Barry Eisler - Hard Rain

“Holtzer told me that support for reform would involve funneling cash to specified politicians with a reformist agenda, the kind of reforms favored by the USG. The theory was that, to compete in Japanese politics, you need access to large quantities of cash. You can’t stay in office without it, so over time everyone either gets corrupted because they took the cash or weeded out because they refused to. We were going to change the equation with an alternate source of funds.”

“Funds acknowledged with receipts.”

“That’s policy, yes. I’ve told you.”

“I imagine that, when your assets are signing the receipts, they handle them?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

I wondered briefly why they hired these guys right out of college. “I’m curious,” I said, “whether you can think of any uses to which someone might want to put signed, fingerprinted documents acknowledging receipt of CIA-disbursed funding.”

He shook his head. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “The CIA doesn’t use blackmail.”

I laughed.

“Look, I’m not saying we don’t use it because we’re nice people,” he went on with almost comedic earnestness. “It’s because it’s been demonstrated not to work. Maybe you can use it to get short-term cooperation, but in the long term it’s just not an effective means of control.”

I looked at him. “Does the CIA strike you as an organization that’s particularly focused on the long term?”

“We try to be, yes.”

“Well, if you’re not under investigation for embezzlement, and blackmail is an alien notion at the CIA, what do you think Biddle is doing with those receipts?”

He looked down. “I don’t know.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“There’s one more thing that’s strange.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Protocol is, before every asset meeting, case officers have to fill out a form with particulars of the anticipated meeting: who, where, when. The purpose is to provide a record that other case officers can use if anything goes wrong. After the Chief’s request, I turned in the form saying I had an asset meeting tonight, although the truth is I don’t, but I left the place of the meeting blank.”

“And you got called on it.”

“Right. Which is weird. No one should be taking an interest in these things before a meeting. They’re for post-meeting contingencies. In fact, half the time, we don’t even bother filling them out until afterward. It’s too much of a pain. And you never hear anything about it.”

“What are you thinking?”

“That someone is observing these meetings.”

“For what?”

“I don’t… I don’t know.”

“Then I don’t see how I can help you.”

“All right. It’s possible someone is trying to gather some kind of evidence that I’ve been running Crepuscular by myself since it was terminated. Maybe in case it comes out, that way Biddle or whoever could just blame me.” He looked at me. “As their fall guy.”

Maybe the kid wasn’t so naïve after all. “You still haven’t told me what you want from me,” I said.

“I want you to run counter-surveillance tonight and tell me what you see.”

I looked at him. “I’m flattered, but wouldn’t you be better off going to the CIA Inspector General?”

“With what? Suspicions? Besides, for all I know, the IG and the Station Chief went to Yale together. Remember, as of six months ago, Crepuscular was shut down. At which point it effectively became illegal. And all this time I’ve been running it. Before I go through channels, I need to figure out just what is going on.”

I was quiet for a moment. Then I said, “What are you offering me in return?”

“I’ll tell you what I know about your friend.”

I nodded. “If what you tell me is convincing and valuable, I’ll help you.”

“You won’t renege?”

I looked at him again. “You’re going to have to take that chance.”

He pouted like a kid who thinks he’s made a reasonable request and is hurt that he isn’t being taken seriously.

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “The last time we met, I told you we identified Haruyoshi Fukasawa as an acquaintance of yours by intercepting a letter from him to Kawamura Midori. All we had from the letter was his first name, which is spelled with an unusual combination of kanji , and a postmark for the main Chuo-ku post office.”

That tracked pretty much with what Harry and I had come up with ourselves. “Keep going,” I said.

“There was a lot of information to sift through if we were going to make effective use of those two small bits of information. Local ward domicile records, tax records, things like that. We’d have to work outward in concentric circles starting with the Chuo-ku postmark. That meant manpower and local expertise.”

I nodded, knowing what was next. “So you outsourced it.”

“We did. To a Station asset named Yamaoto.”

Christ, they might as well have just put out a contract on Harry. I closed my eyes and thought for a second. “Did you tell Yamaoto why you were interested in Fukasawa?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. We just told him we wanted to know where a person with that name lived and worked.”

“What happened after that?”

“I don’t know. Yamaoto got us the addresses we wanted. We tailed Fukasawa as closely as we could, but he was surveillance conscious and we never managed to stay with him long enough to follow him to you.”

“You’re not telling me much that I don’t already know. What about Fukasawa’s death?”

“I went to his apartment the other day with diplomatic security to try to surveil him as usual. I told Biddle I didn’t think this was a good idea after our previous encounter, that it was personally dangerous for me, but he insisted. Anyway, I saw a lot of unusual activity. Police cars, and a-a cleanup crew for the sidewalk in front of his building. I looked into it and found out what had happened. When I told Biddle, he got totally pale.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning my impression was that he was both surprised and upset. If he was surprised, it means that someone else was responsible for this. I’m assuming it wasn’t an accident. That leaves you and Yamaoto. Since you’re here and seem to care, I’m also assuming that you and Fukasawa didn’t have some kind of falling out. That leaves Yamaoto.”

“Let’s assume that you’re right. Why?”

He swallowed. “I don’t know. I mean, at a general level, I would guess it would be either because Fukasawa posed some sort of threat or because he was no longer useful, but I don’t know more than that.”

“You ever see Fukasawa with a woman?”

He nodded. “Yes, we saw him coming and going several times with a Yukiko Nohara. She works at a club in Nogizaka called Damask Rose.”

I thought for a few minutes. My gut told me he was being straight. But I had no way of knowing for certain. Besides, for the little he’d given me, I wasn’t going to take the kind of chances that running counter-surveillance for him could entail.

Tatsu might be interested, though. And he might be better able to use Kanezaki’s meager information than I could.

“I’ve got a meeting in a few hours with someone who can help you with your problem,” I said. “Someone who can do more than I can.”

“Does that mean you believe me?”

I looked at him. “I haven’t decided yet.”

There was a pause, then he said, “My wallet.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Where is it?” he asked.

I chuckled. “It’s gone.”

“There were fifty thousand yen in it.”

I nodded. “Just enough for a gustation menu and an ’85 Rousseau Chambertin at a restaurant I like. I had to go out of pocket on the ’70 Vega Sicilia Unico I had with dessert, though, so next time you get it in your head to surveil me, bring along a few more yen, okay?”