He understood that just muttering the word yakuza scared people throughout Japan. If the security guards felt they were up against the Japanese mafia, he’d have a hard time keeping them on the payroll. A man will throw himself in the line of fire for his country’s supreme leader, Cain knew, but finding people to do it for a businessman was a whole other struggle.
Tanaka had brought in a copy of the Japan Times, an English-language publication.
“You’re a hero,” Tanaka announced in front of the group.
“Only in my mom’s eyes,” Cain replied, trying to diffuse any praise. “Hand me that paper.”
The front page showed a picture of Cain, with bloodstained hands, with Mr. Sato in the back of the tattered Nissan President. The headline, in one-inch bold print, read THE GAIJIN!
“Seriously?” Cain said. “We saved his life, but that picture looks like I’m about to kill Sato-san.” He began to read the story underneath the headline: “Exiled American Secret Service paid to protect Sato…” Cain rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. I knew the scandal had made international news, he thought, but damn! It’s like getting sprayed by a skunk: you just can’t escape the stink.
The guards laughed, to Cain’s relief. Hopefully I can keep them motivated and working as a team. “Of course they would have to print that picture, and not the one of me helping get broken glass out of Umiko’s hair,” he said, and shook his head with embarrassment. “My sister already called me this morning to rub it in. She said I looked like a wild animal, and that I perfectly embodied the gaijin stereotype. I tried to explain to her that the blood was from providing lifesaving first aid to Sato-san.”
“The media loves it,” said Aito, a friend of Tanaka’s who’d recently joined the security team. “This will be their best-selling paper of the year. Right, Tanaka-san?”
“Yes,” Tanaka replied. “Bonnie-san is right. It makes the gaijin look like a real barbarian. I am happy to tell my friends I work for an American cowboy.”
“Yes!” Aito agreed, and laughed.
“The good news,” Tanaka said, “is that I don’t think we have to worry about any more attacks on Sato-san. With your picture, everyone will surely be too scared to attack now.”
“Thanks, guys,” Cain said. “But we can’t drop our guard. We have to stay vigilant. There is a high possibility of more attacks. A lot of people lost money, and people will do crazy things for money.”
Cain was getting more comfortable with his team members every day, but he still didn’t know enough about them to completely trust them. There just wasn’t enough time to properly vet the security detail, especially since he had hired additional bodies at the last minute. Secret Service background checks for an agent took a year; investigators would go all the way back and interview an applicant’s kindergarten teacher.
A female receptionist announced over the company-wide PA system, “Cain-san, you have a telephone call on line number two.”
Who would be calling me at work? Cain thought. Bonnie would just call my cell phone.
Chapter 46
He walked to his office and picked up the phone. “This is Cain Lemaire speaking.”
“I’m sorry, but I asked to speak to the gaijin.” The male voice on the line had a distinctive Southern accent.
Cain smiled as he recognized the voice from what seemed like another lifetime. “This couldn’t be the wet-behind-the-ears pup from Saint Augustine, Florida, who used to yelp in my David Clarks all those years ago, could it?”
“Holy shit! Hurricane, it is you!” Hurricane was Cain’s navy call sign, but nobody had used that in years.
“SFB Alvarez. I can’t believe it,” Cain said.
“That’s Chief Alvarez to you, buddy.”
“Jesus Christ! The navy will promote anyone nowadays. They must have short memories,” he teased his former flight engineer.
“Obviously someone has a memory like an elephant.” The chief laughed.
“How could I forget that?” Cain asked incredulously. “You almost got us court-martialed.”
Naval aviators rarely got nicknames for things they did well; they were usually given when a service member screwed up. Alvarez was no different. SFB stood for “shit for brains.” It had come from a time when Alvarez’s dyslexia had caused him to transpose two grid digits on a map, causing him to mistakenly drop ordinance too close to an American submarine during a training exercise. Cain had recognized the error immediately and radioed the sub’s captain to take emergency evasive maneuvers. After the disaster was narrowly avoided, the submarine’s captain screamed furiously over the radio,