SAITON – TWO MONTHS AGO
Near the small village of Saiton, sixty miles north of Tokyo, Yamoura Pharmaceutical’s chairman, Lumo Kinotoa, was hosting a ‘chess evening’ in the reception room of a villa he normally used at weekends. The beautifully restored house was on a site of thirty acres, with surrounding woodlands providing privacy. Security personnel manned the gate and patrolled the boundaries. Kinotoa’s passion was military history and his chess evenings involved anything but chess, but he enjoyed the cover story, given the strategic planning that took place at these ever-more-frequent meetings.
‘Gentlemen, your attention please,’ said the silver-haired Kinotoa as he tapped the table with his pen. To his left sat Tsan Yohoto. Across the table was the thin-faced Dr Juro Naga, a renowned consultant in biochemistry and lynchpin of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, established by the Japanese government after the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Beside Dr Naga sat Kazuhiro Saito, president of the Woko Corporation, the largest producer of computers in Asia. A jovial, overweight man, in his early seventies, he was an expert in branding and international marketing. His family had been killed by US Marines on Saipan when they overran the island to use it as a launch pad for the bombing of Japanese cities. All present were double-digit millionaires, many times over. All were at the height of their powers, nearing the end of their careers, but capable of allocating large sums of personal and corporate capital to their ‘special projects’. All shared the common bond of having suffered the loss of their families to the Americans and all nurtured a deep desire to exact a fitting revenge, for the suffering and shame inflicted on their people.
The Japanese hosts all wore expensively tailored, dark suits with sober ties, as the business of the Chess Club was conducted in a formal and serious manner. An antique chessboard with hand-carved ivory pieces sat at the centre of the highly polished table. Although they had met regularly around this table for over twenty years, on this night the atmosphere was particularly charged.
‘Gentlemen,’ repeated Kinotoa, ‘let me extend our warmest welcome and thanks to our friends, for making the journey here.’
He made a half turn and bowed to the two Arabs who were seated at the end of the table. ‘It is indeed an honour to finally meet such long-standing friends and allies.’
The visitors nodded graciously and both acknowledged the tea, which Kazuhiro Saito poured for them.
Kiyo Arai, a tall, well-built Arab in his mid-fifties, with brown eyes and a greying beard, was one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. He had travelled to Japan with Kazuman Tokash, another of al-Qaeda’s most senior members. In contrast to Arai, Tokash, also in his mid-fifties, was of a stocky, powerful build, with a thick black beard. Their journey, which had begun in southern Afghanistan, had been a dangerous one. If tracked, they could have been assassinated by either US or Saudi agents.
On this occasion, however, such was the importance of the message from their friends in Tokyo, that their leader, Najeed Shammas, had instructed that the trip should go ahead. Al-Qaeda had produced passports and travel documentation which would pass scrutiny by the nosiest of airport security officers. And so it was that, wearing shortened and darkened hair, trimmed beards and with their eyes re-coloured by contact lenses, the two, posing as Saudi Arabian businessmen, had travelled undetected to Tokyo, via Kuwait.
‘Thank you for your welcome, my friends,’ beamed Kiyo Arai, ‘and indeed the pleasure is entirely ours to meet such old and trusted friends. How can we ever forget your help in Kenya and Tanzania?’ Arai was referring to the bombing of the two US Embassies in August 1998, which killed two hundred and fifty-eight people. Arai had personally armed the devices for both attacks. The Chess Club, as he knew them, had helped with reconnaissance information from the embassies – carried out by a Japanese tourist with an apparent enthusiasm for photography.
‘Yes,’ added Tokash, ‘your loyal support in the Jihad against the Zionist pig Yankees has been most generous. These are good days for the fatwa. Muslims all over the world are uniting to fulfil Shaykh bin Laden’s instruction to kill all Americans. The glorious success of 9/11 has struck fear into the hearts of the Americans. Now they waste billions trying to stop us striking again – but they cannot. Our sleepers abroad have had great success with shootings – Sydney, Tunisia, Toronto, the train bombs in Spain. And we have exacted full justice on Paris and its damn cartoonists.’
‘Not to mention the gays in Orlando,’ said Arai, with a smile.
‘And our Jihadi brothers have found a new use for trucks in Nice, Berlin and the UK,’ added Tokash.
Despite Tokash’s words, Yohoto suspected that some of the attacks he referred to had been carried out by lone IS fanatics. IS was putting most of its efforts into attacks on America’s allies, in Europe and the Middle East. Yohoto might consider allying with IS in the future, but for the moment, al-Qaeda had the longest established network of radicalised ‘sleepers’ in the United States. And these sleepers were just what he needed.
‘So, what is this important plan, which has brought us here tonight?’ asked Kiyo Arai, his voice buzzing with excitement. Lumo Kinotoa nodded towards Tsan Yohoto. Yohoto, wearing his trademark black suit with a pale blue shirt and navy tie, was caressing the photograph of his dead brother and sister. He stood up to address the meeting.
*
‘My good friends,’ said Tsan Yohoto. He spoke in a low voice and made positive eye contact with all those sitting in front of him. ‘It has been my privilege to work with you in helping those who fight the Yankee murderer. But I am growing older. Soon I will retire and my effectiveness will diminish.’ He paused and then began again in a clear, firm voice. ‘It saddens me to say it, but we must accept that all our efforts have failed.’
The visiting Arabs tensed in their chairs. This was not what they had expected to hear.
Yohoto continued. ‘Yes, it is true we have had some splendid successes – most notably with our Muslim friends. But look at our losses compared with the Americans. We have managed to kill a score here, a score there. The very best successes were the 9/11 killings – but still, we are like a wasp buzzing around an elephant – an intermittent annoyance. Think, gentlemen – at Hiroshima – one hundred thousand people wiped out, and thousands died of resulting cancers. At Nagasaki, fifty thousand killed, seventy thousand seriously injured and thousands died in agony years later. Think, gentlemen, hundreds of thousands of lives ruined in just three days and with just two bombs.’
He dropped his voice. ‘Yet, we deal in numbers in the low thousands.’
And then, more pointedly for the benefit of the visitors, he raised his voice again.
‘How many thousands of innocents were murdered in the carpet bombing of Iraq?’ he asked. ‘And after the bombs they murder thousands more by denying access to medicines through their satanic sanctions!’ His voice grew louder still. ‘Now, they disgrace themselves, murdering Muslim leaders with their cowardly drones.’
Kiyo Arai interjected quietly. ‘Great sacrifices have been made by those who fight our cause,’ he said. ‘What more can we ask people to do? We are many years from having our own atomic bombs. We are fighting very rich, very powerful forces. We have dedicated our lives to the fatwa. We are training fast and building our network of activists across the world. How can we inflict greater damage on our enemies?’
‘This is exactly where we have failed,’ replied Tsan Yohoto. ‘We have not, as the Americans say, boxed clever. We have directed our efforts into bombings and shootings against well-defended targets. Even where we succeed, the American losses are small. Then they tighten security further and make the next attack even more difficult. We have not looked at the bigger picture. Until now!’
All those around the table sat to attention, riveted. Tsan Yohoto, well practised in presentation and public speaking, measured his delivery. He knew that actions and images were more powerful than words, in communicating his message. He moved closer to the top of the table and chopped his hand down.
‘As a boy, in Tokyo, I studied judo,’ he continued. ‘Judo means the gentle way.’ He became more animated. ‘Judo taught me to be fast and efficient in my life. Judo taught me that the best way to defeat your enemy is to identify his greatest strength and to use it against him. For many years I have studied the American culture and I have learned how to sell them more and more medicines.’
Tsan Yohoto leaned forward.
‘A people of blatant contradictions,’ he continued. ‘Yet, like all humans, like all animals, they are driven by certain basic instincts.’ He focused his delivery now on the Arabs. ‘For the American people, that instinct can be captured in one word – greed. The Americans want to buy the best of everything that they can. They call it the American dream. They look for good value and then they will buy even more. And they are obsessed with desirable brands. And they want everything now. This applies to automobiles, fashion, TVs, phones, computers, food and credit. And medicines. No matter if the American suspects that what he’s buying may not be the best thing for him to have – if he wants it, he buys it. Take the example of food. The Americans, despite the best healthcare information available, consume vast amounts of food. Every type of food they can think of, and faster and faster. Two out of three meals in the US are eaten outside of the home. Why? Because it’s faster and cheaper. And so, they keep consuming. Over thirty per cent of Americans are clinically obese and have diabetes from consuming too much sugar.’
Yohoto struck the table again.
‘Yet, many more Americans are wealthy but underweight – they are dieting fanatics – low fat foods, low sugar foods, low fat and low sugar drinks, diet supplements, vitamin supplements, protein supplements. And when the fat people and the thin people become sick, they run to their doctors and their drugstores. And whatever they think will make them better, they will buy. They have integrated the sale of medicines with the sale of everything else. Their drug stores are located in food stores, for convenience. Some US hospitals even provide “drive-thru” flu jabs. They are a nation addicted to consumption. This wealth, this greed, this desire to consume, this love of advertising, is in fact their greatest weakness.’
Tsan Yohoto paused. The attentive silence in the room was broken only by the quiet ticking of an old grandfather clock. He pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles back up onto the bridge of his nose and continued with passion.
‘And this cycle, gentlemen, lies at the heart of our plan. In America, many scientists are convinced that they are heading for a public healthcare disaster of catastrophic proportions.’ He looked around the table, catching everyone’s eye before he continued.
‘What we are going to do, my friends, is to make that catastrophe a certainty. We are going to turn the Americans’ own culture against them. We are going to market them to death!’