Hard Rain

by Barry Eisler

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Why did you want to see me tonight?”

  “I wanted all my resources accessible, in case there was a hot lead on Murakami.”

  “It’s personal now?” I asked.

  “It’s personal.”

  We walked in silence. “I’ll tell you one thing,” I said. “Just when I think I’m getting jaded, the CIA does something to really surprise me, like hiring a photographer to take pictures of its own case officers in case it needs to burn them. It’s refreshing.”

  “There is no photographer,” Tatsu said.

  I stopped and looked at him. “What?”

  He shrugged. “I made him up.”

  I shook my head and blinked. “There’s no Gretz?”

  “There is a Gretz, in case Kanezaki thinks to check. A small-time dope dealer I once caught and let go. I had a feeling he might be useful later.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Tell me what I’m missing, Tatsu.”

  “Not that much, really. I simply offered Kanezaki corroboration that his fears are not mere paranoia, while positioning myself as a friend.”

  “Why?”

  “I needed him to be thoroughly convinced that he is indeed being set up. We don’t yet have sufficient information to really know what action to take. I want him to be comfortable calling on me. Even eager.”

  “Is he being set up, do you think?”

  He shrugged. “Who knows? Biddle’s request for the receipts seems suspicious, as does that missing cable, but I don’t pretend to understand all the CIA’s bureaucratic procedures.”

  “Why would Biddle have been taking such an inordinate interest in Kanezaki’s meetings?”

  “I don’t know. But it wasn’t to photograph them. My men observed nothing out of place at the meeting site. Certainly no one with a camera.”

  He was being awfully open with me about his duplicity. Perhaps his way of telling me that he trusted me. The in-group and the out-group. Us and them.

  We started walking again. “It was lucky, then, that the kid came to me with his suspicions,” I said.

  “And that you came to me. Thank you for that.”

  I shook my head, then said, “What do you know about Crepuscular?”

  “No more than what Kanezaki has told us.”

  “The politicians the program has been underwriting—are you working with any of them? Maybe the ones the disk didn’t implicate?”

  “Some of them.”

  “What happened? You learned from the disk that they weren’t in Yamaoto’s network. Then what?”

  “I warned them. Simply sharing my information on Yamaoto’s methods, and on who among them was a Yamaoto stooge, turned them into considerably wiser, and harder, targets.”

  “And you knew they were taking money from the CIA?”

  “I knew of some, not necessarily all. From my position, I can only help protect these people from Yamaoto’s practices of extortion. But Kanezaki was correct in saying that in Japan’s system of money politics, honest politicians still need cash to compete against Yamaoto-funded candidates. And that I cannot provide.”

  We walked wordlessly for a minute. Then he said, “I admit I was surprised to learn that these people would be foolish enough to sign receipts for CIA disbursements. I fault myself, for underestimating the depth of their gullibility. I should have known better. As a breed, politicians can be astonishingly stupid, even when they are not being venal. If it were otherwise, Yamaoto would have a much harder time controlling them.”

  I thought for a moment. “Forgive me for saying so, Tatsu, but isn’t this whole thing just a waste of time?”

  “Why do you say?”

  “Because even if these guys have some ideals, even if you can protect them from Yamaoto, even if they have access to some cash, you know they can’t make a difference. Politicians in Japan are just ornamentation. The bureaucrats run the show.”

  “Our system is strange, is it not,” he said. “An uncomfortable combination of domestic history and foreign intervention. The bureaucrats are certainly powerful. Functionally, they are the descendants of the samurai, with everything that lineage entails.”

  I nodded. After the Meiji restoration in 1868, the samurai became the servants of the emperor, who was himself believed to be descended from the gods. The association connoted tremendous status.

  “Then the wartime system put them in charge of the industrial economy,” he continued. “The American occupation maintained this system so America could rule through the bureaucracy rather than through elected politicians. All this led to an accrual of additional prestige, additional power.”

  “I’ve always said Japan’s rule by bureaucracy is a kind of totalitarianism.”

  “It is. But it is distinguished in that there is no Big Brother figure. Rather, the structure itself functions as Big Brother.”

  “That’s my point. What can you gain by protecting a handful of elected politicians?”

  “For the moment, perhaps not much. Today, the politicians act mainly as mediators between the bureaucrats and the voters. Their job is to secure for their constituents the biggest slice possible from the pie that the bureaucrats control.”

  “Like lobbyists in the U.S.”

  “Yes. But the politicians are elected. The bureaucrats are not. This means that the voters do exercise theoretical control. If they elected politicians with a mandate to rein in the bureaucracy, the bureaucrats would bend, because their power is a function of their prestige, and to oppose a clear political consensus would be to risk that prestige.”

  I didn’t say anything. I understood his point, although I suspected his planning was so long-term as to be ultimately futile.

  We walked for a few moments in silence. Then he stopped and turned to me.

  “I would like you to have a chat with Station Chief Biddle,” he said.

  “I’d love to,” I said. “Kanezaki seems to think Biddle was surprised to hear about Harry’s death, but I’d like to make sure. The problem is how to get to him.”

  “The CIA Chief of Station is declared to the Japanese government. Many of his movements are no mystery to the Keisatsucho.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a photo. I saw a midforties Caucasian with a narrow face and nose, and close-cropped, sandy-colored thinning hair, the eyes blue behind tortoiseshell glasses.

  “Mr. Biddle takes afternoon tea weekdays at Jardin de Luseine, in Harajuku,” he said. “Building Two. On Brahms-no-komichi.”

  “A man of habit?”

  “Apparently, Mr. Biddle believes that a faithful routine is good for the mind.”

  “It might be,” I said, considering. “But it can be hell on the body.”

  He nodded. “Why don’t you join him tomorrow?”

  I looked at him. “I might do that,” I said.

  I walked for a long time after leaving Tatsu. I thought about Murakami. I tried to find the nexus points, the intersections between his fluid existence and the more concrete world around him. There wasn’t much: the dojo, Damask Rose, maybe Yukiko. But I knew he’d be staying away from all of those for a while, possibly a long while, just as I would. I also knew he’d be running the same game against me. I was glad that, from his perspective, the good nexus points would seem to be in short supply.

  Still, I wished I could have held on to Tatsu’s Glock. Ordinarily, I don’t like to carry an unambiguous weapon. Guns are noisy and ballistics tests can connect the bullet you left behind to the weapon that’s still in your possession. Besides, getting caught with a firearm in Japan is a guaranteed ticket to jail. Knives aren’t much better. A knife makes a mess that can get all over you. And any cop worth a damn in any country will treat someone caught with a concealed knife—even a small one—as dangerous and warranting additional scrutiny. With Murakami out there and on to me, of course, the risk and reward ratio of a concealed weapon had changed somewhat.

  I wondered whether Tatsu would get anything useful out of the guy wh
ose knee I had broken. I doubted it. Murakami would know that Tatsu was working that angle, and adjust his patterns to account for anything his captured man might reveal under pressure.

  Yukiko might have some useful information. Murakami would have anticipated that route, too, but it was still worth exploring. Especially because, after what they had done to Harry, my interest in Yukiko had become independent of my interest in her boss.

  I pictured her, the long hair, the aloof confidence. She might be taking precautions, after Harry. Murakami might even have warned her to be careful. But she was no hard target. I could get to her. And I thought I knew how.

  I went to a spy paraphernalia shop in Shinjuku to buy a few things I would need. What the store offered to the public was almost scary: pinhole cameras and phone taps. Taser guns and tear gas. Diamond-bit drills and lock picks. All available “for academic purposes only,” of course. I contented myself with a Secret Service–style ASP tactical baton, a nasty piece of black steel that collapsed to nine inches and telescoped to twenty-six with a snap of the wrist.

  Next stop was a sporting goods store, where I bought a roll of thirty-pound test high-impact monofilament fishing line, white sports tape, gloves, a wool hat, long underwear, and a canvas bag. Third stop, a drugstore for some cheap cologne, a hand towel, and a pack of cigarettes and matches. Next, a local Gap for an unobtrusive change of clothes. Then a novelty shop for a fright wig and a set of rotted false teeth. Finally, a packaging supply house, for a twenty-five-meter roll of translucent packing tape. Shinjuku, I thought, like an advertising jingle. For All Your Shopping Needs.

  I holed up in another business hotel, this time in Ueno. I set my watch alarm for midnight and went to sleep.

  When the alarm woke me, I slipped the long underwear on under my clothes and secured the baton to my wrist with two lengths of the sports tape. I wet the towel and wrung it out, put it and the other gear I had bought into the canvas bag, and walked out to the station, where I found a pay phone. I still had the card I had taken on my first night at Damask Rose. I called the phone number on it.

  A man answered the phone. It might have been Mr. Ruddy, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Hai, Damask Rose,” the voice said. I heard J-Pop playing in the background and imagined dancers on the twin stages.

  “Hello,” I said, in Japanese, raising my voice slightly to disguise it. “Can you tell me who’s there tonight?”

  The voice intoned a half-dozen names. Naomi was among them. So was Yukiko.

  “Great,” I said. “Are they all there until three?”

  “Hai, so desu.” Yes, they are.

  “Great,” I said again. “I’ll see you later.”

  I hung up.

  I caught a cab to Shibuya, then did a foot SDR to Minami-Aoyama. I remembered Yukiko’s address from the time I had checked out her and Naomi’s backgrounds from Osaka, and I had no trouble finding her apartment building. The main entrance was in front. An underground garage was off to one side, accessible only by a grated metal door controlled by a magnetic card reader in a center island. No other ways in or out.

  I thought of her white M3. Assuming that the night I had seen her in it wasn’t an anomaly, it was her commuting vehicle. She wouldn’t be driving it to Harry’s tonight, and Murakami would either be unreachable for the moment or he would have told her to stay away. I judged that there was an excellent possibility that she would be pulling in sometime after three.

  I found a nearby building separated from its neighbor by a long, narrow alley. I moved into the shadows there and opened my bag of goodies. I took out the cologne and applied a heavy dose to my nostrils. Then I closed the bag and stashed it there, and walked into nearby Roppongi.

  It didn’t take me long to find a homeless man who looked about the right size. He was sitting on a cinder block in the shadows of one of the elevated expressways of Roppongi-dori, next to a cardboard and tarp shelter. He was wearing overlarge brown pants cinched tight with a worn belt, a filthy checked button-down shirt, and a fraying cardigan sweater that two generations earlier might have been red.

  I walked over to him. “Fuku o kokan site kurenai ka?” I asked, pointing to my chest. You want to trade clothes?

  He looked at me for a long moment as though I was unhinged. “Nandatte?” he asked. What the hell are you talking about?

  “I’m serious,” I said in Japanese. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  I shrugged off the nylon windbreaker I was wearing and handed it to him. He took it, his expression briefly incredulous, then wordlessly began to slip out of his rags.

  Two minutes later I was wearing his clothes. Even through the heavy layer of cologne, the smell was horrific. I thanked him and headed back to Aoyama.

  Back in the alley, I pulled on the fright wig and secured it with the wool hat, then popped in the false teeth. I lit a cigarette and let it burn down, then rubbed a mixture of ashes and spit onto my face. I lit a match and took a quick look at myself in a sawed-off dental mirror I keep on my key chain. I barely recognized what I saw, and I smiled a rotten-toothed smile.

  I slipped on the gloves and walked out to the garage entrance of Yukiko’s building. I took the fishing line and translucent tape, but left the bag and the rest of its contents in the alley. There was a security camera mounted just above the grated garage door. I cut a wide path around it, then reapproached from the side farther from the street. The corner of the building jutted out a few centimeters, apparently for aesthetic reasons. I slid down low, using the jutting design for partial concealment. The average person pulling in or out wouldn’t notice me. Anyone who did would assume I was just some homeless man, probably drunk and passed out there. My getup was insurance against the very small chance that someone might call the cops. If anyone did show up to investigate, my appearance and smell would be strong incentive for them to just tell me to be on my way and leave it at that.

  It was late, and not too many people were coming or going. After nearly an hour, I heard what I’d been waiting for: a car pulling into the driveway.

  I heard it stop in front of the door, the engine idling. I pictured the driver rolling down the window, inserting a magnetic card into the reader. A moment later I heard the mechanical whine of the door rising. I counted ten seconds off before the sound stopped. I heard the car pull in.

  The mechanical whine started again. I counted off five seconds, on the assumption that, with the assistance of gravity, the door would drop more quickly than it had risen. Then I darted out from my position, strode down to the door, dropped to my side, and rolled under it.

  Lying on my back to keep my profile low, I raised my head and looked around. The structure was shaped like a large rectangle. There was a row of parked cars in front of each of the four walls, and two double rows lengthwise up the middle. The car that had just arrived pulled into a space in one of the middle rows. I rolled to a crouch and, keeping low, ducked behind a nearby car.

  The elevators and a door marked “Stairs” were at the far end of the rectangle, opposite the grated doors I had just come through. A woman got out of the car that had come in, walked over to the elevators, and pressed a button. A second later, the doors opened. She went inside and the doors closed behind her.

  I looked around. Concrete weight-bearing pillars were spaced every few meters throughout. There were no ramps, so I knew it was only one story. From its size and location, I gathered it was intended only to serve the residents of the building above.

  Ideally, I would have gotten to Yukiko just as she left her car. But I had no way of knowing which parking space was hers, and she might easily see me coming if my guess left me too far away. The only choke point was the elevators. I decided to set up there.

  I looked around for cameras. The only one I spotted was a large double CCTV installation mounted on the ceiling directly in front of the elevators, one unit facing the elevators, the other monitoring the garage. Except in high security installations, where CCTV is monitore
d in real time by guards, security cameras typically record to tape that gets recorded over every twenty-four hours unless there’s an incident that makes earlier review worthwhile. In a residential setup like this one, it was a safe bet that no one was watching the garage right now. But they’d sure as hell be reviewing the tapes the next day. I was glad I was disguised the way I was.

  There was a metal guardrail set up in a U shape around the elevator entrance, with three breaks in it for access. It looked like something intended to force residents to use a separate freight elevator for bringing large items in and out of the building. For me it would serve a better purpose.

  I took out the fishing line and tied one end of it to the top left of the U at knee level. Then I ran the line along the floor around the bottom points and the right top point of the U so that each break in access was covered. I secured it lightly to the floor with the translucent tape, then moved over to the nearest pillar, letting the line out as I walked.

  Squatting low, I took out my key chain and used one of the keys to cut the line off. I put the spool back in one of the pants pockets along with the tape, then wrapped the excess line around one of my gloved hands. I stood and angled the dental mirror so I could see the garage door without having to expose myself from behind the pillar.

  I waited like that for about an hour. Twice I heard the garage door and I checked with the mirror. The first time was a blue Saab. The second was a black Nissan. The third one was white. A Beemer. An M3.

  My heart started kicking harder. I exhaled slowly and gripped the end of the fishing line.

  I listened to the car as it got closer, closer. I heard it stop just a couple meters away. She had a good spot. Probably paid more for it.

  I heard the door open and then close. Then the chirp chirp of an automatic door lock. I looked in the mirror to confirm that it was Yukiko and that she was alone. Right on both counts.

  She was wearing a black trench coat and high heels. A purse was slung across her neck and one arm. None of it was ideal attire for reaction or maneuver. But it looked good.

  I saw that her right hand was closed around a small canister. My guess was Mace or pepper spray. A woman, late at night, in a parking garage—maybe this was nothing out of the ordinary for her. But I had a feeling she was thinking about Harry, and about me. Good.