Requiem for an Assassin

that arrived at Paris Nord at one in the morning. I bought a ticket and headed to the platform. I called Kanezaki just before boarding the train.
    “How is he?” I asked.
    “He’s going to be okay. A lot of bruises, some fractured ribs, and a hell of a sunburn.”
    Yeah, my skin was itching, too. I’d been so busy I hadn’t noticed until now.
    “Good.”
    “How about you?” he asked. “Did…”
    “You were right about everything. And everything we came here to do, we did, including rendering our friend defunct. I’ll post the details. But you can probably reach the Israelis on their mobiles right now.”
    “I may do that.”
    “You did well, Tom.”
    “And you did good.”
    “Well, no good deed goes unpunished. I’ll be in touch, okay?”
    “I hope so.”
    I took my seat on the train and five minutes later, we pulled out of the station. I was wet and shivering from crawling through Vondelpark, and my chest ached. I just wanted to get somewhere warm and dry, somewhere I could close my eyes.
    I leaned my head against the window. As we left the lights of the city behind and the world outside grew darker, my reflection appeared in the glass.
    For so long, I’d been asking myself whether I had a choice, and always answering no. But maybe the real question was why I never had a choice. Why I always put myself in a position where I had no alternative but killing.
    What was that saying of Henry Ford’s? “You can have any color you like, as long as it’s black.”
    I thought I heard the iceman: You can have any choice you want, as long as it’s mine.
    Maybe. But I’d made at least one right choice, in New York when I’d walked away from Midori’s boyfriend. And maybe I was making another right now, in going to Delilah.
    I thought about those three small words she had uttered, the ones I didn’t know how to respond to. I’d think of something, maybe even what she had called “the traditional response,” although the thought of it scared me. I had told her I needed her to guide me back, and staring at that ghostly image in the glass, I knew I did need her, that without her I would just give up and surrender to the iceman. It would be so easy. I was used to it. A part of me even wanted it.
    But there was something I wanted more. And with Delilah…
    That was it. With Delilah.
    The iceman was a loner. Why was I fighting him alone? That was what he wanted, the nature of the fight was itself his victory. But I had allies, Delilah foremost among them. Maybe if I could just be a little less stupid about accepting what they wanted to give me, I could stack the odds in my favor.
    I didn’t need to kill the iceman. I didn’t even need to fight him. I just needed to make more of myself, so that he would be less of me.
    I didn’t know how, exactly, and I was too tired to figure it out now. But I wouldn’t have to figure it out on my own. That was the point.
    I closed my eyes. The reflection was still there, of course. I just couldn’t see it. And for the moment, that was enough.

A UTHOR’S N OTE
    The Bali, Paris, Saigon, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Bay Area, New York, Singapore, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam locales that appear in this book are described, as always, as I have found them. The nonlethal millimeter wave “area denial system” technology Rain and Boaz use in Singapore is real, but I don’t know if there are yet versions as portable, or as able to penetrate walls, as the one in this book.

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
    Once again, I’ve written a book that has been made much better through the generous contributions of many friends. My thanks to:
    My agents, Nat Sobel and Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates, and my editor, Dan Conaway of Putnam, for helping me keep the stories fresh and the prose sharp.
    Michael Barson (master of Yubiwaza), Carroll Beauvais, Katie Grinch, Summer Smith, Caroline Sun, and Matthew Venzon of Putnam, for doing such an amazing job of getting out the word on the books. Go, Barsonians!
    Massad Ayoob of the Lethal Force Institute, for sharing his awe-inspiring knowledge of and experience with firearms tools and tactics, for the great instruction at the LFI I and II (see you at III, Mas), and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Tony Blauer, for teaching Rain and Dox some of the pattern interrupt / verbal distraction techniques they use several times in this book to gain a tactical advantage.
    Matt Furey, for again providing some of the Combat Conditioning bodyweight exercises