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Daichi Yamamoto sat in his study, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Heavy drapes were drawn across the windows, darkening the room. He'd shut off the phones.
Outside the quiet confines of his home, life went on as always in Tokyo. Yamamoto had always loved Tokyo. He was too young to remember the incendiary bombs of World War II and the fires that had swept through the city, killing a hundred thousand people. By the time he'd been born, Japan had become one of the great economic powers of the world and Tokyo had risen from the ashes like the mythical Phoenix, a giant metropolis of concrete and steel.
Soft music played in the background. Yamamoto had acquired a taste for Western classical music, especially Mozart and Bach. Usually the complex musical arrangements and changing moods of the two great composers soothed him and helped him think through whatever was on his mind.
Usually, but not today. Today his mind was overwhelmed with shame.
His personal weaknesses had allowed him to become ensnared in Nobuyasu's web of greed and deceit, and now those weaknesses were about to be exposed.
He emptied his glass and poured another.
Earlier, he'd gotten a call from the American CIA director, Hood. He'd been afraid it would come to this. When Takahashi had failed to kill the Americans in the hotel, he knew he had lost control. It was all going to come out, his corruption, his secrets.
Everything.
A memory came to him of a spring many years ago, when he was a boy. His father had taken him to Osaka Castle to view the cherry blossoms. Yamamoto had been about five years old. He remembered bright sunlight, the delicate blossoms drifting through the air, the towering castle rising into clear, blue sky. His father had gestured at the trees, then at the ground where fallen blossoms were strewn about.
"You see the blossoms? How fragile and beautiful they are?"
"Yes, father. But they are all falling. It is sad."
His father had nodded, pleased that his young son had come to the heart of things.
"That is one of the reasons we appreciate them. They remind us that the seasons of life come and go. They teach us that beauty is fleeting. That nothing stays the same. Nothing is permanent."
Yamamoto smiled at the memory. A pistol lay on the end table next to the chair where he sat. In the old days, a man as powerful as he would have gathered a few witnesses. He would have arranged his robes carefully, sitting on a white sheet of finest silk. He would have formally atoned for his misconduct through the ritual of seppuku. He would have written a poem, perhaps, for the occasion. Then when he had opened his belly and was about to succumb to the pain, his second would have struck his head from his shoulders.
He would have been remembered, respected, his honor regained through his act of atonement, in keeping with the samurai traditions of his culture. But now there were no more samurai. Now there was no way to regain his honor. Today's society had no respect for such actions of personal redemption.
Yamamoto picked up the pistol and held it to his temple. He thought of the cherry blossoms falling and pulled the trigger.