“Imagine it, Detective. Imagine how he must seem to those already of a malleable mind—the sort of people who seek the comfort and camaraderie of a cult. Unmedicated, this is a man who believes he is a god. With his hallucinations under control he is a virtuoso of deception, master of the Wind’s innermost secrets. We believed that Koji Makoto was the actor, and Joko Daishi the mask. He convinced us that his growing power was no threat to us.”
“But?”
“The truth was quite the opposite. It was not Joko Daishi who taught Koji-san how to imitate a god, but Koji who taught Joko Daishi how to imitate a man. He learned just what to say and how to say it. Koji Makoto became the mask.”
A wry laugh escaped Furukawa’s thin lips. He shook his head, scornful of himself. “It’s so obvious now. That was the language he used: actors and masks. I should have seen it coming. Even as a boy, he was obsessed with ancient relics—no thanks to your sensei Yamada, I might add. It was Dr. Yamada’s love for the past that made him the ideal archivist, but it led to the rediscovery of artifacts that even the Wind had long since forgotten. Better for us all if that demon mask had remained hidden. But no. Yamada found it, Koji-san fell in love with it, and now look at what it’s done.”
“It? Hell no. You. You did this.”
Furukawa picked up the cue ball. His eyes grew so cold that she thought he might throw it at her. “I argued for its destruction. I saw to it that it would stay far away from Koji-san forever. And then . . .” He dropped the ball back on the empty table with a loud, sullen crack. “Then I allowed other things to become more important. I forgot the mask. We all did—everyone but Koji-san.”
“But it came back. You must have known. When we arrested Joko Daishi, we impounded the mask. That went in the computer, and I know you guys can hack our records.”
“We can,” he said dejectedly. “We did.”
“Then why didn’t you steal it from us? Or let it get lost in the system, or—I don’t know, whatever the hell you people do. Make the damn thing disappear.”
“We tried. But the Divine Wind was far more resourceful than we anticipated. They have people within your system.”
“So do you, neh?”
“Of course. But Koji-san knows ours and we don’t know his. I told you: we thought he was ours. We gave him access to everything he needed to betray us.”
“Which you didn’t figure out until he tried to blow up that subway station,” Mariko said.
Furukawa nodded. His head and neck seemed to sag under the weight of his remorse. “All of the balls were in place. We never saw it. We just handed him the cue and he ran the table. There is one thing left for you to understand, something you’ve misunderstood from the beginning: not even the shonin could have prevented the Haneda bombing. That responsibility falls to Professor Yamada.”
“Don’t you dare!” Mariko wanted to snatch his pool cue and break it over his head. “Don’t you dare blame that on him.”
“How can I not? I told you earlier that Yamada denied us when we courted him. It was his friend Shoji-san that convinced him to join our ranks. She foresaw that only the person who wields Glorious Victory Unsought could kill her son. Yamada agreed to become our archivist, and named Glorious Victory Unsought as his price.”
“So what? That doesn’t set off any bombs in an airport.”
“When I learned of Shoji’s prophecy, I assumed Dr. Yamada was being noble. He would see to it that his friend’s son died painlessly. If he were a samurai, bushido would demand nothing less. It was my mistake: I saw his fascination with the sword and his strong moral stance, and I assumed the two went hand in hand.”
“They did,” said Mariko. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“You do if you want to understand the truth. Right after the Haneda bombing, we sent six assassins after Joko Daishi. He killed five of them. The sixth escaped with her life, and with his mask. She says he took three bullets that night, including one to the head that the demon mask deflected. Any one of those three rounds should have killed him. Why does he still live?”
Because ballistics is a weird science, Mariko thought. Because the human body