NEVER SAY DIE: Mark Cole Takes On the Yakuza in His Most Thrilling Adventure Yet!

by J. T. Brannan

  ‘What’s the worst case scenario?’

  ‘Jones somehow finds out who’s authorized those special services JSOC carries out for us, follows the chain of command and discovers the existence of Force One, its cover by the Paradigm Group. He speaks to his friends on the Hill and then we’re talking congressional hearings, a real witch hunt. We’re protected by your presidential authorization, but it won’t look good for you, I’ll tell you that. And the unit will be shut down, along with the Paradigm Group. I don’t think we’re talking impeachment, but who knows? Stranger things have happened. We’d sure as hell lose a lot of good people, and a lot of good work.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll start an investigation?’

  ‘It depends how much he’s already found out, what suspicions he’s developing. Pete says he’s a careerist, and it really depends what he hopes he might gain by an investigation. If he thinks it might improve his future promotion prospects, he’ll do it. If he thinks it could harm him in some way, he won’t.’

  Abrams looked down at the table in front of her, nodding her head as she pushed her coffee cup to one side. ‘I see,’ she said, looking up at Vinson again. ‘Can we do something to make him think it’s a bad idea?’

  Vinson looked at his president, smiling. ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m already working on it.’

  Shot Bar Zoetrope was a small place in Nishi-Shinjuku, twenty minutes on the Oedo line from Bunkyo City. There might have been plenty of bars in Bunkyo, but Nakamura assured Cole that the trip would be worth it.

  At first glance, Cole decided he might be right – despite its small size, it had character in abundance. Mixing the Japanese love of whisky and movies, there were three hundred different malts behind the bar, and black and white movies playing across one wall; it was like a 1920s speakeasy and cinema hall combined.

  Kadena joined the other five police officers at two small corner tables, while Nakamura approached the bar, gesturing for Cole to come with him. The bar stools were all taken, but when Nakamura caught the bartender’s eye, the man whispered to two of the nearest customers, who immediately vacated their positions.

  Nakamura slipped onto one stool, Cole following him onto the other. ‘One of the best bars in Japan,’ Nakamura said. ‘The owner’s got some whiskies here you just can’t get anywhere else. You like Japanese whisky?’

  Cole did like whisky, but preferred scotch labels; Suntory and Nikka were nice, but hardly his favorite. ‘Yes,’ Cole said nevertheless, aware that politeness was the cornerstone of social interaction here. ‘But I’ve really only ever tried the common brands. I’d be happy for you to make a recommendation.’

  Nakamura nodded and smiled. ‘Excellent, then you’ve got to try the Mars Komagadake, it’s a single cask from nineteen eighty-nine. It’s no longer available commercially, very rare. You’ll like it, you’ll see.’

  Cole looked around the bar as Nakamura ordered, greeting the barman like an old friend. The place was tiny actually, not just small; but with a no-standing policy, everyone was easy enough to see, and with two tables of policemen in the corner, Cole felt fairly safe. There was the main entrance, then a door which led to the washrooms – and presumably another way out, if things should come to that.

  Nakamura turned back to Cole, presenting himself with a thick-cut glass of amber liquor. He raised his own glass to Cole, and they clinked them together. ‘Kanpai!’ Nakamura said in toast.

  ‘Kanpai!’ Cole replied, and both men swallowed the drink, pausing to appreciate the flavor swirling inside their mouths before swallowing.

  Cole looked at Nakamura in surprise. ‘That’s good!’ he said.

  Nakamura nodded enthusiastically. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said happily, before turning to the barman and ordering another. As the barman prepared the drinks, Nakamura turned to Cole. ‘So my friend,’ he said, ‘for how long have you studied judo? Your technique is as impressive as your strategy.’

  ‘My thanks,’ Cole said. ‘I have trained since I was about eight years old, though I am afraid I’ve lapsed in my training recently. Work, you know how it is. Your own performance was very impressive.’

  ‘For an older man, you mean?’ Nakamura said with a grin, waving his hand as Cole objected. ‘No, no, you are right – when you reach my age, it is an achievement for many just to remain mobile. But work is never an excuse not to train. You are young, you should never neglect your training. Look at me – even with all that has happened today, I am still there, working hard. Your youth will not last forever, do not forget that.’

  Cole nodded thoughtfully; the man was absolutely right, and while Cole was certainly younger than Nakamura, he was hardly in the prime of his life anymore and realized the necessity of daily workouts just to keep from slipping backwards.

  ‘You are right,’ he said finally, sipping now at the glass of Mars which had arrived. ‘I will return to training as soon as I get home.’

  ‘Good,’ Nakamura said happily, ‘that is good. So whatever else might happen, at least your journey here will not have been wasted.’

  Cole paused; did that mean Nakamura thought his visit to Japan was pointless? Did he think that Cole would never find Michiko?

  ‘Well, I hope that perhaps with your help, my journey here will be especially worthwhile,’ he ventured, an opening gambit into his inquiries.

  Nakamura sipped at his own drink, eyes on Cole. ‘You are talking about Michiko?’

  Cole nodded. ‘Yes, I am hoping that you might be able to help me in tracking her down. I’ve heard that you are the lead investigator on her case.’

  Nakamura looked over toward Kadena, drinking in the corner, and shook his head. ‘Masaaki likes to talk,’ he said. ‘He likes to sound important. But he knows somewhat less than he thinks. However, in this case he was right – yes, I am working Michiko’s case.’

  ‘What exactly is Michiko’s case?’

  Nakamura scratched his chin, now covered with thin stubble after the long day. ‘Michiko’s case is complicated,’ he said. ‘What do you know about the Omoto-gumi?’

  ‘Only that it’s a sub-family of the Yamaguchi-gumi, and that its head is a man named Yamaguchi Chomo, a descendent of the founder of the original Yamaguchi clan.’ Cole sipped his drink. ‘That, and also that they had an intense interest in locating Michiko after she left Japan.’

  Nakamura nodded. ‘That’s all correct,’ he said. ‘The Omoto-gumi is one of the most successful sub-gangs in the organization, and probably Tokyo’s richest. Used to be the Inagawa-kai and Sumiyoshi-kai were the gangs to look out for here, and don’t get me wrong – they’re still major players – but now it’s the Omoto-gumi who are clearing up.

  ‘It’s funny,’ he continued, stroking his chin, ‘once upon a time there was a gentlemen’s agreement between the Yamaguchi and the Tokyo gangs that they wouldn’t interfere in each other’s territory. But an agreement like that can only last so long, you know? Sooner or later, peace like that can’t last. It was the Yamaguchi who moved first, looking to move into Tokyo as far back as the seventies. Bad times, lots of blood. Things have gone one way or the other ever since, but now the Yamaguchi are on top, no questions asked. It’s the biggest and most powerful, and is made up of an amazing array of sub-gangs and crime syndicates, all controlled from Kobe.

  ‘The Omoto-gumi was one of the first to be swallowed up in the Yamaguchi expansion. It used to be a small operation, maybe fifty or sixty men, an easy acquisition for the Yamaguchi ‘conglomerate’. But then its oyabun was killed and Yamaguchi Chomo took over, and it’s been on the rise ever since. First of all they took over the street action in some of the more lucrative wards in the city – you know, controlling market stalls, street vendors, things like that. Heavy protection rackets followed, and the Omoto-gumi weren’t afraid to use violence, and I mean serious violence, to get what they wanted. But the really big money started to be made when they branched out into the sex trade. Now they run hostess clubs, organize sex tours, make and distribute bann
ed pornography, sell women and even children.

  ‘There are fantastic profits to be made, the yakuza ships girls in from Thailand and the Philippines, nobody asks too many questions there, especially if the rights palms are greased, you know? They come to Japan with promises of nice jobs – sometimes entering the country as ‘guests’ on entertainment visas, so they get no legal protection – then they have their passports confiscated and are packed into tiny rooms to turn tricks for the local clubs. We think there might be well over a hundred thousand sex workers in Japan, and they’ve also started to arrive from Burma and China too.

  ‘Prices range from a few dollars to a few thousand, a couple of hundred on average – over a hundred thousand girls, that’s billions of dollars a year. And you think the working girls ever see any of it?’ Nakamura shook his head sadly. ‘You must be joking. The bulk of the profits go to the gangsters, with expenses paid towards recruiters, fixers, middlemen, document forgers and ‘specialist’ travel agents. It’s an entire industry, and one the Omoto-gumi has got sewn up tight. The girls – and sometimes men, sometimes children too – are forced to live like slaves, in conditions you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘Can’t you crack down on it?’ Cole asked.

  Nakamura shook his head and sipped from his drink. ‘We try, but it’s a losing battle as long as so much money is being made. Hell, most government ministers – and, I’m ashamed to say it, a lot of cops too – are customers of the trade, you know? It’s protected. Hell, it wasn’t so long ago that the government openly supported the industry, it ‘recruited’ a couple of hundred thousand Korean women to ‘serve’ the soldiers and sailors of the Imperial Army and Navy during the wars of the twentieth century. It’s an ingrained societal problem, one that won’t go away so easily. It’s estimated that back in the seventies, over eighty percent of male Japanese foreign travelers were going abroad just for the sex tours to Taiwan and Thailand. The Omoto-gumi is just addressing this apparent need, right? And they’re damn good at it too.’

  ‘Sound like a nice bunch of people,’ Cole said.

  Nakamura smiled. ‘Yes, they are very nice. As long as you never meet them. Best to be in a different country in fact. I guess that’s what Michiko tried.’

  ‘But why were they so interested in her?’

  ‘She is Yamaguchi Chomo’s niece,’ Nakamura said. ‘By adoption anyway.’

  ‘His niece?’ Cole asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes, she was adopted at the age of ten by Chomo’s younger brother Mitsuya. She was living with her mother in Australia at the time, Mitsuya adopted her when her mother was killed in a robbery at the restaurant she worked in.’

  It was only years of experience that stopped Cole from reacting. So Michiko’s mother – Aoki Asami, the women he had once loved – was dead. Murdered.

  He fought to control himself internally. Move on, he told himself. Move on.

  ‘So why did Mitsuya adopt her?’ Cole asked.

  ‘The girl’s mother was apparently his wife,’ Nakamura said simply, and again Cole had to work to conceal his reaction. ‘This is only rumor, but from what I heard, she’d been on business in Thailand and been raped by an American soldier. Too ashamed to return home, she fled to Malaysia, where it seems Michiko was born, and then went on to Australia.’

  Cole’s heart went cold. Raped by an American soldier? Is that what Michiko had been told? Is that why she hated him, why she’d tracked him down, why she wanted to kill him? It all started to make sense now – if Michiko believed her mother had been raped, and thereby dishonored, then it was this act that would have led indirectly to her mother’s death.

  But why would Asami have told her such a lie? Unless it wasn’t Asami, but Mitsuya who had told her, making up a story to avoid the even worse shame of being left by his wife.

  And surely that was what had happened? Cole was convinced that she hadn’t been in Bangkok on business, but had been fleeing her husband. He’d thought so at the time, and now it had been all but confirmed.

  But why adopt the girl? Surely Mitsuya would have seen her as a stain on his reputation and wanted her dead alongside her mother?

  ‘But if Mitsuya’s wife was raped,’ he asked after another round of drinks had been ordered, ‘then why adopt the daughter? Surely Mitsuya would have been dishonored by the girl’s very existence?’

  Nakamura nodded, swirling the whisky around his glass. ‘Perhaps Mitsuya loved his wife so much that he continued to express this love even after her death, through agreeing to look after the girl?’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘No, not really. Mitsuya is a hothead, a violent criminal with a history of unsavory acts to his name. In fact, it is partly down to his ruthless actions that the Omoto-gumi was able to increase its power in Tokyo. No, if I was a betting man, I think he’d rather have seen the girl dead.’

  ‘Then why adopt her?’ Cole pressed.

  ‘The truth is, we don’t know; it surprised everybody. But we think it was his brother who pressed for it. He saw something in her, saw how valuable she could become.’

  ‘Valuable how?’

  Nakamura sighed. ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘But not long after Mitsuya adopted her, Omoto-gumi fortunes started to rise – and I mean really rise, like a doubling, some say a tripling of monthly income.’

  ‘A coincidence?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Nakamura allowed, ‘and yet we know they suffered financially in the two years she was missing, which is why they were so desperate to get them back.’

  ‘Do you have any theories?’ Cole asked.

  Nakamura sighed, eyes looking into the distance. ‘It is a mystery. The only thing I can say is that her adopted father, Mitsuya, runs all of the sex trade operations for the Omoto-gumi.’

  Cole’s blood ran cold once again. The sex trade angle was only supposed to be his ‘in’, a viable story which could open doors in Japan as a journalist. And now he was finding out it might be true? He shuddered internally.

  ‘But,’ Cole thought quickly, ‘if she is being used that way, if that really is what makes her valuable to the family, then how does it work? A single girl – no matter how attractive, no matter what a customer is willing to pay – can’t possibly increase income two or three times just by herself. It doesn’t make sense, there must be something else.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t make sense. But she is truly revered by some, and we can only make educated guesses.’

  Cole nodded his head slowly. ‘Do you have any idea where she is?’

  ‘We think the Omoto-gumi have her,’ he said. ‘And we think they are keeping close control of her this time, in case she escapes again. But the gang controls a lot of property in Tokyo, and we cannot check all of it. They almost certainly have more properties that we are not even aware of, and she could be being held in any of them. In fact,’ Nakamura said, sliding another drink in front of Cole, ‘this is one of the reasons I agreed to meet you. You might be able to help us.’

  ‘Help you?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Yes, help us. Believe it or not, there are some places which members of the police have difficulty gaining access to. They might be more receptive to an unknown American.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Cole said. ‘I thought you didn’t want to meet me?’

  Nakamura just regarded him coolly, with level eyes, and Cole knew he had been had. The fights at the Kodokan had been a set-up; Nakamura had wanted to meet with him anyway.

  ‘I am sorry for the subterfuge,’ Nakamura said, ‘but I had to see what kind of man you are. Where you will be going, a certain . . . robustness may be required.’

  Cole nodded. He had been right about Nakamura from the start; the man was a strategist.

  ‘If I agree,’ Cole said, but Nakamura just smiled.

  ‘Of course you will agree,’ he said. ‘This is why you came to Japan after all. To find Michiko, no? Well, this is your chance. Our chance too. Fate has put us on the same path, led us together
so we can help one another. You want her to help sell your story to the Post, and I want her to help make my case against the Omoto-gumi. If we can get her, there are two major benefits – one, that Omoto-gumi income goes down and their power base lessens; and two, that she might help testify against them. If she’s escaped once, she might just be tempted to turn against them.’

  ‘Why are the Omoto-gumi so important to you?’ Cole asked.

  ‘They are important, my friend, because Yamamoto Tsuji is dead, and right now Yamaguchi Chomo is in Kobe vying for the leadership of the entire Yamaguchi-gumi. As direct descendants, his family has always felt they should be in power; and now, with the financial leverage they’ve got with whatever Michiko’s been doing for them, they’re in a position for Chomo to become kumicho. And believe me, we don’t want to see what the Omoto-gumi have done spread throughout the entire Yamaguchi network. It might be a disaster for Japan.’

  Cole nodded in thought. ‘And the prime minister? Does he figure in this?’

  Nakamura rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘You are a clever man,’ he said. ‘A good reporter, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, there is even more to this than organized crime. We have reason to believe that the Omoto-gumi are working with Zen Ai Kaigi, the ultranationalists who want to take power from the LDP. And if – as we suspect – the Omoto-gumi or Zen Ai Kaigi were behind the hit on Yamamoto, then they might also make an attempt on the life of our prime minister. And what would we have then? An ultranationalist government, a reformed and expanded war-fighting military, backed up by the most powerful criminal organization in the world.’ He took his whisky, knocked it back, and looked at Cole. ‘All together, not a good prospect for anyone except the bad guys.’

  Cole looked at his own whisky, then also drank it down in one. Damn.

  Nakamura was right; none of it was good. From what the inspector said, Michiko might prove to be the key; without her, the Omoto-gumi might lack the power to assume control of the Yamaguchi, might fail to win the support of the other families.