The Last Assassin

'You know…'

'Yeah, yeah, I know, it was the cold water. That's what they all say.'

I might have laughed, but my teeth were still chattering too hard.

Dox, like any sensible-minded person who travels prepared for the worst, had a change of clothes in the truck. He also had water, food, a tent and sleeping bag, a medical kit, and about a thousand rounds of ammunition. The clothes were too big on me, but that would be a lot less noticeable than returning to the hotel naked.

We dumped everything I'd been wearing, the blanket, and the tainted knives in a variety of sewers and dumpsters around town. When we were done, I realized I was famished. We stopped at a diner and I wolfed down a tureen of chicken soup and a mountainous pastrami sandwich. All the twenty-four-hour places in New York were certainly handy if you had a job that kept you out at night.

By the time Dox dropped me off near the Ritz, the sun was coming up and I was flat-out exhausted. I told him I'd call him later in the day, after I'd slept and could think clearly.

I took the hottest shower I could stand to get the last traces of cold from my bones and the stench of blood and the Hudson from my skin. I fell into bed, and for a moment, I was outside Midori's apartment again, suffused with beguiling hope. I wasn't yet asleep, but it already felt like a dream.

10

I slept until later that morning, then went out to a pay phone and called Tatsu in Tokyo.

It took him four rings to answer. Ordinarily he got it on the first.

'Hai,' he said. He sounded tired. Well, it was night out there.

'Ore da,' I said in Japanese. It's me.

'Let me call you back from a different line.'

His voice was really raspy. Must have been a hell of a case of the flu he was fighting.

'Sure,' I said, and clicked off.

A moment later the phone rang. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I'm changing phones more frequently lately than I used to.'

'Not using scrambled?'

He laughed, then coughed. 'Only when we're trying to get the NSA's attention.'

I smiled. A scrambled digital signal attracts the NSA the way blood brings sharks. It's as useful as leaning close to whisper in someone's ear: anyone who sees you do it will immediately start listening intently. Better to just move the conversation somewhere else, where no one is looking.

'How did things go?' he asked. 'Were you able to meet her?'

'Yes.'

'And your son?'

I saw him, too.

'Just saw him?'

'No, it was more than that. I…' I paused, the memory seeming to shift something inside my chest. 'I held him in my arms while he slept.'

'That's good,' he said, and I imagined him smiling.

'You okay?' I said. 'That flu sounds pretty bad.'

'I'm all right.'

'I've got a situation I need your help with. I'll put the information on the bulletin board.'

'I may not be able to access the bulletin board for a while. I'm in the hospital.'

I frowned and pressed my ear closer to the receiver. 'What's going on?'

'Nothing, I'll be out of here soon. Tell me about your situation. It sounds more pressing than mine.'

'You sure your phone is all right?'

'Positive.'

Okay. I told him everything.

When I was done, he said, 'What are you thinking?'

'You know what I'm thinking. I can't stop halfway. The only way to finish this is to keep going until it's done.'

'You mean…'

'Look, the Chinese are just contractors on this. They don't know me, they don't know what I'm capable of, so they'll believe the obvious explanation for what happened to their people — a junior guy with a history of violence lost his temper, killed his boss, and went into hiding. But Yamaoto is going to know better. And he'll have an incentive to try to persuade the Chinese that I was behind the deaths of two of their people, as a way of getting them personally involved. So all I've done by taking out the two Chinese is buy myself a little time. If I don't finish