Drone Command

The course designer, Charles H. Alison, knew his business. The least hesitation or distraction in the tee shot here inevitably led to disaster. The serenity of the surrounding landscape demanded equal poise within. More than any other hole on the course, the fifteenth required both intense concentration and uninhibited flow. Golf was Zen, a game not so much of skill as self-mastery. Many Asians believed that Tiger Woods’s successes were due to his mastery of Buddhism and the lack thereof his undoing. The Japanese who could still afford to play the game on courses like this one — corporate executives, movie stars, yakuza bosses, and senior politicians — were crazy about it.

The titanium driver rang like a gunshot. The white Titleist golf ball lofted high and true toward the cliff edge, then arced effortlessly in a right-hand fade, landing finally in the center of the fairway.

Prime Minister Hiroshi Ito laughed. The gusting Pacific breeze tousled his famously wild silver hair, which complemented his sky-blue shirt and black slacks. He was sixty years old but still rakishly handsome. He was often compared to the Hollywood actor Richard Gere, but his avid passion for golf earned him the nickname the Obama of Japan.

“That kind of drive puts a lot of pressure on me, Margaret. My gender and my nation demand I rise to the occasion.”

Former American president Margaret Myers snatched up her tee with a satisfied smile. She hit from the same tee box as the men. “What pressure? Just don’t think about the wide blue Pacific on your left or the cavernous gully in front of you or the impossibly tall pines and you’ll be fine.”

It was a cool day in the high sixties, no rain. Perfect golf weather save for the coastal winds. Mt. Fuji, a prominent feature of the course, loomed in the distance, but unfortunately it was shrouded in cloud cover today. Myers wore a black Nike long-sleeve polo shirt and a matching golf skort and shoes, very subdued. She still had the toned arms and shapely runner’s legs to carry off the ensemble smartly. She was more than fifty but looked a decade younger. Heads turned when she entered a room — men and women both. Having been a public figure for several years, she was never sure if she drew attention because of her fame or her good looks. Modest to a fault, she always assumed it was the former.

The one thing she didn’t want to do today, however, was draw attention to herself, another reason to wear black. To help keep this meeting secret, Prime Minister Ito’s security team also stayed two holes ahead and behind them, clearing away the other players on the course at all times. President Lane asked Myers to pay her old friend a visit off the record and, as far as she knew, neither the American nor the local press had gotten wind of their private tête-à-tête.

“Seems to me, Hiroshi, that you were always the better… putter.”

Ito laughed.

Myers and Ito first met in Colorado. They discovered a mutual passion for Kentucky bourbon and golf, which her late husband had also shared. The future prime minister was serving as a trade representative at the Japanese consulate in Denver when he helped arrange Myers’s first business deal in Japan, just a year before her husband was killed by a drunk driver. Her husband’s needless death at the hands of a repeat offender thrust Myers into state politics with a personal mission to stiffen the lax DUI laws. But even after she was elected governor, she and Ito played together as often as her schedule allowed until Ito returned to Japan and ran for office himself. They managed to remain in regular contact over the years. Ito airmailed a hundred orchids from his private greenhouse the day after her son’s murder two years ago. Her favorite flower. He remembered.

Ito stepped up to his ball and laid the custom-fitted EPON driver head next to it. His fingers tightened on the grip, then loosened, then tightened again.

“Bah! You’re in my head!” Ito laughed again, stepping away from the ball.

Myers didn’t say a word. She just kept smiling.

“You’re more Japanese than I am, I think,” he said with an impish grin. “You never attack your foe straight on.”

“You know I’m not your enemy. We’ve been friends too long.”

Ito pointed a gloved finger at Myers. “You see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. No self-respecting politician ever comes out and talks about politics directly. Maybe you should run for president of Japan.”

“But Japan doesn’t have a president,” Myers said, playing along.

“But if it ever did, I’d be the first to endorse you. After all, you were a magnificent American president. Don’t you agree, Katsu?”

Katsu Tanaka stood silent as a statue by the golf cart, his fingers laced precisely around the grip of his driver. His thick, well-groomed hair was perfectly kept in place. Wide shoulders and thick arms stretched the red polo shirt neatly tucked into his creased slacks, the collar buttoned up to the throat, hiding an old tracheotomy scar.