Although not many people knew it, Kadena was aware that Toshikatsu owed much of his political career to the financial investment of Yamamoto Tsuji and the Yamaguchi-gumi. It was certainly not unheard of in Japan – the yakuza were in bed with everyone and everything in the country, from the local mayor’s office to the largest international conglomerates. But it generally went unreported, a reality hidden within shadows nobody wanted to cast light on.
But the ‘gift’ of Yamamoto’s head would surely cause questions to be asked, which would be sure to damage Toshikatsu’s reputation, possibly even cause a snap election; and Kadena thought that the LDP might well lose such an election. And who would win? Almost certainly the political wing of Zen Ai Kaigi, delivering Japan’s first ultranationalist government since the Pacific War.
He had people he could ask, of course, and would certainly be doing so; if Zen Ai Kaigi was manipulating events, they might also be involved in the election of the Yamaguchi-gumi’s next godfather, for it wasn’t a given that the second-in-command would instantly rise to the top. Back in the nineteen eighties, after the death of the fourth kumicho, there had been a power vacuum for four years, during which time the dead godfather’s widow had been forced to take over in order to stave off organizational chaos. The current second-in-command, wakagashira Watanabe Haruto, was definitely capable, but the Yamaguchi-gumi was composed of an incredible amount of subordinate gangs and sub-families, each with their own well-respected oyabuns, any of which might demand consideration for the top spot. One of Kadena’s own connections in Tokyo, the revered boss of the Omoto-gumi, would almost certainly be on his way to Kobe before the day was out, ready for the succession meetings.
And if things didn’t work themselves out quickly?
Kadena shuddered as he thought about it; all hell would break loose, with gangland violence back to the bad old days of the seventies and eighties.
As he patrolled the streets of Nagata-cho, going door to door for information on the morning’s attack just as he’d done as a beat cop in his earliest years on the force, he thought once more of the American journalist, and hoped he’d be able to meet him at the airport as he’d promised.
He didn’t want their relationship to get off to a bad start.
Yamaguchi Mitsuya felt his elder brother’s hands on his shoulders, strength in the grip despite the man’s advancing years.
‘Meetings have been called by Haruto,’ Yamaguchi Chomo said in his gravelly voice, ‘and I must leave for Kobe immediately. We are in a position now that we have never been in before, and we must capitalize upon it. Everything is in place.’
‘Yes brother,’ said the younger man, knowing that this was the opportunity the Omoto-gumi had been waiting for – and working towards – for many years. Their family had grown more and more powerful within Tokyo and beyond, and was one of the highest earning gangs within the Yamaguchi-gumi membership; with the political support of Zen Ai Kaigi, the road to the leadership of the entire group was finally within their reach.
He knew that a part of their power was based upon the money brought in by the activities of the girl they now held captive in an upstairs room – money that he felt was impure and unclean, but which his brother had come to rely upon.
Mitsuya himself held other opinions on the girl, and had already tried – unsuccessfully – to kill her on two prior occasions, seeing her as a stain on his pride. But as the younger brother, he had to follow the edicts of Chomo – and the Omoto-gumi boss had demanded that he let her live.
But he didn’t like it, and even now was plotting ways of ridding the Omoto-gumi of the girl’s vile influence while his brother was busy in Kobe. Yes, the girl brought in money, but was that all that mattered? Did it not mean anything to Chomo how he had been aggrieved?
‘You understand Michiko’s importance to our plans, of course,’ the oyabun said, looking into his brother’s eyes for any hint of insubordination.
Mitsuya knew exactly what he meant by the question – make sure you do not harm the girl.
But would he be able to help himself?
‘Yes brother,’ he replied evenly, ‘I do.’
He would try at least; all he could do was try.
4
It was past three o’clock in the afternoon local time when Cole finally passed through customs and passport control and emerged into the terminal’s busy meeting point. The flight had lasted over fourteen hours which – when combined with the fourteen time zones he’d crossed – meant that local time was twenty-eight hours after his departure time back in the US.
He was tired, but pleased that his passport had caused no problems – he’d actually fabricated it himself, along with all of his other identity papers. He’d used the outstanding facilities back at the Force One headquarters, but hadn’t processed it through the usual channels, unwilling for others to know exactly what he was doing; deniability was always easier if the person being asked didn’t actually know.
For the purposes of this trip, he was Richard Baxter, a freelance investigative journalist who often had articles published in America’s leading papers, including the Washington Post. Richard Baxter was a real person, and Cole had selected him for a very good reason – the man had been in a recent automobile accident, and was currently in traction; he wasn’t going anywhere soon. The fact that Baxter actually existed served Cole well – he had a checkable work history, and anyone looking into his identity would be satisfied with what they found. Even if anyone contacted the Post, Baxter was freelance – even if they found someone who knew him, they wouldn’t necessarily know what he was working on.
But still – although he didn’t wish Baxter any harm – he certainly hoped the man didn’t make a sudden recovery and decide to take a foreign vacation to celebrate. Questions would definitely be asked by US authorities if two passports turned up for the same person, leaving the country twice without returning in between.
If that happened though, Cole would just have to roll with the punches and come up with something else; it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
But he wanted to capitalize on the Baxter identity while he still had it, and looked around the large, modern meeting lounge with keen eyes, trying to find Assistant Inspector Kadena Masaaki among the crowds.
He saw families reuniting, fathers returning from business trips abroad to wildly happy children, reserved but relieved wives; there were groups of grey-suited executives met by limousine drivers, to be taken to their corporate offices to finish out the working day; extended families coming home after their trip of a lifetime, tired but still excited; and then there were the Americans, the same mix of people traveling on the reverse route, an equal mix of business and pleasure.
But nowhere did he see a man on his own, waiting for an American journalist. He searched and searched, but there was nothing; and then, as more and more groups of people left the foyer and there were less and less candidates for the man he was looking for, he began to understand that he’d been stood up.
Cole was surprised – leaving him there alone was a very un-Japanese thing to do. Cole had hardly spent much time in Japan – his experience was limited to a few layovers en route to other Asian countries, and a brief weekend there on R&R more than twenty years before – but he knew enough about the Japanese people to understand the importance they placed on respect for others, on adhering to etiquette, on not offending people, especially guests.
Perhaps Kadena was just late? But Cole felt sure he’d have tried to get word to him somehow – face mattered so much to the Japanese that it was almost unthinkable for Kadena to have forgotten about his guest altogether.
And then Cole saw the images on the flat-screen televisions lining the walls near an airport coffee shop, a customer having obviously just asked for the channel to be changed to the news.
Cole drifted forward toward the images, understanding the scenario despite only having very few words of the language; they were images he knew well from past experience.
From Cole’s research of the city, he recognized the streets as those around the Kantei, in the area known as Nagata-cho.
The seat of the Japanese government.
He approached the bored barista on duty behind the counter, smiling. ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the man answered, his boredom not quite gone but politeness requiring that he at least take an interest in this potential customer. ‘How can I help you?’
The barista even attempted his own smile, but it lacked conviction; Cole appreciated the effort though.
He motioned to the television screens and raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘Ah,’ the barista said with the first sign of truly genuine interaction, ‘you have chosen a fine day to visit Tokyo.’ He smiled again, a better effort this time though marked with an ironic mischief. ‘The entire government quarter is in lock-down. But hey, we’re getting used to it, you know? It’s only been a few weeks since the last time.’
Cole nodded his head in understanding – it was China’s proposed invasion that had caused the previous problems. ‘It never rains but it pours, right?’
The barista looked confused, and Cole realized that Japan probably didn’t use the idiom. Cole quickly explained it, and the man’s smile was back, wider this time.
‘I like that,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to remember it.’
‘But why is it happening again?’ Cole asked, getting the conversation back on track.
‘Terrorist attack,’ the kid said matter-of-factly.
‘A terrorist attack?’ Cole probed, an uneasy feeling in his gut. But at least he knew why Kadena hadn’t met him – the TMPD’s headquarters was just next door to the exclusion zone, and everyone would be hard at work containing whatever was happening there. ‘What sort of attack?’ Cole asked.
The kid looked at Cole knowingly, seemingly proud of himself. ‘There’s been talk of gunfire, but the main thing was, a bag was thrown into the Kantei grounds, right by the feet of Toshikatsu himself,’ he said.
‘A bag?’ Cole asked with interest. ‘What was in it? A bomb?’
‘That’s what people say,’ he replied, looking around him as he did so, ‘but I’ve heard something else.’ He gestured for Cole to come closer, and he dropped his voice low as he continued. ‘I’ve heard it was a severed head.’
The barista pulled away, a look of self-satisfaction on his young face, clearly pleased he knew something that the news crews didn’t.
A severed head?
Cole let out a slow sigh as he looked outside the glass doors to the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo beyond.
What the hell have I just stepped into?
5
Michiko started at the noise of the lock turning, nerves on edge. She was back in her room after a few hours of work, and it was rare for her to be disturbed there except at meal times.
What she saw in the doorway made her flinch involuntarily – Yamaguchi Mitsuya stood there, haloed by the radiant lights of the corridor beyond.
‘Michiko,’ he breathed softly, ‘sweet Michiko. Have you heard the news?’
All Michiko knew about Mitsuya was that he hated her, hated the very ground she walked upon. It was as if her existence on earth was against everything he stood for, her life an embarrassment to him.
Ever since she had been brought into the family at the age of ten, Mitsuya had always been the same. Michiko knew that a lot of it was due to her background, her very life the result of her mother’s rape by an American soldier – Mark Kowalski; or Mark Cole, or Doctor Alan Sandbourne, or whatever other pseudonym the bastard was using now.
Children of rape were still considered outcasts in Japan, members of the underclass of burakumin – literally ‘people of the hamlet’ – that were commensurate to the ‘untouchables’ of India. They were often labelled as eta – heavily polluted – or even as hinin – non-human. Life was hard for them, and society was regulated to increase their alienation. And Mitsuya had even more reason than most to despise her burakumin status.
She remembered her mother fondly, their early days together in Malaysia, then later Australia. They’d lived in the small town of Ashmore, a suburb of Gold Coast City which lay just a few miles south. Her mother – a quiet, thoughtful woman who’d always seemed just a little sad, but had never pushed this condition onto her daughter – had worked as a waitress at Hungry Jack’s, a busy restaurant housed in the Ashmore City Shopping Center. Michiko remembered going to visit her there after school, sitting at the bar and watching the families eating there as she slurped on a milkshake. Sometimes she’d wondered why there was only the two of them, just her and her mother; but when she’d brought the subject up, her mother had simply never wanted to talk about it.
One day though, her mother had spoken, with a tear in her eye, about Michiko’s father – she had assured her daughter that he was a kind man, a good man, but that it just hadn’t been meant to be; things hadn’t worked out, and that was that.
But Michiko had always had the impression – perhaps by subconsciously picking up on things that her mother had said in passing – that her father was in the military, and she’d always seen him as a larger-than-life commando, risking life and limb to save the world.
But then one day, when her mom had been at work and she’d been playing around on the computer back at their small bungalow, the men had come. They claimed to be relatives, with news about her mother. They were well dressed and smart, and she’d let them in straight away. She’d led them into the living room, and had been unsure of what was happening; for a moment, she’d been sure that they were going to hurt her. But then they’d spoken rapidly in Japanese, and their attitude had changed. They’d been nice, friendly, and had sat her down and explained what had happened.
Her mother had been involved in an incident at work – a robbery that had gone wrong. She’d been shot, and had died.
Michiko still remembered the feeling even now – complete numbness, an emptiness that she couldn’t even begin to describe, her entire world shattered around her.
But the men were nice, and over the next few days she had learned some interesting facts about her past. It turned out that her mother had once been married to one of the men – the one called Mitsuya – and ten years ago had been on a business trip to Bangkok. It was there that she’d met an American soldier, and been raped. Michiko’s dreams of her father being a hero dedicated to saving the world were shattered with one fell swoop; he was nothing but a degenerate pig. She knew her mother must have lied to protect her; who would want to hear such a thing? Better to believe a thoughtful lie than the horrifying truth.
The shame had been so great that her mother had vowed not to return to Japan, where great stigma was held about such things; her husband was a well-respected member of the community, and Michiko’s mother had no wish to upset his social standing.
And then she’d found out she was pregnant, and realized that she would never be able to go home again.
But, Mitsuya had explained, he had loved Michiko’s mother and would have welcomed her back with open arms – and to prove his feelings, he agreed to adopt Michiko and take her back with him to Japan.
And so Aoki Michiko had become Yamaguchi Michiko; but despite his words, Mitsuya had never been much of a father to her. Indeed, he had always seemed to view her with suspicion and – later – outright hatred.
It was Mitsuya’s older brother Chomo who had really wanted the adoption to take place, and who had shown her kindness in the years since. Even when she grew older and realized what sort of business it was that her adopted family was engaged in, she had always had respect for Chomo. Whereas Mitsuya – viol
ent, angry, ill-tempered Mitsuya – seemed to always want to cause her harm in some way, his brother had always been nice to her, demanding she be respected, left alone, even treasured. And it was for Chomo that she had carried out the work for which she was now so highly sought after. As a social outcast, a burakumin, she also found a welcome reception within the Omoto-gumi crime family – most of its membership was composed of the dispossessed underclasses, who had nowhere else to go in Japan’s highly rigid society, no ladders they could climb, no other way of getting out of the cesspool of the outcast classes.
Except for the hatred of Mitsuya – for she knew she was a constant visual reminder of his wife’s rape, and his own resulting dishonor – she had come to enjoy her life within the Omoto-gumi. It provided her with a security that – given her background – would have been unthinkable in any other walk of life. And the success she’d brought the Omoto-gumi had assured her respect too, and Chomo’s eternal gratitude.
When she had escaped Tokyo two years ago, she had felt bad about leaving her uncle, but she’d known she’d had no choice – she had finally managed to track down the man who had raped her mother, caused all of her bad luck; the bad luck which had ultimately led to her mother’s death, the man she had dreamed about confronting ever since Mitsuya had told her the truth about him all those years before.
And so she had left Japan and eventually tracked Mark Kowalski – by then known as Mark Cole – to the small Austrian hamlet of Kreith. But by then it was too late to confront him – the house he’d been in had been burnt to the ground, no survivors remaining.
And yet – like her mother before her – she’d feared returning to Japan. Tradition would dictate that she atone for her crime of running away, and she had no desire to subject herself to the type of punishment that might have been required. And she’d also seen it as a way out – although serving the Omoto-gumi might have been her best option in Japan, her youthful optimism promised better things elsewhere; somewhere she wouldn’t have to live as a criminal, somewhere she wouldn’t have to live in constant fear of her adoptive father.
NEVER SAY DIE: Mark Cole Takes On the Yakuza in His Most Thrilling Adventure Yet! Page 6