Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

Fester wiped the glob from his face and flung it away. He kneeled on Dox’s chest, driving the breath out of him. Dox tried to twist away, but he might as well have been nailed to the deck.

“Here it comes, motherfucker,” Fester said. “I hope you like the taste.”

HOW’S IT COMING?” I said, into the wireless earpiece I was wearing.

“Good,” Boaz answered. His words were slightly slurred, and I understood it was because he was talking without moving his lips. “A lovely afternoon. So far no one who looks like a sentry.”

“I can see you now,” I said, and it was true, his Hawaiian shirt was impossible to miss, even without the binoculars. That was part of the point-he looked like the antithesis of someone trying not to be spotted. If you’re going to be noticed anyway, you’re better off hiding in plain sight.

I was kneeling in the back of Kanezaki’s van. The van was configured for cargo, not passengers, and had no seats beyond the two in front. We were parked nose out in the yacht club parking lot. Naftali was diagonal to us, facing us from twenty feet away. Both vans had a pair of fake plates magnetically attached over the real ones. Layers again.

“Good, good, everything is good,” Boaz said, taking his time, a fishing pole slung over his shoulder, the camera pack and the bolt cutter case hanging off his back, the Nikon dangling from his neck. He was wearing a baseball cap and shades, a sensible enough precaution against the strong tropical sun. The blond wig protruding from the back and sides of the cap would be a little more difficult to explain on practical grounds alone, but it would certainly throw off witnesses. The rest of us were similarly attired.

I watched him go down the first perpendicular pier. With the binoculars, I could make out the names of a few of the boats, but not many. I didn’t see Ocean Emerald.

“Don’t see it yet,” I heard him say, and watched him turn around. He walked back to the main pier, then repeated the operation on the second perpendicular. I scanned the area, looking for anyone reacting to him. Everything seemed okay.

I watched him walk down the third perpendicular, then the fourth. I started to get nervous. What if they’d put to sea? Maybe Hilger got spooked, decided they’d been in Singapore too long, put the boat in north to Malaysia, south to Indonesia. Or he’d changed the boat’s name somehow. Or Kanezaki’s intel was off…

Boaz walked to the very end of the pier and made a right on the last perpendicular. He strolled slowly along. The bows of the boats were facing toward me, and so was Boaz, as he examined their sterns.

“It’s here,” he said, continuing to walk to the end of the perpendicular as though appreciating all the lovely yachts. “Halfway. I just went to the other side of it.”

“I’m on my way,” I said. I stepped out of the van, a fishing rod in my hand, the coveralls concealing the HK on my thigh, my heart starting to kick with adrenaline.

I crossed the parking lot, my pores immediately yawning open in the sticky heat. Ahead of me was a red brick building; behind it, I knew from the satellite photos, a swimming pool, from which the sounds of children’s laughter carried over to me now. Two Chinese men in golf clothes came through the doors to the club, presumably heading to a nearby course. They ignored me as they passed.

I walked straight down the access road to the pier, my head swiveling as I moved, searching for danger, so far spotting none.

“No sentries I can see on the craft,” Boaz said, avoiding the b’s and p’s and m’s that would force him to purse his lips.

“Roger that,” I said. Near the second line now.”

“I think this is a good location to take a few photos.”

I kept moving, looking for problems. Several of the boats had little parties in progress on their decks, prosperous middle-aged Chinese and foreign men in white captain’s hats, women in shorts and bathing-suit tops, the smell of beer and barbecue, the sounds of carefree laughter. I passed several people moving to and from the main clubhouse, everyone in shorts and boating shoes, suntans and white smiles. Life was good for these people. Not one of them gave me even a second glance.

I passed the fourth perpendicular. I could see Boaz now, halfway down the fifth. He had erected a tripod with what looked like a professional photographer’s auxiliary light set atop it, the light set in the center of a large metallic umbrella, the whole thing connected to an exceptionally large rectangular battery pack. He was working the controls of a device the average person would assume was a light meter.

“You ready?” I said.

“Ready.”

I turned onto the fifth perpendicular and began heading toward Boaz. The gloves Kanezaki had thoughtfully provided were in my pocket, and I pulled them on as I walked. I set down the fishing pole, then reached inside the coveralls and came out with the HK. I held it along my leg, the muzzle of the suppressor past my knee, and kept moving in. I wished there were some cover or concealment, but the terrain was what it was. I hoped Boaz’s ray gun was as good as he claimed.

“Five, four, three, two, one,” I said, still walking casually toward him. “Go.”

AT FIRST, Dox thought the hot flush was a fear reaction. After all, a sadistic sociopath he’d provoked to murderous rage was athwart his chest, a second away from gelding him. The only thing that could have surprised him at that point was the wonder that he’d managed not to piss himself.

But within a half-second, he understood it wasn’t a hot flush, although he had no better explanation. It felt like he’d touched a burning lightbulb, except not just with his fingertips, but with his whole body. Then, before he could even complete the What the fuck? thought he was forming, his entire body was on fire, like someone had doused him head-to-toe in kerosene and set him alight. He howled in agony and writhed under Fester’s knee. Then Fester was off him, shrieking, rolling on the deck as though his clothes were ablaze and he was trying to put himself out.

Dox strained against the chains, sure he was on fire and utterly confused about where it had come from and why he couldn’t see the flames. He managed one coherent thought-Out of the frying pan, into the fire-and then all he could do was howl and hope it would be over soon.

A SECOND AFTER Boaz engaged the device, a cacophony of shrieks emanated from belowdecks on the boat. Among them, I recognized Dox’s baritone roar, and was seized with conflicting emotions: relief that he was alive, horror at the level of pain that could have produced that agonized wail.

I stood there, helpless, the HK in front of me now in a two-handed grip, waiting for someone to stumble off the boat so I could shoot. Nothing happened. If anything, the screaming got worse.

In my peripheral vision, I saw movement on the adjacent craft. I glanced left and right to confirm there was no danger. Civilians, looking out from their boats now to see what was causing the ruckus.

“What’s happening over there?” a Caucasian man yelled in English from the boat to my left.

“Police matter, sir,” I called back in my best command voice. “Please just stay on your craft and keep your head down. There could be shooting and I wouldn’t want you or your family injured.”

The man disappeared without another word.

The screaming went on. Goddamnit, why aren’t they trying to get off the boat?

“Turn it off!” I said. “They must be stuck belowdecks. I’m going in.”

“It’s off,” I heard him say. In my peripheral vision, I saw him pull a pistol from a bellyband. I half turned to him, but he was pointing the gun at the boat, not at me.