The Kaisho (80 page)

From his new vantage point Nicholas could see a wedge of the teeming street.
Cyclos,
three-wheeled cab-bikes, whizzed by alongside old Soviet-built trucks belching clouds of noxious diesel smoke. Flocks of cyclists squeezed by on either side of the larger vehicles, and every so often a so-called marriage taxi rumbled by, old American gas-guzzlers from the fifties or sixties, finned like a spaceship, wide as a boat. Packs of ragged street urchins played dangerous games of pickpocket with businessmen seeking to open low-overhead, high-volume manufacturing in newly booming Saigon by day and an unbridled sexual smorgasbord in Cholon by night. Soldiers in their khaki uniforms rubbed shoulders with saffron-robed Buddhist monks, scantily dressed prostitutes, and a legion of amputees and the deformed. There were always the maimed in Vietnam, young adults scarred by the war and children deformed by its aftermath, dioxin-based chemical defoliants such as Agent Orange.

As they had repeatedly for months, Nicholas’s thoughts returned to Mikio Okami. Okami was the Kaisho—the head of all the Yakuza clan heads, the
oyabun.
He had been close friends with Nicholas’s father, Col. Denis Linnear, during the American occupation of Japan in the late 1940s. Nicholas had promised his father to help Okami if the Kaisho should ever need it.

That time had come. Okami had had a stormy relationship with the members of his inner council for some time. It appeared that Okami’s final break with them had occurred over his alliance with Dominic Goldoni. The inner council had been part of a scheme that Okami had set in motion. Known as the Godaishu—Five Continents—the group implementing the scheme had been woven from carefully chosen elements within the Yakuza, Japanese government, Mafia, and U.S. government to create what could only be described as an international criminal conglomerate, skimming off staggering sums of money from arms as well as from legitimate businesses. As profits multiplied, the inner council began to agitate to move into other, darker areas of business, such as drug trafficking.

Okami and Goldoni both rebelled and had clandestinely formulated their own plan. Their alliance was betrayed; Goldoni was brutally murdered, and Okami, in his headquarters in Venice, had asked for Nicholas’s help. In Venice, Nicholas had met one of Dominic Goldoni’s sisters, Celeste, who was also pledged to help the Kaisho. In the end, Okami had been forced into hiding, one step ahead of his death. Now, while Nicholas was in Vietnam, his longtime friend ex-NYPD homicide detective Lieutenant Lew Croaker was in New York shadowing Goldoni’s other sister, Margarite, in hopes of following Okami’s Nishiki network back to Okami himself. Sooner or later, Margarite, who had inherited the mantle of power from her brother, would make contact with the network, since it was the Nishiki that provided the dirt on both influential politicians and captains of industry that had made the Goldoni family preeminent in power in America’s underworld.

Nicholas felt compassion for his friend. It could not be easy for him to maintain his distance from the woman he so obviously loved and, at the same time, discreetly spy on her every movement. Nicholas could only guess at the turbulent emotions such actions would bring up. Nevertheless, he and Croaker had determined it had to be done.

It was Nicholas’s belief that Okami had gone deep to ground. And Okami, it seemed, was leaving clues to direct Nicholas and Croaker toward Avalon Ltd. and the Nishiki network. Why? At first Nicholas believed it was because Tinh had been a supplier of the company. But now he realized Okami was telling them that Tinh was just a small piece of the puzzle. Again, Nicholas found himself wondering who Tinh’s business partners had been.

Tinh’s body had been picked up by a man posing as his brother. In fact, Tinh had no family, and it was subsequently discovered that the man who had claimed him was Yakuza. Could this man have been a member of one of the families of the Kaisho’s inner council?

Curiously, he gave as his business Avalon Ltd., a mysterious international arms-trading conglomerate. Embedded within its closely guarded computer system, Nicholas had found reference to something known as Torch 315. The assumption that he and Lew Croaker had made was that Torch was some sort of new weapon and that 315 might be a date—March 15. While they had no direct evidence for this, the fact that Okami had directed them to Avalon Ltd. gave the assumption a good deal of weight.

Nicholas knew that Okami wanted him to track down and eliminate those responsible for trying to assassinate him. Did the way lead here to Saigon where a Yakuza posing as Vincent Tinh’s brother and an employee of Avalon Ltd. has picked up the corpse of the murdered man? Why give the firm’s name—and particularly
that
firm? Was Nicholas again being subtly manipulated by the Kaisho? This was another compelling reason for him to come to Saigon himself.

Nicholas could not surrender the suspicion that Okami, in directing him toward Avalon Ltd., was also directing him toward Torch 315. It was a vital piece of the puzzle the Kaisho meant him to solve.

Nicholas saw a figure heading across Nguyen Trai Street in a direct line for the entrance of the Anh Dan Hotel. He put down his beer bottle, automatically glancing at his watch as he turned away from the window.

Midnight.

“There’s no more time for argument. Get out of here, Shindo. Now.”

His man was here.

Naohiro Ushiba, striking a familiar pose, faced the massed lights, cameras, and questions that had become a fixture at his ministry ever since the scandals of 1992 had ripped apart the tightly bound weave of Japan’s political, economic, and bureaucratic infrastructure.

Ushiba was Daijin, chief minister of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Japan’s single most powerful economic-political entity. It had been MITI that had fueled and directed Japan’s postwar economic miracle through its policy of high-speed growth. MITI had targeted which industries it deemed would benefit Japan the most, using rebates, discounts, and tax incentives to make it beneficial for the large
keiretsu—
conglomerates—to switch into these industries. With new scandals unfolding almost every week—the latest being the agonizing reformation of political power lines—the political, business, and financial infrastructure of Japan was coming apart at the seams.

The world had changed considerably in the thirty-nine years since the Liberal Democratic Party was formed. Then, it had stood for the future of Japan; the only alternatives were the Communists and Socialists. A succession of LDP prime ministers had joined with the Daijins of MITI to build Japan into the economic colossus of the present. But the LDP had grown fat and corrupt beneath the burden of almost four decades of unchallenged power, and now, in the most recent elections, they had been brought to their knees. Perhaps, Ushiba thought, it was time.

Now the inevitable had happened: it was MITI’s turn to be racked with extreme pressure and public scrutiny. Two of its senior ministers had been indicted in a computer-software kickback scheme that involved several manufacturers who had been granted an excess of dispensations from the ministry.

Ushiba, who was determined to hold the moral center in the firestorm of scandal and controversy, had dismissed the offending ministers with alacrity. Even the predatory press had been impressed with the speed and thoroughness of his internal investigation. However, damage had been done, and a cloud still hung over MITI, as evidenced by frequent newspaper editorials and magazine pieces.

As a result, every question today seemed to be excruciatingly difficult. “How can you explain away MITI’s involvement in the artificial real estate boom of the 1980s that has now turned into a disaster for our economy and our banks in particular?” asked one reporter.

“The idea behind the upward prices of Japanese real estate was sound and was researched thoroughly before being put forward,” Ushiba said smoothly. “In the eighties, the yen was so strong that our economy was being crippled by spending overseas. Raising real estate prices at home was an excellent way to regain investment in Japan.”

“Daijin, what can you tell us of the stories we’ve heard lately of Yakuza involvement in our economic politics?” another reporter asked. “Specifically, what about Akira Chosa, who seems to be moving into the power vacuum left by the disappearance of Mikio Okami.”

Ushiba cleared his throat. His lean, muscular body was surmounted by a head whose beautiful features might be termed effeminate. Unlike Western cultures, the Japanese had a history of such men being heroes.
Bishonen,
they were called, exquisite young men who existed under the aegis of an older individual.

“As you gentlemen of the press know, Akira Chosa is
oyabun
of the Kokorogurushii. This clan name is ironic and quite typical of the pathetic mentality of Yakuza.
Kokorogurushii
means ‘painful.’ The word
Yakuza
is made up of the numbers in a losing hand at gambling; there is, always, within the Yakuza an undercurrent of a kind of self-flagellation, a sense of having to pay a penalty for living a life outside the law.”

Ushiba looked around the room, his dark eyes liquid in the TV lights. “Having said that, let me also state that the Yakuza have been more active of late. In fact, we have uncovered a systematic pattern of ethically questionable business relationships between individuals within the Yakuza and certain major equity and financial firms. Chosa is, indeed, exerting some muscle, but I can assure you that MITI and the Tokyo prosecutor’s office are working together to see that these extralegal connections are ended once and for all.” Ushiba leaned forward a fraction to emphasize his next words. “Chosa is just one of the
oyabun
whose business is like a poison in the blood of Japan. It must be expunged as rapidly as possible.”

“Can you tell us what exactly is being done, Daijin?” a third reporter queried. “The Japanese economy is in bad enough shape without Yakuza clans draining it still further.”

“I agree completely,” Ushiba said. “I assure you that we at MITI are on a crusade to curb all illegal activities of any nature. We must, at all costs, restore public confidence in our way of life. I needn’t remind you that over the decades MITI has been the staunch watchdog in our country’s phenomenal but often difficult and painful economic growth. MITI never once flinched from its duties. Now we see our mandate as expanding. You can count on MITI to protect the interests of the people of Japan.” He went on to give them an impressive list of statistics his ministry heads had compiled on areas of corruption that had been cleaned up or were currently under investigation, answered several more questions, then turned the press conference over to a dark-faced man of impressive countenance, Tanaka Gin, the most renowned member of the terrifying Tokyo prosecutors with whom Ushiba had been liaising for months.

Back in his office, Ushiba ran a hand through his hair and found it wet. With distaste, he went into his private washroom, swallowed a pill. He pushed a towel over his hair, then splashed cold water on his face.

Though he had initiated these press conferences, he found them to be an increasing burden. However, he was locked into them. He had become like a poster boy or a talento. His brainchild had given him a kind of instant celebrity, and since this devolved onto MITI, it was deemed beneficial for the beleaguered bureaucracy as a whole.

His intercom was buzzing when he returned to the office. His secretary announced that Yukio Haji wished to see him. Ushiba glanced at his jam-packed schedule book. He did not see Haji’s name listed, but since Haji was one of the young ministers whom Ushiba was training, he bade his secretary send the man in.

Haji, in a somber mood, entered, sitting in a steel-frame chair that Ushiba indicated. Haji was an earnest young man who had come to MITI with the highest possible grades, honors, and recommendations. Ushiba had been determined from the outset to make something special of him.

“Daijin, I know how busy you are, but there is a serious matter that cannot wait.”

Ushiba sat back, lit a cigarette while he studied the young man’s unlined face. Here was a product of the new Japan, under pressure to perform at full capacity at every level of his education, examined, probed, pushed at every level after graduation. Being accepted at MITI was his reward, but Ushiba made certain he knew that was not the end of it. Haji might be a product of postmodern life, but Ushiba was seeing to it that he was possessed of
kanryodo,
the spirit of the samurai-bureaucrat. A code of honor, as strict as the ancient samurai’s Bushido, operated here, and recruits either accepted it as gospel or they were transferred to another, lesser ministry.

“What is the problem?” Ushiba said.

“I went to my checking account to pay my rent this month and found that I had insufficient funds.” Haji drew forth a folded sheet of paper. “Please accept my resignation. I am leaving ministry service. It is clear that I have worked hard but learned little.”

Ushiba took the proffered resignation but did not open it. Instead, he opened his lighter, put the flame to the corner of the paper. When the last ash had crumbled from his fingers, he said, “How much do you owe?”

When Haji told him, he wrote out a check, which he handed over to his astonished protégé. “Read the
Hagakure,
the
Book of the Samurai.
Your ignorance of its wisdom is your true transgression.” He did not ask what Haji had spent his money on because he did not care. All that mattered was that
kanryodo
be adhered to, that misconduct within the class remain undetected by those outside. “Youthful indiscretion is understandable, even to be expected. I do not intend to lose one of my best recruits because of it. I am your superior and so responsible for you. Take the check and we will say no more of it. The matter is settled.”

The Vietnamese was not much of a man. Nicholas was disappointed by the appearance of the slightly built individual in the doorway to his hotel room. The cockroach was gone, scuttling for its lair the moment the rap fell upon the closed door. Nicholas had stood aside while he opened the door left-handed.