the end of the sixteenth century. From there their chat expanded to the glories of Momoyama art, then the "nightingale" floors of Shogun Hideyoshi's Kyoto palace—beveled boards de¬signed to announce silent intruders—and finally to Hideyoshi's betrayal at the hands of Ieyasu Tokugawa. The oblique topics were standard, the Japanese way of begin¬ning a business meeting.
Jiro Sato's official position was CEO of the London-based Nippon Shipbuilding Company. In that role he supervised the Mino-gumi's London interests with an iron hand, as was expected by those who served him, and by his superi¬ors in Tokyo. Nippon Shipbuilding built no ships, nor had it for twenty years. Instead it laundered Tanzan Mino's hot money. Funds flashed daily over the satellite link from Tokyo, and investments ranged from real estate to British gilts to the most arcane products of the financial markets.
Money laundering was but the latest enterprise of the Yakuza, an ancient brotherhood rooted in over three hun¬dred years of Japanese history. The kana symbols for the syllables Ya-Ku-Za were the same as those for the numbers eight, nine,