A Lonely Resurrection

then said, “What do you think Yamaoto did on those four occasions in which he learned where and when Kanezaki would be meeting with his assets?”
    I shrugged. “Observers. Using parabolic microphones, telephoto lenses, low-light video.”
    “Agreed. Now assume Yamaoto has audio and video recordings of these meetings in progress. What is the value of these materials to him?”
    I thought for a moment. “Blackmail, mostly. ‘Do as I tell you, or I release these photos to the media.’”
    “Yes, that is Yamaoto’s preferred method. And it is remarkably effective when the photos are of an extramarital affair in progress, or a liaison with a young boy, or some other socially unacceptable behavior. But here?”
    I thought again. “You think video and audio of a meeting with Kanezaki wouldn’t be damning enough?”
    He shrugged. “The audio might be, if the recorded conversation were sufficiently incriminating. But the video would be of lesser consequence: a politician chatting with a man, apparently Japanese, in a public place.”
    “Because no one knows who Kanezaki is,” I said, beginning to catch on.
    He looked at me, waiting for me to put it together.
    “They need a way to make Kanezaki a household name,” I said. “To get his picture in the paper. That gives the photos punch.”
    He nodded. “And how to do that?” he asked.
    “I’ll be damned,” I said, finally seeing it. “Biddle was playing right into Yamaoto’s hands. He’s been positioning Kanezaki as his fall guy, giving him full responsibility for Crepuscular so that, if it ever got out, he’d have a ‘rogue’ who could take all the heat. But now, if Kanezaki becomes publicly known as the poster child for CIA skullduggery, the politicians who have been photographed with him are going down, too.”
    “Correct. Biddle can no longer burn Kanezaki without burning the very reformers he presumably wants to protect.”
    “That’s why he wants him dead,” I said. “A nice, quiet suicide to preempt a scandal.”
    He nodded. “Biddle would meanwhile destroy the receipts and any other evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”
    I thought for a moment. “There’s something off, though.”
    “Yes?”
    “Biddle’s a bureaucrat. In the ordinary course of things he wouldn’t just resort to murder. He’d have to be feeling desperate.”
    “Just so. And what produces desperation?”
    I looked at him, realizing he’d already put it together. “Personal reasons, as opposed to institutional ones.”
    “Yes. So the question is, what is Biddle’s personal stake in all this?”
    I considered. “Professional embarrassment? Problems with his career, if Kanezaki were burned and a scandal erupted about the CIA’s Tokyo Station?”
    “All that, yes, but something more specific.”
    I shook my head, not seeing it.
    “What do you think precipitated Biddle’s request for those receipts, and his request that you assist with Kanezaki’s ‘suicide’?”
    I shook my head again. “I don’t know.”
    He looked at me, perhaps mildly disappointed that I hadn’t managed to keep up with him. “Yamaoto got to Biddle the same way he got to Holtzer,” he said. “He created assets Holtzer and Biddle believed were real. They basked in the reflected glory of the intelligence the ‘assets’ produced. Then, when he judged the time was propitious, Yamaoto revealed to them, privately, that they had been duped.”
    I imagined Yamaoto’s conversation with Biddle:
If word gets out that your “assets” are all run by the other side, your career is over. Work with me, though, and I’ll keep things quiet. I’ll even make sure that you get more assets and more intel, and your star will keep rising.
    “I understand,” I said. “But somehow Yamaoto miscalculated this time, because Biddle thinks he’s got a way out. Just get rid of Kanezaki and destroy all the evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”
    He nodded. “Yes. And what does that tell us?”
    I considered. “That Crepuscular has an unusually small distribution list. That Langley doesn’t know of it, because if they did, Biddle wouldn’t be able to contain it just by eliminating Kanezaki and burning some paperwork.”
    “So it seems Mr. Biddle has been running Crepuscular on his own initiative. He told you the program was terminated six months ago, did he not?”
    I nodded. “And Kanezaki told me he discovered cable traffic to that effect.”
    “Biddle’s story is that Kanezaki has been