Chapter 9: The Code of the Rising Sun
Seven months have passed since the Santa Fe penthouse ceased to be a battleground and became my headquarters. My life has changed, but my feet remain firmly on the same ground. Although I now have a salary that would allow me to live in Las Lomas, I still prefer my room in the State of Mexico; there, the hunger for success never fades, and the noise of the street keeps me alert.
Hassan called me at three in the morning. His voice, previously full of arrogance, now sounded like pure professional panic.
—Neo, the deal with Mitsubishi-Hitachi Global is falling through . They’re in the Reforma boardroom. They brought their own translators and legal experts. I feel like they’re laughing in our faces, but I don’t understand why. Their words say “yes,” but their body language says “we’re going to destroy you.”
“I’ll be there in forty minutes, boss. Serve them good coffee, not that instant crap. The Japanese value attention to detail as much as money,” I said, as I put on my favorite sweatshirt over a shirt impeccably ironed by my mother.
When I entered the boardroom, the contrast was stark. On one side, Hassan and his executives, fifty-year-old men in designer suits, sweating with nerves. On the other, five impeccably dressed Japanese men with stony faces, surrounded by black folders. In the middle, two professional translators who charged an hourly rate that a teacher earns in a month.
I sat next to Hassan. The Japanese didn’t even look at me; to them, I was just the assistant who brought the copies. Fatal mistake.
The negotiation was for a $500 million investment in energy infrastructure. The Japanese official translator softened their words, saying they were “considering risk clauses.” But I, who had spent countless nights studying not only the language but also the regional dialects of Osaka and the Bushido code of honor as applied to business, overheard what they were really saying to each other.
—Kono otoko wa don na n da? (What kind of man is this?) —the Japanese leader murmured to his assistant, referring to Hassan—. Kare wa go-juu-nen-mae no yarikata o shite iru. Muyoku da. (He’s operating with methods from fifty years ago. He’s greedy and naive.)
Hassan looked at me, searching for a sign. I simply wrote a number on a Post-it note and slipped it under the table: $200,000,000 more.
Hassan nearly choked on his coffee. He looked at me as if I’d gone mad. But I knew what was going on. The Japanese were hiding a flaw in their own logistics costs that only someone who reads technical reports in the original Japanese could detect. They were trying to pass the buck for the operating costs to Mexico.
I stood up. The official translators fell silent. The Japanese looked up, surprised by the audacity of a “child” interrupting the flow.
— O-isogashii tokoro shitsurei itashimasu (I’m sorry to interrupt your valuable time) — I began, using such a high and perfect level of honorific Japanese that the delegation leader, Mr. Tanaka, suddenly dropped his pen.
The silence was absolute. The translators hired by Hassan turned red with embarrassment. My Japanese wasn’t textbook; it was elite Japanese, the kind used to seal alliances of blood and honor.
—Mr. Tanaka—I continued in Japanese—, we know that your plant in Chiba was delayed by six months due to failures in the C-type turbines. We also know that you are trying to compensate for that loss by charging the transport insurance to the Mexican partner under the “geographical contingencies” clause.
Hassan was petrified. The Mexican executives didn’t understand anything, but they saw the Japanese people’s faces: they had gone from contempt to holy terror.
“In Mexico,” I said, switching to strong Spanish so Hassan and my mother (who was watching from the supervisor’s office on the monitor) would feel proud, “we are no longer the cheap labor that accepts the crumbs of the contracts you draft in the dark. If you want our land and our energy, you’re going to pay a fair price. And a fair price includes the 200 million you tried to hide in logistics costs.”
Mr. Tanaka stared at me for what felt like an eternity. I could see the gears of his mind working. Finally, he stood up, bowed forty-five degrees—the highest sign of respect—and spoke in perfect English for the first time that morning.
“Mr. Al-Mansuri, you have the most formidable consultant I have met in my thirty-year career. We accept the terms. But with one additional clause: I want this young man to oversee the implementation in Tokyo next summer.”
Hassan signed the largest deal in his company’s history with a trembling hand. When the Japanese left, he slumped in his chair and covered his face with his hands.
“Neo… you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days,” she whispered. “How did you know about the Chiba plant?”
“I didn’t know that, boss. I had a hunch by reading the delivery times of your other international contracts. Numbers don’t lie, even if the translator tries to. Honestly, I just connected the dots.”
