"It was never like that from the very beginning."
Satsuki's finger paused on the letters CDMA.
"Qualcomm is not big yet, and testing, base stations, and chips are constantly burning money. But once CDMA finally becomes the mobile communication standard, all subsequent mobile phones, base stations, chips, and carrier networks will develop around the same set of technologies."
She thought for a moment.
"Father can understand a standard as the gauge of a railway. Once the gauge is set, anyone who wants to run on this railway later must build cars according to this set of rules."
Shuichi quickly understood.
"So those who bet on other standards will want CDMA to fail."
"Motorola, along with several other American companies pushing other digital communication routes, are worth listing."
Satsuki drew a circle on this page.
"However, killing me will not make Qualcomm's patents disappear, and the shares and Asian rights held by Saionji will still be there."
"Unless the other party believes that I am the only one truly capable of pushing CDMA into Japan and even Asia. Only then would killing me make sense to them."
Shuichi added a mark on the side.
Further down was semiconductors.
This section was noticeably much thicker.
In addition to the high-purity quartz, precision machining, and material research already acquired domestically in Japan, the American side also separately listed quite a few companies and laboratories with very low shareholding ratios.
They were all around 4.8 percent.
Taken individually, none of them were large, but after reading more than a dozen items in a row, a problem was quickly discovered.
"Are these the batch that the SEC investigated before?"
"This is only part of it. Light source laboratories, precision multi-axis equipment, control systems, and a few small companies making special components."
"While these small companies look unremarkable individually, what about when you put them together?"
Satsuki picked up the pen by the bed, wrote light source, optics, machine tools, materials, and control on a blank sheet of paper, and connected them with a few lines.
"Put these together with what Saionji is doing in Japan, and to some Americans, it is a dangerous signal."
Shuichi looked at the relationship chart.
"Will the Americans think we are piecing their technology back together in Japan?"
"Someone is bound to think that," Satsuki nodded. "Ever since the Toshiba incident, the U.S. has been very sensitive to Japan acquiring advanced manufacturing technology, and Saionji has been constantly making up for shortages in materials, equipment, and manufacturing capabilities over the years."
"So this batch is even more worth investigating than communications?"
"Even more so."
Satsuki wrote "Technical Security" on the side.
"But we cannot treat the U.S. government as a monolith here."
"The trade department needs Japan to open its market, many companies in Silicon Valley need Saionji to purchase their products, and Wall Street also needs our transactions."
"To these people, Saionji is a customer and also a channel to enter Japan."
She paused.
"But in the eyes of another group of people, it means Saionji is stealing U.S. technology, capital, and talent, and incorporating them into its own industrial system."
Shuichi slowly frowned.
"So if it is really related to this line, we have to check which specific group of people it is."
"People in the Department of Defense responsible for technical security, relevant officials in the Department of Commerce, semiconductor industry organizations, and defense electronics companies all need to be brought into observation."
Shuichi continued flipping through the pages.
The next section was defense capital.
Carlyle, two billion dollars.
"Is this money still there now?"
"Of course. The book returns are quite ordinary, but when it was invested back then, it was not just for fund returns."
Satsuki glanced at the notes on the back.
"What those two billion dollars actually bought was Saionji's qualification to enter the U.S. defense system. Carlyle needed a long-term investor with stable capital who would not interfere with daily operations, and Saionji needed someone who could speak for us in the Pentagon and Washington. Both sides took what they needed from the very beginning."
As she spoke, she flipped the document a few more pages forward.
After the Gulf War, this relationship no longer stayed at the level of capital.
Global Rescue entered the Middle East, doing transportation, engineering, personnel evacuation, and high-risk support for the U.S. military and multinational forces.
After the war ended, most personnel had withdrawn, and only necessary forces were retained in Japan and the Middle East, while the American team was trying to turn the temporary cooperation formed during wartime into long-term contracts.
Seeing this, Shuichi's expression gradually sank.
"In other words, Saionji has not just simply invested in Carlyle now, but has truly begun to take business from the U.S. defense industry system."
"This will snatch business away from a lot of people."
"Mhm."
Satsuki nodded gently.
"And they are rather troublesome people. Overseas engineering, military transportation, allied training, base maintenance—there was already a batch of contractors doing these."
"The Pentagon's annual budget is only so much in total, and the contracts we get are often snatched from other people's hands."
"It would be strange if those defense companies did not hate us."
Moreover, this type of company is very different from ordinary tech companies.
Retired military officers can often be seen on their boards of directors, and management has long dealt with the Department of Defense, Congress, and various security contractors.
The second batch of gunmen who appeared in Tokyo tonight happened to have a personal background very close to this circle.
Shuichi heavily made a mark next to this page.
"This line needs to be investigated as a priority."
"I think so too."
By this point, the previously very vague scope finally began to narrow down.
Shuichi lingered on those pages of asset details for a while.
Those projects around Midland and Houston were not considered large individually, but over the past few years, bankruptcy loans, mortgaged assets, and shut-down oil production facilities have been collected bit by bit, and now they have connected into a fairly considerable energy asset.
"These things were very cheap back then," Satsuki said. "The real trouble is not buying them, but restarting production after buying them."
However, this line does not look like it would push people to the point of assassination for now.
Many projects taken over by Saionji had originally stopped production, and after restarting production, local governments had tax revenues again, and workers kept their jobs.
To many local forces in Texas, the benefits brought by this Japanese capital were even more direct.
Satsuki looked at the list of peers behind.
"There are definitely oil companies that do not like us going in to pick up these bargains, but Saionji's current scale is still far from changing the U.S. energy market. Unless something else can be found later, this can be put aside for now."
Shuichi made no more special marks and continued flipping to the next page.
The next page was Manhattan real estate.
The twenty commercial properties packaged and acquired from the RTC were still in the downturn of the U.S. real estate market, and some of those with the best conditions had already been renovated, used as Saionji's offices and rental properties in New York.
After reading it, Shuichi shook his head.
"This item can be put aside."
"I think so too. New York peers might feel that we picked up a bargain, and those whose prices were suppressed back then probably will not like Saionji either," Satsuki turned this page over. "But to go to the lengths of tonight just for twenty buildings, the cost is too high."
The father and daughter flipped through the pages one by one like this.
Further back were procurement, law firms, insurance, cross-border logistics, Japanese sales channels for American companies, and a complete set of public relations networks that had gradually formed over the past few years.
Even further back, one could even see the dealings between S.A. and the U.S. trade system.
Ever since 1988, Saionji had been continuously helping American companies enter Japan.
The five-year, one-hundred-million-dollar equipment procurement back then was no longer just an initial promise.
Cisco, IBM, and other equipment vendors obtained Japanese clients through Saionji.
Japanese companies in turn contacted the U.S. market through Saionji.
S.A. began to be caught in the middle of both sides.
Like a bridge whose toll was not high, but which people indeed needed to cross.
Shuichi flipped the document back to the beginning.
They had originally prepared to screen for enemies.
But since it was "screening," it meant narrowing down the scope.
But now, what had been laid out before them was:
Telecom equipment vendors.
Communication standard competitors.
Semiconductor companies.
Technical security hardliners.
Defense contractors.
Overseas military service companies.
Partial energy interests.
Partial financial interests.
Coupled with those who were not written into the public asset sheet at all, but might be affected as Saionji continued to expand.
He was silent for a moment.
"Satsuki."
"Mhm?"
"Were we supposed to be narrowing down the scope just now?"
Satsuki looked down at the document that had been filled with marks by the two of them.
She was also silent.
That was indeed what they thought at the very beginning.
As long as they started from interests, excluded people who had no major conflicts with Saionji, and separated ordinary commercial competition from conflicts that could truly develop into personal threats, in the end they should be able to leave a relatively small scope.
As a result, looking at it now—
The scope had indeed narrowed down.
From the entire United States.
Narrowed down to dozens of companies, batches of Washington figures, several industry organizations, plus a network of defense and security contractor relationships so complex that even SIS could not figure it out in a short time.
You would not know until you looked, but looking at it now, there were unexpectedly so many people who might hate Saionji.
Satsuki had no choice but to pick up the pen and flip back and forth between the most suspicious pages.
Semiconductors.
Communications.
Defense industry.
She finally put down the pen.
"Let us hand these three items over to Masato first."
"For semiconductors, check the lobbying records in Washington targeting S.A. and Japanese technology investments over the past year."
"For communications, check Qualcomm and CDMA-related lawsuits, industry pressure, and who reacted the most after our Asian joint venture was established."
"Defense industry..."
She paused slightly, also somewhat troubled.
America could practically be considered an arms dealer nation, and the interests involved in the defense industry were far too complex.
"Let us check Carlyle's side first."
"Also check the U.S. military business recently bid on, contacted, or about to be taken over by S.A. Global Rescue."
"As long as contracts were lost because of our entry, or contracts might be lost, list them all."
Shuichi nodded.
"And those six people tonight."
"Mhm."
Satsuki's expression turned serious again.
"Dig up all their experiences over the past five years. Who they worked for before, which private security companies they associated with, who has a military or intelligence system background, and who brought them into this industry after they retired—all of these must be investigated."
At this point, she tapped her finger gently on the document.
"Continue tracing the middleman in Manila upwards as well. As long as we can finally connect the resumes, funds, or relationships of these few people to one of the interest groups we just circled, the scope will become much smaller."
Shuichi tidied up the pages of materials he had just flipped through.
Only at this moment did he truly realize that the thing laid out before him could hardly be simply called an American investment list anymore.
Many of the shares acquired for just a few million or tens of millions of dollars in the early years had now grown into assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Cisco had developed from a small company back then that even needed Saionji's help to solve chip supply into today's network equipment enterprise; Qualcomm had not even gone public yet, but the shares and Asian rights in Saionji's hands had already dragged itself into the competition for the next-generation mobile communication standard.
Not to mention those things further down.
Saionji's massive U.S. dollar assets had already entered U.S. treasury bonds, securities, and the financial system; two billion dollars had been placed in defense capital like Carlyle for the long term; energy projects in Texas were resuming production, and New York already had its own batch of properties.
At the same time, Saionji was also snatching logistics and support business from the U.S. military.
These assets had no direct relationship with each other, but once put together, they were enough to make Saionji simultaneously appear in the fields of vision of many people on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Texas, and Washington.
And every step forward meant that the person originally occupying that position had to give up something.
Shuichi had always known that Saionji had invested a lot of money in the U.S. over the years, and also knew that those investments were no longer at their original scale.
But after truly putting everything on the same table tonight, for the first time he saw so intuitively how many places his daughter had extended Saionji's interests into over the past few years.
He lowered his head and looked at the names and projects marked on the document.
"Looking at it this way, trying to find the person purely from conflicts of interest is probably not that easy."
Satsuki leaned against the pillow and scanned those pages of materials once again.
The original train of thought was very simple.
As long as they found out who suffered enough losses because of Saionji, and then screened out those who neither had the ability nor the necessity to take things to this point, the scope remaining at the end should not be too large.
But after truly sorting through the U.S. assets again, the result was obviously somewhat different from what she had anticipated.
Satsuki looked at it for a moment and finally sighed softly.
"Father."
"What is it?"
She took the top document back into her hands, looked at the table of contents that had been filled with marks by the two of them, and remained silent for a moment.
"To be honest."
Satsuki raised her head.
"Based solely on these investments in America, I feel like almost half of America wants to kill me."