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

by J. T. Brannan

‘Of course,’ Mitsuya replied indignantly. ‘You do not need to ask me that. I have tolerated her for so many years, I am not going to harm her now of all times.’

  Chomo nodded, reassured; his brother was impetuous, even in his fifties, but business was still business.

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘good.’

  ‘How are the meetings?’ Mitsuya asked.

  ‘They are going well,’ Chomo replied. ‘But you know how these things are, they take time. Other applications have been made, the heads of three other families have asked to be considered, as well as Watanabe Haruto, of course. But we are in a strong position, especially financially.’

  ‘Has there been talk of the Shimazaki-kai killings yet?’ Mitsuya asked with interest.

  ‘There has,’ Chomo confirmed, ‘and it’s making everyone want to make this deal quickly, before the power vacuum leads to a war. Everyone recognizes that a war benefits no one, we all lose financially.’

  ‘The man we hired is good, neh?’ Mitsuya said, and Chomo could tell his brother was genuinely impressed.

  ‘He is,’ Chomo said. ‘They all are.’

  The ninja group was a creation of his allies in Zen Ai Kaigi, and was now heavily funded by the Omoto-gumi. Based on plans made by the Japanese secret service after the Pacific War to train a new group in the ancient ninja arts, it was a more in-depth and exacting version of the Nakano spy school that had churned out ninja-style operators during the war years. Everything had been in place except the finance; training locations, instructors, equipment, weapons, organization, even orphaned children to be used as the first wave of students. Eventually the government had pulled the plug, but Zen Ai Kaigi had caught wind of it, hijacked the idea and forged ahead with it; they authorized the first batch of child recruits to be trained in the far flung, abandoned islands of the eastern Philippines which had since become the ninja family’s home base. Zen Ai Kaigi had used the new breed of ninja as assassins, spies and agents provocateur ever since, funded by big business, loyal politicians and a variety of yakuza groups – all of whom were allowed to use their services.

  When Chomo had first forged links to Zen Ai Kaigi, he had learned of the ninja group and been impressed; even more so when he visited their facilities in the Philippines, what he saw convincing him of the logic of investment in the unit. A lifetime of training had created the best assassins and agents Chomo had ever seen. The clan was on its third and fourth generation now, and they continued to get better and better.

  The plan that was now afoot was something that Chomo had worked out with the leadership of Zen Ai Kaigi, a double assassination that would propel Chomo to the head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, and Zen Ai Kaigi to the Japanese parliament. Such a partnership would be all-powerful, creating a country that would be feared and respected throughout not only Asia, but the entire world.

  ‘Is anything else happening in Tokyo I should know about?’ Chomo asked his brother.

  There was a pause, and then Mitsuya spoke. ‘The only thing is a meeting I am having tonight with an American.’

  ‘An American?’ Chomo asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes, he is a lawyer for the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood. He learned of us from contacts in Aryan Ultra, the group Michiko was linked to in Tucson.’

  ‘And what does he want?’ Chomo asked cautiously.

  ‘They are having problems getting good money for their women in central and south America, and want to start exporting them to Asia. They can get us a ready supply of Caucasian women, and you know what sort of money we can get for them here.’

  Chomo thought for a moment. From a personal perspective he had no interest in the sex trade; it didn’t disgust or offend him, but at the same time he was happy he didn’t have to dirty his own hands with it. Money was money though, and opportunities should be seized when they presented themselves. But . . .

  ‘I would normally be delighted by such a deal,’ Chomo said finally. ‘Any increase in finances we can get – especially if the agreement with the Aryan Brotherhood could be exclusive to us – will only strengthen our case for the Yamaguchi-gumi leadership. I am just a little concerned about the timing. Doesn’t it seem a little too coincidental?’

  ‘You think it’s a set-up?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’m a cautious man though, and coincidences always worry me. But I will leave it at your discretion. That area of the business is yours to control as you see fit. All that I ask is that you be careful. Make sure you check the guy out properly, make sure he is who he says he is, okay? It might be a good deal, or it might be . . . something else.’

  ‘I understand,’ Mitsuya said. ‘I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.’

  ‘Yes,’ Chomo said with a slight smile, ‘I’m sure you will.’

  15

  The two men faced each other with steely determination in their eyes, calm faces masking an innate ferocity that was about to be fully unleashed.

  The men were giants, over seven hundred pounds of muscle and sinew between them; and all around them the people watched, a capacity crowd of thirteen thousand willing their personal champion to win.

  The giants that faced each other across the clay and sand dohyo ring were professional fighting men, the sumo wrestlers known in Japan as rikishi, and they were competing at the aki basho, or autumn tournament, one of the year’s six major sumo festivals.

  The Ryogoku Kokugikan, Tokyo’s famous Sumo Hall, was located in the Yokoami neighborhood of Tokyo’s Sumida district and held three of the six annual contests. Held over fifteen days, the tournament was on day ten and heading now toward early evening and the matches for the top-tier wrestlers of the makuuchi division. The atmosphere in the arena was electric; sumo for the Japanese was tantamount to a spiritual experience and was, in fact, very heavily tied to the nation’s traditional religion of Shinto.

  Mark Cole sat at ringside, at the invitation of Yamaguchi Mitsuya, and was entranced. His host had yet to arrive, but Cole didn’t mind in the least – he had never seen sumo wrestlers in action before in real life, and the reserved seats were the best in the house. He wasn’t entirely without company either, as the floor cushions around him were completely occupied by Omoto-gumi associates. It was as if they were putting on a show of force, sticking up a big middle finger to the police who had been trying to crack down on yakuza influence in the sport. Asada Kohei, the gang’s shategashira, occupied the cushion next to him and provided a useful English commentary to the action.

  Cole watched, mesmerized, as the big men crouched low, regarding each other coolly. The fight would begin as soon as both wrestlers placed both clenched fists on the ground. It was a ritual which resulted in a great deal of psychological warfare; a wrestler would often delay making contact with the second fist so that a simultaneous touch did not occur and the referee would have to intervene and restart the bout. It could often put off the other fighter enough for the bout to be lost mentally before it had even started.

  But there was no such trickery here; Cole watched as the wrestlers touched their fists to the floor simultaneously and then immediately erupted forward, charging toward each other with incredible force, two bull elephants on the stampede.

  Their arms lashed out ahead of them, callused palms connecting with necks, heads and faces, and Cole remembered seeing a sumo training film, how the men had developed power in their tsuppari thrusts by slamming their open hands into hard wooden posts for hour after hour, day after day.

  The men took the blows – strong enough to fell most normal men – without seeming to notice, and entered into a grappling clinch, one man’s hands gripping the thick silk mawashi loincloth belt of his opponent and trying to haul him off his feet while the other wrestler forced his weight down to combat the lift, slipping his right arm underneath the other’s left armpit and turning quickly in an attempt to flip the man over.

  But the man with the grip on the loincloth anticipated this move and simply tightened his grip and pushed his unbalanced opponent forward, forcing hi
m quickly and decisively across the thick floor rope of the dohyo and out of the ring altogether. This was one of the two major ways of achieving a victory in the ancient art of sumo – the other being to force the opponent to touch the floor with any part of the body other than the soles of the feet – and after the defeated man had pulled himself back inside the ring, the referee awarded the bout and both wrestlers bowed to one another before moving off.

  The action – move and counter-move, physical chess expressed in hundreds of pounds of raw human power – was over in seconds, as was typical of the sport. It was kill or be killed, even more so than the ippon of judo. The way of the samurai, alive and well in modern Japan.

  Wrestlers looked the part too – after the Dampatsurei edict of the modernizing Meiji government of the 1870s which forbade the wearing of the traditional samurai topknot, the hairstyle was forevermore only worn by sumo rikishi. They dressed in the traditional manner too, and to all intents and purposes upheld the idealized bushido image of the Tokugawa-era Japanese warrior-scholar.

  But although the wrestling impressed Cole, he couldn’t buy the thought of samurai nobility, if such a thing had ever actually existed; the rikishi were people like any others, subject to the same temptations, greeds and petty jealousies.

  The sport had often been linked to the Japanese criminal underworld – match fixing and illegal gambling were well known vices of the wrestlers and their sometimes criminal patrons, and it was even thought that some of the more famous sumo stables were part – or even wholly – owned and funded by yakuza gangs. Asada had confirmed to him as much, happily informing him of Omoto-gumi influence within three big stables in Tokyo’s Ryogoku district, the home of sumo training. And apparently match fixing was still an ongoing problem – Asada was expecting a big payday from rigged results from some of ‘his’ wrestlers.

  Asada leaned across to tell Cole about the two new wrestlers now bordering the dohyo, throwing salt on the ground underneath the domed roof of a traditional Shinto shrine, when Cole felt movement to the other side and turned to see someone sliding onto the cushion next to him.

  The man was in his fifties, peculiarly handsome and ugly at the same time; his skin was youthful and unblemished though there was something unnaturally hideous about his visage that Cole couldn’t put his finger on. Was it merely the perversity of the man’s disturbed personality leaking through the otherwise genteel physical appearance?

  Whatever the reason, Cole knew it was Mitsuya long before the man could introduce himself. The knowledge that this was the man who had beaten and abused Asami, forcing her to eventually abandon her home and country to seek safety in a foreign land, made him want to throw his plans out of the window and attack him right then and there, destroy him with paralyzing nerve strikes and create pain the monster could never have dreamed of.

  But he was a professional warrior, not a common street punk, and was able to control his impulses and rein in his emotions; the hatred bubbled away inside and yet on the surface he smiled warmly at his host, careful not to let the man see what was really in his mind.

  Careful not to block the view of the spectators behind him, Cole rose slightly to his feet and bowed to Mitsuya, who returned the gesture – if somewhat less perceptibly – and motioned for Cole to sit.

  ‘Mr. Jowett,’ Mitsuya said in a voice that was similar to his appearance – outwardly warm but consisting of a gravelly depth that made Cole think of executioners and assassins, ‘it is an honor to meet you.’

  ‘The honor is all mine, Mitsuya-sama,’ Cole replied, ‘and thank you very much for agreeing to see me. Your hospitality,’ he continued, gesturing with his head to the splendid interior of the Ryogoku Kokugikan, ‘is also very much appreciated.’

  ‘You are enjoying the sumo?’ Mitsuya asked with amusement.

  ‘I am,’ Cole confirmed. ‘I have never seen it before, and welcome the opportunity. It is most impressive.’

  Mitsuya nodded his head, silent now as the match started; the ring shook as the wrestlers collided, then seconds later it was all over, one man tripped to his knees.

  Mitsuya turned back to Cole. ‘It is the essence of the samurai spirit,’ he said in his own form of admiration. ‘One hit, one kill. The sumo are the same as us, two groups with links stretching hundreds of years back into Japanese history. The authorities,’ he said dismissively, waving a hand around the arena as if he knew – and absolutely didn’t care – that he was being watched, ‘will never separate us, no matter what they try. We are linked by bonds of blood.’

  And money, thought Cole cynically, although he just nodded his head in agreement, waiting for the man to get around to business.

  It was a long time in coming – there was the ubiquitous small-talk, regularly punctuated by periods of respectful silence as the wrestlers fought – but eventually Mitsuya picked up the subject of Cole’s proposal.

  It was clear that the man was keen, but he played it cagey, details of his operations kept close to his chest. He let Cole talk more than he did, listening to the proposition and asking pertinent questions without giving Cole much in return.

  Cole wondered if Mitsuya trusted him, but realized that he couldn’t; a man like Mitsuya would very likely not trust anybody, and with Cole turning up at such a critical time for the Japanese gangs, suspicions might well be raised. Cole wouldn’t be surprised if Mitsuya’s sources weren’t checking him out right now.

  But Nakamura had assured him that his credentials would be well backed-up, and his position as legal counsel to Brooke Kayne would be hard to disprove.

  The bottom line, however, was that Mitsuya was skeptical about Cole’s presence there and – despite the man’s internal calculator advising him in favor of the deal – his innate survival instincts were telling him to hold back.

  It was Cole’s job to make Mitsuya trust him, and he decided to do so by occupying dangerous ground.

  ‘I am sure Asada-san informed you, but we were made aware of your . . . ah . . . potential openness to a deal of this nature by a girl who was mutually acquainted with yourself and with a colleague of Mr. Kayne. Aoki Michiko, I believe her name is?’

  Cole watched for Mitsuya’s reaction, saw a barely perceptible twitch in the corner of one eye at the mention of her name.

  ‘What of her?’ the man asked gruffly.

  ‘It’s just that – in your position – I might be a touch sensitive about making a deal, given everything that’s happening. I can understand that, I get it. But we need to act now, Mr. Kayne has asked me to approach you before any of our competitors do. The first one into a business – even if others follow – is inevitably the winner.

  ‘The reason I mention the girl is that if you need proof of our bona fides in order to reassure yourself and your organization, I am sure that you can ask Ms. Aoki about it. Is she still . . . around?’

  Mitsuya merely grunted in response, silent again as another fight took place.

  Cole waited with baited breath, the few seconds of the bout taking place in agonizing slow motion as he awaited confirmation of his daughter’s life or death. But eventually the fight finished and Mitsuya turned to him, eyes bright.

  ‘Aoki-chan is still with us, back where she belongs,’ he said, his face tense, jaw tight. ‘She seems reluctant to discuss her . . . experiences in America.’

  Cole rejoiced inwardly. Michiko was alive. His search wasn’t to be in vain, as he sometimes feared. She was alive, and Cole intended to keep her that way. The news made him want to cry out loud, shout for joy; smile, at the very least. But he kept an iron grip on his performance, keeping his emotions bottled tightly up inside.

  ‘I understand,’ he said seriously. ‘It was most unfortunate what happened to her. But if I would be allowed to meet with her, perhaps I could help to prove that our intentions with our deal here are entirely honorable.’

  Mitsuya closed his eyes and barked a short, harsh laugh. ‘Honorable?’ he asked. ‘What does your employer know of honor? Do you know
what they did to the girl at that ranch?’

  Cole could see the man was getting angry and was no longer certain he was playing the game right. Was Mitsuya’s famous anger about to get the better of him? Did the man blame Cole for Michiko’s suffering at the hands of the Aryan Ultra thugs?

  ‘I was informed that she suffered badly at the hands of Clive Haines and his men, yes,’ Cole admitted. ‘I also admit that this is how we learned of the Omoto-gumi and this particular trade in which our groups have a mutual business interest. But I assure you that Mr. Kayne and his organization had no part in any of it.’

  Mitsuya barked out another laugh, reminding Cole of a feral dog. ‘You told me that Mr. Kayne and Mr. Haines were friends, colleagues. Business partners, perhaps? Your organizations are linked, like it or not. Which means that you, my friend, are partially responsible for what happened to her.’

  ‘But is she not just a – ’

  ‘A working girl?’ Mitsuya said in disgust. ‘A whore? She decidedly is not. Her adoptive name is Yamaguchi Michiko, and she was taken into my family at the age of ten. She is my daughter, Mr. Jowett,’ the man said through gritted teeth. ‘You tortured and abused my daughter!’

  No, Cole thought in anger, she’s my daughter, you son of a bitch. My daughter!

  But Cole knew he had to continue playing the game, or he might never get to see his daughter, and so he cut off his anger and continued to play the role of the seedy lawyer.

  He held up his hands as if to ward away Mitsuya’s accusations, shaking his head rapidly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, please, I didn’t know, I had no idea. Mr. Kayne never told me anything about that, and I swear it’s because he mustn’t have known either, I swear.’ Cole mopped his brow for dramatic effect. ‘But anyway, we really had nothing to do with her, that’s just not true. There are no links between the two groups, just some old friends who speak through the grapevine, rumors, chit-chat, you know? I swear, we had nothing to do with it anyway.’

  Mitsuya looked at him through hooded, reptilian eyes. ‘What do you think it will do to my reputation?’ he asked venomously. ‘What would people say or do if they knew I was dealing with a group connected to the one that kidnapped and tortured my own daughter, a member of the Yamaguchi family and the Omoto-gumi clan? I would never be able to hold my head up again, face would be lost forever.’