door.
“Enter,” called out Robert DeClercq.
The view from the corner office, even on this overcast afternoon, took in the exuberant fall colors of Queen Elizabeth Park. Facing the two window walls was a horseshoe-shaped desk made from three Victorian library tables. In the crook of the U sat an antique chair crowned with the crest of the Mounted Police. The paperwork on the desk was piled around the computer, printer, scanner, fax, and telephone, marching neatly from the In table to the Out. The picture on the wall behind this workstation was Sydney Hall’s Last Great Council of the West, a sweeping canvas of redcoats, their hands on their swords, meeting feathered Indians at Blackfoot Crossing. Command structure is the key to crisis management, and this felt like the office of both a macro and a micro overseer. When facedwith a Gordian knot of red tape, this officer, like Alexander the Great, would simply draw his regimental sword and slash through to a resolution.
This was the office of a man who got things done.
No bullshit.
“Mr. Roger Yamada,” DeClercq said, “meet Sergeant Dane Winter and Corporal Jackie Hett.”
The diplomat who greeted them was in late middle age. He bowed slightly and shook their hands, blending both Japanese and North American cultures. His dark, graying hair matched the color of his impeccable business suit; both had been cut conservatively to suggest a reserved manner. His face was a mix of Pacific Rim races.
“Mr. Yamada is with the Japanese consulate,” said DeClercq. “As you can see, he was just beginning to fill me in on a yakuza link between our countries.”
No time wasted.
Straight to the case on the wall.
The Strategy Wall was the command center of DeClercq’s office. It stretched from floor to ceiling along the length of the unbroken wall and wrapped around the corner to the edge of the painting. An expanse of corkboard onto which the chief pinned a visual overview of the most important cases being handled by Special X, the Strategy Wall was like the map tables wartime generals used to plot their campaign strategies.
DeClercq—who was about a decade younger than Yamada—had less gray at the temples of his dark hair and even darker, seen-it-all eyes. Lean and wiry in the blueserge uniform of commissioned officers, he wore the crown and two pips of his rank on the epaulets, the badge of the force as collar dogs on the jacket, and his long-service medal—with three stars known as the Milky Way—on the breast pocket.
“The yakuza,” Roger Yamada said, “is not what it used to be. Do you know its history?”
“Educate us,” said DeClercq.
Jackie wondered where the diplomat had learned to speak English with a North American accent.
Not in Japan.
“Yakuza members of old prided themselves on following the code of bushido. Not any more. The gangs are degraded now. This man”—he pointed at a headshot of a young Japanese on the Strategy Wall—“represents the new norm. He reflects the trend toward declining cohesion and obedience among yakuza members. He just sees crime as a way to make himself rich. He controls the odious importation of child prostitutes from China. His name is Kazuya Ochi.
“Kazuya—I’ll use his first name—flies to Vancouver a few times a year to recruit blonde prostitutes. He was last here four days ago. The Japanese National Police Agency suspects that this is where he deals with the snakeheads, Chinese triad smugglers who traffic in underage girls. When he returned to Tokyo, he was met at Narita Airport by his uncle, Makoto Ochi.”
From a leather briefcase, Yamada withdrew a second photograph and passed it to DeClercq.
The chief tacked a mug shot of a tough-looking thug to the Strategy Wall. Makoto’s face was criss-crossed by scars.
“The national police followed them to a building we know well in the Ginza district. That, I’m sure you know, is the shopping and nightlife mecca of Tokyo. In 1945, Ginza was all but
“Enter,” called out Robert DeClercq.
The view from the corner office, even on this overcast afternoon, took in the exuberant fall colors of Queen Elizabeth Park. Facing the two window walls was a horseshoe-shaped desk made from three Victorian library tables. In the crook of the U sat an antique chair crowned with the crest of the Mounted Police. The paperwork on the desk was piled around the computer, printer, scanner, fax, and telephone, marching neatly from the In table to the Out. The picture on the wall behind this workstation was Sydney Hall’s Last Great Council of the West, a sweeping canvas of redcoats, their hands on their swords, meeting feathered Indians at Blackfoot Crossing. Command structure is the key to crisis management, and this felt like the office of both a macro and a micro overseer. When facedwith a Gordian knot of red tape, this officer, like Alexander the Great, would simply draw his regimental sword and slash through to a resolution.
This was the office of a man who got things done.
No bullshit.
“Mr. Roger Yamada,” DeClercq said, “meet Sergeant Dane Winter and Corporal Jackie Hett.”
The diplomat who greeted them was in late middle age. He bowed slightly and shook their hands, blending both Japanese and North American cultures. His dark, graying hair matched the color of his impeccable business suit; both had been cut conservatively to suggest a reserved manner. His face was a mix of Pacific Rim races.
“Mr. Yamada is with the Japanese consulate,” said DeClercq. “As you can see, he was just beginning to fill me in on a yakuza link between our countries.”
No time wasted.
Straight to the case on the wall.
The Strategy Wall was the command center of DeClercq’s office. It stretched from floor to ceiling along the length of the unbroken wall and wrapped around the corner to the edge of the painting. An expanse of corkboard onto which the chief pinned a visual overview of the most important cases being handled by Special X, the Strategy Wall was like the map tables wartime generals used to plot their campaign strategies.
DeClercq—who was about a decade younger than Yamada—had less gray at the temples of his dark hair and even darker, seen-it-all eyes. Lean and wiry in the blueserge uniform of commissioned officers, he wore the crown and two pips of his rank on the epaulets, the badge of the force as collar dogs on the jacket, and his long-service medal—with three stars known as the Milky Way—on the breast pocket.
“The yakuza,” Roger Yamada said, “is not what it used to be. Do you know its history?”
“Educate us,” said DeClercq.
Jackie wondered where the diplomat had learned to speak English with a North American accent.
Not in Japan.
“Yakuza members of old prided themselves on following the code of bushido. Not any more. The gangs are degraded now. This man”—he pointed at a headshot of a young Japanese on the Strategy Wall—“represents the new norm. He reflects the trend toward declining cohesion and obedience among yakuza members. He just sees crime as a way to make himself rich. He controls the odious importation of child prostitutes from China. His name is Kazuya Ochi.
“Kazuya—I’ll use his first name—flies to Vancouver a few times a year to recruit blonde prostitutes. He was last here four days ago. The Japanese National Police Agency suspects that this is where he deals with the snakeheads, Chinese triad smugglers who traffic in underage girls. When he returned to Tokyo, he was met at Narita Airport by his uncle, Makoto Ochi.”
From a leather briefcase, Yamada withdrew a second photograph and passed it to DeClercq.
The chief tacked a mug shot of a tough-looking thug to the Strategy Wall. Makoto’s face was criss-crossed by scars.
“The national police followed them to a building we know well in the Ginza district. That, I’m sure you know, is the shopping and nightlife mecca of Tokyo. In 1945, Ginza was all but
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