Cure

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Oh what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

—SIR WALTER SCOTT, Marmion, canto vi, stanza 17

PROLOGUE

FEBRUARY 28, 2010

SUNDAY, 2:06 a.m.

KYOTO, JAPAN

I
t 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 2

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-

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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 ryokan, or traditional Japanese inn. To Ben’s horror, Kaniji arrived dressed all in black, as though he was heading off to a masquerade ball. Over a black turtleneck and loose black pajama-like pants he wore a black martial-arts jacket cinched with a flat black belt. On his feet were black cross-trainers. Clutched in his hand was a black balaclava. To make matters worse, he spoke only limited English, making communication difficult.

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.

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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 writhing sandwich, with the guard on the bottom and Ben on top.

At the moment their bodies collided, Kaniji had brought the knife down suddenly, plunging its tip into the sulcus between the guard’s collarbone and the top edge of his shoulder. When the group hit the floor the blade was driven home, piercing the man’s carotid arch in the process.

Other than the whoosh of air expelled from Kaniji’s and the guard’s lungs as they all collided with the floor, the first thing Ben was aware of was intermittent jets of spouting fluid. It took him a moment in the confusion of the event to realize that it was blood. As Ben scrambled away he could see that the blood was coming in progressively smaller spurts as the guard’s heart extruded the rest of his total of six quarts.

Although Kaniji was now covered with blood, Ben had been hit with only a few large drops, which ran down his forehead when he stood up. He’d feverishly brushed them off with the back of his free hand and then shook the hand.

For a second Ben stared down at the two intertwined bodies awash in red, one still struggling to catch his breath, the other motionless and pale. Without another thought, Ben took off. Clutching the laboratory books under his left arm like a football, he ran headlong back the route he and Kaniji had taken on their way to Satoshi’s old office.

Bursting forth from the building’s main entrance on the ground floor, Ben hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do. Without the ignition keys to Kaniji’s aged Datsun, there was no need to retrace the route to where the car was parked in a small copse of trees. As his mind raced through various but not too auspicious possibilities, he was shocked into action by the distant sound of approaching sirens. Although lost in a foreign city, he was aware of the Kamo River off to the west, which knifed through Kyoto north to south, and was near to the ryokan where he was staying in the old city.

With the stamina of someone who participated in triathlons, Ben struck off using the stars as a guide to get to the river. He ran swiftly and smoothly, trying to be as silent as possible. After only three blocks he heard the police sirens trail off, suggesting that the authorities had already reached the lab. Clamping his jaw shut tightly, Ben upped his pace. The last thing he wanted was to be stopped.

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Anxious and trembling, he would have trouble answering the simplest of questions, let alone explaining why he was out running at that time of night carrying books taken from a Kyoto University lab. When he reached the river, he turned north and settled into a rapid but consistent stride, as if he was in a race.

THREE WEEKS LATER

MARCH 22, 2010

MONDAY, 9:37 a.m.

TOKYO, JAPAN

N
aoki Tajiri had been in the mizu shōbai, or “water trade,” for longer than he cared to admit. Starting at the very bottom just after high school, washing sake cups, beer mugs, and shōchū glasses, he’d slowly moved up the ladder of responsibility. To add to his résumé, he’d made it a point to work in all manner of establishments, from the traditional nomiya, or drinking shop, to hard-core prostitution bar-lounges run by the Yakuza, the Japanese version of the Mafia.

Naoki himself was not a member of any gang by choice, but he was tolerated and even in demand by the Yakuza for his experience, which was the reason he was the general manager of The Paradise, one of the most popular full-service night spots in the Akasaka district of Tokyo.

Although Naoki had begun his career in his small hometown, he’d moved to progressively larger towns over the years, finally reaching the big time in Kyoto, then Tokyo. Over the years Naoki had thought he’d seen just about everything associated with the water trade, including money, alcohol, gambling, sex, and murder. Until that morning.

It started with a phone call just before six a.m. Irritated at whoever was calling him just after he’d fallen asleep, he answered gruffly but soon changed his tune.

The caller was Mitsuhiro Narumi, the saiko komon, or senior adviser, to the oyabun, or head of the Inagawa-kai, the Yakuza organization that owned The Paradise. For someone so senior to be calling him, a mere general manager of a nightclub, sent a shiver of fear down Naoki’s spine.

Naoki feared that something horrendous had happened at The Paradise overnight and, as the general manager, it was his responsibility to be aware of everything. But it was something else entirely: something rather extraordinary.

Narumi-san was calling to inform him that Hisayuki Ishii, the oyabun, or head of another Yakuza family, would be coming to The Paradise for an important meeting with Kenichi Fujiwara, senior vice minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry: a very high-level, politically connected bureaucrat. Narumi-san had gone on to say that Naoki would be personally responsible for the meeting to go well. “Give them whatever they need or desire,” was his final order.

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Relieved the call was not about a serious problem, Naoki then became curious why an oyabun of another Yakuza organization would be coming to an Inagawa-kai property, especially to talk with a government minister! But it was not his position to ask, and Narumi-san did not offer any explanations before abruptly terminating the conversation.

As the hour neared ten a.m., Naoki began to calm down. All was arranged. The regular furniture had been pushed aside and a special table had been placed in the center of the main cocktail lounge on the second floor. Naoki’s best bartender had been hauled out of his bed in case there was a request for exotic drinks. Four hostesses had been summoned in case their services were required by his visitors. The final touch was an ashtray, along with an assortment of cigarette packages, both foreign and domestic, at each of the two seats.

The oyabun arrived first, along with a cohort of cookie-cutter minions, all outfitted in black sharkskin suits, dark sunglasses, and spiked, heavily pomaded hair. The oyabun was dressed more conservatively in an expertly tailored dark wool Italian suit, worn with highly polished, English wingtip shoes. His hair was short and carefully groomed, and his manicure was perfect. He was the epitome of the highly successful businessman who ran a number of legitimate businesses on top of his responsibilities as the head of the Aizukotetsu-kai crime family, operating in Kyoto. He passed the bowing Naoki as if Naoki was a mere fixture of the environment. Once ensconced upstairs at the table, he brusquely accepted a splash of whiskey while distractedly shuffling through the assorted cigarette packs. As an added distraction, Naoki had motioned for his shift manager to bring out the women.