Rainfall

getting his new employer into secure government and corporate computer systems all over the world and learning the blackest of the NSA’s computer black arts along the way. He came back to Japan in the mid-nineties, where he took a job as a computer security consultant with one of the big global consulting outfits. Of course they did a thorough background check, but his clean record and the magic of an NSA top-secret security clearance blinded Harry’s new corporate sponsors to what was most fundamental about the shy, boyish-looking thirtysomething they had just hired.

    Which was that Harry was an inveterate hacker. He had grown bored at the NSA because, despite the technical challenges of the work, it was all sanctioned by the government. In his corporate position, by contrast, there were rules, standards of ethics, which he was supposed to follow. Harry never did security work on a system without leaving a back door that he could use whenever the mood arose. He hacked his own firm’s files to uncover the vulnerabilities of its clients, which he then exploited. Harry had the skills of a locksmith and the heart of a burglar.

    Since we met I’ve been teaching him the relatively aboveboard aspects of my craft. He’s enough of a misfit to be in awe of the fact that I’ve befriended him, and has a bit of a crush on me as a result. The resulting loyalty is useful.

    “What’s going on?” I asked him after he had sat down.

    “Two things. One I think you’ll know about; the other, I’m not sure.”

    “I’m listening.”

    “First, it seems Kawamura had a fatal heart attack the same morning we were tailing him.”

    I took a sip of my chai latte. “I know. It happened right in front of me on the train. Hell of a thing.”

    Was he watching my face more closely than usual? “I saw the obituary in the
Daily Yomiuri
,” he said. “A surviving daughter placed it. The funeral was yesterday.”

    “Aren’t you a little young to be reading the obituaries, Harry?” I asked, eyeing him over the edge of the mug.

    He shrugged. “I read everything, you know that. It’s part of what you pay me for.”

    That much was true. Harry kept his finger on the pulse, and had a knack for identifying patterns in chaos.

    “What’s the second thing?”

    “During the funeral, someone broke into his apartment. I figured it might have been you, but wanted to tell you just in case.”

    I kept my face expressionless. “How did you find out about that?” I asked.

    He took a folded piece of paper from his pants pocket and slid it toward me. “I hacked the Keisatsucho report.” The Keisatsucho is Japan’s National Police Agency, the Japanese FBI.

    “Christ, Harry, what can’t you get at? You’re unbelievable.”

    He waved his hand as though it were nothing. “This is just the
Sosa
, the investigative section. Their security is pathetic.”

    I felt no particular urge to tell him that I agreed with his assessment of
Sosa
security — that in fact I had been an avid reader of their files for many years.

    I unfolded the piece of paper and started to scan its contents. The first thing I noticed was the name of the person who had prepared the report: Ishikura Tatsuhiko. Tatsu. Somehow I wasn’t surprised.

    I had known Tatsu in Vietnam, where he was attached to Japan’s Public Safety and Investigative Board, one of the precursors of the Keisatsucho. Hobbled by the restrictions placed on its military by Article Nine of the postwar constitution and unable to do more than send a few people on a “listen-and-learn” basis, the government sent Tatsu to Vietnam for six months to make wiring diagrams of the routes of KGB assistance to the Vietcong. Because I spoke Japanese, I was assigned to help him learn his way around.

    Tatsu was a short man with the kind of stout build that rounds out with age, and a gentle face that masked an intensity beneath — an intensity that was revealed by a habit of jutting his torso and head forward in a way that made it look as though he was being restrained by an invisible leash. He was frustrated in postwar, neutered Japan, and admired the warrior’s path I had taken. For my part, I was intrigued by a secret sorrow I saw in his eyes, a sorrow that, strangely, became more pronounced when he smiled and especially when he laughed. He spoke little of his family, of two young daughters in Japan, but when he did his pride was evident. Years later I learned from a mutual acquaintance that