Samurai Code by Don Easton Page A

year.”
    “That was the one I was on!” exclaimed Laura. “The UC where you brought me in pretending to be your girlfriend.”
    “Ophelia doesn’t have anybody in her life. I owe her.”
    “Want me to go with you?”
    “No, but thanks, anyway. I will take you up on your offer to buy me a coffee first. Right now I could use a cup.”
    ***
    Jack enjoyed his coffee break and found the light conversation he had with Laura relaxing. He wouldn’t have relaxed, if he had known that in the early hours of the following morning he would be using his 9 mm to kill an innocent victim in a back alley.

7
    It was ten o’clock in the morning when Kang Lee arrived at the Pan Pacific Hotel in downtown Vancouver for a private meeting with The Shaman.
    Lee sipped his espresso while seated on the balcony of the Jade Suite, located on the sixteenth floor. The Shaman, seated next to him, took a moment to gaze out over Vancouver Harbour. The view was exquisite and included the Lions Gate Bridge and the mountains.
    Normally Lee would have enjoyed the view, but he had other things on his mind. Have I been selected to number two position or not?
    The Shaman, still wearing the hotel bathrobe, took a swallow of freshly squeezed orange juice. After putting the glass down, he ran a hand through his thick, dyed-black hair that he kept trimmed to collar length.
    The bathrobe concealed a body that Lee knew was tall, athletic, and agile. The Shaman had a passion for kenjutsu , a military art form originally created in Japan during the fifteenth century, primarily designed to instruct samurai in the use of swords. He had reached the highest level attainable in the sport, that of kyoshi , which made him a master. Overall, the muscular tone of his body, coupled with his agility and appearance, made him look much younger than he was. It was only the ruggedness of his face that betrayed his age of fifty-two.
    “So, tell me,” said The Shaman, “in regard to the immigrants we have brought in, have any new pathways come to light?”
    “Two new situations within the last month,” replied Lee. “A man who gained a position in Pacific Rim Oil and Gas has some valuable inside information that will benefit us greatly on the stock market. He asks that we arrange for more of his relatives to come to Canada.”
    “It will be done. The other?”
    “The president of another company, Eagle Eye Drilling and Exploration, is having an affair with his personal secretary. The president is married with two children. The personal secretary is a young man we brought over two years ago. Neither the president’s wife nor the company executives know that the president is gay, let alone prone to pillow talk about private company business. We have collected enough information to make the company’s next stockholder meeting extremely … shall we say, newsworthy?”
    “Do you anticipate another advantage on the market, perhaps by selling short? Or will he be approached to pay by some other means for our silence?”
    “The company may be on the verge of a major discovery. It is still being analyzed. I should know more within a week as to which way to approach the situation.”
    “Excellent. And our other ventures … the intrepid Canadian. How is he doing?”
    Lee smiled. The intrepid Canadian was Arthur Goldie, who oversaw the distribution of heroin once it arrived in Vancouver. Goldie had come a long way since he first came to their attention back in the early 1990s. That was when Goldie first wanted to import heroin from Burma to North America. Goldie had met personally with warlords overseeing the poppy plantations in Burma in an effort to extract what he thought would be the lowest price. The Shaman admired him for his courage at the time. Lee believed that Goldie was less courageous than he was naive.
    Lee smiled to himself at how simple it had been to convince Goldie to pay a percentage of his profit to them. He first befriended Goldie at a hotel in Rangoon. A day