The Last Assassin

'Will it cause him to suffer?' he asked.

'No,' I told him, sorry to disappoint. 'It's the same stuff they use in lethal injections. It'll cause an instantaneous heart attack. You want suffering, we need more time.'

He nodded.

'I'll just shoot him if I have to,' I added. 'Or break his neck. But a potassium chloride injection is hard to detect. The cells release potassium naturally when they break down postmortem. And I think right now natural is better for us. It'll obscure the involvement of your men, my involvement, everything.'

He raised his eyebrows and said, deadpan, 'If I didn't know better, I'd suspect you'd done this before.'

'I'm just a quick study.'

He gave me a wan smile. 'Go. Let's finish this.'

And now I was waiting for his all-clear signal, telling me his men had hauled away Yamaoto's yakuza guards. I'd said nothing to Dox and Delilah. I could do this alone.

My cell phone buzzed. It was Tatsu.

'Go,' he said, his voice weak but eager. 'They're all cuffed and on the way down in the elevator. I've got two other men interviewing the nurses, away from their station, around the corner from Yamaoto's room. You'll only have a minute. Hurry.'

I was already heading down the stairs. 'I'm on my way,' I said, and clicked off. I pocketed the phone and pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and a surgical mask.

When I reached the landing of Yamaoto's floor, I paused and took a quick peek through the door. All clear, as Tatsu had promised.

I moved out and walked briskly down the corridor. Room 203, Tatsu had told me. And there it was. The door was ajar. I glanced inside. Again, all clear.

I walked in and closed the door behind me. Yamaoto was propped up in bed. He was pale and his eyelids were fluttering. His torso was bandaged from surgery and his chest sprouted two tubes that I imagined were there to keep his lungs expanded. A central IV line ran into his neck, feeding antibiotics and probably morphine directly into his jugular.

I walked to the side of the bed. Just to be safe, I moved the call button out of his reach. Then I took the potassium chloride syringe out of the bag and popped off the safety cap.

Yamaoto's eyes fluttered open. He looked at me, but said nothing. Probably he didn't recognize me behind the surgical mask. Or he was too doped up to even know what was going on. Didn't matter.

I kinked off the distal lines running into the central IV. I didn't want any of the potassium chloride to back up. Better to have it go straight to his heart as a single bolus.

I inserted the syringe into a port on the IV line.

Yamaoto smiled. 'It's not over,' he mumbled.

I looked into his eyes, pleased that he was conscious and understood who I was. 'No, it's over,' I said. 'It's been over since you killed my friend Harry. You just didn't get the memo. Well, here it is.'

I shoved the plunger down on the syringe, sending the potassium chloride rocketing toward his heart. Then I took out the saline syringe and repeated the procedure, flushing the dose forward even faster.

Yamaoto watched me. His smile didn't waver. I dropped the second syringe in the paper bag along with the first and looked up at the EKG monitor.

Within seconds, the pointy spikes that represented the proper functioning of his heart had abruptly been replaced by long, curvy sine waves. The potassium chloride had destroyed the muscle's electrical system and it was no longer contracting.

I looked at him. 'What was it you were saying?' I said. 'About this not being over?'

But his eyes had already lost focus. Now they rolled upward, his smile fading with them. His mouth went slack and his head sagged to the side.

I heard an alarm sounding at the nurses' station, warning them that one of their patients was having a cardiac arrest. I moved to the door and looked out into the corridor. Still all clear. I walked quickly back to the stairwell and paused there on the landing, watching the corridor through a crack in the door. It remained empty.

One of the nurses came running now, checking her monitors to see where the problem was located. She picked up a phone to call in the code, but it was already too late. No matter how fast a team moved, they'd have to know to use a huge dose of antidote to reverse the effects of the elephantine bolus I'd employed. And every second that passed before then brought Yamaoto closer to irreversible brain damage at a minimum, more likely closer to death.

I let the door close behind me and continued down to the lobby level. Yamaoto was finished. But there was still Kuro.

49

I went back to Tatsu's room. When he saw me, he raised his eyebrows expectantly.

'It's done,' I said, pulling up a chair next to his bed.

He took my hand and squeezed it. 'Thank you,' he rasped. 'Thank you.'

'There's one thing though. It might be nothing, but…'

'What?'

'Before he lost consciousness, he said to me, "It's not over." Maybe it was just bluster, but… Kuro's still missing. And Yamaoto told him at the club that I've been behind everything since New York.'

'I told you, you don't have to worry about Kuro.'

'Why not?'

'First, because Yamaoto's grudge against you was just that, a grudge. It doesn't extend to other members of his organization. Without him there to give orders, no one has any interest or incentive to try to harm you. Or your family.'

I nodded, not totally convinced. 'Is there a second reason?'

'Yes. Kuro is my informant.'

I looked at him, and felt a smile spreading across my face. 'Son of a bitch. No wonder your information's been so good.'

'Kuro was very unhappy with me after what happened at Wajima. He thought Yamaoto would find out where the leak had come from and kill him for it. And he was nearly apoplectic after the shootout at his club. But I expect he'll be mollified now. No one is better positioned than he to take over Yamaoto's operations.'

'His colleagues aren't going to suspect he was behind all this?'

'They might. That fear has always inhibited him from moving against Yamaoto previously, despite my strong encouragement. That, and of course his fear about the consequences if a move against Yamaoto failed. But now we've given him a fait accompli. What else can he do but move aggressively to consolidate power?'

'What about the Chinese?'

'Kuro was always Yamaoto's conduit to the Chinese. If he doesn't tell them you were behind this, they'll have no reason to know. And even if he did tell them, would they believe it? More likely they would think you're a bogeyman he was making up to divert attention from yakuza responsibility for the massacres at Wajima and Whispers. No, I suspect Kuro will find a way to end this war simply by putting as much blame as possible on Yamaoto.'

I nodded, thinking about it. It sounded reasonable. But I expected it would be a while before it completely sank in.

'You see?' he asked. 'You can go to Midori and your son now. There's nothing stopping you.'

'I might do that,' I said. But the truth was, at that moment Midori and Koichiro felt farther away than ever.

'Just be sure to stop by before you leave town. I'd hate to miss you.'

'I'm not going anywhere right away. I'd like to spend some time with you, if that's okay.'

He squeezed my hand. 'It's fine. And I can promise not to keep you long.'

I shook my head. 'Come on, stop that.'

He shook his head. 'I have to. I wouldn't have known it, but this is the way I cope. And you have to admit, it's more becoming than self-pity.'

'Mildly,' I said, provoking a short laugh that degenerated into a cough. I got him his water and he sipped it through the straw.

My cell phone buzzed. I looked down and saw a 212 area code. It took me a second to recognize it and realize who it was.