Pacific Poison Read online

  Pacific Poison

  A Yakuza Thriller

  David Liscio

  Copyright © 2020 David Liscio

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, product names, or named features are only used for reference, and are assumed to be property of their respective owners.

  This book is dedicated to the law enforcement officers, judges, government prosecutors, investigative journalists, special-ops teams and military units worldwide, who choose to make a difference by keeping evil in check.

  Contents

  1. A Dangerous Surf

  2. Departure Plans

  3. Death Along the Poppy Trail

  4. A History Lesson

  5. A Dragon’s Delight

  6. Watchful Eyes

  7. Peacock in a Cage

  8. The Rise of Hideyo Mashima

  9. A Box of Rocks

  10. A Night Out in Garapan

  11. Searching for Little Peacock

  12. Dawn Raid in Tanapag

  13. Plucking Little Peacock

  14. The Lucky Carp Casino

  15. After the Raid

  16. The Evidence is Missing

  17. Tanaka’s Rage

  18. Akumu’s Prey

  19. Yakuza Justice

  20. White Powder on Sugar Dock

  21. A Snake in the Grass

  22. Return from Sand Land

  23. Picnic with the Oyabun

  24. Wanted: One Sniper Team

  25. Three’s a Crowd

  26. A Nightmare in Black

  27. Here Come the Tattooed Men

  28. Who Killed Mikito Asaki?

  29. A Meeting of the Mob

  30. Home Movie Night

  31. Justice in Garapan

  32. Where is Hiraku?

  33. Donuts and Secrets

  34. You’re Guilty Even if You’re Not

  35. A Bit of Black Magic

  36. Tagging Along with Tanaka

  37. What’s for Dinner?

  38. Fugu on the Menu

  39. A Chat Before Dinner

  40. Setting the Peacock Free

  41. Everyone to the Rescue

  42. Guess Who’s a Guest?

  43. Waiting for a Ride

  44. Frantic Flight

  45. LZ Hot

  46. Cave Dwellers

  47. A Difficult Touch Down

  48. Getting the Story Straight

  49. Underground Art

  50. Let’s Make a Deal

  51. Special Delivery

  52. Vice Grip

  53. Crunch Time

  54. Church Service

  55. That Sinking Feeling

  56. The Best Made Plans

  57. Another Day in Paradise

  58. The Langley Way

  59. Picking Up the Pieces

  60. Case Closed

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Also by David Liscio

  DEADLY FARE: Excerpt

  Also by David Liscio

  BLOOD SONS: Excerpt

  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 d
own 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.

  “Once we have all the information, we’ll set a time and place where you and your niece will meet our extraction team. You’ll be flown out of the region, but not aboard one of our diplomatic aircraft,” Cahill explained matter-of-factly, as though giving friends directions to a soccer game. “You’ll travel by other means. No need for passports. You’ll have a complete set of unique identification documents by the time you touch down in the United States.”

  Yoshi seemed relieved. “I want to trust you. There are many in our yakuza family who do not believe in profiting through the sale of drugs. We know what heartbreak it can bring.”

  Stevens nodded respectfully. “We’re on the same team, Yoshi. Help us put an end to this madness and we’ll make sure you have a good life in America.”

  The CIA officers were demanding yet fair. They made it clear Yoshi needed to obtain a few more bank account numbers, drug-smuggling routes from Thailand to the United States, the identity of ships or planes involved in the operation, and delivery schedules on land and at sea – then they’d be ready to go. Yoshi shared the news with Hiraku upon returning to the small Tokyo apartment they shared ever since a tragic automobile accident had claimed the girl’s parents eleven years earlier.

  “Do you really believe Tanaka wants you dead and not just punished? Maybe he wants only a finger. Maybe yubitsume is enough.”

  “He’ll stop at nothing until I’m dead. He’s a snake who wants nothing more than to sink his fangs into my flesh and devour me.”

  “Then we should leave soon.”

  “If anything happens to me, Hiraku, you must still meet with the Americans. They’ve promised to take you to safety and I believe them.”

  “Nothing will happen to you, my beloved uncle. We’ll leave together while there’s still time and start a new life. No more yakuza. We’ll live in America – maybe in Philadelphia where I will eat delicious cheesesteak sandwiches for breakfast and Smartfood popcorn for lunch and buy beautiful new clothes at the shopping mall every day while you smoke your pipe.”

  Yoshi smiled Buddha-like, peacefully, as though embracing his niece’s dream, but deep inside he felt a dark undercurrent and sensed fate had something completely different in store. The ancestors were reaching out, calling for him to join them.

  3

  Death Along the Poppy Trail

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  March 1990

  Stuart Ashwood swung his legs off the antique wooden desk in his office, folded his arms and stared directly at the two CIA officers sitting before him in wheeled swivel chairs.

  “Looks like you two are headed to the Pacific.”

  Eighteen months earlier, Ashwood had replaced Preston Barlow as the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations. Barlow had bungled a major agency operation in Cuba and the international embarrassment and political fallout it had caused was still rippling through the power corridors of DC.

  Hannah Summers and Bill Carrington — the two agency operatives now hyperactively twirling their chairs — were well aware of the details, having done their utmost in Cuba to keep the situation from further unraveling.

  Ashwood leaned forward, hands planted firmly on his desk. “For the time being, let me lay this mission out in an abbreviated nutshell and then we’ll get into specifics.”

  A picture of health in his mid-50s, with a toned physique and thick, smoky gray hair neatly parted to one side, the affable Ashwood was known behind his back as Smilin’ Stu. But today he wasn’t smiling. The deputy director seemed uneasy as he adjusted his regimental striped tie and tugged at the white cuffs of his powder blue oxford shirt. He brushed a fleck of lint from his tailored navy suit jacket and cleared his throat.

  “What I’m about to tell you comes straight from President Bush. Last September, in his first televised national address as Chief Executive, he called drugs the greatest domestic threat facing our nation today. I’d have to agree with him. The tragedy and trauma that drug abuse causes to American families is immeasurable.”

  Hannah stopped fidgeting in her chair and rolled it closer to the deputy director’s desk. Carrington did the same.

  In Ashwood’s opinion, President George H.W. Bush had sent an incomplete message when he held up a bag of seized crack cocaine during that speech and told his fellow Americans the drugs were being smuggled into the country from Central and South America. The President had pointed a finger at Colombia, where a steady stream of misery was fueled daily by greedy narcos like Pablo Escobar. The President’s televised broadcast had been used to announce the authorization by Congress of funding and military equipment that would be provided to an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies to fight corrupt and powerful drug cartels south of the U.S. border. President Bush made no mention of Japan’s criminal underworld, about twenty organized crime families otherwise known collectively as the yakuza, which was responsible for smuggling heroin into the United States at an unprecedented rate.

  Hannah’s face paled. She gazed off
into the distance, lost in thought, replaying the painful memories from thirteen years earlier that refused to die, images and words that forever captured her younger sister Rachel’s near-fatal cocaine overdose.

  Hannah had called 9-1-1 and requested an ambulance after the sixteen-year-old complained of chest pains, nausea and feeling overheated. When the girl began to vomit and a series of tremors and spasms overtook her body, Hannah suspected the symptoms were caused by drugs, and not by an allergic reaction to undercooked cheeseburgers from the local fast-food joint, or some errant airborne virus traveling on a stranger’s sneeze.

  When Hannah sniffed her sister’s breath, there was no odor of alcohol. Hannah had heard stories of how her younger sister could keep up with the boys when it came to pounding down beers or drinking shots. The girl’s pupils were dilated.