The Last Assassin (18 page)

D
OX AND I
got back to Tokyo that afternoon. I called Tatsu on the way to let him know I would be coming by to brief him. Dox, who had remained alert and armed the rest of the night in case the sumos returned, slept for almost the entire trip. He had counted the money—or a portion of it, anyway, because there was a hell of a lot—and estimated that it was about a half-billion yen. Over four million U.S. Not a bad night's work.

It was strange to have so much cash, but even stranger was how little it seemed to mean at the moment. Not so long ago, it would have been the answer to my dreams. Independence, freedom from the life. But independence wasn't what I was after anymore, or at least not the way it had been. And the freedom I wanted involved the freedom just to see that child I had held in my arms. Money wasn't going to be enough for that. Hell, the way I was going about things, I didn't know what would be.

Just see this through,
I thought.
You're in it now, you have to finish it. It'll be your last, and you'll figure the rest out after.

We bought a dozen smaller bags and divided up the cash. Some of it we shipped to certain overseas mail drops we employed, some of it we parked in train station lockers, some of it we hid in our hotels. There was just too much to risk keeping it in the same place. When we were done dealing with the money, I went to see Tatsu.

I approached and entered the hospital in the same cautious manner I had used before. There were no problems. The bodyguard I had seen last time was outside Tatsu's door again. He nodded in recognition when he saw me and let me inside.

This time, Tatsu was alone, sleeping. I stood watching him for a moment. Absent the dynamism that still shone from his wakeful eyes to obscure it, the devastation the disease had wreaked upon his body was painfully apparent. He looked wasted and weak, with nothing but a lone bodyguard to defend him against a lifetime's supply of enemies.

He sighed and cleared his throat, then opened his eyes. If he was surprised to see me standing there, he gave no indication of it.

“Checking to make sure I'm still here?” he asked, with a wry smile.

“Just wondering what your wife ever saw in you.”

He chuckled. “For that, you have to look under the sheets.”

That wasn't like him. I laughed and said, “I'll take your word for it,” and he laughed, too.

I sat in the chair next to the bed and leaned close so I could keep my voice down. “There's something I have to tell you,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Next time I go after two of Yamaoto's men, if you know they're hundred-and-fifty-kilo sumo wrestlers, don't be afraid to mention it. It might be relevant.”

He laughed. “Some things get past even me.”

“Yeah, you're slipping. But it went well anyway.”

“Yes, I've already heard.”

Tatsu. He might have been down, but he was far from out. I raised my eyebrows and he went on.

“My informant tells me the two men who went to pick up the shipment in Wajima last night haven't checked in.”

“Really.”

Tatsu briefed me on what seemed to have gone down in Wajima. His information was accurate, and I told him so.

“The Chinese are livid,” he went on. “They're squeezing Yamaoto hard.”

“Yamaoto's response?”

“Stalling for time. He told the Chinese he's looking everywhere for his two men and will find a way to straighten this out.”

“Are the Chinese going to buy that?”

“Not for long.”

I nodded. “What do you think Yamaoto's going to do?”

Tatsu shrugged. “Kill Kito and Sanada. Either they'll come in trying to explain or Yamaoto will find them. He doesn't have much choice.”

“You think he'll be able to find them? They're going to know what's coming.”

“They might come in. They could be stupid, and they're certainly feeling desperate. But even if they don't, Yamaoto will know all their acquaintances, all the places they might try to hide. And from what you've told me, they're not exactly inconspicuous men.”

He stopped, and I could tell the talking was tiring him out. He pulled an oxygen cannula up from his chest and adjusted it under his nose. “I hate this fucking thing,” he grumbled.

I helped him with the oxygen. “So everything we're trying to get going here,” I said, “Yamaoto could bring it to a halt if he gets to the sumos.”

He looked at me, but said nothing. I knew what he was doing. He wanted it to come from me, so I would feel that I wasn't being manipulated, that I was making my own decisions. Which is, of course, the most artful manipulation of all.

But none of that changed the basic facts. “Of course, if the yakuza were to come under attack in the meantime…” I said.

Tatsu nodded. “Yamaoto would look foolish and weak. He would have no choice but to hit back. Positions on both sides would harden after that.”

“What if he suspected he was being set up, though?”

“He probably already does. But what can he do? As things get worse, there will be a few cool heads on both sides, certainly. There always are. But cool heads rarely prevail in the midst of ongoing bloodshed. Especially when the bloodshed is accompanied by the kind of nationalistic antagonism that has lately worsened in China and Japan. Think of it. Chinese upstarts, killing yakuza with impunity on the yakuza's own turf? It would be intolerable to Yamaoto's rank and file. After that, the reaction will no longer require a catalyst. It will have taken on a life of its own. Yamaoto won't be able to stop it.”

“All right. But how does this get me to
him
?”

“If you start taking out Yamaoto's lieutenants, you will force him to assume greater day-to-day control over his operations. This would bring him into the open.”

“Won't he just appoint new lieutenants?”

Tatsu gave me his trademark look of long-suffering patience in the face of impossibly slow minds. “This isn't General Electric, Rain-san. Men like Yamaoto don't have strong succession plans. They're afraid it would make it more likely that someone would succeed them.”

“But eventually…”

“Yes, eventually Yamaoto would fill the positions, but in the midst of a war with the Chinese he would have to do things himself. And if Yamaoto were to die during the course of that war, who's to say who actually killed him? Perhaps the Chinese. Perhaps disaffected or grasping elements of Yamaoto's own organization. There would be suspicion all around, but none of it directed at you. United Bamboo would have no reason to link the deaths of the two Chinese in New York with Yamaoto's death in Japan. Neither would anyone else. This could be your last job. You'd be free afterward.”

I thought for a moment. “If it really does look like a war is starting, wouldn't that make Yamaoto more careful? If we drive him underground, the situation gets harder for us, not easier.”

“If Yamaoto goes underground in the face of Chinese provocations, he'll risk being overthrown from within. Beyond that, someone has to manage his operations if they become disrupted. There are too many players who would like to take over for themselves.”

Tatsu coughed. He pointed to the counter next to the bed and said, “Hand me that water, will you?”

I gave it to him and he sipped from it through a straw for a minute, then handed it back to me with a nod of thanks.

“The main thing is this,” he said. “Right now, Yamaoto is physically secure because nothing is moving around him. If you want to create opportunities, you have to create movement. In shoring up other positions on the playing board, he would necessarily be weakening his own.”

I nodded, seeing inside his shrunken body the thriving spirit of manipulation I had always resented and admired.

As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I want all this for myself, Rain-san. I'm not afraid of dying, only of dying with my work left undone. But I also want it for you. I want you to have the chance for a life with your family.”

“When this is over.”

He nodded, conceding my point. “When this is over.”

I
RAN A ROUTE
to make sure I hadn't picked anyone up while visiting Tatsu, then called Dox. We found a coffeehouse and I briefed him on what I had discussed with Tatsu.

When I was done, he said, “Well, it sounds sensible to me.”

Dox was one of the few people I knew who without any self-consciousness might describe a plan to take a man's life as sensible and leave it at that.

“You know we're not going to make any more money out of this,” I said. “Not that we need any.”

“Hey, I wouldn't be the rich man I am today if it weren't for you.”

“Spend too much time with me, and you might not live to enjoy that money.”

“I'm willing to take that chance.”

I nodded. “All right. If we wanted to create the appearance of a Chinese sniper at large in Japan, what kind of ammunition would we be talking about?”

“Shit, man, these days just about everybody's using 7.62. Got your Russian Dragonov, British L96, Canadian C3A1, your various U.S. and NATO configurations, of course. The Chinese Type 79 and Type 85 are basically just copies of the Dragonov. They all use 7.62.”

“So there's nothing specifically identifiable as Chinese?”

He shrugged. “A forensics expert might be able to tell the origin of a round if it were recovered intact. And you could tell from the brass, of course, if one got away. But I wouldn't worry about it. Just because the sniper's Chinese doesn't mean he favors a Chinese weapon.”

I nodded. “All right, if we tried to be too specific it might look obvious, anyway. Sounds like something chambered in 7.62 ought to be close enough for government work.”

“Well, I'm partial to the HK PSG/1 I employed in our little Hong Kong adventure. That's 7.62 and has a twenty-round magazine, too. Get me another one of those, and I can cause all kinds of mayhem from damn near a thousand yards out. Or the dreaded M40A3, that's a fine weapon, too. Trigger pull like snapping a glass rod.”

“We'll see what Kanezaki can do.”

“You ask him for a sniper rifle, he's going to know who's using it. He accused us of forming a damn union after what we did in Hong Kong last year, remember?”

Shit, I hadn't thought of that. Dox and I had partnered on that op to take out a French/Arab arms merchant named Belghazi, and Kanezaki had provided the hardware. Yeah, asking him for another sniper rifle, I might as well have just handed him Dox's business card.

Dox saw my discomfort and laughed. “I ain't objecting, man, just saying. Half the jobs I've done in the last three years I've done for him. I don't mind if he knows I'm involved in this one. He knows if he ever crosses me he'll spend the rest of a short and anxious life glancing up at the rooftops around him, wondering if that prickling he feels on the back of his neck is me smiling at him from behind a scoped rifle.”

I nodded. “All right. But I want to handle him a certain way.”

“You just tell me the plan, partner, and I'll follow your lead.”

I smiled, thinking,
Poor Kanezaki.

Y
AMAOTO CALLED BIG LIU
twice that day. There was nothing to report, but it was important to keep the channels open, to let Big Liu know that Yamaoto was on top of things, that he was concerned.

Yamaoto's men had been to every one of Kito's and Sanada's known associates. Someone had even flown to Fukuoka, Kito's hometown in Kyushu, to interview the man's parents. But the sumos seemed to have become invisible. Yamaoto was beginning to grow concerned. Maybe they really had stolen the money and drugs and were embarked on some long-planned escape route.

He was at his desk, getting ready to call Big Liu for another uncomfortable “no news” discussion, when his mobile phone rang. Kuro's name appeared on the caller ID.

Yamaoto opened the phone.
“Hai.”

“They're here,” Kuro said. “They came in.”

Yamaoto leaned forward, relief flooding through him. “Where?”

“My place in Shinjuku.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes. Don't let them leave.”

“Understood.”

Yamaoto hung up. He called his driver and had the man bring around the armored Mercedes S-Class that he'd taken to traveling in after his last encounter with John Rain.

Twenty minutes later, he walked into a popular “Fashion Health” massage place Kuro ran in Shinjuku. Kuro had a way of managing these kinds of establishments. The man was a good earner. Reliable.

The doorman recognized Yamaoto and welcomed him with an obsequious bow. Yamaoto ignored the women lounging on red velour couches in the subdued light and headed straight through a door into the back office.

There they were, occupying opposite ends of a gray leather couch, heads hanging and hands twisting in their laps as though they were the world's largest errant schoolboys. It was a wonder the furniture could support their combined bulk. Kuro was off to the side, seated behind a metal desk. Yamaoto knew he kept a gun back there, highly illegal in Japan, and that if Kito and Sanada had tried to leave, Kuro would have used it.

The men looked up when Yamaoto entered. They both shot to their feet and bowed deeply.
“Moushiwake gozaimasen, kumicho!”
they cried in unison. We humbly beg your forgiveness, boss!

Yamaoto stood silently, looking from one to the other. Eventually they straightened and met his eyes.

“What the hell happened in Wajima?” he asked. “And where the hell have you been?”

The men looked at each other, then back at Yamaoto. They were plainly terrified.

Kito spoke first. “We…we're not sure,
kumicho.
”

Sanada added, “We arrived on schedule. The Chinese signaled from off the coast and came ashore. We walked over to do the exchange, then…something happened.”

Yamaoto said, “What?”

Kito said, “We think someone shot us with a drug. Each of us felt a…a slap in the neck. Then we were waking up in the mud. It was dark, but we saw two men. We tried to fight them, but we were groggy and they shot us again. When we woke up the second time, the Chinese were dead and the shipment and payment were gone.
Kumicho,
we swear to you this is the truth!”

Sanada stuck his chin high and gestured to his neck. “
Kumicho
, look, you can see the marks! They shot us with tranquilizers or something.”

Yamaoto looked at Sanada's massive neck. The skin was indeed discolored in two places, and there were red marks in the center of the discolorations, like the result of a hornet's sting. But what did that mean? They could have made the marks themselves.

“And here,” Kito said, lifting his shirt and exposing a planet-sized belly. He had an identical mark there.

“You didn't get a good look at the men?” Yamaoto asked.

“No,
kumicho
,” Kito said. “It was dark.”

“Nothing that could help us identify them? Did you hear them talking?”

The men looked at each other. Sanada said, “I think I did, I remember hearing yelling, but I was confused from the drug.”

“Was it Chinese? Japanese?”

“I think Japanese, but also there were parts I couldn't understand. Maybe some English. At one point…”

“What?”

“At one point, I thought one of them was yelling ‘I love you' in Chinese. But I…I'm just not sure,
kumicho.
”

Yamaoto wondered if the man was becoming unhinged. Or perhaps they had indeed been drugged. “Did you tell anyone beforehand about the meeting in Wajima?” he asked.

“No,
kumicho
!” Kito exclaimed. “Not a soul!”

Yamaoto looked from one to the other as though having trouble believing their story. As indeed he was. “Why did you wait to come in?”

The men looked at each other, then back to Yamaoto. Sanada said, “
Kumicho
, we're…we're afraid. We know how this looks. But we were set up. We swear to you.”

Kito added, “In our fear, we lost our heads. But then we decided, we must leave this matter to our
oyabun.
He will do whatever is truly best.”

Kito's reference to Yamaoto as their
oyabun
, their father, was clever. The term invoked the traditional relationship between the yakuza boss and his underlings, and so was designed by implication to cast Kito and Sanada as Yamaoto's
kobun
, his children. And surely no wise and compassionate father could harm his own child.

Yamaoto began pacing the room as though in frustration. He walked past Kuro's desk, admiring as he always did the beautiful Kamakura era
daisho
sword set the man kept on a stand beside it. The
daitou,
or long katana, was displayed on top, blade up, the folded steel polished to a mirror finish, with the shorter
wakizashi
below. The black lacquer
saya
scabbards, each adorned with a pair of golden Tokugawa family crests, were on separate stands alongside the blades. The set was of museum quality, and Kuro claimed a dealer had once offered him twenty million yen for it, an offer Kuro refused even to consider. He allowed no one but Yamaoto to touch it, both out of deference to his boss's rank and in recognition of his extensive martial arts background, which included not only unarmed arts like judo, but also
battoujutsu,
combat sword cutting.

Yamaoto paused before the sword stand and turned to face the two men. “You ‘lost your heads'?” he said, his voice rising. “I pay you to think! You say I'm your
oyabun,
and yet at the first sign of trouble you insult me with your doubt!”

The men dropped their heads in shame and Yamaoto went on, shouting now. “Do you have any idea of the trouble you've caused with your incompetence? You say you were set up, and maybe you were. But whose responsibility is it to prevent such things?”

The men, heads still bowed, said in unison, “Our responsibility,
kumicho.
”

Despite his outward anger, Yamaoto was calm within. He had already decided how to resolve this, and there was no longer anything to be angry about. But if he showed his inward calm to these men, they would understand what was to happen. Better that they should believe him angry, which would indicate he was still undecided. That would keep them focused on how they could manage his anger and try to lessen the penalty for the situation they had placed him in.

What he needed to do now was shame them just a little more. They would welcome that, believing if Yamaoto were inclined to punish them with shame, he might be willing to forgo something more severe. More important, it might also cause them to bow lower, perhaps even to assume
chinsha,
the most apologetic bow of all, where the offender drops to his knees, his palms wide in front of him and his forehead to the ground.

“Yes, your responsibility!” Yamaoto exploded. “Yours! But now I'm left with the burden of cleaning it up! All because you failed to do what I entrusted you with! And then you compounded your mistake with this shameful lack of confidence in your
oyabun
!”

As one, the men cried out,
“Moushiwake gozaimasen!”
and dropped down into
chinsha.

Yamaoto grasped the hilt of Kuro's
daitou
and snatched it clear of the stand. In an instant he had reached the two prostrate men, his fingers naturally and automatically tightening around the hilt in a two-handed grip as he moved. Barely slowing, he pivoted to his right, hips leading the way, elbows and wrists following like the trailing edge of a whip, creating the optimal combination of chopping and cutting that had been drilled into him in long hours of
battoujutsu
training.

Kito started to come up, perhaps sensing in some primitive way that something was amiss, but too late. The sword sliced through his massive neck and was blurring skyward again even before the man's cleanly severed head had fallen to the floor. Blood sprayed onto Sanada's face, but before the startled man could react the sword had completed its second lightning arc and his head, too, was on its way to the ground.

Yamaoto stepped to the side, away from the spray. Without thinking, he wiped down the blade on one of the men's wide backs, reversed the sword in his hand, and prepared to resheath it in a scabbard he suddenly remembered wasn't there. He walked over and handed it hilt first to Kuro, who took it with trembling hands without even rising from his seat.

Yamaoto looked for a moment at the fallen men. Their bodies had remained in
chinsha,
the heads on the floor beside them. Blood pumped vigorously from their severed necks.
Lost your heads, indeed,
he thought.

He turned to Kuro. “I assume you have ample cleaning supplies in this establishment?” he asked.

Kuro, his skin pasty white, nodded wordlessly.

“Good. Have someone bring them and take care of this mess. And call the Taiwanese who can identify these men. Have him come here immediately.”