A Clean Kill in Tokyo

guaranteed to cause disorientation upon contact and unconsciousness in less than five seconds. A medium-sized pink rubber Super Ball, available for eighty-nine cents at pretty much any drugstore. A portable defibrillation kit like the ones some airlines are beginning to keep on their commercial jets, small enough to tote around in an ordinary briefcase and considerably more expensive than the Super Ball.
    Shocking someone out of a ventricular fibrillation is tricky business. Three hundred sixty joules is a massive dose of electricity. If a shock like that is applied at the top of the heart’s T wave—that is, between beats—you’ll induce a lethal arrhythmia. Modern defibrillators, therefore, have sensors that automatically detect the QRS complex of the heartbeat, which is the only instant at which the shock can safely be applied.
    Of course, the same software that’s designed to avoid the T wave can be reconfigured to initiate on it.
    I reclined the electronic seat a few degrees and relaxed. It was a safe bet Holtzer would be heading over to the CIA’s campus sometime in the morning, so I expected to have to wait only a few more hours.
    At six-thirty, about a half hour before it would get light outside, I went to the back of the van and urinated in a plastic jug. I limbered up for a few minutes, then enjoyed a breakfast of cold coffee and Chicken McNuggets, left over from the previous evening. The culinary joys of surveillance.
    Holtzer showed an hour later. I watched him emerge from the elevator and head toward me. He was dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, dark tie—standard Beltway attire, practically Agency issue.
    His mind was elsewhere. I could see it in his expression, his posture, the way he failed to check the likely hot spots in the garage, especially around his car. Shame on him, being so careless in a potential crime zone like a parking garage.
    I slipped on a pair of black cowhide gloves. A click of the switch on the Thunder Blaster produced a sharp arc of blue sparks and an electric crackle. I was ready to go.
    I scanned the garage, satisfying myself that for the moment it was empty. Then I slipped to the back of the van and watched him move to the driver side of the Taurus, where he paused to remove his suit jacket.
Good,
I thought.
Let’s not get any wrinkles on your funeral suit.
    I waited until the jacket was just past his shoulders, the spot that would make effective reaction most awkward for him, then swung the van’s side door open and moved in on him. He looked up when he heard the door open, but had no chance to do anything but drop his mouth open in surprise. Then I was on him, my right hand jamming the Thunder Blaster into his belly, my left propping him up by the throat while the shock scrambled his central nervous system.
    It took less than six seconds to drag his dazed form into the van and slide the door shut behind us. I pushed him onto the ample backseat, then gave him another hit with the Thunder Blaster to make sure he was incapacitated long enough for me to finish.
    The moves were routine and it didn’t take long. I buckled him in with the lap and shoulder belt, pulling the latter all the way out and then letting it retract fully until it was locked in place. The hardest part was getting his shirt open and his tie out of the way so I could apply the paddles directly to his torso, where the conducting jelly would prevent any telltale burn marks. The seatbelt and shoulder restraint kept him in place while I worked.
    As I applied the second paddle, his eyes fluttered open. He glanced down at his exposed chest, then looked up at me.
    “Way… way…” he stammered.
    “Wait?” I asked.
    He grunted, I guessed to affirm.
    “Sorry, can’t do that,” I said, affixing the second paddle with medical tape.
    He opened his mouth to say something else and I shoved the Super Ball into it. I didn’t want him to bite his tongue from the force of the shock—it could look suspicious.
    I shifted to the side of the van to make sure I wasn’t touching him when the shock was delivered. He watched me as I moved, his eyes wide.
    “For Jimmy,” I said, looking into his eyes. “And Cu Lai. Say hello for me.”
    I flicked the switch on the unit.
    His body jerked forward to the limit of the automatically locking shoulder belt and his head arched backward into the anti-whiplash head restraint. Cars are amazingly safe these days.
    I waited for a minute, then checked his pulse to be sure he