The Last Assassin

d’Alta Mar restaurant, La Florida Hotel, and so many other marvelous places in the marvelous city of Barcelona.
    Naomi Andrews, for guiding me on all things French and Parisian, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Joshua Geller, for sharing his expertise on the New York jazz scene; Lori Kupfer, for continued insights into what sophisticated, sexy women like Delilah wear and how they think, for advice on New York and Paris museums, art, and shopping, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; and Chad and Christi, for making Rain feel so welcome at Milk & Honey.
    Roberta Parks, M.D., Owen Rennert, M.D., Evan Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., and Peter Zimetbaum, M.D., for offering no-longer-reluctant expert advice on some of the killing techniques in this book, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
    The extraordinarily eclectic group of philosophers, badasses (mostly retired), and deviants who hang out at Marc “Animal” MacYoung’s and Dianna Gordon’s www.nononsenseselfdefense.com, without whose imagination and expertise Rain and Dox could never have prevailed against the sumos. In particular, thanks to Dave Bean, for sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of all things forbidden, including a firebomb sequence that didn’t quite make it into the final version of this story; Wim Demeere of the Grinding Shop, for his friendship, great CQC instruction, and enthusiasm for John Rain; Dr. Maude Dull, for saving lives when she can and comforting the bereaved when she can’t, and for her unusual attempts to get Rain to kill a pig by natural causes (next time, Maude, I promise…); Jack “Spook” Finch, Mr. Lawsey, Lawsey himself, veteran of the Vietnam War’s Easter Offensive, Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, and Silver Star awardee, for sharing his experiences with “the cost of it,” for teaching Dox to carry more blades than a combine, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Montie Guthrie, for sharing his knowledge and experience with firearms tools and tactics, for becoming sexually stimulated by the “love scenes,” and for helpful comments on the manuscript; and Michael “Mama Duck” Johnson, for helping Rain find a knife in New York. A special thank you to Marc MacYoung and Slugg, experts on criminal behavior, operator mind-sets, combat tactics (Delilah’s “finishing move” in Barcelona, for example, is Marc’s), and tradecraft, without whose experience, insights, and stern beyond-the-call-of-duty comments on the manuscript John Rain might not have survived this story.
    My friends at Café Borrone in Menlo Park, California, for serving the best breakfasts—and especially coffee—that any writer could ask for.
    Eve Bridberg, Vivian Brown, Alan Eisler, Judith Eisler, Shari Gersten and David Rosenblatt, Tom Hayes, novelist J. A. Konrath, Sarah Landis, Doug Patteson, Matt Powers, Sandy Rennert, Ted Schlein, Hank Shiffman, Pete Wenzel, and Caryn Wiseman, for helpful comments on the manuscript and many valuable suggestions and insights along the way.
    Most of all, to my wife, Laura, who helps me conceive and revise these books, and then enjoys them, like no one else. Thanks, babe.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
    THE BARCELONA , New York, Tokyo, and Wajima locales that appear in this book are described, as always, as I have found them. I don’t know whether Tokyo CIA station stockpiles the kind of hardware Kanezaki provides Rain and Dox. Tokyo’s Jikei hospital has no separate cancer ward that I know of, but it did a first-rate job of patching me up after my eighteen-foot fall to the Shibuya concrete in 2001.