“So can I assume you’re here because the CIA suspects that I had something to do with the attempt on Masao Takahashi?”

It was a good bet, but she actually had no idea what agency analysts had come up with on that. It did provide a convenient way into this interrogation, though. A bit of misdirection.

“Shouldn’t we?”

He waved a hand dismissively as though the attempted assassination of Japan’s ranking soldier was too trivial a topic to dwell on. “We don’t get paid enough for this, Randi. More and more we’ve become the eminently expendable pawns of insane and stupid men whose only interest is to cling to power.”

“You won’t get any argument from me.”

“Have you ever thought about leaving the government and taking your skills private?”

“It occasionally crosses my mind.”

“I think about it more and more every day. And now…” He fell silent for a moment. “They’re going to lose control of this situation, Randi. And when they do, millions are going to die. For nothing. For a piece of political theater meant to keep people’s minds off their real problems.”

“Pick a category of people and tell the masses that everything wrong with their lives is that group’s fault,” Randi said. “It’s been a winning message for thousands of years.”

“With terrible consequences even when humans were limited to swords and clubs.” He took a sip of his drink. “My country has always been difficult to govern. Too big, too diverse, too opportunistic. Frankly, too racist. The government has bribed the population with economic growth but that growth is unsustainable. And now that it’s beginning to falter we face a very dangerous situation. Perhaps even the breakup of China. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“And if your country broke up, where would you go, Kaito?”

He crossed his legs and spread his arms across the back of the sofa. “I thought perhaps Japan, but I don’t belong there either. I don’t belong anywhere.”

“So, a mercenary.”

“What better job for a man without a country?”

Randi nodded silently. As was so often the case with Yoshima, what was most interesting about this conversation was what was missing: a denial of his involvement in the Takahashi assassination attempt.

“China’s banging the war drum,” Randi said. “But like you say, it’s only for show. Everybody knows it except—”

“General Takahashi,” Yoshima said, finishing her thought. “He’s a brilliant man. His grasp of technology, strategy, history, and the art of war is unparalleled. In many ways he’s a perfect military being. If he’d led the Japanese during World War Two, I wonder if things would have gone as well for America.”

“Lucky we were allies by the time he enlisted.”