CHAPTER FOUR

Meet Michiel Brandt

Michiel Brandt had been looking at graduate schools in the U.S. She came back to Japan after I’d already started the Nakatomi case, and I was glad she was here. She was my right-hand in due diligence investigations, and I also owed her a night on the town. We had plans to go catch a concert, so meeting up was a bit of both work and relaxation. I didn’t want to work her too hard—she was recovering.

She came by the house on Friday late afternoon very businesslike, in a long skirt, a sunflower-yellow blouse, and wearing nerdy glasses. It was a warm October; summer seemed to be lingering around, like a student reluctant to return to classes.

Michiel always looked like an elf to me. She had a cute, round face and big cheeks like a chipmunk. When she smiled, which was often, her hazel eyes crinkled and sparkled; she laughed loudly. She was raised in Japan, so she usually made the very Japanese gesture of covering her mouth when she guffawed, but it didn’t do much to drown out the sound of her laughter. She was short but spry.

She showed up that evening with a stack of finished and half-finished reports.

I thanked her for the reports, praised her for tracking down Blue Mountain and Business Brain, and then asked her to put all the reports on my desk, in the next room. We were going to the Blue Note to see Gal Costa perform music by legendary Brazilian composer Antônio Carlos Jobim.

We had a long walk to the nearest station, but she liked to walk.

“Jake, I’m looking forward to tonight. Thank you so much for getting the tickets, ne?”

She gave my arm a squeeze as we walked toward Roppongi. It was easy for her to hold my arm, even though I was taller than her. I have long arms, like a gibbon. I didn’t want her to feel guilty about the cost of the evening.

“It was my pleasure. It’s the least I can do for what you do. Consider it a small bonus on top of your terrible pay.”

“How do I look?” she asked. “I dressed up for the occasion.”

I pointed at her bright yellow blouse.

“You will look like the most elegant canary in the room.”

She laughed, covering her mouth.

“You’re relentless.”

“You look great. It’s a classy outfit. I’m not fit to have you on my arm. Thanks for coming along to make me look good.”

She always lifted my spirits. She just radiated happiness. Most people, I imagined, would be bitter and angry at the world if they’d experienced what she had. As we walked to the station, very briefly, we held hands. I tried to think how long I had known Michiel. Because it felt like I had known her my whole life.

It had been at least four years …

I first got to know Michiel when I was still a crime reporter at the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, in 2004.

She was an undergraduate at Waseda, a Japanese university, studying immigration issues. At the time, I was assigned to cover the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, specifically vice and organized crime. Human trafficking was becoming a recognized problem in the country. I was invited to participate at a forum on the issue sponsored by the United Nations. At the end, when I spontaneously gave a guided tour of the red-light district to some interns at the U.S. Embassy, she tagged along. That’s when I first made her acquaintance. She’d already graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science and international relations. She was researching international labor issues and helping women in need. She was charming, friendly, curious, brave, and intelligent. The enthusiasm she emitted was contagious. Our friendship developed quickly. I’m ashamed to admit that at first I thought of her as a well-meaning muppet. It took me years to realize how substantial she was as a person and as an investigator.

Michiel accompanied me to several conferences, and took detailed notes as well as getting involved with NGOs that fight for the rights of trafficking victims in Japan. After leaving the newspaper in November 2005, I had spent seven months working on an in-depth research project on human trafficking, funded by the U.S. State Department. In the process, I hired Michiel to be my research assistant, because, like myself, she is both fluent in Japanese and English, and she has extensive knowledge of the problem and its dimensions.

And in the midst of doing that she almost died. What almost killed her wasn’t anything I could have seen coming, nor could she.

I remember the evening when it started. I had just begun working on the human trafficking report, and Michiel was working with me, doing research and collating information.

She wanted to go out dancing with her friend Cris, from Korea. The only place I knew that was fun to dance in was a club called Yellow, buried in the back alleys of Roppongi. They played techno and trance, and it was so monotonous that even I could dance to it. I asked Special Agent Larry Futa to come join us for the evening. Of course, he said yes. A former intelligence officer and ladies’ man, Ken, invited himself. Don’t get me wrong: I liked Ken. Even though he had a habit of getting me involved in shenanigans way over my pay grade.

Michiel showed up in jeans and an emerald-green shirt that sort of matched her hazel eyes. Some people told me she had brown eyes, but they always looked dark green to me. Admittedly, I am a little color blind. She asked me, as she always did: “How do I look?”

“Like a sexy M&M.”

She punched me in the shoulder.

“Thanks, Jake.”

“You’re welcome, Mimi.”

Everybody called her Mimi. That was her childhood nickname, although I can’t remember where she got it.

Larry, holding a martini in his hand, wearing a suit as usual, stepped in.

“Michiel, you look dazzling. Don’t listen to Adelstein. He only appreciates pole dancers taller than him.”

I corrected him: “They don’t have to be taller than me. It’s not mandatory. Just a preference.”

Larry led Michiel onto the floor. About a little after midnight I was talking to Cris, and Michiel stumbled over.

“Jake, I don’t feel so good.”

I took her by the shoulders and sat her down. She looked as white as a sheet. Larry and I called her a taxi ,and sent her home. I wrote an email to her parents. Three days later, I heard back, after trying to reach her. Michiel had been diagnosed with leukemia.

It was acute and it was critical. They’d need to start treatment immediately. I was floored. She’d been diagnosed with Adult T-cell leukemia, a type of leukemia usually found in adults over forty years of age. She was only twenty-three at the time. The doctors told her upfront that she would most likely not live to see the next year.

People like her had a 3 percent survival rate—that’s what the literature said. And, when I put aside my wishful thinking, I didn’t think she’d make it. Oddly, she never once doubted that she would survive. I visited her in the hospital, and brought her a portable DVD player and a selection of good and awful movies so she could have something to do during those long hours in bed.

In August 2005, she was blessed with a bone marrow stem cell transplant from her brother, Daniel, who tested as a perfect match for her. It was a rarity even among siblings, and by autumn she was discharged from the hospital, in what was a miraculous, speedy recovery.

Here’s a weird thing. As a result of her first bone-marrow transplant, she developed curly hair. She looked somewhat like Little Orphan Annie. Of course, I made gentle fun of her. I’m that kind of pal. But I didn’t start calling her Annie, because I do possess some discretion, and some jokes are probably only funny once.

She didn’t have a job and she wanted to go to graduate school, so I hired her. It was a great deal for me. She was unsure of her Japanese abilities, but it was really a matter of learning the words and concepts necessary for the job. Hell, I was still learning them myself. When I admitted this and she understood, she made flashcards for us.

At first, I did not want to let her do the work, out of concern for her health, but she insisted. Eventually, her zeal wore me down and I relented.

She attended several conferences as my proxy, always gathering useful intelligence, contacts, and materials. She conducted interviews with related parties, and accompanied me to meetings with government officials. She was indispensable to the project, and she worked extremely hard for very little pay.

I was delighted that Michiel was also a fine due diligence investigator. I hadn’t really put her on those tasks seriously until late 2007. Her second bone-marrow transplant was that year, and it was tough on her.

We mostly kept in touch back then by Google Chat. It was a thing.

March 12, 2007 9.06 am

Me: Hey Mimi!

Michiel: Hi! Actually, I’m home! I’m getting a catheter implant tomorrow, so my doctor told me I could go home for a night

Me: Yikes! I’ve seen those things. For the chemo right?

Michiel: and the transplant

Me: Can I call you Bionic Jaime the next time I see you?

Michiel: Hahaa. Isn’t that The Bionic Woman?

The transplant was a success. By November 2007, she was ready to work again full-time. I can’t honestly say that everything that had come before crossed my mind as we were walking to the station, but I did get lost in thoughts. Michiel gently squeezed my hand as we got closer, preventing me from walking into a signboard for a girls’ bar and bringing me back to reality.

The concert was lovely. I love female singers, and Gal Costa was so on point. We had a nice semi-booth seat and a few tiki-tiki cocktails. In the comedy routines that become part of close friendships, Michiel always gave me flack about how I ordered the most girlie and effeminate drinks on the menu, preferably with a paper umbrella.

I’d always tell her, “Michiel, I spend most of my social life drinking with cops, crooks, lawyers, prosecutors, law-enforcement types, or low-lifes. It’s always first a beer, then either sake, whisky, or shochu (potato liquor). Maybe, at best, a vodka martini because 007 drinks them. Gotta drink some manly drinks.”

“Jake, you could show tremendous courage and order a Malibu Coke. Maybe they’d respect your choice. I do! Truly.”

“That’s not going to go over well. My street credibility would be completely destroyed.”

And if it was winter, Michiel would then point at my DayGlo-colored green (orange, blue, or purple) cashmere sweater, and respond, “Any man wearing those sweaters has already lost any street credibility. Might as well go all in.”

It was our little manzai act. My love of brightly colored men’s cashmere sweaters came from the fact that at the end of winter you could buy them dirt cheap on the Lands’ End website. Which she knew.

I was completely comfortable with her. And there was nothing more relaxing than listening to the tones of Gal with Michiel leaning on me and my arm around her.

It was wonderfully chill.

Gal Costa has this siren-like voice, smooth as silk, seductive and vulnerable at the same time. I was hypnotized. It was as if she was a snake charmer, and I must have been the snake. Michiel enjoyed it, too, but she wasn’t used to spending a late night out after finishing chemo. She purred a little when she got sleepy.

As we left, Michiel asked if I’d like to head up to Hakone with her and some friends. There was a nice onsen there and the sculpture museum. I would have loved to go, but I had to follow up on our last two leads. She understood. The Nakatomi case was almost done, and we had a hard deadline.

I decided that the most fruitful avenue of exploration would be the office of the kaishaya. Michiel did solid work finding their Tokyo office. She’d taken the business card I’d gotten from Sasaki and sent to her, done a corporate registration check, followed up on the clues from that, and then found that they had a branch office in Tokyo. Just to be sure, she’d also pulled the corporate registration for that office as well. The same representative director.

I imagined that a company whose business was buying and selling dubious companies to dubious people would be a treasure trove of information. I wasn’t far off.