The Last Assassin

seemed to be moving in slow motion.
    I yelled, 'For Christ's sake, neck shot!'
    Dox dropped to one knee and brought the rifle around. But there wasn't enough time. The sumo blasted into him like a cannonball and the dart went skidding along the mud without its small charge going off". Dox flew through the air and hit the ground hard. The sumo turned on him.
    Without thinking, I took two steps in and leaped onto the sumo's back. I slammed in
hadakajime,
the sleeper hold I'd employed thousands of times in my decades of judo at Tokyo's Kodokan. Properly placed, the strangle cuts off the flow of blood to the brain and induces unconsciousness in seconds. But proper placement against a guy whose neck could have stood in for a telephone pole wasn't really an option. I could tell the hold wasn't putting the sumo out. If anything, it was making him angrier. He snarled and reached back for me but I hunkered down away from his desperate grasp. Then he started spinning in circles, trying to fling me off. I hung on for dear life. He went faster and gave my arms a mighty northward shove. His neck and head were slippery with mud and I lost my grip and flew off him. I hit the ground and rolled away, primally terrified he was going to body slam me.
    He stood for a moment, looking left and right, and I realized that in the dark and perhaps still groggy from the drug, he had momentarily lost track of me. I looked over and saw the yellow tail of the dart Dox had fired sticking out of the mud. I started inching toward it.
    Dox groaned and the sumo spun toward the sound. I grabbed the dart and came to my feet.
    Dox groaned again. The sumo grunted angrily and started stalking toward him. I saw that he was only a few feet away. I charged in, praying he was so focused on finding Dox that he wouldn't hear me.
    At the last second he did, but it was too late. He started to turn and I leaped onto his back with
hadakajime
again — the critical difference being that, this time, instead of bracing one hand against the back of his head, I stabbed him in the side of the neck with the dart. The charge went off with a pop and a flash. He howled and started trying to spin me off again. But this time even as he got started he was already sinking to one knee, then the other. I realized the tranquilizer was working, and eased off slightly on his neck.
    He dropped onto all fours. I dismounted warily and stepped away.
    Then he straightened and started to come up again. I thought,
You can't be fucking serious.
I drew the HK and aimed.
    The sumo wobbled, then fell on his side and lay still.
    I ran over to Dox. The night-vision goggles had been knocked clean off his face by the force of the impact. 'You all right?' I asked, squatting down next to him.
    'Goddamn,' he grunted, rolling from side to side. 'Goddamn.' He let out a marvelously inventive string of expletives.
    'Well, you're moving,' I said. 'Can't be that bad.'
    He sat up with a loud groan. 'Son of a bitch knocked the wind out of me. Thank God there was nothing behind me but air or I'd be a goddamned pancake right now. Hoo-ah, it's good to be alive.'
    I helped him to his feet. We found the goggles and he pulled them on. The sumo was out cold.
    'Yeah, I'm glad he didn't just suffocate before,' Dox said, rubbing his ribs. 'That would have been a tragedy.'
    'I thought you were a sniper! For Christ's sake, you shot one of them in the stomach, the other in the mud!'
    'Hey, big talker, when was the last time you tried to drop four hundred pounds of pissed-off primate doing the forty-yard dash with you in the way?'
    'About ten fucking seconds ago!'
    'Yeah, well, if you hadn't been so busy dancing, you might have noticed I barely had time to bring the damn rifle up, let alone aim it!'
    We stared at each other angrily. Then Dox snorted. I did, too, and then we were laughing so hard that for a few seconds we couldn't speak. That's just the way it is. When the danger's past, hilarity likes to fill the void.
    'Tell me one thing,' Dox said, moving the goggles so he could wipe his eyes. 'I couldn't be sure without the goggles on, but did I see you jump onto that man-mountain's back or what?'
    I was still laughing. 'Yeah, I did. I just…'
    He started slapping his thigh. 'Goddamnit, partner, that was no shit, straight up, the stupidest thing I've ever seen a man do in my life. I mean, if that boy had figured out all he had to do was flop down on his back, I'd be scraping you up with a spatula right now.'
    'I guess I