Barry Eisler - Hard Rain

Tanaka looked at me, then at Tatsu. “The money isn’t even mine. It doesn’t come from me.”

Tatsu said, “Good. Tell me more.”

Tanaka licked his lips. “This conversation will remain unofficial?” he asked. “If someone finds out, it would be very bad for me.”

“As long as you cooperate,” Tatsu said, “you have nothing to fear.”

Tanaka looked at me for confirmation. I gave him a smile that said I was secretly hoping he would be uncooperative, so I could go to work on him.

Tanaka swallowed. “All right. Six months ago I was told to contact someone who works in the U.S. Embassy. A man named Biddle. I was told that Biddle represented certain parties who hoped to secure a source of campaign funding for reformist politicians.”

“Who told you to do this?” Tatsu asked.

Tamaka glanced at Tatsu, then down. “The same person who provides the money for this thing.”

Tatsu looked at him. “Please be more specific.”

“Yamaoto,” Tanaka whispered. Then: “Please, I’m cooperating. This conversation must remain unofficial.”

Tatsu nodded. “Keep going,” he said.

“I met with Biddle and told him, as I was instructed, that I believed Japan needed radical political reform and that I wanted to help in any way I could. Since that time, I have provided Biddle with some one hundred million yen for distribution to politicians.”

“These people are being set up,” Tatsu said. “I want to know how.”

Tanaka looked at him. “I was only following instructions,” he said. “I’m not really involved.”

“I understand,” Tatsu said. “You’re doing fine. Now tell me.”

“For three months, I gave Biddle cash without asking for anything in return. Then I pretended to be concerned about whether I was being conned. ‘Who is this money really going to?’ I asked him. ‘Tell me, or I’ll cut you off!’ At first he resisted. Then he told me I would know these people, could probably figure out who they would be just from reading the paper. Then he gave me names. I pretended to be satisfied, and gave him more money.

“Then I acted paranoid again. I said, ‘You’re just making this up. Prove to me that you really are giving my money to the people who need it and not keeping it for yourself!’ Again, he argued at first. But eventually he agreed to tell me when and where a meeting would occur. And then another.”

Jesus Christ , I thought.

“How many meetings did Biddle inform you of?” Tatsu asked.

“Four.”

“And what did you do with that information?”

“I passed it along to… to the person who provides the funding, as I was instructed to do.”

Tatsu nodded. “Give me the names of the participants in those four meetings, and the dates.”

“I don’t remember the exact dates,” Tanaka said.

I smiled and started to stand. Tanaka flinched. Tatsu put a hand out to restrain me and said, “Be as accurate as you can.”

Tanaka intoned four names. A ballpark date for each. I sat down.

“Now give me every other name you got out of Biddle,” Tatsu said.

Tanaka complied.

Tatsu didn’t write anything down, and I realized he knew these people well. “Very good,” he said when Tanaka was done. “You have been most cooperative and I see no reason for anyone to learn that this conversation took place. Of course, should I need any further information, I may call on you again. With similar discretion.”

Tanaka nodded. He looked a little sick.

The maid saw us to the door. The car was waiting outside. We got in back and drove off. I told them to drop me off at nearby JR Meguro station. Tatsu’s man drove the short distance to the station and waited in the car while Tatsu and I stood outside to wrap things up.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“He’s telling the truth,” Tatsu said.

“Maybe. But who put him in touch with Biddle?”

He shrugged. “Probably one of the Agency’s tainted assets, someone with connections to Yamaoto. If Biddle were canvassing these assets to try to find a supporter for Crepuscular, word would have gotten back to Yamaoto.”

“And Yamaoto would have seen an opportunity to turn the program to his own ends.”

He nodded, then said, “What do you think Yamaoto did on those four occasions in which he learned where and when Kanezaki would be meeting with his assets?”

I shrugged. “Observers. Using parabolic microphones, telephoto lenses, low-light video.”

“Agreed. Now assume Yamaoto has audio and video recordings of these meetings in progress. What is the value of these materials to him?”

I thought for a moment. “Blackmail, mostly. ‘Do as I tell you, or I release these photos to the media.” ’

“Yes, that is Yamaoto’s preferred method. And it is remarkably effective when the photos are of an extramarital affair in progress, or a liaison with a young boy, or some other socially unacceptable behavior. But here?”

I thought again. “You think video and audio of a meeting with Kanezaki wouldn’t be damning enough?”

He shrugged. “The audio might be, if the recorded conversation were sufficiently incriminating. But the video would be of lesser consequence: a politician chatting with a man, apparently Japanese, in a public place.”

“Because no one knows who Kanezaki is,” I said, beginning to catch on.

He looked at me, waiting for me to put it together.

“They need a way to make Kanezaki a household name,” I said. “To get his picture in the paper. That gives the photos punch.”

He nodded. “And how to do that?” he asked.

“I’ll be damned,” I said, finally seeing it. “Biddle was playing right into Yamaoto’s hands. He’s been positioning Kanezaki as his fall guy, giving him full responsibility for Crepuscular so that, if it ever got out, he’d have a ‘rogue’ who could take all the heat. But now, if Kanezaki becomes publicly known as the poster child for CIA skullduggery, the politicians who have been photographed with him are going down, too.”

“Correct. Biddle can no longer burn Kanezaki without burning the very reformers he presumably wants to protect.”

“That’s why he wants him dead,” I said. “A nice, quiet suicide to preempt a scandal.”

“Biddle would meanwhile destroy the receipts and any other evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”

I thought for a moment. “There’s something off, though.”

“Yes?”

“Biddle’s a bureaucrat. In the ordinary course of things he wouldn’t just resort to murder. He’d have to be feeling desperate.”

“Just so. And what produces desperation?”

I looked at him, realizing that he’d already put it together. “Personal reasons, as opposed to institutional ones.”

“Yes. So the question is, what is Biddle’s personal stake in all this?”

I considered. “Professional embarrassment? Problems with his career, if Kanezaki were burned and a scandal erupted about the CIA’s Tokyo Station?”

“All that, yes, but something more specific.”

I shook my head, not seeing it.

“What do you think precipitated Biddle’s request for those receipts, and his request that you assist with Kanezaki’s ‘suicide’?”

I shook my head again. “I don’t know.”

He looked at me, perhaps mildly disappointed that I hadn’t managed to keep up with him. “Yamaoto got to Biddle the same way he got to Holtzer,” he said. “He created assets that Holtzer and Biddle believed were real. They basked in the reflected glory of the intelligence the ‘assets’ produced. Then, when he judged the time was propitious, Yamaoto revealed to them, privately, that they had been duped.”

I imagined Yamaoto’s conversation with Biddle: If word gets out that your “assets” are all run by the other side, your career is over. Work with me, though, and I’ll keep things quiet. I’ll even make sure that you get more assets and more intel, and your star will keep rising .