Jack Bonham (ジャック・ボウナム Jakku Bōnamu) is a United States senator. In the early 1990s, he met with Eda and other CIA employees at the Fontainebleau in Washington, D.C. to speak about plans to stop the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC). Around the same time, he commissioned the Girolamo Famiglia to steal a blackmail tape of him which was going to be used against him by a rival senator.
Appearance[]
Bonham is a middle-aged Caucasian man with a skinny build, pale skin, and short blond hair. He wears a dark-colored suit and pants with a white dress shirt, a patterned necktie, and dark-colored shoes.
Eda Initial Stage history[]
Bonham is married as indicated by a family photograph in his office.
Groovy Guy Russell[]
In the early 1990s, he had hired a female sex worker to perform BDSM activities on him, having the activities recorded as well. However, to his chagrin, the woman took the videotape and it landed in the hands of Leon Miller, a criminal who maintained a large storage of blackmail content to sell off to people. One of Bonham's political rivals in the U.S. Senate wanted Miller to give him the tape and blackmailed Bonham at the same time. In response, Bonham contacted the Florida-based Girolamo Famiglia and commissioned the crime syndicate to steal back the tape. Subsequently, Don Girolamo offered the job of retrieving the tape to his subordinate Russell, who was to give the tape to Bonham's point of contact.
On the day that Russell broke into Miller's blackmail collection and stole the tape, Miller was accidentally killed by a speeding truck, causing Miller's connection to crime being revealed to the public. Worried that his extortion tape was possibly in the exposed collection, Bonham wanted answers from Russell when the latter called him. The cowboy answered that Miller's death was an accident completely out of his control. The displeased Bonham shouted that it was not an excuse and rhetorically asked what he would do when the press discovered something unnecessary, demanding to know if he had the tape. Russell assured him that he believed he recovered all of his videos from the collection, so Bonham ordered him to give the items to his messenger, specifying that he would elaborate on the details after he finished his meeting the next day. Bonham likewise assured him that he would receive the reward afterward, demanding to know if Russell saw what was on the tapes. Russell confidently replied that he did not peer into his business because his motto was to only work smart and to the best of his ability, but Bonham did not care and hung up on him.[2]
The next day, Bonham went to the Fontainebleau, a French restaurant inside the Hay–Adams Hotel, to request the Central Intelligence Agency's help in combating the East Asia Economic Caucus's sphere of influence. Speaking to Eda, Jaden and two other CIA officers, the senator posited that there was a serious threat to the U.S.'s interests in Southeast Asia, asking the agents if they knew of the EAEC. He explained that the leader of the EAEC, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, took advantage of anti-American sentiment that spread in his country, assessing that the U.S. could not allow the EAEC's economic zone to expand any further and needed to do something about it. When the eldest CIA colleague was hesitant, Bonham rhetorically asked him if the CIA's only task was to line its pockets in South America. Trying to write it off, the CIA agent said that it was a story of the past, to which Bonham retorted that the CIA needed to prove it to him.
Accordingly, the senator clarified that their target was Mahathir. Volunteering to take over speaking, Jaden told Bonham he read through all of the reports on Southeast Asia, adding that he had a proposal. Specifically, he reasoned that they could soften Mahathir's anti-American stance by reaching out to Japan because Malaysia had a strong relationship with them through the latter country's Look East Policy. Jaden mentioned that the CIA could engage in a two-pronged strategy to shake up Mahathir's domestic base by boosting the Semangat 46 Party, his political rival. At the same time, he suggested strengthening intelligence gathering on Southeast Asian scandals, which had dwindled on the ground since the Vietnam War. Impressed, Bonham liked the idea, though Jaden's colleague was skeptical due to the small scope of the U.S.'s intelligence gathering in the region. Nonetheless, Jaden confidently professed that he already had a candidate town in mind: Roanapur, Thailand.
After the meeting, pleased with the productive discussion, Bonham remarked to one of the older officers that he was jealous he had two young and reliable agents under him. Right after he shook hands with them, the senator noticed Russell in the corner of his eye in the hotel hallway. Perplexed and furious that Russell came to him in person in a public area, Bonham reminded him about the arrangement for contact. Russell, having known the senator's location due to his secretary mentioning the meeting at the French restaurant, lied that his liaison suggested delivering the item sooner. Angered, Bonham said that the luxury hotel was not a place for people like him. The cowboy admitted that he did not like fancy places either but specified that he was in a hurry since he was abducted by Bonham's political rival. Noticing that the senator knew whom he was talking about, the cowboy claimed that the men offered to pay him three times what Bonham was paying him for the blackmail video.
Although the senator believed that Russell was going to turn on him, the cowboy tossed him a duffel bag containing the blackmail materials. Smirking, he warned the senator to learn a lesson from the situation, declaring that he should not use people so cheaply, especially a self-proclaimed professional like himself. About a day later, Bonham was yet again contacted by Russell, who by luck managed to acquire the blackmail tape of his political rival. Pleased with the new item, the senator paid him an additional sum for the blackmail tape alongside his original pay, and Bonham taunted the rival senator with the new leverage he had against him.[1]
Black Lagoon history[]
Greenback Jane[]
Bonham vaguely shown among Eda and her colleagues in the anime (flashback).
Sometime later in 1996, during Russell's conversation with Eda after losing a gunfight to her, the cowboy recognized the CIA agent as one of the people who spoke with Bonham at the Fontainebleau in the District of Columbia. The nun confirmed his suspicions and informed him of Bonham's desire to destabalize countries within the EAEC due to their opposition to NAFTA. Likewise, Russell joked about Bonham being a "stupid senator" who had business with the Girolamo Famiglia.[3]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Eda Initial Stage Chapter 31: Groovy Guy Russell Part 2
- ↑ Eda Initial Stage Chapter 30: Groovy Guy Russell Part 1
- ↑ Episode 18: Mr. Benny's Good Fortune