The Last Assassin

'You all right?' I called to her.

She kept scanning. 'Go! You have to take out Yamaoto, he knows it was you in New York!'

I spun off the bench without another word and ran toward the swinging doors. I peeked through the crack at the center — one side, then the other. The hostess and the valet were gone. I went through, my head swiveling left and right, the HK tracking with it. Island. Office door. Stairwell.

'Goddamnit!' Dox said. 'I hit him, but I didn't drop him!'

'Where is he?'

'Out the basement exit, heading west! He came up the stairs with a crowd of other people and I only had a second, I didn't have the head shot. Drilled him from the side and he went down, but people were in the way and he got back up before I could put him away.'

I started for the stairs. 'West, toward Kotto-dori?'

'Yeah, he's stumbling, you can still catch him!'

I took the stairs three at a time. As I turned the riser, I heard shots from back in the main room. Delilah's position.

I stopped and looked back. Then I looked down again. Just a few more steps and I'd be at the exit, close on Yamaoto.

I took another step down and stopped again.

Dox said, 'Where are you, man? You've got to hurry or we're going to lose him!'

I took one more step down. I heard myself groan. Then I raced back up the stairs the way I had come.

'Shots from the main room,' I said. 'Delilah's in there.'

'Shit! All right, I'm taking off after Yamaoto, you go to Delilah.'

'On my way,' I said. I raced back across the entrance room, repeated my sneak and peek through the swinging doors, then went in.

I saw Delilah, standing in front of one of the booths. I crept closer, tracking with the HK as I moved. The room was empty.

I moved closer. There was something under the table in the booth.

I came up alongside her and looked. It was Big Liu and his associate, their mouths and eyes open as though in dull surprise, a clean red bullet hole in the center of each man's forehead.

Delilah looked at me. 'Did you see Kuro?'

I shook my head.

'We have to find him,' she said. 'Yamaoto told him you were behind New York and Wajima. I don't think Kuro believed him, but he will now.'

I gestured to Big Liu. 'You mean…'

'I couldn't let him leave,' she said. 'Yamaoto told him, and this whole thing would have been proof. The triads would have come after Midori and your son, they wouldn't have had a chance.'

But Yamaoto had made it out. He knew it was me, and I could imagine what he would do next. I had to get out of here and call Midori, tell her to take Koichiro and go, hide. She would never see me again, but at least they'd be safe.

Focus, I told myself. Deal with the situation at hand, then you can warn Midori. Nothing's going to happen that fast. Use your head.

I heard Dox from the other side of the room: I'm coming in, don't shoot.'

We turned and saw the burly sniper moving toward us, the butt of the M40A3 shouldered, the muzzle pointed downrange. A slight lift of the eyebrows was his only reaction to Delilah's half nakedness.

'Yamaoto's gone,' he said. 'Saw his driver pick him up. Shot out the tires, but they're the run-flat type and they kept going. He's bleeding, though. It's all over the street. I knew I hit him good.'

I heard sirens outside. We all stopped and listened for a second. Dox said, 'I respectfully propose that now would be an appropriate time for us to beat feet.'

'Did Kuro leave?' Delilah asked.

'I didn't see him,' Dox said. 'But there were a lot of people and I was looking for Yamaoto. Why, was I supposed to shoot him, too?'

'I'll explain later,' I said. 'Come on, let's go.'

'He might still be here, hiding somewhere,' Delilah said. 'We should…'

I shook my head. 'You've done enough, more than enough. We need to go.'

I pulled off my jacket and helped Delilah into it, and the three of us hurried out through the basement exit.

The sirens were close now. We cut along the eastern side of the building and through an alley, emerging on the street that bracketed the club complex to the south. The van was there, where I'd parked it earlier. We got in and drove off, Delilah in the passenger seat, Dox in back. Soon we were heading south on Nireke-dori, the serene streetlights and shuttered boutiques surreal after what we'd just been through.

'What about Yamaoto?' Delilah asked.

Dox told her what had happened. I could tell he felt bad he hadn't gotten a confirmed kill.

'That was a hell of a shot you took,' I said. 'Moving, only a second, all those people running around in a panic…'

'Yeah, but…'

'Yeah, nothing. You hit him badly, no one could have done better.'

'Not as bad as I'd like, but that was a hollow point round and he's wearing a hell of a hole somewhere on his chest right now. Only thing that got that boy to his car was a bucketful of adrenaline and a shitload of luck. I just hope there aren't any hospitals nearby.'

Hospitals, I thought. Of course.

I pulled out the cell phone and called Tatsu.

44

I briefed Tatsu on everything that had just happened. He was weak and groaning in pain, but his mind seemed alert as ever.

When I was done, he said, 'Don't worry about Kuro. He can be handled. It's Yamaoto who's the concern. And from what you just told me, within a very short while he'll either be in a hospital or a morgue. I'll find out which and call you back.'

I clicked off and said to Dox and Delilah, 'My source is having his people check all the area hospitals. If Yamaoto shows up in an emergency room, we'll know about it.'

We drove around for an hour, taking turns filling each other in on our different perspectives of what had happened at the club. Tatsu didn't call.

When we were done, it was past midnight and there was nothing else to do but wait for Tatsu. I drove into Akasaka and dropped Dox off first, near the Akasaka Prince Hotel, where he'd reserved a room earlier. After the kind of op we'd just pulled, it was best for all of us to move. Delilah opened the door and he climbed out over her, then turned back to us.

'The second you hear something, you call me,' he said.

I nodded. 'I will.'

'I'm serious. Don't go running off on your own again, like you did in New York.'

'Okay.'

He looked at me, obviously doubtful, then turned to Delilah. 'Will you talk some sense into the man? He has this lone wolf complex.'

Delilah smiled. 'I'll try.'

He patted her on the knee and looked at her. 'Delilah, I'd trust you to watch my back anytime. And you can count on me to watch yours.'

She smiled again. 'You got to see quite a bit of my back tonight.'

Dox blinked and his cheeks flushed crimson. 'What I meant was…'

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. 'I know what you meant. And thank you.'

He looked at me and said, 'I have good bones, you know.' Then he closed the door and was gone.

I drove off. Delilah said, 'There's one thing. I didn't want to say in front of Dox, because I can tell he feels bad he didn't finish Yamaoto.'

'What is it?'

'Yamaoto got ahold of me at one point, and I slashed him twice across the arm with the Hideaway. That might have been part of the blood on the street, I don't know.'

I nodded, feeling grim. 'Well, we'll find out.'

'Yeah.'

I parked on a quiet side street near the New Otani, her new hotel. 'I would walk you,' I said, 'but we still need to be careful about being seen together. Especially now.'

She started to answer, but then one of us or maybe both of us leaned in and we were kissing like a pair of drowning victims getting their first taste of air.

She pulled me into the back of the van, where Dox still had his mattress pad laid out. The jacket I'd thrown over her shoulders came off easily. And the dress was half gone anyway. I hiked what was left of it up to her belly while she kissed me and got my pants open. We were breathing hard and my head was pounding and when I touched her and felt how wet she was it drove everything else from my mind. She pushed me back onto the mattress pad and there was no time to get her panties down her legs so I just pulled, hard, and they were gone. She leaned over and straddled me and then I was inside her and I'd never felt anything so good. I thought, Fuck, not again, not without a condom, and it was the most fleeting and inconsequential thought I've ever had in my life.