Hirata met him outside the mansion. Last night Sano had sent a message telling Hirata about the assassin’s attack, and Hirata looked devastated by the news. “Sano-san. I-” Emotion choked off whatever he’d meant to say. He dropped to his knees before Sano and bowed his head.
Sano was moved that Hirata could grieve for him even though he’d been the cause of Hirata’s terrible injury. He said in a falsely cheerful voice, “Get up, Hirata-san. I’m not dead yet. Save your mourning for my funeral. We have work to do.”
Hirata rose, visibly braced by Sano’s attitude. “Do you still want me to track down the priest and the water-seller and whoever might have been stalking Colonel Ibe?”
“Yes,” Sano said. “And we’ll proceed with the other plans we made yesterday.”
“Marume and I have already organized the hunt for the priest Ozuno,” said Fukida.
“I’ll do everything in my power to catch the assassin,” Hirata declared. “This is personal now.”
“If you avenge your master’s murder before he’s dead, you’ll win yourself a place in history,” Sano said.
Hirata and the detectives laughed dutifully at the joke. Sano felt the strain of keeping up their spirits as well as his own. “Let’s look on the bright side. Every misfortune brings unexpected benefits. What happened last night has provided new clues that I’m about to follow up on.”
The Tokugawa Army’s central headquarters was located within Edo Castle, in a turret that rose up from a wall high on the hill. The turret was a tall, square structure faced with white plaster. Tiled roofs protruded above each of its three stories. General Isogai, supreme commander of the military forces, had an office at the top. Sano and Detectives Marume and Fukida reached the turret via a covered corridor that ran along the wall. As they walked, they glanced through the barred windows, into the passages under them. Sano was surprised to see only the patrol guards and checkpoint sentries. The officials who usually thronged the passages were absent.
“This place is as deserted as your compound,” Marume said.
“Somehow I can’t believe Police Commissioner Hoshina is responsible for this, too,” said Fukida.
Nor could Sano, who had an uneasy feeling about it. They entered the turret and climbed the stairs, passing soldiers who bowed to them. Sano stood at the threshold of General Isogai’s office, where the general presided over a conference of army officers. Smoke from their pipes clouded the air and drifted out windows into the mist. General Isogai spied Sano, nodded in acknowledgment, and dismissed his men.
“Greetings, Honorable Chamberlain. Please come in.”
Sano told Marume and Fukida to wait outside, then joined General Isogai. Swords, spears, and guns hung mounted in racks on the walls, alongside maps of Japan that showed army garrisons.
“May I be of service to you?” General Isogai said.
“You may,” said Sano, “but first, please accept my condolences on the death of Colonel Ibe.”
The general’s jovial expression turned bleak. “Ibe was a good soldier. A good friend, too. Came up through the ranks with me. I’ll miss him.” General Isogai uttered a humorless laugh. “Remember our last meeting? We were pretty smug because we had things under control. Now one of my top men has been assassinated, and you’re on Lord Matsudaira’s bad side because you haven’t managed to catch whoever did it.”
He walked to the window. “Notice how empty the castle is?” When Sano nodded, he said, “Everyone’s heard that the assassin got to you last night. Here, in the one place we all thought was safe. People are afraid to go out. They don’t want to be next to die. They’re hiding at home, surrounded by bodyguards. Whole bakufu’s ground to a halt.”
Sano imagined communication cut off between Edo and the rest of Japan, and the Tokugawa regime losing its grip on the provinces. Anarchy would spawn rebellion. Not only would the remnants of Yanagisawa’s faction seize the chance to regain power, but the daimyo might rise up against Tokugawa rule. “This could be disastrous. Assign soldiers to escort officials on their business and protect them,” Sano said.
The general frowned, dubious. “The army’s stretched too thin already.”
“Then borrow some troops from the daimyo. Bring in more from the provinces.”
“As you wish,” General Isogai said, although still reluctant. “By the way, have you heard that the assassin has a nickname? People are calling him ‘the Ghost,’ because he stalks his victims and kills them without being seen.”
He gestured out the window. “Give me an enemy I can see, and I’ll send all my gunners, archers, and swordsmen after him. But my army can’t fight a ghost.” His cunning eyes glittered with desperation as he faced Sano. “You’re the detective. How do we find him and put him out of action?”
“By the same strategy that you would use to defeat any other enemy,” Sano said. “We analyze the information we have on him. Then we run him to ground.”
General Isogai looked skeptical. “What do we know about him except that he must be a madman?”
“His attack on me has taught me two things,” Sano said. “First, his motive is to destroy Lord Matsudaira’s regime by killing its key officials.”
“Haven’t you suspected as much since the metsuke chief died at the horse races?”
“Yes, but now it’s a certainty. I didn’t know any of the victims well; we didn’t have the same friends, associates, family ties, or personal enemies. We had nothing in common except that we were all appointed to Lord Matsudaira’s new regime.”
General Isogai nodded. “Then the assassin must be a holdout from the opposition. But you don’t think he’s in league with Senior Elders Kato and Ihara and their gang, do you?” Incredulity came over his face. “They’re big on playing politics, but I can’t believe they have the stomach for something as risky as multiple assassination.”
“Kato and Ihara aren’t in the clear yet,” Sano said, “but I have another theory, which I’ll get to in a moment. The second thing I’ve learned about the assassin is that he’s an expert not only at the mystic martial arts, but also at stealth.”
“He had to be, to sneak inside your compound and get right next to you,” General Isogai agreed.
“If he could manage that, he could get into the castle from the outside,” Sano said. “He wouldn’t need to be someone on the inside.”
General Isogai scowled, resisting the notion that the castle’s mighty defenses could be breached, but he said, “I suppose it’s possible.”
“So who is an expert at stealth and belongs to the opposition? I’m thinking in particular of Yanagisawa’s elite squadron of troops.”
Those troops had been masters of stealth and highly trained martial artists, whom Yanagisawa had employed to keep himself in power. They’d been suspected of past political assassinations of Yanagisawa’s enemies, but never caught: They covered their tracks too well.
Surprise raised General Isogai’s eyebrows. “I knew they were a dangerous breed, but I never heard that they could kill with a touch.”
“If they could, they’d have kept it secret.” A disturbing thought struck Sano. “I wonder how many deaths there have been over the years that appeared natural but were actually assassinations ordered by Yanagisawa.” But Sano couldn’t do much about that now. “The reason I came here is to ask you what happened to Yanagisawa’s elite squadron after he was deposed.”
“You’ve come to the right place.”
General Isogai walked to a chart, mounted on the wall, that displayed a list of thirty names. Eighteen had red lines drawn through them; notations were scribbled in the margins. Sano did not recognize any of the names.
“They kept a low profile,” General Isogai said. “They used aliases when they traveled around. It made their movements hard to track.” He pointed at the names crossed out in red. “These men died in the battle when we raided Yanagisawa’s house. My men killed half of them. The rest committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. But the other twelve weren’t on the premises at the time, and they escaped. Capturing them has been a high priority because we think they’re leaders in the underground movement and responsible for attacks on the army.”