Several times, I considered pushing her, but always decided against it. I didn't want to distract her, for one thing. She had a lot on her hands and needed to focus, to stay in the role. Also, she had a tendency to get prickly when she thought I was telling her how to do her job, and, although I wouldn't have admitted it, Dox's comments about 'micro-management' had stung a little. Anyway, there was nothing I could tell her that she didn't already know.
I cracked my neck and bounced on my toes to stay limber. I'd been out here longer than I'd first expected, and it was cold.
In my ear Delilah said, 'It's hot in here.'
My heart froze. I felt blood draining away from the skin on my face and hands.
'Fuck!' I said. 'I'm on my way.' I sprinted along the west side of the building, the night-vision goggles dancing around my neck.
Dox said, 'I'm coming, too.'
'No, stay put! Cover me at the entrance, I'm going in the front.'
'But…'
'Don't argue with me, just do it!'
There was no time to think, but I was aware on some level of just how much danger she must have been in to call for help. Danger I had put her in. And the comforting, back-of-my-mind notion I'd been carrying around, that at least if I died here it would end the threat to Midori and my son, was useless now. Killing myself in front of Yamaoto would do nothing to save Delilah.
I cut right onto the street that led to the front path. The two valets were standing there as Delilah had described in her briefing, watching me approach.
'Drop the valets,' I said. 'Now.'
If there had been another way, I would have used it. But I wasn't going to waste one second getting to Delilah. And I couldn't take a chance on these two using their lapel transmitters to warn anyone of what was coming.
The near valet's head erupted and he slid to the ground. The other guy didn't even have time to register surprise before he was down, too.
I pulled out the Benchmade Dox had given me and thumbed it open without slowing down at all. I leaned over one of the bodies, cut the cord around his neck, and took his magnetic keycard.
I put the knife back in my pocket. My mind was screaming for me to get inside, but I needed just one more second. My hand shaking, I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial I had created for Tatsu's man in the substation.
He answered on the first ring. 'Hai.'
'You ready to cut the power?' I asked, in Japanese.
'Yes, I'm ready.'
'Do it exactly thirty seconds from now. Got it?'
'I'm looking at my watch,' he said. 'Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…'
I closed the phone and dropped it back in my pocket. I took two deep breaths, in and out, in and out, and moved up the path toward the front entrance.
40
Yamaoto seized Delilah by the wrist and stood, pulling her halfway out of her seat and across the table. His grip was hellishly strong. He brandished the earpiece and shouted, 'What's this? What's this?'
'C'est un appareil!' she screamed. 'A hearing aid, you
Pig!'
'Why did you say, "It's hot in here"? Why did you say
that?'
Big Liu and Kuro seemed horrified by Yamaoto's behavior. Maybe it was a hearing aid, they might be thinking, see, that explains her conversational difficulties, it wasn't just a language problem…
Yamaoto grabbed the halter top again and pulled. Delilah got her hand over the transmitter and pulled back – too hard. The fabric tore, and the transmitter detached. She heard it fall to the ground.
Yamaoto shouted, 'Where's Rain? Tell me, you whore, where is he!'
Delilah, staying in character, used her free hand to hold up what was left of the dress and screamed, 'Aidez-moi! Somebody help me, please!'
The bodyguards had all surrounded the table. Their guns were out now, but they were confused. They didn't know whether to focus on the table, on somewhere else in the club, or on one another.
Delilah looked around. Everyone in the club was watching, trying to see what was going on. About half of them were out of their seats.
Big Liu stood. 'Yamaoto…' he started to say.
'Shut up!' Yamaoto yelled. Then he looked around, too, and seemed for the first time to understand the commotion he was causing. He turned to Kuro and barked something in Japanese. Delilah had a feeling she knew what it was: he wanted to take her somewhere he could control better, where he could get rough and get the information he wanted without frightening the patrons.
She made no move for the knife on her thigh. She was boxed in now and it wouldn't do her any good. When they tried to take her somewhere else, though, there would be an opening, and she was going to cut right through it.
Yamaoto still had her by the wrist. He said to Big Liu, 'Get out of the way.'
Big Liu made no move to comply. He said, 'Bad business you do. This is nice girl. You very rude man.' He called to his associate, who got up and ran over.
More of the patrons and hostesses were getting nervously to their feet. A few had started backing toward the swinging doors. Delilah thought she heard a woman scream from near the front entrance, but the sound was faint and she wasn't sure.
Yamaoto, obviously making an effort to calm himself, said, 'This nice girl is a danger, as you'll see in a moment. Now, if you'll just…'
And then the lights went out.
41
I followed the path along its right turn and headed straight to the doors, the keycard in my right hand, night-vision goggles in my left, the HK in the thigh rig. I imagined the hostesses were watching me now through the wall camera, trying to figure out, Who's this guy in the suit? Why don't we recognize him? The security guy would be standing by the entrance, his alertness level low as long as the door was closed.
I strode up the stairs, my heart hammering. I moved directly to the magnetic card reader and swiped the card in front of it. There was a clack inside the door as the lock disengaged. I slipped the card into my jacket pocket and took out the HK. I held the gun behind my back as the door swung open.
The security guy was right there, just inside the entrance. He frowned when he saw me – obviously, when the door had opened in the absence of the buzzer, he'd been expecting one of the valets. As I stepped past him he said, 'Oi!' Hey!
I glanced left, absurdly aware of some sort of techno music playing in the background. There, the other security guy. I tracked right. The hostesses were staring open-mouthed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. There was another guy behind them, a valet, from his appearance, just as Delilah had described in her briefing.
The first security guy said, 'Oi!' again and started coming toward me. Clearly he had misunderstood the nature of the threat. He must have thought he was dealing with a party crasher or something, someone who would be intimidated by a tough-guy stare and a little woofing. Then he noticed my hand behind my back. His eyes widened and he reached inside his jacket.
I brought up the HK and put two rounds in his chest and another in his head. Everything was quiet: just three pfffts, then the sound of his body hitting the floor.
I tracked to the second security guy. His eyes were bugging out and he was groping under his jacket. I dropped him with a single head shot.
I looked around again. The hostesses were frozen, obviously in shock. Likewise the valet.
Then the lights went out. The music stopped. The club was suddenly, eerily silent.
One of the hostesses screamed in the dark. I pulled on the goggles and moved through the swinging doors into the main room.
I didn't know where Delilah was. And I had only two minutes of darkness to find her.
42
The moment the lights went out, Delilah dropped the halter top and reached under her dress. She slid her fingers into the Hideaway grip, pulled the knife free from its sheath, and slashed Yamaoto across the forearm. The razor-sharp blade parted skin and muscle like water and sliced down to the bone. He howled in the darkness and released her wrist.
She shoved Big Liu hard and he spilled out of the booth and into the bodyguards. She felt Yamaoto grabbing for her and slashed him again. There were shouts and cries of confusion from all over the room now, the sounds of people stumbling into one another and cursing in the dark.
She crouched on the bench and walked to the edge of it, then dropped down. She started edging along the wall.
Then someone grabbed her ankle, and she was falling.