Zero Sum

by Barry Eisler

  “But don’t you—”

  She pressed a finger to my lips. “Shh. Remember this. I’m part of you now. Whatever you do next, whatever woman you wind up with, I’ll always be part of you.”

  “It sounds like you’re saying goodbye.”

  She looked down for a moment. “I hadn’t meant to. But maybe it’s better if we do.”

  “I want to keep seeing you.”

  “Of course you do. And if you call me, this will happen again. But at some point, and probably soon, we’ll see we can’t have what’s shiny without enduring what’s sharp. And we’ll get tired of cutting each other.”

  I tried to think of a way to argue with her. But I couldn’t come up with anything.

  She looked at me for a long moment, smiling slightly, but with sorrow in her eyes. Then she reached for the back of my head, pulled me in, and kissed me furiously, her tongue in my mouth, her lips pressed painfully hard against mine.

  Then she broke the kiss and reached for the door handle. “Goodbye, John,” she said, and was gone.

  I stood there for a minute, stunned and confused and bereft. Everything had been going so well, hadn’t it? I’d even saved her husband, removed all that as a possible complication. I supposed I knew it wouldn’t, couldn’t, last with her regardless, but I hadn’t expected it to end so abruptly. Or so soon. I wasn’t even sure it had ended, exactly. She said she’d see me if I called, right? But did she want me to? What had she meant?

  I shook it off. I had to focus. Because the meeting at Zenkō-ji was in less than an hour. And while Victor was dead, there was one more threat out there. A threat I intended to eliminate. That had to come first. I could think about Maria after.

  chapter twenty-two

  I changed into my street clothes and the new suede jacket, which was roomy enough to accommodate the Kevlar. Oleg’s knife was taped to my left inner forearm, the handle extending into my palm under the jacket sleeve and instantly accessible with my other hand. I picked up the bag containing the night-vision goggles and headed out.

  I wasn’t sure who would be coming for me. It might have been Yokoyama himself, of course. After all, he was the one who had made Miyamoto set up a meeting. But I had a feeling my rendezvous would be with someone one level higher up the food chain.

  Wilson.

  Granted, from what I could tell of the man, he preferred to operate behind the scenes, deploying cutouts, seeking maximum insulation and deniability. But the team he’d brought to Tokyo to remove me had been wiped out. Even Victor was no longer available. So if Wilson wanted me gone at this point—and if he was behind Yokoyama setting up this meeting, I had to assume he did—I expected he would try to do it himself.

  And why not? From what Tatsu had told me, Wilson sounded like a tough old bastard. Wily enough to have operated in the shadows, killing and surviving, all the way back to the wartime OSS. How many enemies had a guy like that made in the course of his life? How many had come at him? And how many had died trying?

  Sobering questions, no doubt. But I’d outmaneuvered a formidable enemy earlier that night. I thought I had a way to outmaneuver this one, as well.

  The hotel lobby was empty, and I nodded to myself, pleased I had told Miyamoto we’d meet at such an ungodly hour. If anyone had followed Maria to me, setting up in this deserted space would have been a bitch. And ditto for Zenkō-ji.

  I used a side exit and caught a cab. It was nearly two o’clock, but I wasn’t worried about being late. In general, the smart—and therefore the expected—approach would be to arrive early. But I had just played that game with Victor, and I didn’t want to be predictable. Meaning now it was time to change tactics.

  I had the driver stop on Aoyama-dori, northeast of the temple. The area was satisfyingly quiet. I crossed the street, and cut into the Aoyama Kitamachi Apartments, a city-operated public-housing complex built in the fifties and sixties and already beginning to decay. None of the two dozen five-story apartment blocks had elevators; indeed, many didn’t even have plumbing beyond toilets and sinks, the residents using the local sentō, or bathhouse, instead. The apartment grounds were atmospheric, I supposed. But I wasn’t interested in their genteel decrepitude. For me, their most attractive features were darkness, desertedness, and, of course, proximity to Zenkō-ji temple.

  I paused for a moment, taking in my surroundings. The only sounds were the buzz of a nearby electrical transformer, and the insects in the trees. It had rained earlier, and the ground was damp, the air moist and cool. But the sky had cleared, and the area was pooled in alternating shadows and moonlight.

  I slipped on the night-vision goggles, and hit the power switch. Instantly the shadows were gone, everything around me flaring visible in the goggles’ green glow. I swiveled my head left and right, adjusting to my new perspective. The goggles felt right, and not only because they were tactical. The apartment grounds were poorly maintained, the bushes and trees sprawling and overgrown, and all that foliage in night-vision green was Vietnam-reminiscent. I felt weirdly comforted, as though I was visiting a neighborhood I hadn’t been to in a while, but remembered completely the instant I returned to it. I didn’t know what to expect from Wilson. But I’d sure as shit see it before it happened.

  I moved southwest among the units, pausing frequently to look and listen. In about ten minutes, I had reached the southeastern edge of Zenkō-ji, with a view of the entrance. I crept forward for another stop, look, and listen. Not a sound, nor a soul.

  I circled counterclockwise, repeatedly creeping in for a closer view, each time seeing and hearing nothing. Once I had finished circumnavigating, I backtracked, pulled myself over the stone wall off Omotesando-dori, and moved in through the small cemetery occupying the southwest quadrant.

  I paused at the edge of the markers, overlooking the hondō, the main temple hall. I caught a whiff of something I thought for a second was incense, and then realized was sweet tobacco smoke. But the grounds were completely still.

  No, not completely. I heard footfalls coming up the main path from Aoyama-dori. They were so audible I assumed they must have been from a civilian, perhaps drunk and seeking some sort of late-night spiritual sustenance.

  A moment later, a white guy came into view. About sixty, I judged, with thinning gray hair, a trim mustache, and circular wire-rimmed eyeglasses. He was wearing a heavy tweed suit with a vest, and smoking a pipe. That’s what I had smelled.

  He paused, pulled a match from one of his suit pockets, struck it against the side of the incense brazier, then cupped it in his hands and attended to his pipe. When it was going to his satisfaction, he shook out the match and tossed it aside, watching the hondō as though in contemplation, surrounded in a night-vision-green glow of tobacco smoke.

  There was something urbane about him. Professorial. Even affable. All of which, I knew, was a put-on.

  Because the man I was looking at was Calloway Wilson.

  He looked left and right, puffing on his pipe, so relaxed and casual he might have been standing on his backyard porch, not trying to ambush someone halfway around the world in a Zen temple complex. But was this an ambush? I’d expected a Victor-style approach, an attempt to outmaneuver me with stealth, speed, and subterfuge. This was the opposite. The incongruity, I had to admit, was unsettling. I glanced around, everything clearly visible through the night-vision goggles, looking for confederates. I saw no one. What the hell was he doing?

  “Hello, Mr. Rain,” he called out, his tone confident, a soothing baritone echoing off the flagstones. “I know you’re here. You’re watching me from somewhere, probably in the shadows of those monuments to my left.”

  Well, his tactical instincts were good enough. I remained still, waiting to see if there would be more.

  He chuckled. “All right, I’ll admit it, I’m cheating. I came by earlier and placed a few radio-frequency motion sensors at the entry points to the temple. That’s how I know you’re over there. You wouldn’t believe what the Science and Technology whiz ki
ds come up with these days. Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself.”

  Shit. Was he bluffing? I watched him through the goggles.

  “You see? I could have outmaneuvered you. No disgrace—you don’t have a whole government lab behind you, the way I do. But the point is, I’m not here to outmaneuver you. I’m here to talk. And I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to be comfortable with me.”

  I glanced around again, looking for the setup, still not seeing it.

  “I know how good you are,” he went on. “You wiped out a picked team, all former Special Forces. And Victor, who as you know was no cupcake. You’re the kind of man who’s always looking for an edge, and typically finds one. My guess is, you’re watching me right now. Did you acquire some night-vision goggles? If so, I’m impressed. Probably the AN/PVS-5, no? Second generation. But there’s third generation now—the AN/PVS-7. Very limited rollout—even the military doesn’t have them yet. But we do. Because we’re just like you. Always looking for that edge.”

  I glanced around again. I could see him, and he couldn’t see me. I was young, and he was old. And I had the drop on him. And yet suddenly I felt at a disadvantage.

  “Here,” he said, opening his jacket and doing a slow three-sixty. “I’m not armed. You, undoubtedly, are. I don’t object to that. I want you to feel comfortable. We were on opposite sides of the board, but that’s changed. There’s no reason we can’t acknowledge those changed circumstances, and come to some mutually agreeable accommodation. I certainly believe it’s in both our interests to do so. And I hope I can persuade you of the rightness of my thinking.”

  I wondered if he could have a sniper. Not likely—a sniper with night vision could have picked me off at several points while I checked the temple perimeter. That I was still here was powerful evidence no sniper was in play.

  But what, then? What was his angle? I could see only one way to find out.

  I stood. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” I called out. “Walk over here. Slowly.”

  He looked in my direction. In the moonlight, he was probably just able to make me out behind the gravestone I was keeping between us.

  “Of course,” he said. I glanced around again, seeing and hearing nothing, the handle of Oleg’s knife pressed reassuringly against my palm.

  He walked slowly along one of the flagstone paths between the markers. “Stop,” I said when he was about eight feet away. “Stay there.”

  “I understand. I’d want to search me, too.”

  I ignored the observation and circled behind him, checking in all directions as I moved. He put his laced fingers behind his head, saving me the trouble of having to direct him, and I patted him down thoroughly. The only thing I found was something in a pants pocket—a small electronic device with an antenna and a blinking light. Presumably a component of the radio-frequency motion sensor he had mentioned, though perhaps a transmitter.

  “Feel free,” he said, as though reading my mind.

  If it was a transmitter, he might have placed another close by. In which case, destroying this one would be pointless. Still, I dropped it, then crushed it under my heel.

  He started to turn around.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Just talk, if that’s what you’re here for.”

  He remained facing away from me. “I’m guessing you’d prefer that I not light my pipe.”

  “Your intuition is outstanding.”

  “More an eye for talent and ability than intuition. But of course. Your rules. As I said, I want you to be comfortable.”

  He paused, then went on. “If you’ve gotten this far, I think you must know most of it.”

  If he was hoping I was going to start talking, thereby revealing what I knew and what I didn’t, he was mistaken. “What do you think I know?”

  “You know who I am. You know I was behind Victor. And you know who’s behind me.”

  “Yeah? What else do I know?”

  “You know Victor was a piece on the board in a game being played out on both sides of the Pacific. A rough game. A contact sport.”

  “Yeah, lot of injuries in your little game.”

  “Yes, there have been a few. But overall, the game has gone as planned.”

  I didn’t like the passive voice. “As who planned?”

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t already know that.”

  “Assume I don’t.”

  “All right. Let’s just imagine what might happen if there were a split in the president’s cabinet. Between, say, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. If the former were, unfortunately, mired in the past—specifically, his memories of fighting the Japanese in World War Two in the Battle of Angaur. While the latter, by contrast, were able to look to the future.”

  “You mean Shultz wants to keep Japan disarmed, and Weinberger wants to sell Japan weapons.”

  “Crudely put, I might argue, but not inaccurate.”

  “And Casey is Weinberger’s man.”

  “Casey is Reagan’s man.”

  “And you’re Casey’s.”

  “Again, crudely put, but not unfair, either.”

  “You’re telling me Reagan knows you guys killed a fucking Japanese prime minister?”

  “The president isn’t particularly interested in operational details. He sets broad policy—the what—and prefers to delegate the how.”

  “Then you guys put this thing in motion . . . on your own initiative?”

  “I believe Director Casey would say, ‘There are things best dealt with through official channels, and others that need to be handled more . . . discreetly.’”

  “You mean more deniably.”

  “However you want to put it. I know you understand there are things that have to happen in the world but that absolutely cannot be attributed to the US government. Those things tend to fall to men like us.”

  I didn’t like the way he tried to pair us. It reminded me of McGraw, when he was trying hardest to sell me. Maybe all these CIA guys took the same courses on manipulation.

  “So Reagan wants Nakasone to be prime minister.”

  “Of course.”

  “Because Nakasone wants Japan to rearm.”

  He shrugged. “As Nakasone himself has said, Japan could be America’s great unsinkable aircraft carrier. But what good is an aircraft carrier, if it has no planes?”

  “And Sugihara was in the way of this, is that it?”

  “Sugihara, yes. And a few other pieces that needed to be rearranged.”

  “That’s why you brought Victor over.”

  “Indeed. Victor was quite a find. His military experience. His status as an outsider. His knowledge of, and hatred for, Japan. One of a kind, I would have thought. Until I learned about you.”

  “I’m not like Victor.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re obviously better.”

  “But not as deniable.”

  “True. But perhaps that doesn’t have to be quite the fatal flaw I first thought.”

  “You certainly tried to make it fatal.”

  “It wasn’t personal. Just operational security. Are you going to tell me you never killed a prisoner to make sure your mission could continue?”

  I said nothing.

  “Of course you did. In fact, it was my agency that saved you from the consequences, by refusing to testify in the so-called Green Beret Affair. But my point isn’t to blame. It’s to let you know I understand. These are the kinds of decisions no one should be faced with, but that men like us are forced to make all the time. Difficult decisions about how to save the most lives possible. And I made that kind of difficult decision with you. It was ugly, I freely acknowledge it. But it needed to be done. In fact, I won’t lie to you, I would do it again—but only under the same circumstances. And these aren’t the same circumstances. Not anymore. The pieces that needed to be rearranged are rearranged. The pieces that needed to be removed have been removed.”

  A little tendril of anxiety snaked through me. Surel
y he couldn’t be saying . . .

  “Are you talking about Sugihara?”

  “Indeed.”

  I felt gut-punched. “What? When?”

  “A short while ago.” He glanced over his shoulder, his expression surprised. “I thought you’d be pleased. You were spared the risk of having to do it yourself, and of course his departure removes a personal complication, as well.”

  Was this why he seemed so confident he could sell me? Because Sugihara was my bonus?

  I thought of Maria. What the hell had she gone home to tonight? What was she doing right now?

  “What are you saying?” I managed, trying to buy myself time to think.

  “Come on now. I know about his wife. She was how my men tracked you. Well, now she’s his widow. Probably in need of some comfort.”

  When I didn’t answer, he glanced back again. This time his expression was concerned. “I . . . assumed your relationship was not very serious. I hope I didn’t come across just now as callous. But if I underestimated how much you care for her, well, I would think you would view this as an even more positive development.”

  “Who did it?” I asked. “Victor’s dead.”

  “We don’t really need to get into sources and methods, do we?”

  “You?” But as soon as I said it, I knew it didn’t make sense. This whole op was built on deniability. There was no way Wilson himself was going to drop a Japanese Diet member.

  “Ah, you know better than that.”

  There was only one other possibility. “Yokoyama?”

  “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

  “How?” I said again.

  “Well, Sugihara was out earlier with some colleagues. It seems he suffered a heart attack.”

  “Like Prime Minister Ōhira?”

  “Yes, a pattern we had hoped to avoid. But then Victor hired you, and one thing led to another, and some improvisation was required.”