The Last Assassin

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. Oo-rah, 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 shouldn’t have tried to choke him.”
    “Yeah, no shit you shouldn’t have tried to choke him. You should have just climbed up his body and levered him over by the head. A little guy did it to me once, and I’m lucky I’m here to tell you about it.”
    We laughed more. When it subsided, Dox said, “Thank you, man. I won’t forget it.”
    “Forget it? I’m worried you’re going to keep reminding me of it.”
    “Oh, you can count on that.”
    “All right, come on, before they wake up again.”
    “Partner, if they show any signs of wakefulness whatsoever, I’m going to empty my HK into both of them, reload, and do it again.”
    “I know. So let’s just finish up and get out of here. Can you carry those bags?”
    “Yeah, I’m just sore. I don’t think anything’s busted.”
    While Dox loaded the bags into the van, I retrieved the transmitter from under the Cadillac. Then I went back to the Chinese. They were all lying facedown. I turned them over on their backs and shot them each in the torso. I wanted it to look as though the sumos had ambushed them and then finished them off with the head shots I had started with.
    I went back to the sumos. I could see they were breathing. With some trepidation I placed the HK in each one’s hand and fired a few shots into the water. I was probably being more thorough than necessary, but I wanted gunshot residue on their hands. They still had the tranquilizer darts stuck in their necks and belly. I pulled them out and pocketed them.
    Dox was already waiting in the van with the engine running. I got in and we left.
    While I drove, Dox checked the cargo bag. “Damn, partner, I ain’t gonna count it now, but there is a whole lot of cash here.”
    “Good,” I said, smiling. I wanted him to get a big payday out of this. He deserved it.
    We found a deserted stretch of coast, parked, and waded in. We started emptying the duffels into the water and in no time were standing amid a small sandbar made of hundreds of thousands of pills. We kicked them around under the surf to make sure the salt water had plenty of access to dissolve them. “Going to be some mighty jumpy fish in here,” Dox observed when we were done.
    We drove back to the inn. I didn’t want to stay, but if I left in the middle of the night it would have looked suspicious.
    I parked in the same spot I’d been in before and shut off the engine. We stowed the goggles and the tranquilizer rifle, but kept the HKs close at hand.
    “You think those boys will come back here?” Dox asked.
    I considered. “They might stop by, just to pick up their stuff and