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

by J. T. Brannan

On the one hand, Toshikatsu knew such superstitions to be nonsense, believed only by feudal peasants who were easily fooled. The ninja’s invisibility was down to effective use of camouflage, the ability to disappear caused by special smoke devices which shrouded their escape from view. They could stay submerged underwater through the use of breathing pipes, or had been seen to walk on water through clever flotation devices; they could climb sheer walls with the aid of metal ‘tiger claws’, and they could escape from tight bonds by dislocating their joints. Impressive, but hardly supernatural; but in the unsophisticated feudal era, such advanced equipment, weapons and tactics had everyone believing that the ninja bordered on the paranormal.

  Toshikatsu knew things were different now, but his logical brain was unable to explain why he nevertheless felt such deep-seated fear. Perhaps it was merely fear of the unknown?

  And where the hell had a ninja come from anyway? There were rumors of ninja training occurring at the Nakano spy school during the last war, but Toshikatsu had thought that had been the last of them; the ninja dojo in Japan were now just historical relics with little combat value. So where had this mysterious assassin come from?

  Toshikatsu had made enquiries, and had learned of a secret program instigated by his own party after the war to bring back the ninja clans of old, training a new generation of assassins, spies and saboteurs from birth; but in the end there hadn’t been the finances to go ahead with the project, and it had been quashed back in the late ‘40s. Or had it?

  Toshikatsu knew that anything was possible. Had someone reinstated the program without government approval? There had certainly been rumors of ninja-style operations over the years, but they had been largely ignored. But what if they were true?

  Toshikatsu’s blood ran cold once more at the thought. If it was true, it meant that he was being targeted by a ninja, and the thought was a terrifying one. Would he be safe even with hundreds of people protecting him?

  But then again, he decided, what choice did he have? He had to go to the rally, be the face of the LDP, of the Japanese government. It was his last chance; he would use his keynote speech to announce his decision to redraw the Japanese constitution, and then he would call for a snap election. The plan was to ignite the public interest, offer them what they wanted and – in the same breath – pull the carpet right out from under Zen Ai Kaigi, capitalizing on the event by announcing an election; with momentum from the rally, he hoped to win by a landslide and therefore guarantee LDP – and his own – power for the next four years at least.

  He continued to watch the menacing shadows patterning his ceiling as the sweat poured from his feverish body, his head aching and dizzy; and he thought about the ninja who might be stalking him, and just hoped he would stay alive to make it to an election.

  Kenzo Hiroshi was not stalking Toshikatsu as the prime minister lay unable to sleep; instead, he was observing the Tokyo Skytree, brilliantly illuminated against the night sky by millions of specially configured LEDs.

  The tower itself was clad in ‘Skytree white’, an original color based on the traditional artisan color of indigo blue in its lightest shade, known as aijiro. Today’s lighting system was miyabi, one of two patterns which alternated daily to express the theme of today blending into tomorrow and beyond. The name evoked the ‘aesthetic sense’, and was based on Edo purple combined with gold foil-like lights to show the tower’s intricate steel structure.

  Kenzo was less interested in the designer’s reasons for the illumination system than in its effects. The other alternating pattern, iki, was predominantly a light blue which cast a slightly different set of shadows over the immediate area. Kenzo had checked out the blue lighting yesterday, and was here again today to confirm any variances; such detail could mean the difference between success and failure, after all. And he had been right to do so – the blue lights covered certain areas which the purple lights left in the dark, and vice versa. The LDP rally was scheduled to be held on a miyabi day, and so Kenzo paid particular attention to the patterning tonight. However, it was not inconceivable that – due to the special nature of the upcoming event – the lighting patterns might be changed, or even alternated throughout the evening, and so it was important to be aware of the benefits and limitations of both.

  Kenzo had been in the area for several hours now, since leaving his hotel room in Iidabashi, and in a variety of different guises so as to not draw undue attention to himself, sure to observe the tower and its surrounding buildings in daylight all the way through to dusk and beyond. His business was light and shadow, and he knew it well; it would make what he had to do all the easier.

  Recruitment for additional security was already underway, Kenzo had been pleased to learn, a result of his psychological warfare methods. By scaring the prime minister and encouraging the authorization of extra funds for the security forces, Kenzo had helped smooth his own path into the rally. It was ironic, he considered briefly, that Toshikatsu’s fear-driven desire for additional security would actually make him more vulnerable.

  It still had to be confirmed, but the rally at the Skytree was the most likely venue for carrying out the prime minister’s assassination; a public venue, a horrific moment broadcast around the world.

  The prime minister would be killed just before he announced a redraft of the constitution; the public would undoubtedly think that it was the work of people opposed to such a redrafting, and Kenzo had already started to leave a complex trail of breadcrumbs to lead future investigators toward an especially useful culprit – the American CIA.

  The trail he left wouldn’t be enough to prove anything outright, but the possible involvement of US intelligence forces would serve to sever forever the link between Japan and her old ally, her even older enemy; and the Japanese people would be driven into the arms of the nationalists who were paying Kenzo and his ninja unit so handsomely.

  Kenzo looked up at the sky, the stars all but blotted out by the bright city lights, then checked his watch; it was already after two, and time to get some rest. He had to be up soon, after all.

  In the morning, he had an interview with one of the government-approved private security firms which would be guarding the Skytree on the day of the LDP rally.

  The coffee was cold and unpleasant, but Nakamura Jirai welcomed the caffeine hit nevertheless. He’d been up for more hours than he cared to remember, and each one had been more stressful than the one before.

  The latest news that was causing indigestion and heart burn had come from the Taito ward, in the neighborhood of San’ya. Gunshots had alerted residents and a local patrol had gone in and found a back-alley entrance to some sort of secret club. By the time senior police officers had tried to stop them, it was too late – the two patrolmen had been barred from entering, but one of them had a brother in the Criminal Investigation Bureau who was working just one ward over.

  Nakamura had been working on reports in his office, worrying about what was happening with Richard Baxter and his alter ego Hank Jowett, when he’d heard about it. By that time, a CIB team had already entered the club, the need for a warrant unnecessary due to valid reports of gunshots being fired on the premises. What they’d found was beyond belief, initial reports indicating something out of a movie; some crazy, messed up shit.

  When Nakamura had turned up on the scene half an hour later – the Organized Crime Control Bureau called in due to the club’s obvious yakuza connections – he’d seen immediately that those reports had been right; the place was really off the wall. The two dozen or so dead bodies were also pretty hard to ignore.

  Some of them were obviously customers of the establishment, seemingly hit in the crossfire of a real gang war. There were bloodied, naked bodies in the swimming pool, others out in the foyer, others still scattered around the gaming rooms. And then there were the black-suited yakuza hoods, most still with guns in their hands as they lay in grotesque patterns in their own blood.

  From the gangster’s lapel pins, Nakamura could see that the pl
ace was owned by the Omoto-gumi; and indeed, from the S&M dungeons to the dog fighting arena, the place had Yamaguchi Mitsuya’s fingerprints all over it. On the face of it, it seemed that Nakamura’s worst fears were being realized, a gang war which could rip Tokyo apart at exactly the wrong moment.

  But, as crime scene technicians and investigators and paramedics rushed around him, and he sipped slowly at his cold coffee, Nakamura wondered why the gangsters only wore Omoto-gumi lapel pins. Where were the other bodies? Those of the other gang?

  Was it possible that another gang had managed to penetrate the club’s security and then killed the Omoto-gumi soldiers without a single one of their own men lost in return? He shook his head, confused; the whole thing just didn’t make any sense whatsoever.

  All of the managers, staff and patrons of the club – those who’d survived, anyway – had been long gone by the time the police had turned up, and so Nakamura and his men were left with a pile of dead bodies and not much else. It was going to be one hell of a long night, and he’d still not heard anything from Baxter either. He hoped the man was okay; the last thing he wanted was a dead reporter on his hands.

  He’d had some OCCB men tail Baxter to the sumo hall, but they’d lost the reporter when he’d left the arena in Mitsuya’s limousine. It had been heading for the Ginza district though, and Nakamura supposed that he was going to a hostess bar or something similar, to help seal the deal. He’d requested local officers to keep an eye out for him, but didn’t hold out much hope; the Ginza was littered with foreigners of every type, and Baxter would hardly stand out.

  Nakamura hoped that the man had been able to develop some information from his meeting, and was anxious to hear from him. He was sure that Baxter would be in contact by the next morning, but if he wasn’t, then Nakamura would have to try and locate him. He’d given the reporter a local cell phone, but it hadn’t been used so far; if Baxter was still incommunicado by midday, then Nakamura would call the cell and see what was happening. But he wasn’t too worried, not yet at least; investigative reporters were like undercover cops, lightning fast brains and nerves of steel. He was sure Baxter would be alright.

  But this mess here! He’d be lucky to be out of this place by midday; it was like a maze, secret rooms leading off from hidden chambers.

  The good news, of course, was the damage this would do to the Omoto-gumi bank balance; closing the place down would probably cost them millions in lost earnings. Nakamura had been trying to find it for months now, rumors always running around town about the amai shoppu, the ‘sweet shop’ where all tastes were catered for. And now here it was, all shot up and wrecked to hell. There was even a body in the manager’s office, beaten to death and left as a mangled pulp on the carpeted floor; there had been little else though, CCTV footage deleted, paper files destroyed and the computer hard drive removed.

  Nakamura was starting to feel a headache coming on, temples starting to throb, when he heard a call from one of the paramedics. ‘Here!’ the voice shouted. ‘This one’s alive!’

  Nakamura was over there in a flash, by the doorway that led to a bondage parlor beyond. The young yakuza thug was on a stretcher, his face pale, breathing into a quickly supplied oxygen mask as the EMT went to work on the gaping hole in the man’s belly.

  Nakamura gestured for the man to put down the oxygen mask. ‘What happened here?’ he asked. ‘Who did this?’

  The man lowered the mask, revealing a face distorted in pain. ‘One man . . .’ came the hoarse reply, ‘just one man . . .’

  He coughed up blood then, and the EMT looked up angrily at Nakamura. ‘Are you trying to kill him?’ he asked seriously. ‘Leave him the hell alone!’

  Nakamura knew the medic was right, but he had to know more. One man did this? Was that possible?

  ‘Who?’ Nakamura asked next, ignoring the medic. ‘Who was it?’

  ‘Gaijin,’ the man gasped, and Nakamura had to fight to rein in his surprise. Gaijin meant ‘barbarian’, and was an impolite, though common, way of referring to foreigners.

  ‘American?’ Nakamura asked, and the man nodded quickly in turn.

  ‘He met with the boss,’ he gasped, as if knowing he was going to die and wanting to get it all out before he took his last breath, ‘then he escaped with the girl.’

  ‘Which girl?’ Nakamura asked, frantic now, the pieces beginning to fit together but presenting an even more complex puzzle in its place. The man’s eyes were closing, and he reached forward, grasping the man’s arms. The EMT tried to shake him off, but he held firm, ignoring the medic and repeating the question once more, even louder. ‘Which girl?’

  ‘Kogani . . . no . . . ojo,’ the man managed before finally passing out, the pain and the shock too much to handle. The EMT started shouting to his colleagues about vital signs, but Nakamura could now barely hear him, his mind filled with information that he was struggling to process.

  Kogani no ojo was the ‘golden princess’, the name given by the underworld to the girl who was the key to the Omoto-gumi’s fortunes. Kogani no ojo was Aoki ‘Yamaguchi’ Michiko.

  And Aoki Michiko was the girl who Richard Baxter was supposed to be finding; Richard Baxter, who was a gaijin, an American, like the man who had been in the club tonight.

  Was it possible that one man had done all this? And furthermore, was it possible that this one man was Richard Baxter?

  Nakamura thought back to their contest at the Kodokan, remembered how the man had moved, the fluid precision of his actions, the decisiveness of his strategy. It was unlikely perhaps, but certainly not impossible, he decided; the club was designed in such a way as to make such an event more liable to happen, the multitude of rooms, walls, archways, chambers and parlors providing plenty of cover for a lone gunman.

  As the gut-shot yakuza foot soldier was led away to the ambulances which waited upstairs, Nakamura reconsidered what he had seen in a different light.

  It was possible that Mitsuya had turned around and brought Baxter here; perhaps this was even where Michiko worked? And then . . . what? Baxter had gone crazy and started killing people? Or had he been discovered, and been forced to protect himself as he escaped?

  The other question was whether Baxter was actually who he had claimed to be; was he a reporter, or something else entirely?

  But the bottom line was that the man was now on the run, possibly with the golden princess herself, Aoki Michiko.

  Nakamura shook his head in resignation and withdrew his cell phone from his pocket, punching in Baxter’s number.

  What the hell; it was worth a shot.

  The phone started ringing on the other end, and Nakamura took a deep breath and waited for Baxter to answer.

  It rang once, twice, three times, and Nakamura was sure it wasn’t going to be answered; but then the line was picked up.

  ‘Yes?’ said a gruff, male Japanese voice.

  ‘Who is this?’ Nakamura asked quickly.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘This is Inspector Nakamura Jirai of the TMPD Organized Crime Control Bureau, and I suggest you answer my question right now unless you want me to trace this call, track you down and put my boot up your ass, do you understand me?’

  The gruff voice suddenly became apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the man said, ‘I didn’t steal the phone, honestly, I just found it on the train, I was just on my way to hand it in at a police station, I – ’

  ‘Okay,’ Nakamura broke in, ‘that’s enough.’ So Baxter had lost the phone – or purposefully abandoned it – on the subway, and the guy who’d picked it up was now scared that Nakamura was going to arrest him for stealing it. It would be funny if not for the ramifications – Nakamura now had no way of contacting Baxter, or whoever he really was.

  ‘Which train did you find it on?’ Nakamura asked the man.

  ‘Ueno to Asakusa,’ came the reply.

  ‘Did you see the owner of the phone?’

  There was a pause as the person seemed to weigh up which answer would get
him in the least trouble.

  ‘You’re not going to get into any trouble,’ Nakamura reassured him, ‘but it’s important you tell me what you know. Did you see the owner?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the hesitant reply, ‘I think so. American, I think, came on at Inaricho with a girl.’

  ‘How old was the girl?’

  ‘Late teens, perhaps twenty at most.’

  Nakamura stood still in the subterranean room, thinking. So Baxter and Michiko had got on at Inaricho, not far from here at all; a fact which helped to confirm his previous suspicions about Baxter’s involvement at the club.

  And then they’d got off the train at Asakusa. But what then? Had they changed lines? Left the station? And then gone where?

  He knew he would have to get the subway security cameras checked out, see what he could find out; but at least there wouldn’t be that many people at that time in the morning. An American with a teenaged Japanese girl would be relatively easy to spot.

  He had work to do, but there was one last thing to do here. ‘Sir,’ he said to the man on the other end of the phone, ‘thank you for your assistance. Now make sure you hand that phone into your local police station. I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble.’

  He hung up before the man could respond, racing for the stairs.

  If he was going to have a chance of reacquiring Baxter and Michiko, there was no time to lose.

  6

  ‘I am so sorry to hear that,’ said the duty manager, who stood behind the huge reception desk in the New Otani’s luxurious lobby.

  Cole, on discussing the options with Michiko, had decided to forego the smaller hotels and seemingly innocuous and anonymous ‘love hotels’ which were scattered throughout the city; most were controlled by the yakuza, or at least had some connection, and Cole was sure that Mitsuya would be spreading his tentacles wide.

  Cole therefore decided upon one of the larger hotels, which would be used to international travelers arriving at all hours. It was conceivable that the police would check guest registers, but as he’d watched from outside, he’d seen half a dozen foreign executives turn up in taxis from the airport in the past half hour; he would be just one more.