RainStorm

pulled out onto the road again. I felt alone,
    and very far from home.
    Wherever that might be.
    I 1'
    V
    i
    «,
    She gives when our attention is
    distracted
    And what she gives, gives with such
    supple confusions
    That the giving famishes the
    craving . . .
    t.s. eliot, Gerontion
    Part three
    TEN
    The ticket I had bought to get from Osaka to Washington
    was a round-trip. One-ways attract unnecessary attention,
    especially post-September 11. When I'd left I wasn't sure that I'd be
    using the return, but I certainly had a reason now, and the morning
    after my chat with Crawley I caught a return flight from Dulles.
    I slept well over the Pacific, all the way to the pre-landing
    announcements, the flight attendants having kindly respected my
    wish not to be wakened, even for champagne and caviar service.
    Ah, first class.
    I took the rapito, the Rapid Transport train, from Kansai International
    Airport to Namba's Nankai station in south Osaka. My
    ticket was for a window seat, and during the thirty-minute journey
    from airport to terminal station I sat and stared past my reflection
    in the glass. A sliver of sun had broken through the clouds at the
    edge of the horizon, shining like a sepia spotlight through an otherwise
    gray and undifferentiated firmament, and in the fading moments
    of the day I looked on at the scenes without, scenes that
    passed before me as disconnected and mute as images in a silent
    film. A rice paddy in the distance, tended by a lone woman who
    seemed lost in its sodden expanse. A man tiredly pedaling a bicycle,
    his dark suit seeming almost to sag from his frame as though wanting
    nothing more than to cease this purposeless forward momentum
    and succumb to gravity's heavy embrace. A child with a yellow
    knapsack paused before the lowered gate of the rapito railroad crossing, perhaps on his way to a juku, or cram school, which would
    stuff his head with facts for the next dozen years until it was time
    for them to be disgorged for college entrance exams, watching the
    passing train with an odd stoicism, as though aware of what the future
    held for him and already resigned to its 'weight.
    I called Kanezaki from a pay phone in Namba. I told him to
    meet me that night, that he could find details on the bulletin board.
    I uploaded the necessary information from an Internet cafe. The
    Nozomi bullet train would take him about two and a half hours,
    and I expected he would leave quickly after getting my message.
    I checked the bulletin board I had set up for Delilah, and was
    mildly surprised to find a message from her: Call me. There was a
    phone number.
    I used it. The call might be traced back to Osaka, but I wasn't
    going to be in town long enough for it to matter.
    "Allo," I heard her say.
    "Hey," I answered.
    "Hey. Thanks for calling."
    "Sure."
    "I wanted to tell you that it's almost done. To ask you to be patient
    for just a little while longer."
    That was smart. She must have been concerned that, if I didn't
    hear from her, I might get frustrated. That I might decide that she
    was playing me and go after Belghazi unilaterally again. And better
    to hear my voice, and let me hear hers, rather than a dry text message
    left floating in cyberspace.
    "How much longer?"
    "A day. Maybe two. It'll be worth it, you'll see."
    I wondered for a moment, again, about the elevator at the Macau
    Mandarin Oriental. After what had happened subsequently, and after
    what I'd learned, my gut said that she hadn't been part of that
    attempt on me, that in fact she had tried to warn me, as she had
    claimed. What I couldn't understand was why. From her perspective,
    operationally, a warning would have been counterproductive.
    I hated a loose end like that. But I couldn't make sense of it. I'd
    chew it over another time.
    "Okay," I said.
    "Thank you."
    "Can I reach you at this number?"
    "No. Not after this."
    I paused, then said, "All right then. Good luck."
    "And you." She clicked off.
    A little under four hours later Kanezaki and I were sitting in
    Ashoka, a chain Indian restaurant in the Umeda underground mall
    that I had come to like during my time in Osaka. I had employed
    the usual security procedures beforehand and there had been no
    problems.
    "You were right," I told him over Tandoor Murgh and Keema
    Naan and Panjabi Lassis. "There was a leak on your side. Crawley."
    "How do you know?"
    The question was straightforward and I detected no sign of sus-
    picion behind it. Apparently he hadn't yet learned of