Rainfall

BARRY EISLER

The first book in the John Rain series

Copyright © 2002 by Barry Eisler

THIS NOVEL is for three people who are not here to read it.

For my father, Edgar, who gave me strength.

For my mother, Barbara, who gave me insight.

For my brother, Ian, who helped me climb the mountain, whose memory keeps me climbing still.

In the changing of the times, they were like autumn lightning, a thing out of season, an empty promise of rain that would fall unheeded on fields already bare.

— SHOSABURO ABE, on the Meiji-era samurai