RainStorm

and the long silencer made
    for an equally long draw. He bobbled the gun, and in that second I
    was on him.
    I caught the gun in my left hand and used my right foot to blast
    his legs out from under him in deashi-barai, a side foot sweep that I
    had performed tens of thousands of times in my quarter century at
    the Kodokan. I went down with him, keeping my weight over his
    chest, increasing the impact as he slammed into the floor. I felt the
    gun go off as we hit the ground, heard the pjfft of the silenced report
    and a crack as the round tore into the wall behind me. Keeping
    control of the gun, making sure it was pointed anywhere but at
    me, I rose up to create an inch of space between our bodies, spun
    my left leg over and past his head, and dropped back in jujigatame, a cross-body armlock. I took the gun from him and broke his elbow
    with a single sharp jerk.
    The second guy had now recovered enough to get a gun out.
    But, like his partner, he was adrenalized and having trouble with
    fine motor movements. His hand was shaking and he hesitated,
    perhaps realizing that if he pulled the trigger he might hit his partner,
    over whose torso my legs were crossed and whose ruined right
    arm was pulled tight across my chest.
    I straightened my right arm and focused on the front sight, placing
    it on the second guy's torso, center mass. The gun was a Clock
    21 in .45 caliber. Healthy stopping power. I willed myself to slow it
    down, make it count.
    The guy under me jerked and my aim wavered. Fuck. I squeezed
    my legs in tighter and leaned back closer to the floor, trying to offer
    the second guy a reduced profile. I knew from experience that
    bullets tend to skim close to the ground rather than bounce off it.
    The guy under me would function as a human sandbag for any
    shots that hit the deck short of our position.
    The second guy moved the gun, trying to track me, the movements
    overlarge and shaking. Then, maybe because he saw the cool
    bead I was drawing on him, his nerve broke. He started shooting in
    a spray-and-pray pattern, his eyes closed, his body hunching forward
    involuntarily. Pfft. Pfft. Pjfft. Small clouds of dust kicked up
    along the concrete around me, puffing out lazily in my adrenalized
    slow-motion vision. I heard the sounds of ricochets. Someone
    screamed.
    Slow. Aim. Breathe. . . .
    I double-tapped the trigger. The first round caught him in the
    shoulder and spun him around. The second missed, going off into
    the wall near the ceiling. I compensated and fired again. This time
    I nailed him in the back near the spine and dropped him to the floor.
    I lurched to my feet and moved toward him. Around us, people
    were running from the scene, pushing up against the mass of other
    shoppers. The immediate area was suddenly empty.
    I walked up to the one I had just dropped. He was on his stomach,
    writhing, groaning something unintelligible. I shot him in the
    back of the head.
    The first one I'd hit with the flail was flat on his back, his legs
    splayed back under him, seemingly unconscious. I shot him in the
    forehead.
    I turned to the last one. He was on his ass, scrambling away from
    me on his feet and good arm. His face was green with pain and terror.
    I shot him in the chest and he collapsed to the ground, his legs
    still kicking. I took three long steps forward and shot him again, in
    the forehead. His head rocketed back and he was still.
    I looked around. Pandemonium now. Screams and shouting and
    panic.
    I needed to get the hell out. But I also needed information. Under
    other circumstances, I would have tried to keep one of them
    alive for questioning, but in a public place like this that course was
    impossible.
    I scooped up the flail and shoved it into one of the outer pockets
    of the navy blazer I was wearing. I was glad I'd thought to tie
    the thing off--if I hadn't, the batteries might have rolled all over
    the place after I'd thrown it, with my fingerprints on them.
    I walked over to the last guy I'd shot and opened his jacket.
    Cashmere. The label under the breast pocket proclaimed Brioni.
    This guy was wearing three or four thousand bucks on his back.
    The shirt, admittedly not shown to its best advantage soaked in
    blood, looked similarly fine. His neck was adorned with a nice gold
    chain. His pockets, though, were empty. Nothing but a wad of
    Hong Kong dollars and a packet of fucking breath mints. Smart,
    not carrying ID. If they get pinched, they dummy up, call the embassy,
    maybe, get