The Last Assassin

window as the city’s famed beaches went by, and was pleased to think that in just a little over half a day I would be walking along their Mediterranean counterpart.
    I thought about my son. I wasn’t going to have the relationship with him I’d been hoping for. I couldn’t be part of his life. But forever? That’s a long time. Maybe Dox was right. Blood matters, and not just in the way Midori had suggested. I couldn’t be with my son today, but in five years? Ten? I didn’t know. The uncertainty wasn’t a happy prospect, true, but it was better than accepting that I would never see him at all. It was better than if he had never even existed. It was a hard path ahead, I thought, but on balance, I ought to be grateful for it.
    And Tatsu had told me to watch over my boy. I wanted to do that. Not just for the child. And not just for myself, either. But for Tatsu. Fate had denied him a life with his son, and it had been important to him that my fate be different. I would try to make it so.
    Still, I couldn’t deny the justice in Midori’s urge to keep Koichiro from me. I had told her Yamaoto and the two thugs in New York were the last, that it was over, I was out. But Dox was still in the life, and so, probably, was Delilah, and if either of them ever needed me I’d have to be dead not to come running.
    And then there was Kanezaki, and the “favor” I owed him. I didn’t know what it was, but it was a safe bet it would involve more than watering his houseplants while he was out of town.
    But why think about all that now, on my way to see Delilah? Barcelona had been an interlude before. It could be one again.
    No, that wasn’t quite right, I realized. Barcelona hadn’t been an interlude. It had been…anarmistice.
    But that was all right, too. An armistice wasn’t so bad.
    It was better than being at war. And if I could find a way to another armistice, and then another, maybe I could string them all together, and one day they’d actually add up to peace.
    One day.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    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 (aka Mad Max Perkins) of Penguin, for always steering me toward the truth and never letting me get lazy.
    Michael Barson (master of Yubiwaza) of Penguin, for introducing Rain to New York’s Ear Inn, and for doing such an amazing job of getting out the word on the books.
    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 (see you at II, Mas), and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Tony Blauer, for teaching Rain the SPEAR technique he uses in the combat sequence outside Midori’s apartment, and Mike Suyematsu, certified Blauer PDR instructor and a guy who shares Rain’s roots, for terrific CQC instruction and for helping me choreograph the SPEAR sequence.
    Matt Furey, for again providing some of the Combat Conditioning bodyweight exercises that Rain uses in this book to stay in top shape (and that his author uses, too).
    Dan Levin, for sharing his remarkable knowledge of Japanese swords and swordsmanship, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Peyton Quinn of Rocky Mountain Combat Applications Training and author of A Bouncer’s Guide to Bar-room Brawling and Real Fighting , for his concept of the previolence “interview.”
    Ernie Tibaldi, a thirty-one-year veteran agent of the FBI, for continuing to generously share his encyclopedic knowledge of law enforcement and personal safety issues, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Novelist Marcus Wynne, for sharing his experience with knives (particularly the FS Hideaway), tactics, and the Special Ops community.
    Again and always, sensei , Koichiro Fukasawa of Wasabi Communications, a singular window on everything Japan and Japanese, for years of insight, humor, and friendship, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Yukie Kito, for introducing Rain to Shinagawa, a part of Tokyo with which Rain was insufficiently familiar, for keeping an eye out for Dox in the Shinagawa Station Starbucks, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    Patricia Escalona, Sylvia Fernandez, Carlos Ramos, Blanca Rosa, and everyone else at Roca Editorial, my Spanish publisher, for introducing Rain to the bars of El Born, Torre