He could.
The prize that awaited him was too tempting to ignore for a man of his ambition, his ego.
The presidency of the United States of America, the most powerful individual in the entire world.
That was what Mason wanted, and that was what he would get, whatever it took.
He looked back at Jones, who was waiting for his answer.
Mason nodded his head slowly. ‘Yes Colonel’ he said at last, ‘I think that we can definitely work together on this.’
He was ready to gamble one last time.
14
Yamaguchi Chomo was a patient man. After all, he had waited nearly his entire life for the opportunity which was now before him.
He had been born and raised in Kobe, his father killed at a game of cards at an illegal gambling den when Chomo had been only a baby. His mother had made ends meet through various odd jobs, but life had been hard in those early years and Chomo had been a quiet youth, introspective and something of a loner. He had spent his time reading books and studying, unlike most of the children in the rough, rundown neighborhood they lived in.
His mother – after several years too tired, too depressed, too lonely to struggle on by herself anymore – had eventually started to see other men. Chomo had lost count at the time, but there had been a lot, some nicer than others. But his mother would always be the same, offering her love in return for a few small comforts and a few weeks or months out of her lowly, poorly-paid string of jobs; until the man got fed up and eventually moved on, as they all did.
Some of the men used to beat Chomo, disgusted that some of their money went on the boy; they saw him as a parasite, and a near-silent one at that, a strange child who would rather read than play out on the streets. He still had the scars on his aging body from some of the attacks he had suffered at their hands.
And then his mother had discovered she was pregnant again, too late to abort the baby; Mitsuya had been born premature, just three and a half pounds. Their mother never loved Mitsuya, that much was clear; she was neglectful and distant, and even started to use methamphetamine after being introduced to it by one of her boyfriends. And when he left, what little money she had went on the drug instead of her children.
Mitsuya was different from Chomo right from the start – he had no interest in learning, but was a common sight on the streets of the neighborhood, getting into trouble day after day and night after night. The police first got involved when Mitsuya was only six years old; but with an irresponsible mother and no permanent male influence, he had continued to run wild.
Chomo was eight years senior to Mitsuya, but Chomo soon found that his younger brother was able to protect him from the neighborhood toughs who had always given him a hard time about his reading; the little boy had quite a temper on him, and was more than willing to take it out on anyone who insulted his family.
The boys who had taunted and bullied him had always asked him the same question – why was he reading? What was he hoping to learn? They were quick to point out that no book had the answer to getting out of their little hellhole.
For years, Chomo had no answer; he was reading for the pleasure alone, and wasn’t that enough? But even he realized that it was not enough, not the real reason for his introspection and his studies; the truth was that he was searching for something. What? He didn’t know. There was something there, just out of reach, something that would change their lives forever; he just had to find it.
And then he did.
Chomo was seventeen when he’d performed a genealogical study of his family; he had been trying to find out something more about his father, unwilling to believe that he was an indolent gambler with nothing else to have offered the world. But it was his mother’s side of the family which had been the surprise, and for the first time in his life he had discovered the connection between himself and the Yamaguchi clan. His mother was actually – and unknowingly – the great-granddaughter of Yamaguchi Harukichi, the founder of the Yamaguchi-gumi; which made Chomo the man’s great-great-grandson, and an inheritor of his ‘royal’ bloodline.
All of a sudden, Chomo had seen everything with startling clarity – his purpose in life, his mission.
He had discussed it with Mitsuya who, even at the age of nine, had understood immediately – they would conquer the criminal underworld and bring the name of Yamaguchi back to the top of the leadership.
Chomo’s reading also had another effect – he graduated high school with the top marks in his class, and set off to study business administration, economics and finance at Todai, the University of Tokyo. With no money to support him, Chomo – already inured to petty crime by his upbringing – started to run errands for a small gang known as the Omoto-gumi. And before long – fed up with life at home – Mitsuya hitchhiked up to Tokyo to stay with him.
It soon became apparent that the young Mitsuya could look after himself, and the boy straight away found his feet within the Omoto-gumi. Entry into the yakuza underworld had been seamless, and the brothers were on their first step toward realizing their dream – for the Omoto-gumi had just been swallowed up by the Yamaguchi-gumi criminal conglomerate, and was now part of the organization that Chomo felt was his destiny to lead.
Chomo graduated with honors, going on to study for the graduate program and then a doctorate – all the while being drawn further and further into the yakuza lifestyle. But it was only after passing his doctorate that he began to accrue the special irizumi tattoos of the traditional Japanese gangster, classical designs imprinted on the skin with a bamboo needle in the tebori method, entirely by hand. He hadn’t flinched even when the insides of his elbows and the backs of his knees had been done; for the way a man took the pain was a measure of his worth as a warrior, and Chomo had hidden depths that nobody suspected.
His brother Mitsuya, meanwhile, bore his heart on his sleeve; he’d killed his first man at the age of eleven. The incident had been caused by a refusal to pay protection money by a local street vendor selling video cassettes on Omoto-gumi turf; but more than that, the man had insulted the crime family, and the young Mitsuya had responded by stabbing him through the eye with a knitting needle.
Mitsuya had started his own tattooing when he was barely into his teens and – like his older brother – he had never flinched during the long, painful process.
He had been used as muscle ever since, a violent youth who had turned eventually into a violent man; half of his adolescence had been spent in juvenile detention centers, a pattern which repeated itself with prison as an adult. But he became highly valued by the Omoto-gumi leadership for his fearlessness in battle and his utter ruthlessness.
Chomo, on the other hand, was valued for his mind; as a university graduate, he was able to help restructure the Omoto-gumi’s varied business interests, advise on investments, acquire and manage capital assets, and make the family one hell of a lot of money into the bargain. His specialty was in financial crimes, and such expertise came at a time when traditional yakuza interests were on a downslide; as such, Chomo’s own value and prestige went up year by year, until he was the oyabun’s golden boy. And Mitsuya was always there behind him, ready to back up Chomo’s numbers with force.
Chomo had managed to work his way up through the organization to shategashira by the time Mitsuya had married Aoki Asami, a match the elder brother knew was doomed to failure. Asami was cultured, intelligent, a rare find indeed; Chomo himself was quite smitten with the girl until Mitsuya barreled his way in and swept her off her feet. Chomo had always supposed that it was because Mitsuya was the extreme opposite to anything the young woman had experienced in her life up to that point, the rough and dangerous essence of everything the yakuza stood for; she had been dazzled by the excitement of Mitsuya’s lifestyle and reputation. Like many women, she had thought she could tame him.
Chomo had tried to advise his brother against the marriage, coming as it did when they were about to make their move against the Omoto-gumi leadership. Mitsuya arg
ued with his brother, claiming it was because Chomo himself wanted her; and although Chomo could now admit that there had been some element of truth in this, the more major reason was that he was worried that the girl would make Mitsuya take his eye off the ball.
And he had soon been proved right.
The relationship had started well enough, but before long Mitsuya’s violent temper and deep-seated jealousy came out of hiding and began to terrify his new bride. But she had been brought up strictly, and assumed the burden as dutifully as she could. Chomo knew the type though, and also knew she would never tolerate Mitsuya’s abuse indefinitely; she was a free spirit, and would ultimately refuse to be caged by a brute like her husband.
Mitsuya’s jealous rages, caused by imagined dalliances between Asami and a string of men, soon caused problems at work. Always an aggressive character, and the leading ‘violence man’ of the Omoto-gumi’s kamikaze squad, Mitsuya’s behavior started to get further and further out of control. He almost started a war with the Inagawa-kai when he spotted one of their men talking to his wife, taking a stiletto blade to three members of the rival family before the Omoto oyabun, Murakami Yukio, ordered him to offer a finger in apology to the Inagawa boss.
Mitsuya was enraged, but – counselled by his brother – did as he was told, and presented the Inagawa-kai oyabun with his little finger, severed at the first knuckle and wrapped in silk. Chomo knew that it hurt Mitsuya’s pride more than his body, and his brother developed a savage grudge against Murakami. But he had at least listened to reason – the Inagawa-kai had made a pact with the Yamaguchi-gumi, and Mitsuya’s actions could have broken that fragile peace. Chomo assured him that they would have the last laugh, when they controlled the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Inagawa-kai were subservient to them.
And so Mitsuya had swallowed his pride and taken out his rage on someone else – his wife, Asami. His frenzied attack had left the poor girl hospitalized, and – when she had almost recovered, but was still in the relative safety of the hospital ward – she had used the opportunity to escape.
Mitsuya was incensed and – although Chomo urged him to forget about her and move on, to concentrate on business – he instead became obsessed with tracking her down. When it became apparent that she had not only fled Tokyo, but Japan altogether, Mitsuya had contacted colleagues in gangs all over Asia to keep an eye out for her.
It had been one of Mitsuya’s connections in the Royal Thai Police who had finally located her, waiting tables at a Japanese sushi bar in Bangkok. Mitsuya, desperate not to lose her, had immediately called his partners in the Kamnan Samruay, a large Thai gang that Mitsuya used to import women to Omoto-gumi clubs. He told them to intercept and hold her until he could get there and deal with his wife himself.
What had happened next was surprising, to say the least. When the gang had tried to seize the girl, she had been assisted by an American, a single man who had apparently taken out three hardened gang members with his own hands.
Mitsuya’s trip to Thailand kept on getting delayed due to his criminal history, and by the time he’d received the all-clear, it was too late. The gang had found out where Asami and the American were hiding and – still embarrassed by their earlier defeat – had attacked the hotel en masse, armed with knives, hatchets and machetes.
Seven members of Kamnan Samruay had been killed in the attack, and both the woman and the mysterious American had disappeared. The loss of face for Mitsuya was appalling, and to make it up to his Thai partners he’d agreed to large increases in the prices he paid to import their women back to Japan, a dent in Omoto-gumi business that Chomo had also been displeased with.
Indeed, for perhaps the first time in his life, Chomo had laid down the law to his younger brother; it was time, he remembered saying, for Mitsuya to forget the woman and start acting like a man. Take responsibility. Remember the plan.
And to his credit, Mitsuya had done just that – the anger he felt over Asami’s betrayal was channeled into his work, and it wasn’t long before he got to exact his revenge on another target.
It was Mitsuya that had killed the Omoto-gumi oyabun, Murakami Yukio – both as revenge for the man’s command to sacrifice his finger to the Inagawa-kai, and also to pave the way for his elder brother to take control of the clan.
As the family’s top earners and forming an unbeatable team of business acumen and raw violence, Chomo moved into the top spot as Omoto-gumi oyabun, while Mitsuya took his old role as wakagashira. Chomo’s new position enabled him to attend meetings at the Yamaguchi compound in Kobe, which had been built around what he regarded as his own ancestral home, the original house of Yamaguchi Harukichi.
Such meetings made his desire to usurp the leadership – the ambition that had burned in his soul since the age of seventeen – flare ever brighter. Being so close to the source of power brought home to him how far he had come, made him reaffirm his belief that one day he would be able to make the final leap and become kumicho of the entire Yamaguchi-gumi, as was his birthright.
The only problem was that Omoto-gumi fortunes were falling; in Tokyo, the Inagawa-kai and Sumiyoshi-kai were steadily increasing in power and – due to a string of bad investments in health resorts and golf clubs, the first real mistakes Chomo had ever made – Omoto-gumi capital was falling.
And then Mitsuya had received word from one of his foreign allies that Asami was alive and well, and living in Australia. And what was more, the woman had a daughter.
Mitsuya instantly regressed to his old, paranoid and jealous self. Was the girl his? Was she the mysterious American’s? Or was she someone else’s altogether?
He had instantly booked himself a flight to Australia, along with a dozen Omoto-gumi soldiers. And Chomo – who had various business interests in the country, and was looking to acquire more – had also decided to accompany his brother. The last thing he needed was for Mitsuya to get arrested in a foreign country doing something stupid; the Omoto-gumi might not survive the loss.
As it happened, the trip had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and had changed the family’s fortunes forever.
Mitsuya and his men found Asami at Hungry Jack’s, the restaurant she waitressed in; they had taken her in the back after closing time, held the rest of the staff hostage as Mitsuya beat the information out of her. The daughter was ten years old, and she was not Mitsuya’s; she was indeed the offspring of Asami and the American who had helped her in Bangkok. The love in Asami’s eyes as she spoke of the American had angered Mitsuya so much that he had beaten her to death then and there. He had slapped, punched and kicked her until the life had leaked right out of her onto the bare concrete floor.
The men had staged a robbery then, killed the rest of the staff members and stolen money out of the tills and safe to cover their tracks.
But still Mitsuya had unfinished business, and led his team to the bungalow that was home to Asami’s daughter, Aoki Michiko. Chomo remembered that Mitsuya didn’t know what he was going to do – kill her outright, or punish the American even more by taking the girl back to Japan to be used and abused in the sex trade.
When the girl had opened the door to them however, Chomo saw the answer in Mitsuya’s eyes – he was going to kill the girl, no questions asked.
To gain entry to the house, they had told the girl a concocted story about why they were there, and when she had been leading them into the living room, Chomo had seen Mitsuya already reaching for his gun.
But then Chomo saw something else, and froze in disbelief; he had to check it once, twice, three times. But it was there in front of him, clear as day. Of course, Mitsuya and the other men hadn’t spotted it, but Chomo knew straight away what it meant; he could not let this girl die.
He immediately signaled his brother to put the weapon away and for one terrible moment, Chomo thought that Mitsuya might finally disobey him. But then Mitsuya pocketed the automatic and let Chomo launch into the story of how the girl’s mother had been tragically killed, and how they had come to
take her back to Japan to look after her.
He had seen the incomprehension, the betrayal, the rage, in his brother’s eyes, but had ignored it completely; he would understand when it was explained to him.
And although Mitsuya had never forgiven him for the affront to his pride and reputation, the man had capitulated anyway and followed his elder brother and oyabun’s order to adopt the girl and request her transport back to Japan.
Chomo had known even then that Michiko would be worth her weight in gold, and he had been proved right many times over; and as long as she was the Omoto-gumi’s cash cow, she would be safe from her adoptive father. Business was business after all, and Mitsuya understood that Michiko was the person most directly responsible for the increase in Omoto-gumi fortunes that had put Chomo at the top of the Yamaguchi-gumi leadership contest.
Chomo had been at the Kobe compound for two days now, and things were going exactly as planned; he had a lot of support from the various Yamaguchi sub-groups, and not a huge amount of competition. He’d had to delay his plans for Yamamoto until Michiko had been returned to the fold – although she wasn’t single-handedly responsible for the family’s wealth, she did play a big part in it, and certainly her presence reassured the other families – but when fate had brought her back to him, Chomo had instigated his plans immediately.
Now he could only hope that Mitsuya wouldn’t do something stupid, something that would jeopardize their chances of assuming the Yamaguchi leadership.
Surrounded by a retinue of Omoto-gumi soldiers, Chomo stood at a payphone several miles from the Yamaguchi compound, speaking to his brother back in Tokyo. He didn’t trust cell phones, nor the phones in the house itself; it was even possible that the pay phones directly around the house would also be monitored by the authorities or – even worse – by his competitors.
‘Is Michiko safe?’ he asked after the small talk had been dispensed with.
NEVER SAY DIE: Mark Cole Takes On the Yakuza in His Most Thrilling Adventure Yet! Page 14
