1
A Dangerous Surf
Saipan
Northern Mariana Islands
December 1989
Hours before dawn on a moonless night, two compact, muscular men struggled to remove from the trunk of their dented and coral-dusted sedan the plush oriental carpet in which Mikito Asaki’s naked and elaborately-tattooed body was rolled.
The surf at the bottom of Banzai Cliff pounded furiously so that little else could be heard, not the symphony of bush crickets or the cries of seabirds. The pair lifted the cumbersome carpet by its ends and began carrying it toward the edge, dragging the bundle whenever it became too heavy. Yuki, who lead the way in the dark, wore his shiny black hair in a long braid that flip-flopped against the back of his flowery, Hawaiian-print shirt as he trudged ahead. Twice he stumbled on loose rocks and finally lost his grip on the carpet, causing Kira, his shorter companion bringing up the rear, to topple onto the hard ground. The carpet unrolled and spilled the corpse like ingredients from a burrito.
Yuki cursed as he switched on a mini-flashlight and shined the beam toward Asaki’s body. For a moment both he and Kira stopped to marvel at the powerful Japanese underworld boss whose eyes remained open, the lids swollen and bluish, reminding them of sea bass displayed on mounds of crushed ice at Tokyo’s fish markets. The eyes were a haunting message, for both men knew the ancients believed open eyes at death indicated the deceased feared the future, presumably because of past behavior.
Asaki’s mangled arms and legs lay askew on the grass, giving the impression of a marionette puppet waiting for its master to lift the strings. His hands were raw and bloody, the thumbs and two fingers missing from each. The tips of the remaining fingers were blackened, the fingernails removed. Two men’s dress socks filled with a mix of beach pebbles and sand had been tucked into the carpet along with Asaki’s body and now they, too, rested on the ground.
Though both Yuki and Kira had gleefully participated in the torture, they remained astonished by the massive destruction their ministrations had caused. Asaki had not gone to his death willingly. For hours he resisted their cruelty, giving up no information about the millions of dollars missing from the crime syndicate’s heroin smuggling operation. He fought like a samurai until overcome by the repeated blows to his head and chest, administered mercilessly by Kira who had filled Asaki’s black socks with the sand and stones, tied them together, and used them as a blunt lethal weapon.
Asaki had at one time been Kira’s oyabun or boss in the Ichiwa Kai, the second-largest organized crime family in Japan’s underworld. Respected by many for his ability to bring peace among the warring families, Asaki was also feared for his ruthlessness in dealing with enemies.
Yuki joked in Japanese as he nudged the weighted black socks with his foot. “Asaki-san won’t need those where he’s going.” His lips curled into a cynical smile.
Kira absentmindedly rested the back of his hand atop his shaved head as he gazed upward at the night sky. His vulnerable expression — lips pressed together, eyes squinted as though signaling pain — was impossible to ignore, perhaps because it contrasted sharply with the fierce lightning bolt tattoo on his left cheek. Upon regaining his composure, he looked directly at Yuki. “You wouldn’t say that if Asaki-san was alive. You shouldn’t say it now. His spirit will hear you. Things come back around.”
The knotted socks had formed a garrote used to strangle Asaki. Other forms of torture had preceded the victim’s final breath, including the wiring of his genitals to a car battery.
Asaki’s arms, legs, torso and chest were covered in a wild mosaic of tattoos. Despite the darkness, the flashlight made it possible to see blotchy contusions from the beating amid colorful designs of snakes, birds, koi carp and dragons.
“Be quiet, you fool. Let’s go,” Yuki snarled. “We’ve spent enough time with this piece of dung. We should have shot him and been done with it. He gave us nothing.”
The two kobun stared down at the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below where the Pacific pummeled the limestone of Saipan Island. In the darkness, the sea was visible only as glimmers of foam that resembled crooked white lines on a black canvas. The men grabbed Asaki by the wrists and ankles, groaning as they swung him back and forth to build momentum until the pony-tailed Yuki gave the command to let the broken body fly. Neither looked down to see where Asaki landed.
Yuki brushed the coral dust from his loose-fitting white trousers that had been torn at the knees during his stumble along the rocky path. It was impossible to see if the fabric was flecked with blood but Yuki didn’t want to keep the flashlight switched on because it might attract unwanted attention. Japanese families mourning their dead frequently visited Banzai Cliff to light votive candles that burned late into the night.
Yuki managed a sardonic smile. “Goodbye, Asaki-san. May you enjoy crossing the Sanzu. I think the river will be full of rage wherever you swim.”
Out of habit, Kira again nervously touched the lightning bolt tattoo on his cheek with two fingers. “Leave him be. Perhaps there are things about Asaki-san we don’t know, good deeds that will allow him to wade peacefully across the river in the shallows. Maybe someone will even wash and dry his clothes.”
Yuki laughed heartily, exposing a smile that showed the gap where two front teeth had been knocked out in a bar fight. “And press his underwear with a hot iron,” he said, recalling the seething anger Kira had once shown when Asaki ordered him to wash a pair of underpants heavily soiled during an international flight.
Hurriedly they rolled the bloodied carpet, hoisted it upon their shoulders and trotted toward the battered Toyota Corolla. They haphazardly stuffed the carpet into the car trunk, planning to set it afire before morning, then drove to the private oceanfront home leased by their boss, Orochi “Big Snake” Tanaka, a man they would not dare fail.
2
Departure Plans
Tokyo, Japan
January 1990
After their third brief and secret meeting, Yoshi Yamamoto had begun to trust the American man and woman who offered him a way to escape from the death sentence imposed by Tanaka.
Over the course of several months, CIA officers Dan Stevens and Candace Cahill had convinced him to provide vital information about the region’s heroin trafficking in exchange for safe passage and an anonymous haven in the United States, where Yoshi and his 21-year-old adoptive niece, Hiraku, could spend the rest of their lives in relative peace, free from the tentacles of the yakuza.
“Mikito Asaki was a friend,” Yoshi told them during their most recent meeting, referring to the yakuza underboss found floating in the surf at Banzai Cliff. “We had similar thoughts and aspirations. He often wrote poetry. He prayed daily. He was a great artist and an honorable man.”
Stevens and Cahill offered condolences as they sat with their confidential informant in a Narita International Airport parking lot about an hour’s drive from downtown Tokyo and shared a box of Pocky chocolate biscuit sticks. They knew Yoshi enjoyed the snack and would appreciate the gesture. The CIA officers hoped to assuage Yoshi’s fear that he and Hiraku were next on Tanaka’s hit list. Yoshi repeatedly had described how his body and that of his lovely niece would be hacked to pieces and fed to the sharks off Saipan’s Marpi Point if suspected of leaking information about yakuza activities.