Escape (9)
Japanese prosecutors were still tracking Chairman Samara’s movements. They had assumed that even after escaping from his house, he would still be hiding somewhere in Japan. So when he suddenly appeared in Jordan, Prosecutor Yoshine couldn’t hide his shock.
I was pretty sure the entire Japanese prosecution service felt the same way.
Serves you right for not keeping a tighter watch.
I rose from my seat as casually as I could.
“Oh! Wow, I didn’t realize it had already gotten this late. You must be busy, so I’ll excuse myself first.”
Prosecutor Yoshine shot me a glare.
“Who said you could leave?”
“I’m saying I’d like to leave. This isn’t a voluntary accompaniment, is it?”
“Do you really think you’ll get out of here safely?”
“If you want to keep holding an innocent man for no reason, then stop making up excuses and arrest me properly.”
Chairman Samara had spent years running businesses in Japan, so if they searched hard enough, they might find something to pin on him. But I’d only entered Japan to meet him. That was all.
Keeping me here wouldn’t make Chairman Samara magically fly back from Jordan.
Prosecutor Yoshine gripped my shoulder hard.
“Sit down. Do you really want to be arrested?”
I held out both hands in plain view.
“Go ahead if you can. Just make sure you send the PIF a formal notice explaining exactly why you arrested me.”
My position was co-CEO of Continue Capital. On top of that, I was an advisor to Rush Fund, which had been invested in by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. If they arrested me without good reason, they’d only be creating another problem for themselves.
He glared at me like he wanted to kill me, but in the end he couldn’t say a word.
“Then I’ll be on my way.”
This was why money mattered.
After I got out of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office in one piece, I checked the news on my phone.
Latest Headlines
[Breaking] Former Kionos Chairman Escapes Japan
Chairman Samara, who had been detained in Japan, Appears in Amman, Jordan!
Did the Japanese Prosecutors Really Not Know?
Japanese Government Official: Facts Under Review
What Is France’s Reaction?
Chairman Samara’s press conference was shocking, to say the least.
In an instant, articles flooded in from media outlets all over the world.
Who would have imagined that the chairman of one of the world’s top five semiconductor companies would stage a desperate escape from Japan and make it back to his homeland?
It was the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a movie, except it was happening in real life.
Everyone was stunned, but the country most stunned of all, naturally, was Japan.
Japanese outlets that hadn’t even noticed the escape had cut regular programming and switched to breaking news.
After skimming the articles, I decided to check the reaction on A-Tube as well.
Trending Videos
Shocking! The Whole World Is in Uproar! Japan Exposed as an Underdeveloped Country!
Jordan Sheds Tears of Emotion, While Japan Bleeds Tears of Blood!
The Escape of the Century Leaves All Mankind Reeling, and Everyone Pours Out Praise!
Stunned! The Prediction That Japan Would Be Ruined by Chairman Samara’s Escape Comes True!
Japan Has No Choice Left but to Kneel Before the International Community and Apologize!
“……”
Let’s stop there.
Even the thumbnails were making my head spin.
As I rode a taxi, Trish called me.
Trish: Where are you right now?
Me: Japan.
Trish: W-Wait. Was this what you meant when you said you were going to Japan?
Me: What are you talking about?
Trish: Chairman Samara’s escape. You didn’t help him, did you?
Me: What do you mean? I have nothing to do with it.
Trish: Really?
Me: Of course.
Trish: Doesn’t sound like it.
Me: It’s true.
Trish: You just happened to go to Japan for work, and then, at that exact moment, Chairman Samara happened to escape?
Me: That’s right. What an incredible coincidence.
Trish: Hm……
She didn’t sound convinced at all.
“Are you writing the article?”
“I’m in the middle of it right now.”
The Wall Street Times had become fairly well known, but it was still a regional internet newspaper. They didn’t have a correspondent in Jordan, so she was probably piecing everything together from other outlets’ reporting.
“Want me to send you some materials if you need them?”
Trish brightened at once.
“Really? That would be great.”
“We’re still gathering details on our side too, so I’ll send them once we’re done.”
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office’s Special Investigation Department petitioned to revoke his bail for violating bail conditions, and the 2 billion yen bail money was forfeited.
With his bail revoked, if Chairman Samara returned to Japan, he would be arrested on the spot.
The Japanese government immediately demanded that Jordan extradite Chairman Samara.
However, the Jordanian government stated that it had no reason to comply, since its own citizen had entered the country through normal legal channels.
At his first press conference, Chairman Samara lashed out at the Japanese judiciary.
“I was detained without indictment, and I was interrogated by prosecutors without a lawyer present. I was then locked up in a detention center for more than five months without even being allowed to see my family. In the meantime, Kionos held a board meeting and removed me from my position. Can that happen in a democratic country? Not even communist states or dictatorships arrest and detain business leaders like this.”
In response, the Japanese prosecutors held a press conference of their own.
At that event, Justice Minister Ichika Sato said angrily, “Thierry Samara fled while awaiting trial on serious criminal charges. Even though bail was granted on the condition that he not leave the country, he ran overseas. That is an act that can never be justified. If he is truly innocent, then he should return to Japan immediately, stand trial under Japan’s fair criminal justice system, and prove his innocence with dignity.”
Chairman Samara answered back.
“The prosecution is supposed to prove the defendant’s guilt, so what do you mean, prove my innocence? That is the true face of the Japanese judiciary! Japanese prosecutors are ignoring the most basic principle of all: the presumption of innocence! I want to ask the world whether Japan’s judicial system can still be called fair.”
By any sane standard, Chairman Samara was completely right.
Flustered, Minister Sato hurriedly changed his wording and said he had meant, “not prove your innocence, but assert your innocence.”
But the real revelation came next.
Chairman Samara held another press conference.
“This was an internal coup driven by the collusion between business and politics. The Japanese government pressured the situation behind my arrest, and executives worked hand in hand with Japanese prosecutors to arrest me in order to block the merger. And I have proof.”
Kionos’s stock, which had once fallen to as low as 2,000 yen, had quadrupled in the two years since Chairman Samara took over management.
So unlike the way the public branded him the “French devil,” shareholders called him the god of management and the savior of Japanese industry.
Once that man was driven out, investor anxiety spread quickly.
Then the Japanese government announced a massive 1 trillion yen semiconductor support package, and thanks to that, Kionos’s share price kept climbing until it broke through 10,000 yen just recently.
There was a practical reason for all this.
Even though he was under fire, Chairman Samara had been the man who saved the dying Kionos. If such a manager were forcibly removed, and the company ended up in crisis again—then Japan would become a global laughingstock.
That was why the Japanese government stepped in with support, and why expectations drove the stock sharply higher.
Saito was confident that Japanese semiconductors would rise again.
His goal was to use government investment to make the company even bigger, then completely separate management from SPME and tear up the alliance.
Just then, customer defections from Yuseong Electronics created an opening.
He hurried to expand the factories, as if determined not to let the chance slip away.
And then……
The moment he saw Chairman Samara appear in Jordan, Saito realized everything was over.
As expected, Samara unleashed one explosive revelation after another.
[Former Chairman Samara Raises Accounting Irregularity Allegations Against Kionos]
[Kionos Covered Up Chemical Leak Accident at Yokohama Semiconductor Plant]
[Chairman Saito Involved in Crushing the Labor Union]
[Kionos Lobbied Liberal Democratic Party Lawmakers and Cabinet Officials to Secure Government Support……]
Each statement was no different from a nuclear bomb.
The Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers named in the lobbying list cut off contact and disappeared.
Now, the problem was no longer new investment. They first had to worry about whether the existing factories could even keep running properly, given the strikes, the chemical-leak cover-up, and everything else that was about to come out.
How did it come to this?
Betraying Samara had never been about personal profit.
It had all been for the sake of reviving Japan’s semiconductor industry. That was why, after forcing Chairman Samara out, he had done everything he could to clean up the mess.
If Samara stepped down from the chairmanship, the Kionos they had barely managed to rescue would fall back into decline.
Saito felt the strength drain out of his body.
If only we’d had even one more year……
If they had been able to solidify internal unity and get the government’s investment in place first, they might have been able to absorb the shock. But because it had all exploded now, everything was about to be washed away.
After Yuseong Electronics announced its entry into the data center business, its stock fell by roughly 20 percent, while the semiconductor companies expected to benefit from the ripple effect saw their prices surge.
The biggest gainer of them all was Kionos.
Yoo Jae-ho even used his personal funds to buy shares in an effort to calm shareholders, but an immediate rebound was hard to expect.
What is Han Miru thinking?
For reasons I couldn’t quite understand, he seemed convinced that Kionos would not become a threat to Yuseong Electronics.
As far as the investment decision went, Kionos was only a secondary issue. If things worked out the way he said, great. If not, there was nothing to be done.
Still, I couldn’t help feeling that he was probably going to do something. After all, there wasn’t a single stock Han Miru had touched that hadn’t crashed at some point.
Is he planning to tank the stock again by exposing some kind of weakness?
That guess turned out to be right.
Except this time, he hadn’t exposed it himself—he had made Chairman Samara escape so that Samara could expose it instead.
When Yoo Jae-ho saw the article, his jaw dropped.
“No way... what the hell is this?”
There was no chance that a man who had been quietly locked away all this time would suddenly change his mind and stage an escape on his own. Han Miru had clearly pulled some kind of string.
Even looking at it, I still couldn’t believe it.
Who would ever think of a method like this?
No—more than that, even if someone thought of it, who in their right mind would actually go through with it?
And yet Han Miru had done exactly that, and succeeded right in front of everyone’s eyes.
Without meaning to, Yoo Jae-ho muttered under his breath, “Heh... that actually works?”