Katsuro launched into a long and self-serving apologia that took in the woman’s arrest and then the Westerner’s efforts to break her out of the cell in which she was being held, just—Katsuro said, underlining his bad luck—as he was about to take care of her himself. He explained that he had found out the name of the woman who had been helping the gaijin, and that he had interrogated her husband after Sakura had been secreted out of the country by sea.

“And then they leave the ship under your nose. How did they do that?”

“I don’t know, Father.”

Takashi folded his arms when his son was finally finished. “It sounds to me as if you were always one step behind them. I expect proactivity—you were just following events. I am not surprised it ended so inauspiciously. You have let me down.”

“That’s unfair, Father.”

“Stop whining. You know what they say. Only death will cure a fool.”

It wasn’t a threat—Takashi had already murdered one son and had no intention of killing a second—but he knew that the criticism would sting, and that Katsuro had always been driven by a quest for Takashi’s approval. It was a trait that he had developed as a young boy. He and Miyasato had been competitive, as was so often the case with brothers of a similar age, and Takashi had fostered that competitive spirit by rewarding the one who showed most promise and punishing the other. He wondered whether he had inadvertently contributed to Katsuro’s problems.

The intercom on his desk buzzed. Takashi silenced Katsuro with an upheld hand and went over to it. “What?”

“Shinoda and Kodama are here,” said Fumio, his second-in-command.

“Perhaps we’ll have a little good news,” Takashi said to Katsuro. “You might get the chance to redeem yourself.” He clicked the intercom. “Send them up.”

Takashi had been surprised when told that Sakura had been in contact with Hachirō, telling his brother that she was on her way back to Tokyo and that she wanted to meet. Takashi had sent Shinoda and Kodama to sit outside his brother’s house and follow him to the rendezvous. Since Hachirō had no reason to suspect that he was under surveillance, Takashi was expecting them to report where Sakura was staying; when he knew that, he would send Katsuro. It would have been simple enough to hand the assignment to someone else, but he wanted to provide Katsuro with an opportunity to make amends.

He heard a knock on the door and nodded to his guard that he should open it and let the two of them inside. He fixed himself a drink and took it to the leather sofa that was angled to take advantage of the view from the wide picture window. Shinoda and Kodama came inside and, after demonstrating their respect with deep bows, they came closer.