Chapter 12: Harvest Time

In 1903, the Alexander Palace, home of the Emperor’s family, was brimming with life.

If I had to guess, it was far livelier and more crowded than it ever was in the original history.

Because everyone, united in heart and purpose, was awaiting the Tsar’s direction so they could screw over Japan, with whom relations were already going downhill.

The man whose powers of deduction rose suspiciously every single time he came back from the bathroom.

The stock of Nicholas II, legend of seven shits a day, was climbing majestically as well, but I knew.

One year left until the Russo-Japanese War.

Less than two years remained until Bloody Sunday and the Revolution of 1905.

“Young Master, why such a grave face?”

“I was worried that His Majesty’s workload might be too heavy lately. And you keep bringing me all these materials too, Professor….”

“Hahaha, that is only because we come seeking your wisdom, Young Master. You may take pride in it now.”

With the passage of time, the number of my age had turned from 7 to 8.

“By the way, about that matter you told me of last time, Young Master, the people around the mustache man.”

“Yes.”

“Several individuals around him have been identified, and opinions are divided on whether to arrest them all now or to watch a while longer.”

“I think it would be better to watch a while longer. There could be someone else behind them, couldn’t there?”

Pobedonostsev copied something into his notebook with his fountain pen.

“And of the two shopkeepers with whom that Japanese gentleman deposited his money, one has vanished without a trace.”

“If it were me, I don’t think I’d bother looking for him. It would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? If we sit still, I think he’ll come out on his own.”

“…I see.”

Just two lines.

The questions the Tsar sent me on paper were enough to sketch out roughly how the whole situation was unfolding.

The money-changer going into hiding on his own meant the other side’s leadership was now pressed hard enough that they had to look after their own lines first.

Simply put, Akashi had now been left abandoned alone in the middle of the open sea.

By now the other side must have noticed something was wrong, but the water was already spilled; what could they possibly do?

I could sit back and watch, almost in real time, as the intelligence network Japan had so painstakingly laid came crashing down.

[One of the people around the mustache man attempted to slip across the border with his family; do we take him, or let him go.

A clerk working in that general’s office is about to be transferred somewhere irrelevant; do we block it, or let it be.

A document scheduled for dispatch has gone unaccounted for at one point along its route; do we trace it to the end. Or…]

Fun. So much fun.

-Someone trying to run means the fear has started spreading down to the bottom, and the clerk in the general’s office facing a transfer means the top has started burying the evidence. A document vanishing mid-route means even Akashi’s own information line has gone shaky.

In short, he’s just plain screwed?

-Yeah. One look and you can tell he won’t last much longer.

The sound of the noose around Akashi’s neck ratcheting up another notch seemed to echo loudly through this one short document.

Another month passed.

The notes were growing shorter and shorter, and I could practically feel the affair winding down toward its end.

[A verification stage seems to have appeared in the other side’s information-confirmation process; how would it be best to respond?]

-See that? Even back in Japan, they can no longer trust whether the intelligence Akashi sent them was any good.

Naturally. We’d have deliberately fed them false information on everything from Far East weapons stockpiles down to all sorts of trivial details.

The other side no longer trusting the primary source they themselves had planted meant that every report Akashi had filed over two years had gone up in smoke.

This was far, far beyond simply being ruined.

If they couldn’t figure out where and how it had all gone wrong, their only option was to throw the whole lot away.

Two years, and every achievement earned within them, wiped clean off the board. How would that feel, I wonder?

“Then we just need to pretend we haven’t noticed anything and show no reaction at all.”

“So it would seem. If we stepped forward and tried something, we would only invite suspicion.”

Pobedonostsev nodded in satisfaction and tucked his notebook away.

As the old man folded the note neatly and slipped it into his breast, his fingertips no longer carried the excitement of those first days.

He must have grown used to it by now, I suppose.

One could call this the moment when my efforts to instill the perception that time like this was, to me, no different from a lesson in Latin or French finally shone.

“Young Master, then today….”

“Oh, once this is over today, I promised to play with the Princesses.”

“Ho ho… is that so? To handle matters of such gravity, and then go off to play house….”

“Pardon?”

“No, it is nothing. Only that, as expected, you are still so yo….”

Knock, knock, knock.

The words Pobedonostsev had been chuckling through got no further, cut off by a knock from beyond the door.

“Misha! Lessons are over, right? Let’s play dolls!”

“Hurry up! Wait, is your lesson not over yet?”

As the door opened cautiously, Pobedonostsev rose from his seat with a benevolent smile.

“My, my, I sat here occupying the room without even realizing the lesson hour had ended. My apologies, Princesses. We shall end today’s lesson here, then.”

“Yes, Professor! See you tomorrow!”

“Misha, hurry!”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming.”

After all that brain labor, now it was time to entertain my little sisters, was it?

Being all but dragged out by the princesses, I stole a glance back and caught an unmistakable glint of laughter in the old man’s eyes.

Life really is one long parade of hardships.

“Misha, you take the prince doll!”

“I’m going to change my doll into the clothes Grandmother gave me.”

While the doll box spilled out across the floor, today’s newspaper lying on the drawing-room table caught my eye.

When I picked up the paper, the front-page headline leapt straight into view.

[Polish Émigré Ring Rounded Up on Charges of Leaking Imperial Secrets]

Naturally, Akashi’s name appeared nowhere.

Flipping a little further, I found only one small brief tucked into a corner of the diplomatic affairs page.

[Lieutenant Colonel Akashi Motojiro, military attaché of the Japanese Legation, to return home on transfer orders from his government]

To anyone who didn’t know, the two items would seem to have no connection at all, but it was hard to hold back the smile creeping onto my lips.

-To think we can’t even pay our respects as our benefactor departs. How terribly sorry I am. Let’s at least send him off in our hearts.

Farewell, Lieutenant Colonel Akashi.

You were the finest of spies.

And that was no joke. The two years he spent in Petersburg had been converted into a gift I would not have traded for anything in the world.

The Tsar’s trust, Pobedonostsev’s affection, and even a window through which I could indirectly intervene in the workings of the Okhrana.

At this point, wouldn’t it be fair to call him a loyal retainer who worked himself to the bone in Russia purely for my sake?

“Misha, what are you doing? Hurry up!”

“Yes, Princess. Coming now.”

When I folded the newspaper neatly and set it back on the table, Olga handed me a doll with a bright, beaming smile.

Just like this prince doll I was cradling in both arms.

Now it was time to seep into the Romanov imperial family in earnest.

* * *

The military attaché’s office on the third floor of the Japanese Legation in Petersburg.

A single dimly glowing lamp lit the incident report lying on the desk.

It was exactly the fourth day since the recall order from home had arrived.

The train leaves in one week.

The General Staff had demanded four incident reports in all.

All four had to be completed within this one week and carried back home.

“…Lieutenant Colonel. You should rest a while.”

Without so much as a knock, First Secretary Honda Kumataro of the legation stepped inside.

Four years his junior, a colleague, and the friend who had worked face to face with Akashi longer than anyone in this desolate mission; his eyes were heavy with worry.

“…I’m going mad.”

“It is not your fault, Lieutenant Colonel.”

“No, it’s not that… I’ve finished the first three, but I simply cannot write the last part.”

Honda pulled the chair opposite over and sat down.

“May I see them, starting from the first?”

Akashi gave a wry snort and handed over the mountain of papers sitting on the desk.

Honda turned through them one page at a time, from the very top.

Mission overview.

Posted November 1902; 72 intelligence transmissions in total; 19 Grade A ratings.

On the data alone, it was as clean a record as one could ask for.

The detailed contents of the intelligence network, tangled together like a spiderweb, were no different.

The list of contacts, the recruitment histories, the flow of funds, the quality of the intelligence provided, and so on.

Laid out at full length, the contents that sat inside Akashi’s head like a map made for a truly magnificent sight.

But the trouble began with the third, the chronological record of the collapse.

Looking at the entries, organized date by date from the moment the first anomaly was detected in February to the severing of the final route, made his stomach burn.

Honda, skimming down through the record, scratched his head and muttered.

“This… the order of it is very strange.”

“Isn’t it.”

“Wiszowski appears to have been caught first, but this man’s name never once circulated outside, did it?”

“Correct. Not once.”

“Then Major General Ivanov. And this man didn’t even know Wiszowski.”

“Of course not. I never told either of them the other existed.”

“They were unmistakably independent networks, and yet they blew up almost simultaneously.”

“Which is precisely why I cannot make sense of it either.”

Honda tapped the paper with the tip of his fountain pen and shook his head.

“Trace this backward and only one conclusion emerges. The Russians spotted you first, Lieutenant Colonel, and swept downward from there.”

“Yes… it turns my stomach, but I had gotten that far myself.”

“Then the crux is when they first got hold of you… that is the question.”

“Yes… but no matter how many times I retrace it, it simply will not come undone.”

Akashi and Honda climbed backward through the record of their intelligence network’s total collapse.

“The first anomaly was detected in early February. Which means that, at the latest, you had been picked up by their counterintelligence network by around then. Was there anything out of the ordinary on your schedule in January or February?”

“Nothing. The only occasions of any note would have been the New Year’s Ball and the Blessing of the Waters rite on the Neva.”

“…….”

“That day was like any other. I exchanged a brief signal with Wiszowski by eye, and listened in on information from behind General Ivanov. Then I concluded the signal exchange with the blue uniforms and withdrew. Every part of it flowed exactly as usual.”

“Was there anyone at that gathering watching you closely?”

“Of course not. If there had been, there is no way I would have missed it.”

Minding the eyes around him is a spy’s first fundamental.

Akashi had memorized in advance every person of note attending the rite, and each time he acted, he moved with a complete grasp of where every one of them stood and where their gazes rested.

On this, he could swear there had been no mistake.

He had moved in much the same way through most of his time in Russia to begin with; there was no reason he would suddenly be caught at some religious rite.

“…Lieutenant Colonel. Have you considered this possibility? That among those present were intelligence bureau agents even we know nothing about?”

“…Impossible. You and I both know that Russia’s foreign counterintelligence is worthless garbage. All they care about is rooting out socialists.”

“Haah… true. In fact, I asked around everywhere I could, and Russia’s Police Department organization has barely changed at all.”

Akashi ran through the faces at the venue that day once more in his mind.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Metropolitan, a few Grand Dukes, the Tsar and his consort, senior generals, the diplomats of various nations, and the Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod.

He was certain.

Not one of them had paid him the slightest attention.

Above all, could there really be anyone among them with the brains and the organizational reach to toy with him using a trap this elaborate?

How did he know? Because if that had been possible, he would have been caught long ago.

“No… however I look at it, the Neva rite is not it. On that day, the Chief Procurator, Pobedonostsev, even brought along the child he tutors, and the nobles’ eyes were all fixed there….”

“The child the Chief Procurator tutors….”

“The boy seemed to find the venue fascinating, looking all around at this and that. That aside, everything else was no different from usual. No, if anything, the nobles were so busy gawking at that Odoyevsky collateral that I could move all the more easily.”

“Then I truly have no idea.”

Akashi and Honda sighed at the same time and bit their lips.

“Lieutenant Colonel, even so, the home government will not hold you responsible. They underestimated Russia’s counterintelligence network just as badly.”

Leaving behind that consolation that was no consolation at all, Honda rose from his seat.

“The night has grown late. I will take my leave.”

“…Go on, then.”

“I will be sure to come see you off when you depart.”

The moment the door closed, the lamp’s flame trembled lightly, then settled again.

Akashi remained seated at the desk for a long time afterward.

The fourth section of the incident report, its cause-analysis and improvements field still yawning blank, drove into his eyes like a spike.

Some warrior’s creed that leaving it empty was more honest than forcing it full… it was, of course, nothing of the sort.

“According to reports, the Okhrana section chief has been visiting the Tsar more frequently… a report could have gone up then. But it is not the Tsar or the section chief. Those men would not have the ability….”

He picked up his fountain pen.

But still unable to write a single thing, his hand hovered a long, long while over the first line of the fourth section.

In the end, not one letter came down.

“Who… who on earth is it.”

Try as he might, he could not see the face of the enemy who had marked him out and wrecked the entire operation the Imperial Nation had labored over so dearly.

The very last page of the eighty-page incident report, the failure-cause analysis field standing utterly blank, laid his confusion bare for all to see.

In the end, Akashi could write nothing, not until the day he left Russia and arrived back home.

Because he could not analyze what had gone wrong to bring things to this.