The Last Assassin

The sumo tracked me with rage-filled eyes. Then he shook his head as though to clear it. I breathed silent words of gratitude.

The sumo took an unsteady step toward me, then another. I circled toward the surf. There was less light in the sky over the water, and he would have a harder time silhouetting me there.

He kept coming, but he was on autopilot now, his arms stretched out in front of him as though he was sleepwalking. I moved off to the side and watched him. He took two steps. Three. Another.

Oh, shit, he was going to make it to the water.

'Oi! Kochi da! Kochi da!' I yelled. Hey! Over here! Over here! Then some Chinese again, to obscure things: 'Wau ai ni! Wau ai ni!'

He was at the edge of the water now. I yelled again.

He started to turn toward me. I let out a sigh of relief.

He tottered for a second, swaying first toward shore, then toward sea.

Dox moved up next to me and shouldered the rifle. We watched in mute fascination.

Shore, sea.

I realized Dox and I were leaning backward as though to influence him with body English. Dox whispered, 'Come on, come on…'

The sumo pitched forward and hit the surf with a crash that sent a geyser up around him. 'Shit, here we go again,' Dox said, and we charged in after him.

For a guy who weighed just south of a quarter ton, the sumo floated pretty well. We got ahold of the lapels of his jacket and somehow managed to turn him on his back and drag him up onto the muddy beach far enough so that his face was out of the water.

We moved a few feet away from him and stood sucking wind. After a moment, Dox laughed. 'Well, that was a mad minute if I ever had one,' he said.

I laughed, too. Yeah, it had been a close one.

'Hey, man,' he said, 'what the fuck were you yelling at him in Chinese?'

'I don't want them telling anyone their attackers were using English and Japanese. If it gets back to Yamaoto, it sounds too much like me. I was trying to obscure things.'

'Yeah, but 'Wau ai ni'? 'I love you'? You're telling that boy you love him, no wonder he tried to kill us!'

We laughed again. 'It's the only Chinese I know,' I said.

'Well, it is a useful phrase, in my experience. Sometime you'll have to tell me the story behind how you learned it.'

'All right,' I said, still catching my breath. 'Let's…'

The ground shook underneath us. I looked up and there was the second sumo, barreling down on us like a freight train along the surf.

Dox swung the rifle off his shoulder. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

I yelled, 'For Christ's sake, neck shot!'

Dox dropped to one knee and brought the rifle around. But there wasn't enough time. The sumo blasted into him like a cannonball and the dart went skidding along the mud without its small charge going off'. Dox flew through the air and hit the ground hard. The sumo turned on him.

Without thinking, I took two steps in and leaped onto the sumo's back. I slammed in hadakajime, the sleeper hold I'd employed thousands of times in my decades of judo at Tokyo's Kodokan. Properly placed, the strangle cuts off the flow of blood to the brain and induces unconsciousness in seconds. But proper placement against a guy whose neck could have stood in for a telephone pole wasn't really an option. I could tell the hold wasn't putting the sumo out. If anything, it was making him angrier. He snarled and reached back for me but I hunkered down away from his desperate grasp. Then he started spinning in circles, trying to fling me off. I hung on for dear life. He went faster and gave my arms a mighty northward shove. His neck and head were slippery with mud and I lost my grip and flew off him. I hit the ground and rolled away, primally terrified he was going to body slam me.

He stood for a moment, looking left and right, and I realized that in the dark and perhaps still groggy from the drug, he had momentarily lost track of me. I looked over and saw the yellow tail of the dart Dox had fired sticking out of the mud. I started inching toward it.

Dox groaned and the sumo spun toward the sound. I grabbed the dart and came to my feet.

Dox groaned again. The sumo grunted angrily and started stalking toward him. I saw that he was only a few feet away. I charged in, praying he was so focused on finding Dox that he wouldn't hear me.

At the last second he did, but it was too late. He started to turn and I leaped onto his back with hadakajime again — the critical difference being that, this time, instead of bracing one hand against the back of his head, I stabbed him in the side of the neck with the dart. The charge went off with a pop and a flash. He howled and started trying to spin me off again. But this time even as he got started he was already sinking to one knee, then the other. I realized the tranquilizer was working, and eased off slightly on his neck.

He dropped onto all fours. I dismounted warily and stepped away.

Then he straightened and started to come up again. I thought, You can't be fucking serious. I drew the HK and aimed.