have good conditions to establish interpersonal relationships, essential for the task of gathering safety information."

"The impact of her presence is extremely effective, and the fact that she comes from both the societies of Japan and Argentina induces to presume that she is capable of interacting with people of different cultures and cultural levels."

"Despite her youth Miss Teruya shows a high level of maturity and self-control, which should however be put to the test in stress situations."

"The young lady exhibits resilience and self motivation, as well as determination to achieve results."

"She has a high level of personal integrity."

"In summary, my recommendation is to continue with the abbreviated course specifically designed for her.

Respectfully

Yoshida Fumihiro "

In a small paper attached with a clip a short sentence in handwriting was added.

"Good eye Katsuo"

Matsumoto smiled complacently and called Mrs. Yamaguchi. When she opened the door he said.

"Please bring me the forms for the Aiko Teruya course, I will sign them."

The following Saturday Leandro had to travel to Chicago to attend a computer update course at the headquarters of his company that would last until Friday of that week. At the prospect of a boring weekend, Aiko had brought home the abundant training material that Mrs. Yamaguchi had given her which also started on the following Monday.

The girl had not read such long texts in Japanese for a long time and found with some alarm that there were entire phrases whose meaning she did not understand, or she did not understand them in the context in which they were; for that reason Aiko sat down in front of the desktop computer and while she was reading she searched for those words in one or other of the English-Japanese translators she had found on the net. The woman realized that at that point her mastery of Spanish was greater than that of her native language, but after a while the words unknown in the latter began to repeat themselves and Aiko concluded that many of them were of a technical nature or simply idioms used by the editor .

The material was very well organized and started at a very basic level so the girl skipped the introductory part and jumped to more informative chapters. Aiko had read earlier everything she could find on the Internet on the subject of intelligence activities in the world and in Japan in particular so she had a general idea of the matter.

All the brochures had the stamp of confidential, even the most basic, and Aiko advanced rapidly in those texts until Saturday midmorning she had exhausted the printed material. Before proceeding to watch several CDs Yamaguchi had given her, the girl got up from the work table and decided to walk around the neighborhood to clear her head and stretch her muscles. When she returned, she sat down in front of the aunt's piano and improvised songs that she would play Monday night in the restaurant. Natsuko looked at her niece from afar with a kind of awe not to disturb her concentration. Although Eiichi had more information the aunt knew that Aiko had entered some foreign bureau of the Japanese government.

The young woman took up again the readings, which progressively entered more specific areas, such as the mission of the Japanese intelligence service, its organization in broad strokes and the list of dangers from the geographical environment to which Japan has been confronted since its birth as country to date. In addition to the predictable issues related to the geographical determinism of being in a hot corner of the world (with some frequency due to actions of the Japanese themselves, Aiko had to admit), she found somewhat obscure references to the risks represented by the action of religious and philosophical sects responsible in the near history of frightful attacks. The girl vaguely remembered some of those facts and took the determination to find out more in the network. An acute drowsiness invaded her and her head finally fell on her shoulder, leaning on the anatomical chair in front of the computer.

Aiko was awakened by a soft shake on her shoulder and when she opened her eyes she found Natsuko's smile inviting her to lunch for Eiichi had returned from his store, since on Saturdays he only opened it in the morning.