I saw the trademark sad smile, and somehow it made me feel good. “Appearances had to be maintained until I could straighten things out,” he said.
“It took you awhile.”
“Yes. I worked as quickly as possible. You see, to arrange for your release I first had to have Kawamura’s disk decrypted. After that, various phone calls had to be made, meetings arranged, levers pulled to secure your release. There was a great deal of evidence of your existence that needed to be purged from Keisatsucho files. All this took time.”
“You managed to decrypt the disk?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And its contents met your expectations?”
“Exceeded them.”
He was holding something back. I could sense it in his demeanor. I waited for him to continue.
“William Holtzer has been declared
“Just resigning? He’s not being charged with anything? He’s been a mole for Yamaoto, feeding false intel to the U.S. government. Doesn’t the disk implicate him?”
He bowed his head and sighed. “The information on the disk is not the kind of evidence that will be used in court. And there is a desire on both sides to avoid a public scandal.”
“And Yamaoto?” I asked.
“The matter of Yamaoto Toshi is . . . complicated,” he said.
“ ‘Complicated’ doesn’t sound good.”
“Yamaoto is a powerful enemy. To be fought obliquely, with stealth, over time.”
“I don’t understand. What about the disk? I thought you said it was the key to his power?”
“It is.”
It hit me then. “You’re not going to publish it.”
“No.”
I was silent for a long moment as the implications set in. “Then Yamaoto still thinks it’s out there,” I said. “And you’ve signed Midori’s death warrant.”
“Yamaoto has been given to understand that the disk was destroyed by corrupt elements of the Keisatsucho. His interest in Kawamura Midori is thus substantially reduced. She will be safe for now in the United States, where Yamaoto’s power does not extend.”
“What? You can’t just exile her to America, Tatsu. She has a life here.”
“She has already left.”
I couldn’t take it all in.
“You may be tempted to contact her,” he continued. “I would advise against this. She believes you are dead.”
“Why would she believe that?”
“Because I told her.”
“Tatsu,” I said, my voice dangerously flat, “explain yourself.”
His voice stayed matter-of-fact. “Although I knew you were concerned for her, I didn’t know, when I told her of your death, what had happened between you,” he said. “From her reaction, I realized.”
He paused for a long moment, then looked at me squarely, his eyes resigned. “I deeply regret the pain you feel now. However, I am more convinced even than before that I did the right thing in telling her. Your situation was impossible. It is much better that she know nothing of your involvement in her father’s death. Think of what such knowledge would do to her after what had happened between you.”
I wasn’t even surprised that Tatsu had put together all the pieces. “She didn’t have to know,” I heard myself say.
“At some level, I believe she already did. Your presence would eventually have confirmed her suspicions. Instead, she is left with memories of the hero’s death you died in completing her father’s last wishes.”
I realized, but somehow could not grasp, that Midori had already been made part of my past. It was like a magic trick. Now you see it; now you don’t. Now it’s real; now it’s just a memory.
“If I may say so,” he said, “her affair with you was brief. There is no reason to expect that her grief over your loss will be prolonged.”
“Thanks, Tatsu,” I managed to say. “That’s a comfort.”
He bowed his head. It would be unseemly for him to give voice to his conflicted feelings, and anyway he would still do what he had to.
“I still don’t understand,” I said after a minute. “I thought you wanted to publish what’s on the disk. It would vindicate all your theories about conspiracies and corruption.”
“Ending the conspiracies and corruption is more important than vindicating my theories about them.”
