Rainfall

nodded slowly. “There is some truth to that. But publishing the disk is like launching a nuclear missile. You only get to do it once, and it results in complete destruction.”

    “So? Launch the missile. Destroy the corruption. Let the society breathe again.”

    He sighed, his sympathy for the shock I had just experienced perhaps ameliorating the impatience he usually felt in having to spell everything out for me. “In Japan, the corruption is the society. The rust has penetrated so deep that the superstructure is made of it. You cannot simply rip it all out without precipitating a collapse of the society that rests on it.”

    “Bullshit,” I said. “If it’s that corrupt, let it go. Get in there and rip.”

    “Rain-san,” he said, a tiny note of impatience in his voice, “have you considered what would rise from the ashes?”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Put yourself in Yamaoto’s place. Plan A is to use the threat of the disk to control the LDP from the shadows. Plan B is to detonate the disk — to publish it — to destroy the LDP and put Conviction in power.”

    “Because the tape implicates only the LDP,” I said, beginning to understand.

    “Of course. Conviction seems a model of probity by comparison. Yamaoto would have to step out of the shadows, but he would finally have a platform from which to move the nation to the right. In fact, I believe this is his ultimate hope.”

    “Why do you say that?

    “There are signs. Certain public figures have been praising some of the prewar Imperial rescripts on education, the notion of the Japanese as a ‘divine people,’ and other matters. Mainstream politicians are openly visiting shrines like Yasukuni and its interred World War II soldiers, despite the costs incurred abroad by such visits. I believe Yamaoto orchestrates these events from the shadows.”

    “I didn’t know you were so liberal on these things, Tatsu.”

    “I am pragmatic. It matters little to me which way the country moves, as long as the move is not accompanied by Yamaoto’s means of control.”

    I considered. “After what’s happened to Bulfinch and Holtzer, Yamaoto is going to figure out that the disk wasn’t destroyed, that you have it. He was already coming after you. It’s only going to get worse.”

    “I am not such an easy man to get to, as you know.”

    “You’re taking a lot of chances.”

    “I am playing for stakes.”

    “I guess you know what you’re doing,” I said, not caring anymore.

    He looked at me, his face impassive. “There is another reason I must be careful with the disk’s contents. It implicates you.”

    I had to smile at that. “Really?” I asked, imitating his country-bumpkin routine.

    “I had been looking for the assassin for a long time, Rain-san — there have been so many convenient deaths of ‘natural causes.’ I always knew he was out there, although everyone else believed I was chasing a phantom. And now that I have found him, I realize he is you.”

    “What are you going to do about it?”

    “That is for you to decide.”

    “Meaning?”

    “As I have told you, I have deleted all evidence of your activities, even of your existence, from the Keisatsucho’s databases.”

    “But there’s still the disk. Is this your way of telling me that you’re going to have leverage over me?”

    He shook his head, and I saw the momentary disappointment at my characteristic American lack of subtlety. “I am uninterested in such leverage. It is not the way I would treat a friend. Moreover, knowing your character and your capabilities, I recognize that the exertion of such leverage would be futile, and possibly dangerous.”

    Amazing. The guy had just put me in jail, failed to publish the disk as he had implied he would, sent Midori to America, and told her I was dead, and yet I felt ashamed that I had insulted him.

    “You are therefore free to return to your life in the shadows,” he went on. “But I must ask you, Rain-san, is this really the life you want?”

    I didn’t answer.

    “May I say that I had never seen you more . . . complete than you were in Vietnam. And I believe I know why. Because at heart you are samurai. In Vietnam you thought you had found your master, your cause larger than yourself.”

    What he said hit a nerve.

    “You were not the same man when we met again in Japan after the war. Your master must have disappointed you terribly for you to have become
ronin
.” A
ronin
is literally a