The Last Assassin

and hands.
    “Fuck!” I said. “I’m on my way.” I sprinted along the west side of the building, the night-vision goggles dancing around my neck.
    Dox said, “I’m coming, too.”
    “No, stay put! Cover me at the entrance. I’m going in the front.”
    “But…”
    “Don’t argue with me—just do it!”
    There was no time to think, but I was aware on some level of just how much danger she must have been in to call for help. Danger I had put her in. And the comforting, back-of-my-mind notion I’d been carrying around, that at least if I died here it would end the threat to Midori and my son, was useless now. Killing myself in front of Yamaoto would do nothing to save Delilah.
    I cut right onto the street that led to the front path. The two valets were standing there as Delilah had described in her briefing, watching me approach.
    “Drop the valets,” I said. “Now.”
    If there had been another way, I would have used it. But I wasn’t going to waste one second getting to Delilah. And I couldn’t take a chance on these two using their lapel transmitters to warn anyone of what was coming.
    The near valet’s head erupted and he slid to the ground. The other guy didn’t even have time to register surprise before he was down, too.
    I pulled out the Benchmade Dox had given me and thumbed it open without slowing down at all. I leaned over one of the bodies, cut the cord around his neck, and took his magnetic keycard.
    I put the knife back in my pocket. My mind was screaming for me to get inside, but I needed just one more second. My hand shaking, I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed dial I had created for Tatsu’s man in the substation.
    He answered on the first ring. “Hai.”
    “You ready to cut the power?” I asked, in Japanese.
    “Yes, I’m ready.”
    “Do it exactly thirty seconds from now. Got it?”
    “I’m looking at my watch,” he said. “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”
    I closed the phone and dropped it back in my pocket. I took two deep breaths, in and out, in and out, and moved up the path toward the front entrance.

40
    Y AMAOTO SEIZED DELILAH by the wrist and stood, pulling her halfway out of her seat and across the table. His grip was hellishly strong. He brandished the earpiece and shouted, “What’s this? What’s this?”
    “C’est un appareil!” she screamed. “A hearing aid, you pig!”
    “Why did you say, ‘It’s hot in here’? Why did you say that?”
    Big Liu and Kuro seemed horrified by Yamaoto’s behavior. Maybe it was a hearing aid, they might be thinking, see, that explains her conversational difficulties, it wasn’t just a language problem…
    Yamaoto grabbed the halter top again and pulled. Delilah got her hand over the transmitter and pulled back—too hard. The fabric tore, and the transmitter detached. She heard it fall to the ground.
    Yamaoto shouted, “Where’s Rain? Tell me, you whore, where is he!”
    Delilah, staying in character, used her free hand to hold up what was left of the dress and screamed, “ Aidez-moi! Somebody help me, please!”
    The bodyguards had all surrounded the table. Their guns were out now, but they were confused. They didn’t know whether to focus on the table, on somewhere else in the club, or on one another.
    Delilah looked around. Everyone in the club was watching, trying to see what was going on. About half of them were out of their seats.
    Big Liu stood. “Yamaoto…” he started to say.
    “Shut up!” Yamaoto yelled. Then he looked around, too, and seemed for the first time to understand the commotion he was causing. He turned to Kuro and barked something in Japanese. Delilah had a feeling she knew what it was: he wanted to take her somewhere he could control better, where he could get rough and get the information he wanted without frightening the patrons.
    She made no move for the knife on her thigh. She was boxed in now and it wouldn’t do her any good. When they tried to take her somewhere else, though, there would be an opening, and she was going to cut right through it.
    Yamaoto still had her by the wrist. He said to Big Liu, “Get out of the way.”
    Big Liu made no move to comply. He said, “Bad business you do. This is nice girl. You very rude man.” He called to his associate, who got up and ran over.
    More of the patrons and hostesses were getting nervously to their feet. A few had started backing toward the swinging doors. Delilah thought she heard a woman scream from near the front