“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.

“I understand,” I said. “But somehow Yamaoto miscalculated this time, because Biddle thinks he’s got a way out. Just get rid of Kanezaki and destroy all the evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”

He nodded. “Yes. And what does that tell us?”

I considered. “That Crepuscular has an unusually small distribution list. That Langley doesn’t know of it, because if they did, Biddle wouldn’t be able to contain it just by eliminating Kanezaki and burning some paperwork.”

“So it seems that Mr. Biddle has been running Crepuscular on his own initiative. He told you the program was terminated six months ago, did he not?”

I nodded. “And Kanezaki told me he discovered cable traffic to that effect.”

“Biddle’s story is that Kanezaki has been running a rogue program since that time. Given that Tanaka has only been dealing with Biddle, it seems likely that the rogue is in fact Biddle, who was using Kanezaki as his unwitting front man.”

“Yamaoto wouldn’t know that Crepuscular wasn’t officially sanctioned,” I said, nodding. “He would have assumed that the program was within the knowledge of Biddle’s superiors back at Langley. But it sounds like, outside of Biddle and Kanezaki, no one on the U.S. side is aware of it.”

He bowed his head as though acknowledging the valiant efforts of a slow student who had shown a hint of progress. “Which is why Yamaoto missed the possibility that Biddle would see Kanezaki’s elimination as a solution to Yamaoto’s blackmail.”

“You can’t really fault Biddle’s reasoning,” I said, looking at him closely. “With Kanezaki gone, Yamaoto’s blackmail evidence would lose most of its power. Meaning your network of reformers would be a lot safer if Kanezaki exited the scene.”

He grunted, and I realized that I was enjoying the sight of him struggling with what for him was a moral dilemma. “What about the reformers Kanezaki’s been meeting with?” I asked. “If he gets exposed, they’ll be at risk.”

“Several of them may be.”

“An acceptably small number?”

He looked at me, knowing where I was going. I said it anyway. “What would you do if there had been five? Or ten?”

He scowled. “These are decisions that can only be made case by case.”

“Yamaoto doesn’t make these decisions case by case,” I said, still pushing. “He knows what needs to be done and he does it. That’s what you’re up against. You sure you’re equal to the task?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Do you think I seek to be this man’s ‘equal’? Yamaoto would not account for the fact that these politicians are themselves to blame for their current predicament. Or for the fact that Kanezaki’s motives are essentially good. Or for the fact that this young man presumably has a mother and father who would be ruined by his loss.”

I bowed my head, acknowledging his point and the conviction behind it. “Those men are finished, then?” I asked.

He nodded. “I have to assume that Yamaoto owns them now, and warn the others.”

“What about Kanezaki?”

“I’ll brief him on our meetings with Biddle and Tanaka.”

“Tell him his boss tried to put a contract out on him?”

He shrugged. “Why not? The young man already feels indebted to me. This sentiment might prove useful in the future. No harm in reinforcing it now.”

“What about Murakami?”

“As I said, we will continue to question the man we took in. He may provide us with something useful.”

“Contact me as soon as you have something. I want to be there when it happens.”

“So do I,” he said.

I CHECKED THE Imperial voice mail account from a pay phone. A mechanical female voice told me that I had one message.

I tried not to hope, but the attempt felt pretty thin. The female voice instructed me to press the “one” key if I wanted to hear the message. I did.

“Hi, Jun, it’s me,” I heard Midori say. There was a pause, then, “I don’t know if you’re still really staying at the hotel, so I don’t know if you’ll even get this message.” Another pause. “I’d like to see you tonight. I’ll be at Body and Soul at eight o’clock. I hope you’ll come. Bye.”

The female voice told me the message had been left at 2:28 P.M., that I should press the “one” key if I wanted to repeat it. I pressed it. And again.

There was something so disarmingly natural about the way she called me Jun, short for Junichi. No one calls me Jun anymore. No one knows the name. I had been using Junichi, my real name, selectively even before leaving Tokyo, and had discarded it entirely afterward.

Hi, Jun, it’s me. Such an ordinary message. Most people probably get ones like it all the time.

It felt as though the ground beneath me had borrowed some extra gravity from somewhere.