Hard Rain

into
    the right preschools ..."
    "Yes, but look at the outrage those revelations have induced in
    America's regulatory system," he said. "Open hearings are conducted.
    New legislation is passed. Heads of corporations go to jail. But in
    Japan, outrage is considered outrageous. Our culture seems strongly
    disposed toward acquiescence, ne?"
    I smiled and in response offered one of the most common phrases in the
    language. "Shoganai," I said. Literally, There is no way of doing
    it.
    "Yes," he said, nodding. "Elsewhere they have "C'est la vie" or
    "That's life." Where the focus is on circumstances. Only in Japan do
    we focus on our own inability to change those circumstances."
    He wiped his brow. "So. Consider this state of affairs from Yamaoto's
    perspective. He understands that, with the immune system suppressed,
    there must eventually be a catastrophic failure of the host. There
    have been so many near-misses financial, ecological, nuclear it is only
    a matter of time before a true cataclysm occurs. Perhaps a nuclear
    accident that irradiates an entire city. Or a country wide run on
    banks and loss of deposits. Whatever it is, it will finally be of
    sufficient magnitude to shake Japan's voters from their apathy.
    Yamaoto knows that violent disgust with an existing regime historically
    tends to cause an extremist backlash. This was true in Weimar Germany
    and czarist Russia, to list only two examples."
    "People would finally vote for change."
    "Yes. The question is, a change to what?"
    "You think Yamaoto is trying to position himself to surf that coming
    wave of outrage?"
    "Of course. Look at Murakami's training course for assassins. This
    will augment Yamaoto's ability to silence and intimidate. Such an
    ability is one of the historical prerequisites of all fascist
    movements. I've told you before, Yamaoto is at heart a rightist."
    I thought of some of the good news from the provinces I'd been reading,
    how some of the politicians there were standing up to the bureaucrats
    and other corrupt interests, opening up the books, eschewing the public
    works projects that have all but buried the country under poured
    concrete.
    "And you're working with untainted politicians to make sure that
    Yamaoto isn't the outraged voters' only choice?" I asked.
    "I do what I can," he said.
    Translation: I've told you as much as you need to know.
    But I knew the disk, practically a who's who of Yamaoto's network of
    corruption, would have provided by negative implication an invaluable
    road map to who was absent from that network. I imagined Tatsu working
    with the good guys, warning them, trying to protect them. Positioning
    them like stones on ago board.
    I told him about Damask Rose and Murakami's apparent connection to the
    place.
    "Those women are being used to set up and suborn Yamaoto's enemies," he
    said when I was done.
    "Not all of them," I said, thinking of Naomi.
    "No, not all. Some of them might not even know what is happening,
    although I imagine they would at least suspect. Yamaoto prefers to run
    such establishments as legitimate enterprises. Doing so makes them
    difficult to ferret out and dislodge. Ishihara, the weightlifter, was
    instrumental in that capacity. It's good that he is gone."
    He wiped his forehead again. "I find it interesting that Murakami
    seems to have an important function with regard to that end of
    Yamaoto's means of control, as well. He may be even more vital to
    Yamaoto's power than I had first suspected. No wonder Yamaoto is
    attempting to diversify. He needs to reduce his dependence on this
    man."
    "Tatsu," I said.
    He looked at me, and I sensed he knew what was coming.
    "I'm not going to take him out."
    There was a long pause. His face was expressionless.
    "I see," he said, his voice quiet.
    "It's too dangerous. It was dangerous before, and now they've got my
    picture on Damask Rose home video. If the wrong person sees that
    picture, they'll know who I am."
    "Their interest is in politicians and bureaucrats and the like. The
    chance of that video making its way to Yamaoto, or to one of the very
    few other people in his organization who might recognize your face,
    seems remote."
    "It doesn't seem remote to me. Anyway, this guy is a hard target, very
    hard. To take out someone like that and make it look natural, it's
    almost impossible."
    He looked at me. "Make it look unnatural, then. The stakes are high
    enough to take that chance."
    "I might do that. But I'm no good with a sniper rifle, and I'm