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

by J. T. Brannan

  ‘I am sorry,’ Cole said, knowing that Mitsuya was just using his anger to increase his power at the negotiating table. ‘I assure you that the Aryan Brotherhood had nothing to do with the girl’s kidnap or torture, we were just made aware of some information that came from the girl, that’s all. You’ve got to believe me. And either way, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  Mitsuya nodded his head, looked around the arena and signaled to his men, who started to move immediately. ‘I am tired of the wrestling,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would be willing to move on somewhere else? I have a limousine waiting outside for us.’

  There was a glint in the man’s eye that Cole couldn’t put his finger on, perhaps a predator drawing in its prey. But was the prize a business deal, or Cole’s life?

  Cole would be leaving the relative safety of a public venue and getting into a private vehicle with a violent sociopath and a team of yakuza soldiers, who could take him anywhere and do to him anything they wanted.

  For the first time that evening, Cole was nervous; had he misjudged the man? Was Mitsuya’s anger not just a clever negotiating strategy, but something very real? Did he truly feel offended, his reputation threatened? Was his claimed loss of face important enough for him to throw away a multi-million dollar deal and kill Brooke Kayne’s lawyer in revenge for his adoptive daughter?

  As Cole looked into the man’s eyes, he realized he simply didn’t know.

  But at the end of the day, he also understood that he had no other options left if he wanted to keep alive his chances of seeing Michiko again.

  ‘I would be delighted to go with you,’ Cole said at last, steeling himself to step out of the frying pan and into the unknown fire beyond.

  16

  Michiko touched her ribs gingerly, the pain still raw from where Mitsuya had beaten her. Her adoptive father had been careful not to mark her face, but he had been only too happy to leave red welts and bruises up and down her body; with his brother gone, he had finally been able to give in to his rage and the repressed feelings of hatred he continually carried with him, his fists mere physical extensions of his disturbed emotions.

  As she lay on her bed, holding her sides in pain, Michiko’s mind once again drifted back to Mark Cole, her real father. For years, she had harbored dreams of their confrontation, when she would finally meet him face to face and tell him what he had done to her and her mother, demand answers from him, make sure he knew exactly what his actions had resulted in, make him sorry for what he had done. She had fantasized about killing him for an equally long time, as her duty of giri, the obligation to her dead mother, demanded.

  But the truth was that she had never killed anyone, and didn’t know if she could truly go through with it. She’d had her chance already, twice. The first time had been when he had handed her the submachine gun in the barn and had then turned his back to her; she could easily have unloaded the weapon into his unprotected back, but had hesitated too long, allowed him to leave. She had then had another chance when he was examining the bodies by the truck; this time she had done better, firing her weapon toward him, but she had missed. Why? Had she really been aiming the gun correctly, with the intention of hitting him? Or had she subconsciously wanted to miss? She had gone to one knee, tried to stabilize the weapon to take a better aim, and had then hesitated once again. Why?

  She shook her head in the dark room, pondering that question again and again. She had hesitated, and her father had shot her instead. Mark Cole had raped her mother, destroyed their lives, shot her in the shoulder, and she still wondered if she had it in her to kill him.

  Why? She asked the question again and again, still not satisfied with her answers; but there was something at the back of her mind, something terrible, something she didn’t want to address but knew she had to.

  What if Mark Cole hadn’t raped her mother?

  Michiko knew the idea had been circling around in her mind for some time now, although it was at odds with everything she had believed since she was ten years old. She remembered even now the devastation she’d experienced at her mother’s death, compounded by the revelation that she had been the victim of a brutal rape. The knowledge that she was the product of that rape – not of love, but of violence – had caused a profound shift in her character and personality as she moved into her teenage years, coming to define the person she became.

  She had never questioned the story given to her by Mitsuya and Chomo; why should she? Her mother – on a business trip to Bangkok – had been attacked by an American soldier, raped and apparently left for dead. Michiko had seen copies of the medical reports from a hospital she’d attended and – while rape wasn’t mentioned specifically – it was clear that she had been badly hurt in a savage attack.

  She had fled the country, afraid to return home after the rape, afraid she had failed her husband; and then when she had discovered she was pregnant and decided to keep the child, her fate was sealed. She would never be welcome in Japan again.

  But, Mitsuya and Chomo said, she had been mistaken; she would have been welcomed back with open arms, proven by the fact that they took in Michiko, her daughter, when she was killed.

  Mitsuya often said that it was shame they had not found her earlier, that he could have brought Asami home before her pointless death on the cold concrete floors of Hungry Jack’s. They could have been a real family.

  Michiko had never trusted Mitsuya; it might well be that he was in love with her mother, Asami, but he clearly held very different feelings for his adoptive daughter. But Chomo had told the same story, and she did trust him at least. And she was grateful to be taken in, happy to have a home. Without parents, she would have been tossed back and forth within the orphan and foster system, with all the psychological damage that could do to a kid. And despite the criminal nature of the Omoto-gumi, at least it had provided her with some form of stability over the years.

  It had never erased her desire to find the man who had attacked her mother though, and as she had grown older, that desire had only intensified.

  She had known exactly where to start – flight and hotel records, any Americans registered in Bangkok at the same time her mother was there. The data produced from her search was colossal, and had taken weeks, perhaps even months, to wade through, but it had eventually given her a list to check against US military service records.

  Eventually, she had narrowed the field down to seventeen active servicemen in Bangkok on or around the dates her mother had been there, with thirty-two other possibles, from ex-military to civilian support staff.

  Further investigation had revealed that her mother’s medical bills at Bumrungrad International Hospital had been paid by one of the men on her shortlist, a Navy SEAL named Mark Kowalski.

  She had immediately known that Ensign Kowalski was the man who had raped her mother. She had been searching for so long, and she had finally found him. The fact that he had paid her mother’s bills at the hospital had never caused her to think twice about his guilt; it must have been him. He had probably just felt guilt over the attack, or else had tried to buy his way out of prison by paying for her treatment. But it was definitely him, of that she had no doubt.

  It was only now – trapped as she was by the Omoto-gumi, perhaps never to be free again – that she began to wonder about her own logic.

  How could she truly know what had happened in Bangkok all those years ago? What evidence did she really have? A name on a medical bill? A passenger manifest and a set of hotel records? The word of her adoptive father and uncle, two career criminals who had lied, cheated and killed their entire lives?

  And yet she had believed, had believed with all her heart, that Mark Kowalski – the man who had become Mark Cole, the man she had tracked for years – was her father, the man who had raped her mother before going back to his girlfriend in the States.

  Wasn’t he?

  There in the dark, her body wracked with the pain of Mitsuya’s rough fists, she began to wonder.

  Was e
verything she had believed just a lie?

  With a shudder, she realized that Mark Cole might not even be her father. No tests had been done, she had no proof, none at all.

  The realization made her sick and she retched over the side of her bed, the pain in her ribs intensifying.

  Is that why she hadn’t been able to bring herself to shoot him, to kill him? Because deep down, somewhere hidden, she knew the story she had been sold by Chomo and Mitsuya was a lie? Because her mother had never been raped at all?

  Her mind started to work feverishly, the ramifications running through her mind like wildfire.

  What had her mother said about her real father?

  She’d told Michiko that he had been 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.

  Had she been telling the truth all along? Ever since Mitsuya had told her about the rape, Michiko had always thought that her mother must have been merely trying to comfort her, unwilling to share the true details of what had happened.

  But what if Michiko’s visit to the hospital was nothing to do with Cole? What if he had just helped her? There had been no mention of rape in the medical report, after all. Perhaps he had helped her and they had developed a romance? And perhaps the romance had led to her mother becoming pregnant?

  Of course, that would mean that her mother must have cheated on her husband, Mitsuya. Would she have done such a thing?

  Then she wondered, for the first time ever, why her mother would have been in Bangkok alone on business. What sort of business would she have been on? Yakuza women, except in very rare circumstances, had very little to do with business, especially with making deals abroad.

  What if, Michiko wondered with a chill, she had been escaping from her husband? Michiko knew Mitsuya was wild and ill-tempered. Had he beaten her mother? Had she fled Japan, tried to find sanctuary in Thailand?

  And then it occurred to her that her mother’s injuries might have been caused by Mitsuya himself, or men sent by him to find her.

  She remembered from her research that several gang members had been killed in a small hotel in the city round about the same time that Cole and her mother were there, and some of the reports mentioned the involvement of a Caucasian man. Could it have been Cole? The gang members were part of Kamnan Samruay, an organization she knew was tied to the Omoto-gumi sex trade. Had Mitsuya sent the gang after her mother?

  Perhaps that was why Cole and her mother parted ways, simply due to the danger of such a relationship? It just hadn’t been meant to be, her mother had said. Had she been right all along?

  She had known that Mitsuya had disliked her since they’d met, and had always supposed it was due to the fact that she was the offspring of a violent rape, and her presence always reminded him of the disgrace to his wife. But now she wondered if perhaps it wasn’t something else entirely. Did Mitsuya hate her not because she was the product of rape, but the product of love? His wife’s love for someone else? She knew that the blow to his pride would be exceptionally fierce, even enough to . . .

  Her heart went cold and she retched again.

  No. Surely it wasn’t possible?

  But, she realized with cold dread, it was all too possible.

  If Mitsuya’s wife had escaped from him, been unfaithful to him, what would his reaction be? What would he want to do with her?

  She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t suspected before, that the possibility had never occurred to her, but now it stared her hard in the face, dared her to confront it.

  Had Mitsuya killed her mother?

  The years rolled back in her mind, back to the age of ten when she had first met the Omoto-gumi men. They had come to her house, told her that her mother was dead.

  But she had only been killed that day. How had they known where she was? Was it merely coincidence that they had finally found her, on the same day she was killed in a robbery? A robbery, she remembered now, that had never been solved?

  She shook her head as cold reality dawned on her. Mitsuya and his allies had tracked Michiko’s mother down, traveled to Australia to avenge Mitsuya’s honor. They had staged a robbery and killed Asami, and then carried along to her house to deal with the daughter.

  Michiko remembered the look on Mitsuya’s face, before Chomo had intervened, and finally admitted what she had known all these years, what had been clear to her even as a frightened ten year old girl – the man had come there to kill her.

  But he hadn’t, and again Michiko understood why – Chomo had seen what she had been working on, and had instinctively known how he could use her for his own ends, to increase the power of his family and his organization.

  And – confused, scared and alone – she had gone right along with it. She had become a part of the Yamaguchi family, part of the Omoto-gumi criminal underworld; she had performed services for them which she was now deeply ashamed of, services which she was still required to perform day after day, a prisoner destined to a life of criminal servitude.

  How could she have been so wrong?

  She wondered then why she had never spoken to Mitsuya – or anyone else – of her investigation into the mysterious American who had known her mother. She knew he could have helped her – provided her with money, equipment, weapons, information, even yakuza soldiers; he would certainly have had equal reason to want the man dead.

  But instead of discussing it with her adoptive family, she had investigated on her own time, in secret, and never told a living soul what she had uncovered, what she suspected.

  Why not?

  For the first time ever, she thought she might know – she did not trust Mitsuya, perhaps not even the story he had told her and the one on which she had based her search.

  And if – deep down, hidden somewhere unrecognized in her subconscious – she had not believed Mitsuya, nor even Chomo, then what had she been doing? Why had she been trying to find Cole?

  And then she knew, finally understood what it was she wanted, realized why she hadn’t killed the American when she’d had the chance.

  She wanted to ask him what had happened. He was the key to the truth. She needed to confront him, to ask him the questions for which she so desperately sought answers.

  For she realized now that – despite her research, her painstaking investigations – she still knew nothing.

  She wiped away her tears and realized she was repeating the same mistakes again – making huge leaps of logic based on scant, if any, evidence. She was an intelligent girl, a logical and thoughtful individual; but when it came to this subject, all reason seemed to leave her and her emotions were all that mattered, controlling her totally.

  Did Cole rape her mother? Was he her father? She shook her head sadly. She didn’t know, she had to admit; she didn’t know at all, any more than she knew if Mitsuya had killed her mother and then almost killed her.

  She didn’t know anything, except for one single fact.

  The one man who might have the answers she needed was Mark Cole, and he was probably on the other side of the world right now, completely unware of her suffering; and it was almost a certainty that they would never see each other again.

  Helpless, Michiko turned over in the dark and started to cry once more.

  17

  Mitsuya hadn’t been lying about the limousine, at least; it had been waiting for them outside the Sumo Hall exactly as promised.

  It swept them through the darkening streets of Tokyo now, an armed bodyguard next to the driver in the front while Cole was sandwiched between two goons in the rear, seated on the plush leather bench opposite the imperious Mitsuya. The limousine was protected by two more vehicles, one in front and one behind, both filled with yakuza foot soldiers.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Cole asked nervously. Although he had a tight rein on his own emotions – he had already planned his moves against the people in the car if anything untoward happened – he knew that a lawyer would not be as well controlled, and allowe
d some of his own nervous energy to leak out in order to play the role.

  He still didn’t know what Mitsuya’s intentions were. Did he plan on making a deal, or was he taking Cole somewhere to be killed? He went through his actions again if the shit hit the fan and weapons were pulled, his response dictated by their location and whether they were in or out of the car. He wanted to keep Mitsuya alive if it came to that, but realized it might not be possible if things got out of hand too quickly.

  ‘A hostess bar I own,’ Mitsuya said. ‘A place we can talk business.’ He smiled, and Cole instinctively wanted to recoil from the reptilian insincerity of it; but he ignored the feeling and instead returned the smile, uneasy.

  Was he telling the truth? Cole decided to try and find out.

  ‘Good,’ he said, pretending that his lawyer persona believed Mitsuya, ‘that’s good. And I’m sorry again about your daughter. Perhaps we might be able to work out a favorable deal in order to put those things behind us?’

  Mitsuya smiled again, slowly this time and with a great deal more sincerity, and Cole felt himself relax ever so slightly; it was the look of a man who had achieved what he wanted. Namely, a business concession. Which meant that the whole carry-on about Michiko was merely a charade, a smokescreen intended to frighten Kayne’s representative into accepting less money for his girls.

  ‘I think that this would be a reasonable way forward, Mr. Jowett,’ Mitsuya said. ‘It would smooth the path for me, a good deal would allow me to save a great deal of face in the matter.’

  Cole nodded, pleased but at the same time wary; Mitsuya could still be lying, after all. But, he noticed, they were heading toward the Ginza district, which housed many establishments run by the Omoto-gumi; and Cole had noticed that – at his mention of possible concessions – Mitsuya had nodded imperceptibly at the two men on either side of Cole who had, equally imperceptibly, relaxed their tensed bodies.