Chapter 38. Tuesday, 3 July, 22:10. Main Lounge, The Red Dragon Torture Dungeon Place, Kabukichō District, Tokyo
Stan Goldman was so nervous that he was sorely tempted to replace the diet soda he had been drinking with a double whisky-Japanese, Scotch, good old American bourbon, or perhaps all three. But he took a deep breath and tried his best to calm himself.
He knew that the plan was far from perfect, that there were many ways things could go south, especially given the caveats regarding Bulldozer Olsson that both Bill and Åke had expressed. Nevertheless, as a former Defense Secretary had said, ‘You go to war with the army you have, not the one you might want or wish to have.’
Stan glanced around the room. Although as part of his deal with Senator Moore Sato had given as many of his goons the night off as he could without it arousing suspicion, the three of them were still outnumbered.
Even with Bulldozer and his three SÄPO agents waiting in an unmarked van in an alley a few hundred meters away, the odds were still against them. The one element that they had on their side was surprise and that was no small thing. Honestly, Stan rated the odds around 50:50. But given that the women were looking at a lifetime-probably short-of misery it was worth the chance, both for them and for their putative rescuers.
The rescuers were disguised this time as visiting Scandinavian academics, bearded, dressed in polo shirts and khaki pants. Åke and Brita Widmark from the Embassy had coached Stan in a few words of elementary Swedish-Bill already knew some from his adventures in that country. Anyway, he sincerely doubted that any of the yakuza spoke that language-other than the one who spoke unaccented English, most of them had only a rudimentary understanding of even that language. And of course, Swedish academics would be quite fluent in English, so their ordering drinks in that language would be unremarkable.
The plan they had decided on was that the optimal time would be just at the conclusion of the show, when the audience members were relaxing and possibly considering whether to fork over a small fortune for some table time with one of the performers.
So that meant that Stan, Bill and Åke had sat through the entire show. It was billed as “Ye Olde Slave Mill” as the sign above the set read in English, along with what was presumably the Japanese equivalent. The conceit was that they were re-enacting some kind of scene from Medieval Japan, before the invention of power machinery, when tasks such as milling grain were done by human power.
Somehow, Stan doubted that back then they would have used naked young women to perform that task, but this was a show after all. What wasn’t just for show was the effort required to turn the heavy stone wheel. Before the female slaves had been brought out, the members of the audience had been invited to test the setup by grasping one of the four heavy wooden poles attached to the axle of the millwheel and trying to move it. It took both Stan and Bill considerable effort to turn it even a minimal distance.
Once the audience had been satisfied as to the genuineness of the task, they were seated and the women were brought out-Barbara, Gun, Annika, Tamiko and Sherri and three Korean women, the first of whom Stan later learned was named Himari.
They were dressed in Kimonos and geta, the traditional Japanese wooden sandals. The head yakuza, Kaneko, the one who spoke perfect English, was clad as a daimyo, a feudal lord of the medieval period. He gave an elaborate speech, first in Japanese, and then in English about how these women had been derelict in their duties in the rice fields and would now have to grind the grain under ‘close supervision’, which consisted of several of the Malaysian women, holding rather nasty looking whips.
Of course, as punishment for their failures and so that they would feel the full force of the whip should they slack in turning the millstone, they would have to be naked. Each of the slaves was called by name and ordered to strip. They had obviously been coached to do so slowly and seductively.
Annika was first. She kicked off her sandals and slowly did a lascivious dance to some sensuous music piped through the loudspeakers, untying the obi, the sash of her kimono, flashing the audience then pulling the garment back shut. She repeated this performance several times, gyrating her hips and twirling around, before finally shedding the robe and presenting herself fully nude to the approving audience.
Each of the women repeated this performance in turn. Stan had to admit that it was quite well done and highly arousing. When all eight of them had completed their striptease, they were paraded through the audience, whose members were warned to look, but not touch, the implicit promise being that later, for a suitable fee, they would be able to touch to their heart’s content.
Then, they were ordered, each in turn, to kneel before their lord, kiss his feet and humbly beg forgiveness. Once that was done, they were escorted to the millwheel, where their wrists were secured in cuffs attached to the wooden poles, Annika and Gun on one, Barbara and Tamiko on another, Sherri and Himari on the third and the other two Koreans on the fourth.
Then the order was given to “Push!” The women strained at the poles, but the wheel barely moved. “Wake those lazy sluts up!” the daimyo ordered. The Malaysian women hastened to obey. One cracked her whip across Sheri’s shoulder blades, eliciting a loud screech of pain and leaving a bright red stripe across her soft skin. Then, she smacked the supple leather across Barb’s tight little ass, with similar results.
The attendants assigned to prod the others to maximal efforts were similarly diligent. The plaintive cries of Annika, Gun, Tamiko, Himari and her two fellow countrywomen joined the chorus. Slowly, the wheel began to turn.
“Faster!” Kaneko urged. “The market is waiting for my rice crop!” The Malaysians delivered more blows, which no one could doubt were real. The wheel turned faster as the slaves strained, the muscles on their legs and arms taut with effort.
At one point, Tamiko, her feet still bruised from the caning they had received a few days earlier, slipped, bringing the wheel to a standstill. “Get up you useless slut!” Kaneko yelled. The whip blows rained down on her as she struggled back onto her feet.
Stan had to restrain himself from rushing to her aid, held back only by the knowledge that if the plan worked, this would be the last time she would suffer like this. Though he hesitated to even try to imagine what suffering they would all endure if the plan failed.
With encouragement in the form of more lashes for the whole crew, they soon got the wheel turning again.
Finally, the daimyo called a halt. Apparently his rice was sufficiently hulled to send to market. “Now I am sure some of you gentlemen are in need of some relaxation,” he announced. “These useless whores will do their best to please you. They know well that any failure to accommodate will result in punishment that will make their time on the millwheel seem like heaven.”
“It’s now or never,” Stan whispered. Bill nodded. Åke pressed a button on the special wristwatch he had been given by Carolyn Sheehan’s tech crew. “Nu!” he said. “Now!” As discretely as possible, the three men made their way to the restroom, where they put on the noise cancelling headphones and N95 masks they had in their pockets (chosen to look like ordinary items an ordinary academic might have in case they were searched, given the Japanese custom of masking oneself if one felt even a slight sniffle so as not to infect others). They emerged to stand together in the corner of the room farthest from the door, looking as though they might be discussing which one of the slaves they might choose to have some fun with.
It took a few moments for the van to roll up to the entrance of The Red Dragon. Three black clad figures, two male, one female, exited. The two doormen who had been relaxing smoking, enjoying a nice summer evening in Tokyo-after all, no one was going to enter now that the show was already concluded-were taken by surprise and quickly disabled by hard punches to the solar plexus.
Karla Larson grabbed the door and wrenched it open. Karl Ericsson and Karl Andersson each extracted a flash-bang grenade, pulled the pin, counted to four and dropped it just inside the door.
Even with his eyes closed and averted and the headphones, Stan found that the flash was bright and the noise was loud. The crowd was suitably stunned, frozen, with some sinking to their knees. The three men made straight for the women.
Stan grabbed Tamiko’s arm, pulling her to her feet. “It’s me, Stan!” he said. She was choking from the smoke and couldn’t answer, but the look in her eyes was enough. He hustled her towards the door. A man stood in his way. Stan kicked him in the crotch and he fell to the ground. He reached the door and handed her to one of the Karls, or perhaps Karla, who led her into the van. Åke was right behind with Barb, whom he handed off as well.
Stan watched Bill leading Gun towards the door. Two yakuza stood blocking their path. Gun pulled away from Bill. Suddenly, her bare foot flew up, catching one gangster square in the jaw and dropping him to the floor. The other yakuza stood there looking stunned as Gun strode purposefully towards the door.
“Let’s go get the others,” Stan said as he and Åke made their way back towards the remaining slaves. He grabbed Sherri by the arm and Åke took hold of Himari and they quickly took them to the door. As they reached the door they saw Bill bringing a naked and stunned looking Annika towards them.
They handed their charges off to the SÄPO team. Bill and Stan started to turn back to get the last two women.
“Where are you going?” Bulldozer demanded.
“There’s two more,” Bill replied.
“No time,” Bulldozer insisted. “You hear that?”
Stan heard a cacophony of police sirens in the distance. Normally, he would have welcomed that, but this was a clandestine operation and they couldn’t be sure what the cops would do if they caught them.
“We can’t just leave them,” he protested.
“They aren’t part of the plan. We’re already taking your girlfriend from the hotel who isn’t part of the agreement,” Bulldozer said. “Now get your asses in the van, now!” he shouted.
Stan and Bill began protesting. Bulldozer and one of the other SÄPO agents grabbed Bill by the arms and manhandled him into the van. The other two SÄPO members picked Stan up bodily and threw him into the van where he landed on top of a naked Tamiko.
“Oww!” she yelled, as her freshly welted back and ass rubbed against the rough mat on the floor of the van.
“I’m sorry!” Stan apologized quickly.
“You’d better be, Goldman!” she hissed. “There’s a long list of things you should be sorry for.”
The SÄPO agents jumped into the van, one of them slamming the door behind them. Bulldozer climbed quickly into the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator throwing everyone in the back to the floor of the van in a big pile of cops cursing in Swedish and English and naked women yelping in pain.
The sound of sirens was getting louder.
“Hurry, Bulldozer! To the airport!” Bill shouted.
“Where do you think I’m going, asshole, the Imperial Palace?” Bulldozer replied, running through a red light, barely slowing down to make sure the cross street was clear, which, fortunately at this late hour, it was.
Somehow, in less than 20 minutes they made it to the airport. It took a few heart-pounding minutes to find Access Gate 6, but when they did, one of the SÄPO people hopped out and found it unlocked, just as promised. He swung it open and Bulldozer headed for the General Aviation section. It was easy to find the Senator’s plane. It was the biggest, with US markings, and the only one with its engines running.
They quickly passed each of the women blankets with which they wrapped themselves. “There will be clothes for you on board,” Bill said. “Sorry, we didn’t think to get some flip flops.”
With only a few mild complaints, Barbara, Sherri, Tamiko and Himari and the two other Korean women made their way across the concrete tarmac, barefoot, wrapped in blankets followed by Bill and Stan. Gun and Annika remained with the other Swedes, who drove off, heading for the SÄPO plane which would take them back to their home country.
Carolyn Sheehan stood at the foot of the stairs. She hugged each of the women and helped them one by one into the plane. Then she addressed Stan and Bill. “Well done gentlemen!” she said. “And if anyone asks, none of this happened and we’ve never met.” The two men mounted the stairs and the plane was wheels up and headed for Guam in less than five minutes.