Barry Eisler - Killing Rain aka One Last Kill

I didn’t know what the hell to say. “Oh, my God,” I think is what came out.

I tried to pull myself together, but couldn’t really manage it. Eventually, though, I was able to revert to some sort of operational default. I found myself asking, “Who took the photo? You?”

There was a pause, then he said, “No. It was taken by Yamaoto’s people.”

I looked at him. My expression was neutral again. Thinking of Yamaoto helped me focus. It put me back on familiar ground.

“Why?”

“She is your only known civilian nexus. Yamaoto has people watch her from a distance, from time to time, in case you reappear in her life.”

“Bastard needs a course in anger management.”

“You defeated him twice. First, in intercepting the disk. Second, in dispatching his lieutenant, Murakami. He is a vain man with a long memory.”

“Is she… are they, in danger?”

“I don’t believe so. He is interested in her only as a means to get to you.”

“How did you acquire the photo?”

“A search of one of his affiliates’ belongings.”

“Sanctioned search?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly.”

“Then there’s a chance the affiliate doesn’t know the photos are missing.”

“I can assure you he doesn’t. My men downloaded the contents of his digital camera, but otherwise didn’t molest it. He has no way of knowing his belongings were examined. Yamaoto has no way of knowing you have discovered the existence of… your son.”

There was a strange corporeality to those last words. They seemed to linger in the air.

A son, I thought. It made no sense. My father had a son. But not I.

“It’s… he’s a boy?” I asked.

He nodded. “I made some discreet inquiries. She calls him Koichiro. Ko-chan.”

“How do you even know… how can you be sure he’s mine?”

He shrugged. “He looks like you, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t even go there. I felt confused, and realized I was in some kind of mild shock.

“Why did you show me this?” I asked, feeling like I was groping, flailing. I was thinking, Because I had made my adjustment. It was over, she might as well have been dead and gone, I was consoling myself with memories .

Tormenting yourself, you mean.

“Would you have preferred that I hadn’t?” he asked.

“What’s the difference? Even if I wanted to, even if she wanted me to, I couldn’t contact her while Yamaoto is watching.”

I paused and felt a flush of anger. I looked at him and said, “That’s why you told me.”

He shrugged. “Certainly some of my motives were selfish. Some weren’t. You know as well as I do that you need a connection, you need something to pull you off the nihilistic path you’ve been treading. It seems that fate has taken a hand.”

“Right. To get out of the killing business, all I need to do is kill a few more people.”

“It does seem paradoxical when you put it that way. But yes, I believe you have accurately described the heart of the matter.”

I shook my head, trying to understand. “I can’t see them unless I take out Yamaoto first.”

“Yes.”

“And Yamaoto is smart. He understands this dynamic. Which means he’s probably tightened his security as a result.”

“He most certainly has.”

I looked at him. “For Christ’s sake, why don’t you just arrest this fucking guy? What do they pay you for?”

“Yamaoto is a prominent politician, with many protectors, as you know. If I tried to arrest him, I would simply lose my job. He is inaccessible by ordinary means.”

“I don’t even know if she would see me. Why hasn’t she contacted me?”

“Does she have your address?”

“No. But she could have contacted you.”

He shrugged. “Perhaps she is ambivalent. Who wouldn’t be? True, she didn’t contact you. On the other hand, she had your baby. She is the mother of your son.”

“Oh, my God,” I said again. I felt dizzy.

“It’s a strange thing, having a child,” he said. “It completely alters your most fundamental priorities. When my eldest daughter was born, I realized that I would do anything-anything-to protect her. If I had to set myself on fire to save her from something, I would do it with the utmost relief and gratitude. It’s quite a thing, quite a privilege, to care about someone so much that the measure of the worth of your own life is changed by it.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for all that,” I said. I felt like I was outside my body, that someone else was talking.

“Of course you’re not. No one ever is. Because there’s a responsibility that comes with the privilege.” He licked his lips. “When my little son died, there was nothing I could do to save him. All the things I would have done, would have been overjoyed to do, were meaningless. You can’t imagine the impact of knowing that the most precious thing over which you have full control-your own life-is useless as barter or bribe to save the life of your child.”

He took a swallow from his beer mug. “You see? For your whole life, you’ve believed the sun revolved around the earth. You are about to discover otherwise. With everything that implies.”

I didn’t know what to say. My head was spinning but I ordered us another round.

We drank in silence for a while after that. At one point Tatsu asked if I wanted to be alone. I told him no, I wanted him there, wanted his company. I just needed to think.

Three rounds later, I said to him, “I can’t figure this out. Not in one night. But there’s one thing I am going to do. And I need your help to do it.”

IT TOOK TATSU a few days to manage it, but eventually he was able to discover where I could find Manny’s Filipina wife. I had a feeling that, after what had almost happened to him in Manila, Manny might have sent her to stay with her family outside the city, and it turned out I had been right.

While I waited for the information, I stayed at my suite at the Four Seasons. It was a beautiful hotel and a good base from which to revisit the many areas in the city I had missed during my recent exile. I avoided those areas I had once frequented often enough to be recognized if I were to return, not wanting to do anything that might put me on Yamaoto’s radar screen. But there were plenty of places I had patronized anonymously before, and which I could therefore safely visit again: bars like Teize and Bo Sono Ni in Nishi Azabu; shrines like Tomioka Hachimangu, where the wisteria would be blooming soon; bright boulevards like Chuo-dori in Ginza and dim alleyways and backstreets too obscure to name.

Tatsu had been right, I realized, about the earth and the sun. Everything I saw measured correctly against the template in my memory, and yet the contours were subtly and indescribably different. The thought that I had become a father was overwhelming. I’d never even seen my child outside of a few surveillance photos, never even suspected his existence until just a few days before, and yet suddenly I felt connected to a possible future in a way I had never imagined. And it wasn’t just that I had a son; my parents, a posthumous grandchild. It was the connection the child gave me with Midori, something I intuitively sensed could never be denied, not even after what I had done to her father. I didn’t know if a life to come could trump a death dealt previously, but I wondered at the possibility. It filled me with frightful hope.

I responded to Delilah’s post, telling her that I needed a vacation like I’ve never needed one before. I had some things to take care of over the next few days, but after that I could meet her anywhere. She asked me if I’d ever been to Barcelona. I told her I hadn’t, but that I’d always wanted to go. We agreed to be in touch over the next few days, while her situation sorted itself out and while I tied off a few loose ends of my own.