Hard Rain

disappeared, obscured by the branches of one of the kusunoki
    trees for which the street is named. So did the young Japanese guy. I
    turned my attention to the American. I saw him stop, as though he had
    developed a sudden interest in one of the Most Wanted posters on the
    side of the police box.
    Gotcha.
    A moment later Harry reappeared, retracing his steps, now on the south
    side of the street. He paused to examine the illuminated map on the
    corner in front of the Sapporo Building, diagonally across from the
    police box where the American, suddenly no longer in a hurry for his
    appointment, indulged his newfound interest in Japan's Most Wanted.
    Harry's U-turn had been moderately aggressive, but not so provocative,
    I thought, as to cause his pursuers to let him go for the night. They
    wouldn't feel that he had made them. Not yet.
    But let's see.
    Harry moved right onto Platanus Avenue. The American held his
    position. A moment later the Japanese appeared from beyond my field of
    vision. When he, too, had turned right onto Platanus, the American
    fell in behind him.
    I waited another minute to see whether anyone else tickled my radar,
    but no one did.
    I got up and took the stairs to the first floor, where I paid and
    thanked the proprietor for an excellent meal. Then I cut across the
    Garden Court complex and took the stairs to the second floor of the
    outdoor promenade. I leaned against the waist-high stone wall in front
    of the Garden Court
    Tower office complex like a sentry on a castle keep, watching the foot
    traffic moving through the esplanade below.
    I knew that Harry had taken one of the underground passages to the
    esplanade and was pausing for a bit of window-shopping en route to give
    me time to get in position. After a few minutes, I saw him emerge from
    below me and begin walking diagonally across the esplanade, away from
    where I was standing. Had I wanted to, I could have set up at the
    other end of the promenade, where I would have been able to watch him
    and any followers as they approached me, but I was now ninety percent
    certain that I'd spotted the tails and didn't need to risk giving them
    an opportunity to spot me.
    There they were, fanned out behind him like two points at the base of a
    moving scale ne triangle. I noticed that the Japanese was looking
    around now at the windows of the esplanade's stores and restaurants and
    at the people looking down from the promenade above. I saw his head
    start to swivel to check his rear and, although I was likely to remain
    anonymous among the other onlookers around me, I moved back a few steps
    to ensure that I would remain unseen.
    The Japanese was showing decent, but in this case futile,
    countersurveillance awareness. He had obviously noted that Harry was
    leading him in a circle, a classic countersurveillance tactic that
    gives a static team multiple opportunities to try to spot a tail. I
    had anticipated such a reaction, though, and from here on, the route
    would be comfortingly straightforward, right up until the moment that
    Harry would exit the scene and I would make a surprise appearance.
    I waited ten seconds, then eased forward again. Harry had just reached
    the top of the incline that would take him out of the esplanade and
    toward the skywalk of Ebisu station.
    The Japanese and American kept their positions behind him. I watched
    until all three of them had moved out of my field of vision, then
    waited to ascertain whether there might be more of them. I was
    unsurprised to discover no one of interest. If their numbers had been
    greater, they would have switched positions to avoid potential
    countersurveillance when they sensed they were being moved in a circle.
    That they hadn't was a strong indication that this was only a
    two-person team.
    I checked my watch. Fifteen minutes to go.
    I took the underground passage to the Westin, where I caught a cab to
    nearby Hiro. Harry and his two admirers were now walking to the same
    place; taking the cab ensured that I would be there early to greet
    them.
    I had the cab let me off on Meiji-dori, where I ducked into a
    Starbucks.
    "What can I get you?" the counter girl asked me in Japanese.
    "Just a coffee," I said. "Grande. And can you make it extra hot?"
    "Sorry, the coffee drips at precisely ninety-eight degrees centigrade
    and is served at eighty-five degrees. I can't change it."
    Christ, they really train these people, I marveled. "I see. I've got
    this cold, though, I could use something