TADAMASA TSUJI:
VACCARRO CRIME FAMILY: Long Island Mafia family run by capo Louie Barbera
DR. CALVIN WASHINGTON: deputy chief medical examiner, NYC
RIKI WATANABE: enforcer for Hisayuki Ishii
LETICA WILSON: nanny for Laurie and Jack’s son, JJ
MARLENE WILSON: receptionist at OCME
WARREN WILSON: basketball buddy of Jack’s who is the neighborhood gang leader
YAKUZA: organized crime organization in Japan
YAMAGUCHI-GUMI: Yakuza organization centered in Kobe, Japan
CHONG YONG: enforcer for Hisayuki Ishii
PROLOGUE
FEBRUARY 28, 2010
SUNDAY, 2:06 a.m.
KYOTO, JAPAN
It happened in the blink of an eye. One instant everything was fine, considering the fact that Benjamin Corey was breaking into a foreign biological laboratory; the next instant it was a disaster in the making, and Ben Corey went from reasonably relaxed to simply terrified. Within seconds of the overhead lights flashing on, flooding the entire floor with raw fluorescent light, a cold sweat rose on his forehead, his heart began pounding in his chest, and, of all things, the tips of his fingers became numb, a fight-or-flight symptom he’d never experienced previously. What was supposed to be a walk in the park, as described the previous evening in Tokyo by his Japanese Yakuza contact, was now threatening to be anything but. An elderly uniformed guard approached down the lab’s central corridor, his visored hat tipped back from his forehead, a flashlight held high in his right hand near the side of his head. As he advanced he swung both his head and the flashlight beam down the aisles between the rows of laboratory benches. He held a cell phone against his left ear and spoke in a hushed staccato voice, apparently keeping Kyoto University’s central security office apprised of his progress investigating a lone light that had suddenly gone on in an office of the third floor in an otherwise completely dark and supposedly empty building. Each approaching step brought forth an ominous jangle from a large ring of keys clipped to his belt.
This was Ben Corey’s first episode of breaking and entering, and he promised himself it would be his last. He shouldn’t have been there, considering the fact that he was an M.D./Ph.D., a graduate of Harvard Business School, and the founding CEO of a promising start-up company called iPS USA LLC. He’d formed the company with the hopes of shepherding the commercialization of human induced pluripotent stem, or iPS, cells and, in the process, turning himself into a billionaire several times over.
The specific reason that Ben was there at that moment was under his arm: several lab workbooks owned by a former Kyoto University researcher, Satoshi Machita. In the books was proof that it was he, Satoshi Machita, who had been first to make iPS cells. Ben had found the books in the side office from which he’d just emerged. Satoshi had told Ben exactly where the books would be and essentially authorized Ben to get them, which Ben had used as the rationalization for his participation in the break-in. But there were other factors as well: Over the previous couple of years, Ben had struggled through a midlife crisis that still robbed him of age-appropriate maturity. He’d divorced his wife, with whom he’d had three children, now grown; quit his steady job at a highly successful biotech giant; married his former secretary, Stephanie Baker, and quickly fathered a new baby boy; lost forty pounds and took up triathlons and extreme skiing; and embarked on the risky venture of iPS USA at a time when raising capital was difficult at best, and to do so required significant compromises on his part, particularly regarding the source of the money.
In the wake of such significant life changes, Ben began to pride himself on being a “doer” rather than a “spectator.” When he’d come in contact with Satoshi Machita and the researcher’s story, he’d jumped at the chance to become involved. Soon Ben had come to consider Satoshi’s lab books as potential manna from heaven. If what Satoshi had said about being the first person to make iPS cells from his own fibroblasts was even half true, Ben was confident the books’ contents were going to shake up the biotechnology patent world by supplying the foundation of iPS USA’s intellectual property.
From then on, over a period of many months, Ben had personally taken responsibility to recover them. Even so, he’d not considered participating in the actual theft from Kyoto University until the Yakuza mob boss he’d met in Tokyo, in a meeting set up by an equivalent Mafia mob boss in New York who was supplying Ben’s seed capital, convinced him how easy it was going to be. “I doubt the door to the lab will even be locked,” the nattily dressed man in his Brioni suit had said when he’d met him at the bar of The Peninsula in Tokyo. “At two o’clock in the morning there might even be students working at their benches. Just ignore them, get whatever belongs to your employee, and walk out. There will be no problem, according to my sources. I have you set up with one of our finest Yamaguchi-gumi enforcers, who will meet you at your Kyoto hotel. You don’t even have to go into the lab yourself if you don’t care to. Just describe what you want him to get and where you think they will be found.”
At that point the new “doer” Ben had thought there was poetic justification for him to actually participate in the final step of what had been a months-long process. As important as the books were, he wanted to be one hundred percent certain the right lab books were taken. And on top of that, the rightful owner had authorized their recovery, so in his mind he was not stealing. Instead, he was acting as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” the panicked Ben squeaked to his co-conspirator, the so-called “real” professional, Kaniji Goto. The two men were crouched behind one of the lab benches. In addition to the jangling keys, they could hear the uniformed guard’s sandals scuffing against the lab’s tiled floor.
With obvious irritation, Kaniji motioned for Ben to shut up. Ben took the order in stride, but what he couldn’t abide was that Kaniji had withdrawn a dagger from somewhere inside his outfit. The sudden light in the room glinted blindingly off the knife’s stainless-steel blade. It was clear to Ben that Kaniji was intent on some kind of violent confrontation instead of getting them the hell out of the building.
As the seconds ticked away and the guard drew closer, Ben upbraided himself for not aborting the mission when the supposedly professional Kaniji had first appeared an hour earlier to pick Ben up at his
But the combination of poor communication, the foreign locale, and the excitement of getting hold of the lab books all contributed to Ben’s willingness to let the raid go forward, despite the alarm bells going off in his head. And now, as Kaniji crept forward, brandishing the knife, Ben’s anxiety ratcheted skyward.
Hoping to avoid any confrontation between Kaniji and the guard, Ben quickly duckwalked forward and caught up with Kaniji. In desperation he grabbed Kaniji’s belt and yanked him backward.
Losing his balance, Kaniji fell over onto his buttocks but was up in a flash, spinning in the process like the martial arts professional he reputedly was. Momentarily flummoxed about having been unexpectedly upended by his partner in crime, he still managed to restrain his reflex attack. Instead he confronted Ben with an aggressively defensive stance. The knife tip quivered inches from Ben’s nose.
Ben froze in place, trying desperately to judge Kaniji’s mind-set while fearing that any movement on his part might unleash the attack that Kaniji was actively suppressing. It wasn’t easy. The balaclava Kaniji had donned before they had entered the laboratory completely masked his face, making it impossible to read his expression. Even the eye slits were featureless black holes. A second later both Ben and Kaniji were blinded by the guard’s flashlight.
Kaniji reacted by pure reflex. Spinning away from Ben and letting loose with a scream, he charged at the shocked guard, lifting his knife above his head, holding it like a dagger. Ben also sprang forward and again grabbed Kaniji’s belt. But rather than preventing Kaniji’s forward momentum, Ben found himself yanked ahead. The moment Kaniji collided full tilt with the guard, Ben slammed into Kaniji’s back, and all three plunged to the floor in a kind of
