Requiem for an Assassin

from the main clubhouse, everyone in shorts and boating shoes, suntans and white smiles. Life was good for these people. Not one of them gave me even a second glance.
    I passed the fourth perpendicular. I could see Boaz now, halfway down the fifth. He had erected a tripod with what looked like a professional photographer’s auxiliary light set atop it, the light set in the center of a large metallic umbrella, the whole thing connected to an exceptionally large rectangular battery pack. He was working the controls of a device the average person would assume was a light meter.
    “You ready?” I said.
    “Ready.”
    I turned onto the fifth perpendicular and began heading toward Boaz. The gloves Kanezaki had thoughtfully provided were in my pocket, and I pulled them on as I walked. I set down the fishing pole, then reached inside the coveralls and came out with the HK. I held it along my leg, the muzzle of the suppressor past my knee, and kept moving in. I wished there were some cover or concealment, but the terrain was what it was. I hoped Boaz’s ray gun was as good as he claimed.
    “Five, four, three, two, one,” I said, still walking casually toward him. “Go.”

33
    A T FIRST, Dox thought the hot flush was a fear reaction. After all, a sadistic sociopath he’d provoked to murderous rage was athwart his chest, a second away from gelding him. The only thing that could have surprised him at that point was the wonder that he’d managed not to piss himself.
    But within a half-second, he understood it wasn’t a hot flush, although he had no better explanation. It felt like he’d touched a burning lightbulb, except not just with his fingertips, but with his whole body. Then, before he could even complete the What the fuck? thought he was forming, his entire body was on fire, like someone had doused him head-to-toe in kerosene and set him alight. He howled in agony and writhed under Fester’s knee. Then Fester was off him, shrieking, rolling on the deck as though his clothes were ablaze and he was trying to put himself out.
    Dox strained against the chains, sure he was on fire and utterly confused about where it had come from and why he couldn’t see the flames. He managed one coherent thought— Out of the frying pan, into the fire —and then all he could do was howl and hope it would be over soon.

34
    A SECOND AFTER Boaz engaged the device, a cacophony of shrieks emanated from belowdecks on the boat. Among them, I recognized Dox’s baritone roar, and was seized with conflicting emotions: relief that he was alive, horror at the level of pain that could have produced that agonized wail.
    I stood there, helpless, the HK in front of me now in a two-handed grip, waiting for someone to stumble off the boat so I could shoot. Nothing happened. If anything, the screaming got worse.
    In my peripheral vision, I saw movement on the adjacent craft. I glanced left and right to confirm there was no danger. Civilians, looking out from their boats now to see what was causing the ruckus.
    “What’s happening over there?” a Caucasian man yelled in English from the boat to my left.
    “Police matter, sir,” I called back in my best command voice. “Please just stay on your craft and keep your head down. There could be shooting and I wouldn’t want you or your family injured.”
    The man disappeared without another word.
    The screaming went on. Goddamnit, why aren’t they trying to get off the boat?
    “Turn it off!” I said. “They must be stuck belowdecks. I’m going in.”
    “It’s off,” I heard him say. In my peripheral vision, I saw him pull a pistol from a bellyband. I half turned to him, but he was pointing the gun at the boat, not at me.
    “Stay there,” I said. “We might need heat again.” I jumped onto the deck and moved to the stairs.
    The screaming had stopped. I paused at the edge of the entrance, glanced down, and pulled my head back. With my eyes adjusted to the glare outside, I couldn’t see what was below. I pulled off the shades and jammed them in a pocket.
    Another quick peek. Nothing. Still no screaming.
    There were only six stairs. I leaped over all of them and landed in a squat on the deck below. I pivoted, the gun out, tracking for danger. Still nothing. I was in a narrow corridor. There were three doors, all closed, all on my right, all with small windows.
    I moved up next to the first of them and snuck a quick peek through the window, then away. Nothing.
    I checked the second one