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Still, because the system
    turns up so many false positives, the problem took a long time and
    significant human resources to solve. I have been looking for you for
    almost a year, Rain-san."
    I realized from what he was telling me that the relentless advance of
    technology was going to force me to return to the nomadic existence I
    had adopted between Vietnam and my return to Japan, when I had wandered
    the earth without an identity, drifting from one mercenary conflict to
    another. There was no pleasure in the thought. I had done my penance
    for Crazy Jake and didn't wish to repeat the experience.
    "The system is not perfect," he went on. "There are numerous gaps in
    coverage, for example, and, as I mentioned, too many false positives.
    Still, over time, we were able to identify certain commonalities in
    your movements. A high incidence of sightings in Miyakojima, for
    example. From there, it was simple enough to check the records of the
    local ward office for new resident registrations, weed out false leads,
    and uncover your address. Eventually, we were able to track you
    sufficiently closely so that I could travel to Osaka and follow you
    here tonight."
    "Why didn't you just come to my apartment?"
    He smiled. "Where you live is always where you are most vulnerable
    because it represents a possible choke point for an ambush. And I
    would not wish to surprise a man like you where he felt most
    vulnerable. Safer, I judged, to approach you on neutral ground, where
    you might even see me coming, tie?"
    I nodded, acknowledging his point. If you're a likely target for a
    kidnapping or assassination attempt, or for any other kind of ambush,
    the bad guys can only get to you where they know you're going to be.
    Meaning outside your home, most likely, or the place where you work. Or
    at some point in between where they can rely on you to show up maybe
    the only bridge crossing between your home and office, something like
    that. These choke points are where you need to be the most sensitive
    to signs of danger.
    "Well?" he asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Did you see me?"
    I shrugged. "Yes."
    He smiled again. "I knew you would."
    "Or you could have called."
    "In which case, you might have disappeared again after hearing my
    voice."
    "That's true."
    "All in all, I think this was the best approach."
    "The way you went about this," I said, 'a lot of people were involved.
    People in your organization, maybe people with the CIA."
    He might have said something to intimate that any such lack of security
    was my fault, for having failed to contact him as I had suggested I
    would. But that wouldn't have been Tatsu's style. He had his
    interests in this matter, as I had mine, and he wouldn't have blamed me
    for disappearing any more than he expected me to blame him for tracking
    me down.
    "There has been no mention of your name in any of this," he told me.
    "Only a photograph. And the technicians tasked with checking for the
    matches the system spits out have no knowledge regarding the basis of
    my interest. To them, you are simply one of many criminals that the
    Metropolitan Police Force is tracking. And I have taken other steps to
    ensure security, such as coming alone tonight and informing no one of
    my movements."
    This was a dangerous thing for Tatsu to admit. If it were true, I
    could solve pretty much all my problems just by taking out this one
    man. Again, he was showing me that he trusted me, that I could trust
    him in return.
    "You're taking a lot of chances," I said, looking at him.
    "Always," he said, returning my gaze.
    There was a long silence. Then I said, "No women. No children. It
    has to be a man."
    "It is."
    "You can't have involved anyone else in this. You work with me, it's
    an exclusive."
    "Yes."
    "And the target has to be a principal. Taking him out can't just be to
    send a message to someone. It has to accomplish something concrete."
    "It will."
    Having established my three rules, it was now time to apprise him