John Rain 08: Graveyard of Memories by Barry Eisler Read Free Book Online Page B

turn the other cheek when someone kills the cousin who was like a brother to him? And Fukumoto Senior can’t let this go. He’d look weak. He’d lose face. His enemies would move in. If he wants to prevent all that—and I promise you, he does—he needs to kill you, simple as that.”
    “Right, he has enemies. People who don’t give a shit about the nephew. People who would celebrate if something were to happen to Fukumoto himself.”
    McGraw stared at me for a moment. Then he chuckled. The chuckle migrated to a laugh. The laugh became a guffaw. The guffaw went on and on. He looked at me, wiping tears from his eyes. A few times he tried to speak, but was unable. I watched him. I was tempted to make him stop laughing. More than tempted. And I could have. I could have made it so he never laughed again. But I needed him. Maybe I was learning to control my temper. If so, he had no idea how lucky he was.
    Finally, his fit subsided. “Oh come on, son. I know you SOG guys are tough. But what are you going to do, take on the entire Japanese mafia?”
    “From what you’ve told me, I don’t have a problem with the entire Japanese mafia. Just with Fukumoto. And his Mad Dog son.”
    McGraw was watching me. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “You’re serious.”
    I said nothing.
    “No,” he said. “I can’t authorize this. It’s—”
    “Who said anything about authorization? We’re just…this is all just hypothetical.”
    He snorted. “Hypothetically, where would you get your intel? Their locations, movements, that kind of thing.”
    “Who could say? Maybe I could hear a rumor. An anonymous tip.”
    “Yeah? What would be in it for the informant?”
    I looked at him. “That would depend on what the informant wanted.”
    He rubbed his chin. I thought he looked intrigued. Certainly he seemed to be considering something.
    He went back to the fried rice. After a few moments, he said, “You need intel on two people. What if the informant gave you intel on three?”
    I didn’t even pause. “Then I’d take care of all three.”
    He nodded. “That might make it worthwhile.”
    “It would also have to make us even. The informant and me, I mean. Hypothetically.”
    It amazes me now, that something like that once struck me as tough negotiating.
    “I’m sure it would,” he said.
    I didn’t even pause. “All right. Who’s the third?”
    He looked at me for a long moment. “You sure you’re up for this, son? Have you really thought it through?”
    “Have you?”
    “I just did. But you’d be the one taking all the risk. You really want that?”
    “Who’s the third?”
    He shrugged. After a pause, he said, “Hypothetically? The third would be Kakuei Ozawa.”
    The name was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Kakuei Ozawa…”
    “The LDP sōmukaicho .”
    “The Liberal Democratic Party LDP?” This was the political party that had been running Japan since the war. And presumably, the primary beneficiary of the American largesse I delivered regularly in a briefcase to Miyamoto.
    “The same.”
    “And…the sōmukaicho , you mean the chairman of the Executive Council.”
    “I do, yes.”
    “You’re talking about the second most powerful politician in Japan.”
    “Third, actually, or even fourth. The secretary-general and the chairman of the Policy Affairs Research Council have more clout, at least on paper. But the sōmukaicho has the most influence over the day-to-day dispensation of patronage. More even than the prime minister himself.”
    “And you want me to waste this guy.”
    McGraw winced at my directness. “You want my help with your problem? Help me with mine.”
    “All I need from you is intel. You’re asking me to pull the trigger. On an extremely high-profile target.”
    “I didn’t know you SOG guys were so squeamish.”
    “If that’s what you call my preference for not spending the rest of my life in a Japanese prison, then fine, I’m squeamish.”
    “You only go to prison